Studies on Islamic Cultural and Intellectual History 1 Indonesian and German views on the Islamic legal discourse on gender and civil rights Edited by Noorhaidi Hasan and Fritz Schulze Harrassowitz Verlag
Gender, the problem of patriarchy and ma?laha in Indonesian Islam: from fiqh al- 'abaw? to fiqh al-nis? Syafiq Hasyim Generally speaking, the term gender remains often misunderstood in Indonesia even by its committed adherents like me. The misinterpretations of gender range from making a joke to serious matters of our daily behavior, attitude and discourse on it. The people of Indonesia often identify gender with female or feminine gesture and behavior. You can feel more misconstruction and misunderstanding of this concept when attending Islamic forums and discussions, meetings of state officials and many other occasions in Indonesia. In short, gender is simply translated into all things physically and mentally related to women. All these reflect that the notion of gender remains discursively contested and to some extent misguided. The lack of proper understanding on the discourse and practice of gender in Indonesia is a result of complex intermingling between social, cultural and legal factors as well as male- biased interpretation of religion. The religion-based patriarchy becomes more appar- ent due to the literal fanaticism of Indonesians regarding their religion's views on the rights of women. For the literalist groups of Indonesian Muslims, the legal status of women in Islam is very clear as the subordinate of husbands and men both in the public and domestic sphere. This is seen as non-debatable because it is literally mentioned in the Qur'an, or qat ? al-dil?la (cogent indication). From the perspective of the groups, following this role strictly is part of being pious and respecting the teachings of Islam. Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI, Party of Liberation, Indonesia) and also the women's wings of Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS, Justice Prosperity Party) believe that all efforts to liberate women in Islam are part of an international conspiracy to de-legitimize Islam. Both organizations seem to hold the understand- ing that Islam determines the position of men as leaders for women both in the pub- lic and private spheres. This is one example of how Indonesian Muslims implement "patriarchal" perspectives, which are based on religion. This paper seeks to shed light on the problems of patriarchy, particularly those which are related to the pref- erence of Indonesian Muslims in adhering to a particular discourse of Islamic legal theory and jurisprudence that creates ambiguity and tension with gender issues in- ternationally. In doing so, I will depict the various Islamic interpretations used by Indonesian Muslims to publicly discuss the problem of patriarchy. This paper also highlights the dynamics of Muslim scholars and activists locally and globally in striving for this issue through their new method of interpretation such as ma?laha or
24 Syafiq Hasyim maq??id theory. A discursive shift from male to female oriented Islamic jurispru- dence is also taken into account in this piece. Indonesian Islam and the state of patriarchy Historically speaking, Indonesian Muslims have