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PENAPISAN BUKU "NINE PARTS OF
DESIRE THE HIDDEN
WORLD OF ISLAMIC WOMEN"
Oleh:
Norsafina Bt. Zainal
PENDAHULUAN
Penulis buku ini, Geraldine Brooks berasal dari Australia dan
sekarang menetap di Virginia. Beliau merupakan graduan Universiti
Sydney dan juga Universiti Columbia dalam bidang kewartawanan
dan buku ini merupakan hasil karya beliau yang pertama. Penulis
membahagikan kandungan buku ini kepada 12 bab iaitu :
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
The Holy Veil
Whom No Man Shall Have Deflowered Before Them
Here Come The Brides
The Prophet's Women
Convert
Jihad Is For Women, Too
A Queen
The Getting Of Wisdom
Risky Business
Politics, With And Without A Vote
Muslim Women's Games
A Different Drummer
Menurut pengarang, buku ini diberi judul "Nine Parts Of
Desire" berasaskan kepada hadith Rasulullah SAW yang bermaksud:
Sesungguhnya Allah SWT telah menciptakan nafsu syahwat kepada
sepuluh (10) bahagian, sembilan (9) bahagian kepada wanita dan
satu (1) bahagian untuk lelaki.
KANDUNGAN BUKU
Antara lain pengarang mengemukakan beberapa ayat al-Quran
berkaitan dengan isu-isu wanita, seks dan undang-undang Islam
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JURNAL PENYELIDIKAN ISLAM
dan cuba menimbulkan keraguan kepada pembaca terhadap ayatayat tersebut. Pengarang juga membicarakan bagaimana ayatayat suci al-Quran telah disalahgunakan semata-mata untuk
mengharuskan penderaan seks terhadap wanita Kandungan buku
ini juga memperkatakan tentang tinjauan dan penernuan pengarang
mengenai wanita Islam yang dikatakan tersirat berbagai rahsia di
sebalik hijab yang dipakai. Pengarang juga cuba menarik perhatian
pembaca dengan mengenengahkan beberapa isu semasa mengenai
politik, agama dan kejutan budaya yang telah membentuk kehidupan
wanita Islam di seluruh dunia.
-
FAKTA FAKTA MERAGUKAN
Hasil kajian yang dilakukan ke atas buku ini mendapati wujud
beberapa keraguan dan penyelewengan yang jelas menghina Islam
dan bercanggah dengan Garis Panduan Penapisan Bahan-bahan
Penerbitan Berunsur Islam . Antara fakta-fakta tersebut ialah :
-
1. Mempertikai Maksud Ayat ayat al-Quran
Pengarang mengatakan bahawa akibat daripada sifat bahasa
Arab (yang menjadi bahasa al-Quran) yang bersuku sakat
umpama cara hidup di gurun sahara, terjemahan dan maksud
yang tepat mengenai ayat-ayat al-Quran sukar diperolehi dan
mesej yang dibawa bercampurbaur. Contoh yang dibawa oleh
pengarang ialah ayat al-Quran yang bermaksud " Hormatilah
wanita yang telah melahirkan kamu..." Menurut pengarang,
is bercanggah dengan ayat yang lain yang bermaksud apabila
seorang isteri tidak taat kepada suami, al-Quran memerintahkan
supaya mereka diberi amaran, pisahkan tempat tidur dan pukul.
Kedua-dua ayat tersebut menunjukkan ketidaktepatan maksud
dan mesej yang dibawa oleh al-Quran.
Selain itu, pengarang juga cuba memburukkan imej Islam
dengan mendakwa bahawa orang Islam yang berhijrah ke
Barat sering menuntut sesuatu yang bertentangan dengan
mesej al-Quran, seperti menuntut mengharamkan buku-buku
yang bernilai dan mewujudkan pengasingan kelas berdasarkan
jantina. Berdasarkan apa yang berlaku tersebut, pengarang
mempersoalkan adakah mungkin untuk mengakui kebaikan
mesej yang dibawa oleh al-Quran.
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JURNAL PENYELIDIKAN ISLAM
Fakta ini dinyatakan oleh pengarang pada halaman 10 hingga
11 seperti berikut :
The Arabic language is as tribal as the desert culture that
created it. Each word trails a host of relatives with the same
three — letter cluster of consonant as its root. Use almost any
word in Arabic, an a host of uninvited meaning barge into
the conversation. I learned that one of the words for women,
hormah, comes from the same root as the words for both " holy,
sacrosanct," and "sinful, forbidden." The word for mother,
umm, is the root of the words for " source, nation, mercy,
first principle, rich harvest; stupid, illiterate, parasite, weak of
character, without opinion." In the beginning was the word,
and the word, in Arabic, was magnificently ambiguous.
The nature of the Arabic language meant that a precise
translation of the Koran was unobtainable. I found myself
referring to two quite different English interpretations- George
Sale's for a feel for the poetry of the work, and Muhammed
Marmaduke Pickthall's for a clearer sense of what the text
actually said about sex and marriage, work and holy war. But
even when the language was clear the message was often mixed.
" Respect women, who have borne you", the Koran says. But
if wives are disobedient," admonish them, send them to beds
apart, and scourge them." To try to reconcile such conflicting
instruction, I sat in on classes at the new women's religious
schools springing up throughout the region, and learned about
the dozens of women who shaped the early history of Islam.
Again, ambivalence. Women behind the curtain of seclusion
; women at the forefront of Islamic holy war.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Algeria and Sudan, Islamic
fundamentalists were struggling into power. In Egypt and
Jordan powerful minorities pushed their governments toward
sharia-literally, the road to the water hole, or the straight
path of Islamic law. Muslims migrating to the West also were
making demands: ban offensive books. Let our daughters wear
veils to school, give us sex-segregated classrooms.
Was it possible to reclaim the positive messages in the
Koran and Islamic history, and devise some kind of Muslim
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feminism? Could Muslim fundamentalists live with Western
liberals, or would accommodating each other cost both of us
our principles?
2.
Memburukkan Peribadi Rasulullah SAW
Pengarang cuba memburukkan peribadi Rasulullah SAW dengan
mengeksploitasikan kisah perkahwinan baginda dengan Zainab
dengan ungkapan-ungkapan yang mengaibkan Baginda seperti
"the most serious of several scandal" dan "Muhammad desired his
wife".
Fakta ini dinyatakan oleh pengarang pada halaman 20 seperti
berikut :
The revelation on hijab came to Muhammad on one of his
wedding nights, just as he was about to bed Zeinab, the most
controversial of his brides.
Islamic scholars generally agree that the marriage to Zeinab
caused the most serious of several scandals surrounding the
prophet's ever growing number of wives. Visiting the house
of his adopted son, Muhammad has glimpsed the young man's
wife only partially dressed. The women was beautiful, and
Muhammad quickly turned away, muttering a prayer against
temptation. Believing Muhammad desired his wife, the young
man divorced her. Muhammad's subsequent marriage to Zeinab
provoked uproar in the community, since it violated the rules
of incest already set down in the Koran.
3.
Memburukkan imej Islam
Pengarang telah memburukkan imej Islam dan umatnya dengan
membuat kesimpulan bahawa seorang wanita yang berkahwin
dengan lelaki muslim adalah lapan (8) kali lebih berisiko
dibunuh oleh pasangan mereka berbanding dengan wanitawanita lain. Kesimpulan pengarang ini adalah merujuk kepada
kisah kehidupan pasangan suami isteri muslim bernama Afaf
dan Omar di mana Afaf telah dibunuh oleh Omar berpunca
daripada perasaan cemburu.
Pengarang cuba memburukkan lagi imej Islam dengan mendakwa
bahawa walaupun beliau telah cuba mencari seorang wanita
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yang boleh mengakui dan mengesahkan kebaikan risalah yang
dibawa oleh Islam, namun is tidak berhasil dan mengecewakan.
Puncanya menurut pengarang adalah kerana pemimpinpemimpin Islam di kebanyakan negara Islam mengamalkan
sikap berat sebelah dan menyisihkan kaum wanita.
Fakta-fakta ini dinyatakan oleh pengarang pada halaman 230
hingga 232 seperti berikut :
From the facts presented in the small courtroom, there was
little chance of any other verdict. What was missing wasn't
evidence but understanding of the prejudices and social baggage
of Islamic lands that Omar had carried with him from the
Sudan, his country of upbringing, and from Saudi Arabia, the
country in which he worked ten months of every year.
Nothing in their own culture or experience equipped this jury
of very ordinary-looking English people to comprehend that
what had been described in court was an honor killing, one of
the hundreds that every year claim Muslim women's lives.
This was not an isolated case; it simply happened to be the one
I heard about. In a British study of family violence completed
not long after Afars death, the researchers found that women
married to men of Muslim background were eight times more
likely to be killed by their spouses than any other women in
Britain. Yet British banisters, judges and juries continue to
assess these crimes by a yardstick that's completely inadequate
to measure what is really going on.
Once I began working on this book, I looked everywhere for
examples of women trying to reclaim Islam's positive messages,
trying to carry forward into twentieth century the reformist
zeal with which Muhammad had remade the lives of many
women (other than his own wives and the Muslims army's war
captives) in the first Muslim community at Medina. It turned
out to be a frustrating search. In most places the direction of
the debate seemed to exactly the reverse. Palestinian, Egyptian,
Algerian and Afghani women were seeing a curtain come
down on decades of women's liberation as Islamic leaders in
their countries turned to the most exclusionary and inequitable
interpretations. For those women who struggled against the
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tide, the results were a discouraging trio of marginalization,
harassment and exile.
4.
Menghina al-Quran
Pengarang mengatakan bahawa di negara Barat, perceraian
tidak diterima dan diakui hanya dengan kata-kata " Aku
ceraikan kamu". Perbuatan seperti ini adalah dilarang walaupun
al-Quran membenarkannya. Menurut pengarang adalah lebih
mudah untuk kita mengambil satu pendirian yang bertentangan
dan tiada kaitan dengan ketetapan al-Quran. Kenyataan
pengarang jelas menghina al-Quran.
Fakta ini dinyatakan oleh pengarang pada halaman 238 seperti
berikut :
In an era of cultural sensitivity, we need to say that certain
cultural baggage is contraband in our countries and will not
be admitted. We already draw a line at polygamy; we don't
recognize divorce by saying, " I divorce you." We have banned
these things even though the Koran approves them. It should
be easier to take a stand against practices that don't even carry
the sanction of the Koran.
5.
Mendakwa Negara Islam Tidak Selamat
Pengarang mengatakan bahawa keamanan tidak wujud di negara
Islam seperti yang dinikmati di negara Barat seperti Australia.
Kenyataan seumpama ini boleh menimbulkan keresahan dan
kebimbangan kepada masyarakat khususnya di negara ini.
Fakta ini dinyatakan oleh pengarang pada halaman 239 seperti
berikut :
There is, unfortunately, no chance that granting of automatic
asylum to women suffering such gender persecution would lead
to a flood of refugees. Only a minority have the means to
leave their country, or even their house, when men control the
keys to doors and the car, and must sign their approval for the
shortest of journeys. But such a step would send a signal to
regimes whose restrictions have nothing to do with the religion
they claim to uphold. And that signal would be that we, too,
have certain things we hold sacred: among them are liberty,
equality, the pursuit of happiness and the right to doubt.
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It is a long time since I stood under Rafsanjani's gaze at a press
conference in Iran and told him I was wearing a chador " in
a spirit of mutual respect." At the moment, standing in my
black shroud under the hot TV lights. I had a mental image of
myself, as I liked to be in summer, bare-skinned on the beach
near my parents' home. The " mutual respect" I had in mind
demanded that he, and those Australian sands and, if I chose,
those like him akcknowledge my right to sunbake on to take
The Satanic Verses along as my beach reading.
Last year, when I was home in Sydney, I lay on that beach on
that beach beside a Muslim family who seemed not the least
bit troubled by the exposed flesh surrounding them. While the
man splashed in the shallows with his toddlers, his wife sat on
the sand, her long, loose dress arranged around her. It made
me sad that the women's tiny daughter, splashing so happily
with her father and baby brother, would be , one day soon,
require a to forgo that pleasure. But that would be her fight,
not mine. At least, in Australia, she would have a choice.
She would choose between her family's values and what she
saw elsewhere.
Every now and then the little girl's mother fiddled with her
headscarf as it billowed in the sea breeze. That woman had made
her choice: it was different from mine. But sitting there, sharing
the warm sand and the soft air, we accepted each other.
PENUTUP
Penulisan buku ini secara keseluruhannya merupakan propaganda
yang amat besar ke arah menghapuskan keyakinan dan kepercayaan
pembaca terhadap Islam dan al-Quran. Kisah-kisah di beberapa
negara Islam yang diketengahkan oleh pengarang lebih menjurus
kepada penghinaan dan membina sikap feminisme keterlaluan
terhadap Islam.
Sumber rujukan pengarang juga banyak ditumpukan kepada
buku-buku yang telah diharamkan oleh Jawatankuasa Penapisan
Bahan-Bahan Penerbitan Berunsur Islam seperti Muhammad: A
Western Attempt To Understand Islam oleh Karen Armstrong,
The Straight Path oleh John L. Esposito , Women And Islam oleh
Fatima Mernissi dan Among The Believers oleh V.S. Naipaul.
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Memandangkan kandungan buku ini jelas menghina dan
bercanggah dengan prinsip-prinsip ajaran Islam, Mesyuarat
Jawatankuasa Penapisan Bahan-bahan Penerbitan Berunsur Islam
Kali Ke-70 yang telah diadakan pada 13-14 Februari 2006 telah
bersetuju memperakukan supaya buku ini diharamkan edaran dan
kemasukannya di negara ini.
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