Muslims, Islam, and AIDS: Thoughts on the 2nd International Muslim Religious Leaders Consultation on HIV/AIDS

By Farid Esack

All narratives are influenced by the narrator. To a large extent my own account of the Second International Muslim Religious Leaders Consultation on HIV/AIDS, held in Kuala Lumpur May 19-23, and the disproportionate attention to the tensions which followed upon Amina Wadud’s presentation is shaped by my own interest and my own role--along with that of others in trying to re-capture ground after this.

I was invited by the Malaysian Department of Islamic Development (JAKIM) and the Malaysian AIDS Council, to deliver a paper at the conference and to attend in my capacity as Director of Positive Muslims. Rehana Kader, a colleague from PM was also invited. This conference was the second such event, the first one held in Kampala, Uganda more than a year ago.

It was an amazing conference. In the exhibition area in front of the entrance to the main hall I was astounded to see graphic depictions--although simple sketches--of the sex act, mounted posters of commercial sex workers with explanatory notes which were cold and factual--nothing “judgemental”--pictures showing examples of infected genitalia. While one expected to see these images at a typical AIDS conference seeing it in a Muslim context was surprising. In my own perception/stereotypes Muslims attending ‘typical’ AIDS conferences secretly lament these graphic descriptions. These displays--again surprisingly for me--did not feature in any of the controversies that later surfaced.

Participants ranged from Chief Kadis of their countries, Ministers of Health, (including one from the Taliban-supporting Jama`ati Ulama-i-Islam government in Baluchistan), obviously transsexual individuals (with their display table alongside that of the Pink Triangle), sex workers and/or “ordinary” persons--many were also HIV positive. Here the obviously/seemingly extraordinary was the ordinary. Most came from South East Asia or from Africa and many of the Arabs present actually reside in “the west”. Yet, sadly, many HIV+ individuals could only come up to me after one of my two presentations and “quietly” confide their positive status.

On the program itself there were several representatives who fervently believed that “Islam is the Answer” for HIV/AIDS (now being repackaged as “Islam is the Cure”) often invoking a literal reading of Islamic tradition. (And tradition was a simplistic embrace of a few Qur’anic texts and hadith.) The Islamic Medical Association, one of the offspring of what was known in the seventies and eighties as “The Islamic Movement” was a leading and coherent force at the conference--often in opposition to the organizers who were more in tune with the realities of HIV/AIDS and the limitations of a moralizing religious discourse. Most of these speakers though were slotted in as report-backs or follow-up accounts from the previous such consultation. On the other spectrum you had the “re-thinkers” such as Ebrahim Moosa, Riffat Hassan, Amina Wadud and I. Also among the speakers were `ulama; health workers; Nafis Sadik, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia who heads the UN program on Reproductive Health; community workers; and a transsexual. Looking at the program, I wondered: “How would this conference be able to bear the burden of this diversity?” Questioned about this, the Malaysians merely shrugged and said: “Well, this is what HIV is all about.”

As if this diversity was not enough to horrify the “Islam is us” crowd, this was arguably the first International “non-women” conference in the world of Islam entirely led by women. Marina Mahathir chaired the Advisory Committee, and women served as both Chair and Deputy Chairs of the entire conference as well as Chief Rapporteur.

Openings and Formalities

I skipped the opening--I hate sitting through formalities and had to work on my presentation. A surprisingly enlightened keynote address was delivered by Mohammad Kamal Hassan, the Rector of the International Islamic University on “Creating a Caring Ummah: Transforming the Response.” He espoused a favorite idea of ours in Positive Muslims, the idea of a “theology of compassion." (I say “surprisingly” because of that university’s reputation.)

The afternoon session “From Kampala to Kuala Lumpur” was devoted to a Report Back on how far some of the countries had come after the fist such consultation in Uganda. In a telling example of how some people and some issues get selectively “controversialized” this session passed without any controversy or scandal despite one speaker suggesting that if more of “them [women] stayed at home” then we would have less HIV/AIDS. How sad is the ignorance of hunger and poverty, of the tragedy of the choice faced by millions of women in the Two-Third world between death for mom and the kids by starvation on the one hand and death some years down the line through HIV/AIDS or sexually transmitted disease. (I later thought about how issues are controversialized and how controversy is related to power. Affirming patriarchal rubbish does not make one controversial, challenging it does.)

Dinners were always formal, and on the first night it was hosted by some minister. And we had the second most popular Nashid group ‘performing.’ (Later I learned that the organizers agonized about entertainment. No one seemed to know how one entertains Muslims or how they get entertained without someone creating a scene.)

Plenary Sessions & Workshops

With the formalities completed on Day One, the plenary sessions commenced on the second day. The program was structured so that plenary sessions were comprised of presentations only and that all discussion took place in workshops after each plenary session. This was rather unhelpful when some of the speakers were clearly going to be very challenging. There was no space for anyone who wanted to challenge the speakers in plenary or someone who was simply interested in grandstanding. The workshops were very well structured and well moderated with the speakers moving around in each. Each workshop also had a set of clearly worked out questions that gave ample time to address all the major issues emerging from that plenary and ways of making them concrete.

Speakers were requested to submit written copies of their papers well in advance and--what’s new?--most did not do so or only submitted them after arriving in Kuala Lumpur.

The first plenary was titled “Protecting Human Dignity” and had three presentations

a) “Stigma and Discrimination: A Violation of Dignity” by Rashida Kagabe Sendagi (Uganda)
b) “Does Testing Help Prevention?” by Haris Lee Abdullah (Malaysia) and
c) “Human Dignity: An Islamic Perspective” by Ebrahim Moosa (South Africa)

Ebrahim delivered a brilliant, scholarly and challenging paper. Later many people wondered why his presentation was not attacked by the conservatives present. (On the contrary, it was greeted with all-round applause.) To my mind, (a) it was ‘too academic’ for them, (b) they were awed by his liberal use of Arabic quotations and poetry and mastery of Islamic tradition, (c) his gender, and (d) only once or twice was he explicitly provocative to really make them uncomfortable. This notwithstanding, I detected a bit of a stir among some sections of the audience on the right. (Initially nearly all the JAKIM people, the males at least, were seated on the right and were soon joined by other males, making that side nearly entirely male. In general, that is where the `ulama, the qadis and the IMA folk remained for the rest of the conference. Someone referred to it as the House of Lords vs. the House of Commons (Need I say “unelected” and “elected”, “right” and “left”).

The second plenary was titled “How Can Islamic Teachings Reduce Vulnerability”. (Looking back, it seemed at times as if there was little relationship, or a forced one, between the themes for each session and the topics covered under each one.) The following were the presentations scheduled for this session:

1) “What is Vulnerability?” by Amina Wadud,
2) “Open Secrets” by Roslan Hamzah
3) “Challenges Ahead” by Nurcholis Majid

On the preceding evening though, Azza Karram and I were asked to stand in for Nurcholis because there was no word from him, and I had a dinner meeting with the organizers to discuss how I would deal with the question of vulnerability. They merely asked me to try to tie Amina’s more “theological stuff” in with Roslan’s “purely personal stuff”. In my discussions with them it became evident that none of them had read the papers scheduled for the next day. (Later this became a major issue as accusations of conspiracies fly thick and fast.) I had read Amina’s paper and asked if they had any contingency plans for any difficulties arising from there. They merely said that Amina’s views were well known in Malaysia.

Amina stuck to her prepared paper, available to all delegates from the first day. She (a) attacked the simplistic moralism underlying much of Muslim discourse on HIV/AIDS, (b) insisted that an effective approach to HIV/AIDS must embrace issues of gender injustice which was, she suggested, inherent to the Shari’ah, and (d) seemingly problematized the Qur’an itself. From the platform, I had a pretty good idea of audience dynamics and was very keen to assess audience response to her presentation. From my perspective there was nothing to indicate any organized or orchestrated response to her presentation. It was a gradual culmination of discomfort on the part of some, and this ended in an uproar immediately after she concluded her paper. Several delegates hurled accusations of blasphemy, of Islam and the Qur’an itself being attacked and insulted and demanding that all Muslims take a stand now. Epitomizing conservative denial of the reality of HIV and extra-marital sex in Muslim societies was perhaps one guy who literally screamed a torrent of insults interspersed with “I am not emotional!!!!!”.

Amidst this pandemonium, the Chairperson insisted that all discussion take place in the workshops, and this led to about 15 people walking out. Some of the persons walking out appeared deeply hurt and astounded that most opted to remain seated.

What was blurred was the fact that, another ten people walked out only after the second speaker walked towards the rostrum. Roslan Hamza was a transsexual and a former commercial sex worker, and I believe that the respect accorded by the Chairperson to a transsexual in a purple dress was just a bit too much for some. Roslan delivered a moving account of life on the margins, the streets, his adopting of two children, facing sexual abuse during his childhood and stigmatization as a person living with HIV. He often just broke down and wept as he spoke of the struggle to be both Muslim and a transsexual person.

Amidst this rather tense atmosphere I dropped my prepared presentation and dealt with (a) the need for men--particularly religious men--to embrace vulnerability, (b) non-judgementalism as a requirement of faith when all believers are ultimately dependant on divine grace, (c) the need to affirm the marginalized other--not as an act of charity but as an act of self-acceptance and personal growth, (d) the need to embrace a human rights ethic that is consistent--even if against one’s own cherished sense of self and community--and not only because it’s something that we demand of others more powerful than us, (e) the need to deal with each other respectfully, and (f) the importance of remaining focussed on the task ahead. I also challenged the traditional privileging of the dignity of women as a substitute for justice.

A series of press conferences followed, and the conservatives were led by someone from Kenya who styled herself as “The International Islamic Adviser on AIDS, Women and Gender”. (Ms Rajput did not seem to belong to any organization.) They demanded (a) that Amina be expelled from the conference, (b) that her paper be expunged from the conference records, and (c) an opportunity to respond to Amina’s paper. This statement “on behalf of the conference” was signed by 9 persons, of whom six represented Islamic Medical Associations. Two African `ulama, including the Chief Qadi of Kenya, also signed the statement. Early the next morning a statement signed by fifty participants, including myself, denounced the disruption, called for freedom of expression, and demanded a written and verbal apology from those who disrupted the conference and threatened Amina. This statement was accompanied by a longer one arguing that the logic of “Islam itself was being attacked, and we, therefore, have a license to misbehave badly” is nonsense; good akhlaq (ethical behavior) is always a sign of a good Muslim.

That evening’s dinner saw Nafis Sadik, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia delivering a presentation on “A Global Perspective: AIDS in the Muslim World”. Although a bit dull and cautious, it met with lots of applause -- especially from those who affirmed Islam as having all the answers. The IMA from the UK nevertheless pamphleteered against her and the UN for the crimes of Cairo, Beijing, and New York.

Back to the Wadud Saga

The International Advisory Committee rejected the call to remove Amina from the conference or to expunge her paper. They did amend the program, allowing an hour of discussion the next morning and a ten-minute Q&A session after each plenary.

Speaker after speaker launched a bitter tirade against Amina for about forty minutes. A paper by Riffat on the tables and also dealing with the equality of men and women, the rib story, and a rejection of misogynistic hadith also came in for bitter denunciation that morning (“Yesterday the Qur’an was attacked, this afternoon it will be the Hadith”) despite the fact that she was only scheduled to speak in the afternoon. Those who had alternative opinions were simply astounded by the venom. They also correctly, to my judgement, calculated that it was best to let this venom be aired and to respond in a different way at another time. Whatever the strategic considerations -- it did appear as if they controlled the discourse although it was also obvious that the applause came from only one side of the room. Amina sat through all of this and was given “a minute or two” to respond; She made a simple and dignified statement affirming her faith as a Muslim and rejecting the blasphemy allegations.

More Plenaries

The following plenary was a relatively dry one on substance abuse – a convenient entry point for many Muslim NGO’s and governments wanting to intervene on HIV/AIDS without being seen as soft – no pun intended -- on sexual morality because it does not have to deal with the realities of sex outside marriage.

a) “Islam, Drugs, and HIV/AIDS: Meeting Demands, Supplying Needs” by Tariq Zafar (Pakistan)
b) “Confronting Challenges and Meeting Realities” by Shamim Rabbani (Bangladesh)
c) “Women and Drugs” by Fariba Soltani (Iran), and
d) “Drug Users in Muslim Communities” by Yunus Pathi (Malaysia)

The next round that people dreaded/looked forward to was a session dealing with “Sexual Health and Sexuality -- A Gift from Allah.” There were three presentations, each one a potential minefield:

a) “Sexual Orientations: Addressing Realities” by Nizar Boga
b) “Sexual Violence and Condoms” by Riffat Hassan and
c) “Sex, An Awkward Gift from God” (my own presentation)

Mr Boga described homosexuality as pathology. While it was a careful statement falling between stools, it affirmed all the traditional notions of “the sinfulness of homosexuality”. His rather unscholarly presentation was, nevertheless, very helpful in providing a sense of balance--well, sort of balance on the panel.

In her introductory comments, Riffat stated that the paper distributed was just a background paper and very early in her talk she “owned” Amina Wadud as a former student of hers that she was proud of--and the applause was amazing. (To the shock of some who had read the earlier silence as consent to their charges of blasphemy.) It was a vintage Riffat Hassan performance with brilliant effect. Her well-known “orthodox” position that “the Qur’an is the magna carta of gender equality--only Muslim interpretation was problematic--was accompanied by a stunning rebuke of Muslim conservatism that silenced the anti-Wadud crowd and earned her a standing ovation from a large section of the crowd.

In my own paper on “Sex–An Awkward Gift from God”, I largely adopted the same line evident in Amina’s paper but in a less in-your-face-manner, often resorting to stories and analogies and more affirming of the flexibility of tradition.

About eight people rose to ask questions and only three or four were taken -- all directed at Riffat--reinforcing the notion that men have an easier time getting away with challenging orthodoxy than women. So we ended that day with a visible demonstration of support for Amina; yet all the “controversial speakers” were now off the hook except for her. Tension continued to simmer the next day, and indeed overshadowed things right up to the end, although the organizers tried really hard to get participants focussed on the workshops where most of the work was expected to get done.

Formal dinner was accompanied by a lecture “Religious Leaders in Challenging HIV/AIDS: Experiences from Other Faith Traditions” delivered by William Vendley, the Secretary General, World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP). Although many folks skipped dinner--just needing a break--in many ways the idea of Muslims learning from other traditions at a forum of Muslim religious leaders was a pioneering one. I for one, cannot recall one where we invite others to our events–in a religious context specifically to learn from them

Amina’s Retraction

Behind the scenes the organizers persisted in their refusal to put any pressure on Amina and issued a press statement to this effect. Amina, nevertheless, decided to withdraw her paper from the conference proceedings without in any way retracting her opinions. She read her retraction on Thursday morning with an apology to two entities--those who were offended by the way she presented her case and, very significantly, the people living with HIV/AIDS who may be disappointed by her retraction (and there were a lot of them at the conference). Her retraction was met with all around applause, and a number of those who had been in the forefront of heaping abuse came to embrace her or shake her hands (including the Chief Qadi of Kenya who also apologized for the bad behavior that she was subjected to).

The following plenary was devoted to the “Role of Muslim Leaders” and an all-male panel starred: Abdul Magid Mbago from Uganda, Ismail Ibrahim from Malaysia, Khoiron Shuaib from Indonesia and Suoad Saleh from Egypt. I skipped it, and when I arrived at its conclusion I found a lot of upset friends. I was too tired to enquire about the details.

The conference concluded on Friday morning on a rather--and perhaps wisely--inconclusive note.

The Chief Rapporteur read out her report, and these contained a series of rather progressive recommendations which emanated from the workshops. (For some reason or other, the major voices of conservative Islam present were often absent from the workshops. It’s as if they could only deal with speech as performance and not as critical discourse where listening is also a requirement). No written copies of this report were made available although we could read it on the large screen.

Dr Majid Kagimu from the Islamic Medical Association of Uganda--with all the legitimacy of Uganda being the country with the “success story” and Africa having a privileged voice because of our sad distinction of leading in HIV/AIDS prevalence--was called upon to make some concluding comments. He announced that all the recommendations would be sent for review to a committee of Islamic scholars whose names was also provided–names heard for the first time by us and the organizers. Approaches to a disease where most of the victims are women were now going to be dealt with by an all-male group who was going to give its decision in three month’s time.

It was the concluding moment and asking where he got his mandate from was perhaps not a very strategic move. The battle had now already shifted behind the scenes. Clearly, if they can have their way, they will never again have a conference as inclusive as this.

Marina Mahathir--a deeply committed activist--offered some carefully worded concluding comments. And so we ended a difficult but exciting week

A Few Comments

Malaysia. I was very aware that while this was an international conference, this was in Malaysia, and when all of us are gone (many having retreated to the portals of the academy, the mosque, or our clinics--and some to organizations that work with Muslims and others who are HIV+), that the organizers will still be living and working in their contexts. When we are all gone and back in our countries, she and the Malaysian AIDS Council have to work with and put up with the orthodoxy in Malaysia--orthodoxy that itself has to face opposition from other quarters, the PAS fundamentalists. They would have to ensure that the victories acquired in acknowledging the realities of HIV/AIDS and the partnership with JAKIM would not be undermined. Yet they invited that large and diverse spectrum wanting to make the connections between gender justice, transsexual lives, human rights and Islam.

One of the two major figures leading the opposition to Wadud was Dr Musa Nordin, the local IMA president and, unlike others who saw the debate on face value, he was rather insistent on connecting it to “the organizers”. Those of us who know a bit or more about the ideological developments in the Muslim world over the last three decades, also know that there is nothing ideologically innocent or neutral about the IMA and the Islamic Movement. And certainly not in Malaysia where elections are fought on these grounds. And so Marina Mahathir had to suffer blows directed at her father and UMNO, the ruling party. (Part of the inherent problem in patriarchal discourse where women can only be viewed as extensions of men when they are good or sort of OK and inherently women when they are evil.)

Coming from South Africa, I was slightly bemused by the Malaysian/East Asian avoidance of conflict and great difficulty in dealing with it head on when it arises.

Women in leadership. Marina Mahathir, the Chair of the conference, was assured that her own credibility amongst the people who really mattered, those living with HIV/AIDS, remained intact throughout. Supporting her were all the Malaysians who are really working in this field. Yet, I could also sense that others merely tolerated her leadership because her father is the Prime Minister. Religious leadership -- particularly the ‘mainstream’ ones -- i.e., not the alternative ones in say, the Hizb al-Tahrir or the GIA -- is another form of political leadership, and the people there have very finely tuned senses of how to adjust to power shifts. (Like the religious crowd in Indonesia who now accept a woman as president or those who supported Shirin Jinnah’s opposition to Ayub Khan). It was an interesting case of how power works and how men can shift under different conditions (accepting Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi, Bandarananaike etc).

There were also accusations of the conference being hijacked by Sisters in Islam. The truth is probably that many of the Malaysian women who are competent in Islam and any critical contemporary issue are, or were, in Sisters in Islam. Furthermore, men simply did not volunteer for the leadership tasks. Some of them may have been uncomfortable working under women, and the Malaysian religious leadership was really very inconspicuous throughout all of this. (This also reflected the power of language. While there was simultaneous translation, few people intervened using anything other than English.) How does one avoid a group that has been involved in the forefront of gender issues in Malaysia when it comes to AIDS -- and why should they be avoided?

Anyway, I was proud to attend an International conference of Muslim leaders led by women.

The Qur’an as an issue vs. HIV/AIDS. One of the things done by Amina’s paper, however unintended, was to shift the conference from a discussion on HIV/AIDS to one on the Qur’an. There is of course a relationship between the way texts are invoked to oppress and the marginalization of women in general and, more specifically, the stigmatization of persons living with HIV/AIDS. To centralize theological issues and to present texts as essential problems is perhaps as problematic as presenting texts as answers. I am not saying that religious precepts cannot be invoked to, in our case, argue for a more compassionate and gender just way of being Muslim or in their case, using the texts to inflict injury on women and to marginalize those who acquired it through “guilty routes” (primarily sex outside marriage). I am only questioning the way a theological issue--the sanctity of the Qur’an--became the big issue.

Young People. The young people were fantastic. They mobilized, refused to be cowed; remained critical and stood up. The conference organizers had initially designated a young Egyptian TV presenter to pull the young adults together. With enormous dignity they went ahead and did their own thing when most of them did not find themselves in sync with their designated leader. And the organizers were stunning in allowing the space for the youth while upholding the honor of the presenter. And we saw a great video production by them on the last day.

The Divisions. Much has been made about the divisions in Kuala Lumpur. To my mind there were several and often overlapping tendencies:
(a) those who saw HIV/AIDS essentially as an opportunity for moral reform (read sexual morality),
(b) those who were engaged -- either actually or as academics -- in other gender human rights issues such as violence against women, the right to sexual and reproductive health etc.
(c) those who were simply concerned about the devastation caused by the pandemic and wanting to do something about it as Muslims, or who were working in Muslim societies.

In my own paper I described HIV sarcastically as “an opportunistic infection” -- opportunistic for those who view it as an opportunity for conservatives to get people to repent. Perhaps I was rather selective in my description. If truth be told, then many of us also see it as an opportunity to promote what we view as an equally related agenda -- that of gender justice and personal freedoms/human rights.

Conspiracies. I am curious about our propensity to see conspiracies everywhere. The disrupters were accused of having had everything planned, the organizers were accused of having had everything planned … Yet, objectively, no one seemed to have planned anything.

Farid Esack is a South African Muslim theologian who studied in Pakistan, UK and Germany. He has written Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, On Being a Muslim, and An Introduction to the Qur’an. He has published on Islam, Gender, Liberation Theology, Inter-faith Relations, and Qur'anic Hermeneutics. Professor Esack served as a Commissioner for Gender Equality in the South African government and has taught at the Universities of Western Cape, Ohio, Hamburg, the College of William & Mary and Union Theological Seminary (NY). He is trhe the Besl Professor in Religion and Ethics at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He is also co-founder of Positive Muslims, a South African organization raising awareness about HIV/AIDs and supporting Muslims living with it, and is presently serving as it Interim Director.