Some time back while driving along one of the capital's busy roads I was taken aback by the sight of a very unusual graffiti on the hoardings of a construction site. It was an insolent attack on the ulama (scholars), too hurtful to mention here, but from what I had been reading, I suspected that it was directed at a particular political party.

The institution of the ulama, perhaps more so than of the royalty, today remains one the cultural pillars that is held with reverence and respect by the Malays, even those who are not deeply religious.

But such abusive attack did not really reflect a general disaffection of the Malays for men of religion. It is merely an expression in the Malays' present political game, where increasingly the hold on power by the Malay nationalist elite is being challenged by religious scholars who hold a statist view of Islam, seeking to implement the Islamic state as a paramount objective, with the ulama holding the reins of power.

Conversely some religious scholars are willing propagandists for the ruling elite, a few very blatantly so. Shortly before the 1999 general elections a number of people walked out of the congregation at Masjid Negara when the Imam, now promoted a minister in charge of religious affairs, displayed over-enthusiastic partisanship in his Friday sermon.

Supporters of the Islamist opposition use all manner of derogatory terms in referring to those religious scholars deemed sycophants of the ruling elite. Erosion of respect for the institution is the price to pay for the ulama's involvement in party politics but this was not deemed serious enough to threaten the religious fabric of Malay society because it is situated in a specific political context Islams between the two dominant Malay political parties.

Community pillars

The recent controversy surrounding the memorandum by the Malaysian Muslim Scholars Association (PUM) to the Conference of Rulers appealing to them to take stern action against six writers whom they had accused of denigrating Islam and the institution of ulama is seen to be beyond the realm of the Malays' political game.

Of course some of the writers cited have been known to express support for the ruling party or are regular columnists in the government-controlled mainstream media, but the PUM's complaint is seen as politically neutral, affecting Malays from both sides of the political divide and also those who are apolitical.

Some consider this as a very serious threat that may undermine the foundation of Malay society as far as the preservation of Islam is concerned, that PUM received wide backing from a number of Malay-Islamic organisations. Only the Malaysian Muslim Youth Association (Abim) is conspicuously absent from the list of co-signatories to the memorandum.

How serious is the threat posed by the opinions of those liberal writers that led PUM and those other organisations to take the drastic approach of appealing to the Conference of Rulers?

I have always been curious of PUM as I have thought that forming an association is something of an anathema to men of such stature and position in the community.

The traditional Muslim view of the ulama is that of highly independent men with great erudition in the religious sciences and whose character embody the teachings and ethics of Islam almost to perfection. These men earn the respect and reverence of the community by the depth of their learning and exaltation of character. Like sages of all spiritual traditions, these are austere men who treat the world with disinterest in their unyielding detachment from practical concerns, always ready to speak the truth to power, and unconcerned with the frivolities of ordinary men.

Here, one is reminded of Julian Benda's characterisation of the intellectuals: learned, dispassionate and uncompromising men whose mission it is to defend les valeurs clricales (clerical values) of justice, truth and reason. Benda invested the defence of these values with a sense of religious duty that he chose to title his oft-mentioned book in these times like ours La trahison des clercs instead of La trahison des intellectuels.

Muslims look up to the ulama as the repository of knowledge and preserver of the religion, and therefore one of the pillars of the community.

Shooting in all directions

Do today's ulama fit the characterisation of the traditional Muslim conception of them or of Benda's intellectuals? The memorandum seems to reveal a sense of panic and nervousness, giving one the impression that they don't quite measure up, yet one needs to sympathise at their helplessness and desperation. The reality of today's world is the unstoppable march of the agenda of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The freedom of expression is one of them, and it happens sometimes that the balance between rights and responsibility is tipped the other way.

In today's climate, suppressing contrary opinions is not possible nor desirable. In Malaysia unfortunately this freedom is skewed and distorted, very much in favour of those would regularly humiliate the ulama and men of religion. The views and opinions of those who see themselves as liberal interpreters of Islam are nurtured in the mainstream media, views that at the same time make blanket condemnation of the Islam of the traditional ulama as narrow, obscurantist and anti-progress, with no recourse for the latter to provide a counter argument. This constraint is something that today's ulama have to live with and this calls for creativity in their responses.

Reading through the examples that supposedly illustrate the wrongdoing of the writers, PUM made the error of shooting in all directions, with no focus on the more serious matter while some of the allegedly blasphemous statements seem perfectly innocent.

Let's start with the easy one first. One is first of all baffled that Dr Patricia Martinez is included in the list of six at all. Those who have read her recent writings on this website cant help but admire her depth of knowledge, respect for Islam and her effort at fostering understanding between non-Muslims and Muslims in this country. Her crime was to complain that in a major national examination students have to indicate whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim, adding that Islam abhors the idea of assabiyah or ethnic and nationalist differentiation.

For this statement PUM wanted Martinez to serve three years in prison and/or pay a fine of RM5,000.

I think it is also beneath their dignity to be concerned with insults and abuses hurled at their persons, like "the turbans of the mufti are too tight that less oxygen gets to the brain" and "men who dislike shaving, bearded ones". The language of abuse and insults is only used by the arrogantly ignorant, it demeans nobody but these people themselves and it is not worth the ulamas while to pay attention to it.

Nothing new

But something that I think PUM and their supporters from the Islamic organisations would do well to reflect upon are some the opinions of Dr Farish A Noor (and to a certain extent, the Sisters in Islam on gender issues) however caustic their language may be at times.

Nobody would deny that the Muslim world makes up the bulk of today's Third World — the world of squalor, poverty, unemployment, gross inequities and political oppression. Increasingly, and sharply so after Sept 11, Islam is seen in the eyes of the world as a religion of intolerance and obscurantism that breeds violent extremists. This is something that we cant simply brush aside as the west's prejudice, pure and simple. There is nothing wrong with the exhortation that the Muslim world needs to understand the challenges of the modern world, master modern knowledge and re-learn the art of governance and politics.

We have to admit that part of the problem lies with the attitude of people who have a strong influence in the community. These general views about facing up to the challenges of modernisation for our better survival can hardly be viewed as an attempt at appropriating the interpretation of Islam from the ulama.

No one should be afraid of others' opinions, they ought to be judged on their merits and obviously not all opinions on a particular matter carry the same weight. Understanding these complex issues of modernity, progress and power relations in a globalised world and formulating responses to them is surely an area that the ulama have to concede to modern scholars.

The most serious charge by PUM is that these writers have denigrated Islam and the sources of its teachings — the Quran, the person of prophet and the prophetic Sunnah (traditions).

The abuse of the prophet and the prophetic traditions touches a raw nerve for Muslims, but this is hardly a new problem.

For the modern, secular educated Muslim, accepting intellectually the metaphysical truths of Islam's monotheism, its philosophical precepts and its cosmology is not a problem. The biggest problem for post-modern egos is accepting the prophet as both the messenger and the message of revelation. How could one seek the guidance of, let alone revere an illiterate man who lived 1,400 years ago in a tribal society in a corner of the world that civilisation forgot, who married a wealthy widow 15 years his senior and went on to marry a few other women, who fought wars?

But Islam has survived Salman Rushdie's Satanic verses. After that, Taslima Nasrin was easy. Today Islam continues to win converts, from Afro-Americans serving time in US prisons to affluent children of the British establishment.

Lesson from Rushdie affair

While it is important that PUM addresses this, its alarmist stance and its panicky ineptitude in filing the memorandum only served to undermine the people's confidence in the ulama. That the denigration of the prophet of Islam guarantees media stardom is not such a bizarre post-modern phenomenon. But the fact is, those who abuse and belittle the person of the prophet and his traditions have a very small constituency among Muslims. Muslims simply find their irreverent language, lacking in the usual Muslim reflection and humility, abhorrent.

The leader of Jamaah Al-Quran (JAM), one of the six accused by PUM, has for 20 years been trying to negate the validity of the prophetic traditions as a source of Islamic teachings but is still going nowhere. PUM needs to realise that the Muslims are very much capable of evaluating the these of self-styled modern interpreters of Islam who wish to expunge or diminish the role of the prophet and his traditions.

The prophet lived in a period when history was already recorded. His life, teachings and the message of divine revelation, the Quran, are an open book, that any wayward ideas like the ones which formed the basis of PUM's appeal such as the assertion that the prophet was a tribal and not a religious leader or that he had sexual relations with 15 women can be studied against the established canon.

The great lesson of the Rushdie affair ought to have been learnt. Appealing to the Conference of Rulers to take punitive actions on hyperliberal interpreters of Islam is not quite as bad as book-burning, but it erodes the community's confidence in the ulama all the same, especially when some of these complaints hint at self-preservation, and appear trivial and unfocussed.

A more credible response would be to take these challenges head-on, dispassionately and rationally.

The real challenge

The controversy stirred up by the liberal writers is a relative storm in a tea cup. The bigger challenge lies somewhere else. By far the major cause of the moral and spiritual crisis of the Malay-Muslim youth today is the seductiveness of the consumerist, hedonistic pop culture that promises instant gratification, not Jemaah Al-Quran and the half-dead construction of an Islam minus the prophetic traditions, nor some of the pronouncements of Sisters in Islam.

The highly unoriginal book that attempted to negate the validity of the prophetic traditions has long sunk into oblivion. The impoverished, hardened state of Islam as it is practised today has much to do with the brutalities of economic deprivation and poor education, invading man's private space with God, allowing him little time for reflection and understanding.

Extremist fundamentalism and hyperliberal interpretations of Islam go hand in hand. They only thrive in an environment where fundamental freedoms are suppressed or distorted, where meaningful public debate cannot take place and where one side is free to denigrate the other.

The restoration of these freedoms and sense of balance should be the focus of our struggles today. Instead of playing Don Quixote (and his supporter, Pancho Sanchez) the ulama would do better to remind themselves of their eternal universal calling, the defence of les valeurs clricales, of truth, justice and reason, of speaking truth to power with detachment and disinterest. That way they will continue to earn the respect of their community.