November 2001
If you choose to
read my diary you must forgive my often vulgar, some times irreverent language.
I hope you will also find the moral courage to give the following entries wide
circulation, my crude vocabulary notwithstanding. The world should know what injustice
is being perpetrated by northern Nigerian Muslim males against their women in
the name of Allah and under cover of Shariah.
You see, my name
is Safiya Husseini, recently convicted for the crime of having been born a
woman by a Shariah court in Sokoto. I know you have been told that my crime was
adultery, not womanhood. I also know, being a mere woman, that you think I am
most probably talking rubbish. When you finish reading this record of my own
thoughts, possibly after my death, you will make up your mind.
My punishment is
to be death by stoning at the hands of men. I cannot tell you where I am,
because I am hiding from the men of the Hisbah corps, the fanatical Muslim
militia saddled with the task of bringing Shariah offenders to book. I have
been told by the scholars, the mallamai (who happen to be men), that I should
give myself up and face death like a good Muslim woman. Doing this is a
patriotic duty that will cleanse my society of corruption and purify me from my
sins.
You see our society has become
rotten. We are fast becoming like the Jews in the time of Christ. You know
Jesus called them a "wicked and adulterous generation". There is too
much adultery, fornication and homosexuality. Women, as our mallamai swear our
prophet said, are the source of all this evil and our scholars are convinced
that the only cure for the fitnah is to put us to death.
I can understand how
men can accuse women of being the source of all adultery and fornication. But
what do women have to do with the widespread fitnah of men chasing men? Surely
it shows that men also are evil and need no women to lure them? Do not mind me.
I am but a woman-daft and senseless. Do the mallamai not say that the prophet
said that women are deficient in religion and intelligence? Back to the point,
it is believed that my death will lead to a near-magical transmogrification of
the caliphate’s ethical landscape.
Our holy land, the land
of Dan Fodio, Abdullahi and Bello, will witness a termination of the
crepuscular routines of illicit carnality that regularly take place in shadowy
alleys, state houses, guest houses and five-star hotels. Our men shall no
longer be victims of temptation by evil women. Their purity shall no longer be
stained by erotic pursuits. In short every man shall become as clean and
sinless as our Shariah governors whom I am told can each swear on the Qur’an
never to have committed the capital sin of adultery. This I am ready to
believe. You see in Islamic Law it is the governor, as the Imam of our state,
who is expected to step forward and cast the first stone. We will on that day
prove to the Christians that we are better than Jews. When the Jews wanted to
stone a harlot, Jesus threw them a challenge. "Let he among you who is
without sin," said he, "cast the first stone". They all sulked
away, the hypocrites. If you heard our governor in his BBC Hausa interview, in
all his righteousness, then you know that he is not like those hypocritical
Jews. Allah ya sauwake! He will step up majestically and after giving me a
magisterial rebuke cast his stone. The other sinless members of our society-the
emirs, the mallamai, the politicians- will follow. With my death, as you have
heard often, the land shall become cleansed of crimes of the flesh.
In addition to this
service to the community, I am told on the authority of no less than the
prophet himself that submitting myself to this punishment is my ticket to
heaven. I shall no longer face the humiliation of being treated like a
lumpen-slut. I shall be transformed into a voluptuous, voracious virgin in
paradise. You laugh at this because you do not know the value of virginity to
our men. I too did not understand this obsession until I read Jarasimus Mhanna’s
Rasa’il al-Jahiz (The Letters of al-Jahiz). In one of his letters, the African
poet quoted the second Caliph ‘Umar as saying to fellow men: "Marry young
virgins; they have perfumed mouths and narrow vaginas." Only Allah knows
if ‘Umar actually said this, but I know our men have taken this advice far
beyond ‘Umar could ever have intended. They marry the girls at too young an age
when the opening is so narrow they end up with VVF when giving birth, at which
point the men abandon them. But this is not my concern right now.
I was saying that I will
become a heavenly virgin. No more menstruation, no more toileting, no more
pregnancy and yes, I will enjoy pure unadulterated sex. I like that word
unadulterated. I suppose unadulterated sex means sex that will not be called
adultery. I know I am probably murdering the English language but who cares at
this point? I will have my choice of men and believe you me I will ask for our
shariah governors whose own ticket to heaven is through whipping, stoning and
amputating the fornicatresses, adulteresses and common thieves in our society.
Their own sins are forgiven if they ensure that we poor sinners, especially the
women, are subjected to Allah’s laws. I am told not to grieve over all those
posh totties who hang around the high and mighty in this world and laugh at us
because they use condoms and pills and can have abortions.
Our illiteracy is in
reality our saving grace. This is why we were removed from school and married
off at a young age. Now I also understand why our mallamai have stoutly opposed
sex-education. Those so-called "educated" high-class whores may
escape in this world but they will pay in the hereafter. They are going to
hell. Ditto the men who fornicate and commit adultery with us but get away with
it. Imagine that twit Yakubu denying that he was the one who impregnated me!
But the alkali (bless his soul) could do nothing. His hands are tied. How could
he take my word, mere woman that I am, that Yakubu was the father of my baby?
The law says I should produce four male, honest, reliable witnesses who are to
testify to having visualized the twittering idiot’s you-know-what physically
embedded in my you-know-what like a kajal stick inside its hollow case!
Unfortunately we did not have sex in a nudist camp.
And even if we did, the
term honest, reliable male is an oxymoron. No man can possibly be honest and
reliable, especially if his honesty would convict a fellow-man. How could I
ever produce four? Since I could not meet this order then I am a liar, like all
women. In the unlikely event that I speak the truth, Yakubu will pay on the day
of judgement. As for me, I shall have the honour of a union of sorts with the
holy governors. Forgive my language, but just imagine what I would do on laying
my hands on their collective genitals, with the angels looking the other way!
But that will be in heaven, if they manage to make it there.
I listened to the
mallamai with all respect, but packed my things and ran away the moment they
left. You see I happen to believe that the law under which I was convicted is
not Allah’s law. It is true that the alkali, (Allah bless him again), has told
journalists this is Allah’s law and anyone who questions it is not a good
Muslim, perhaps not even a Muslim at all. Somehow I have my reservations. It
seems to me the law is what the alkali understands of what some men living at
some time in some foreign land claim to be the Law of Allah. His understanding
may be flawed. Other men may have made different claims than these in the name
of the same Allah. And of course in all this we have not heard the voice of
women. Surely if I suggest that it is not Allah’s law I do not lose my faith?
But you see I am only a woman. So I tell myself to stop thinking and
challenging these things. It is not my place. Let me tell you a few of the
thoughts that crossed my mind and made me run away from this perverse
judgement. Who knows, perhaps there may be some sense in me, after-all.
You see according to
press reports, my case started when some "unnamed informants" told
the police that I, Safiya the divorcee, was pregnant without husband and
"fingered one Yakubu Abubakar, a married man in the same village, as being
responsible for the pregnancy". Ya Salam! Any one who knows Islamic Law
knows this is not a case of adultery but of slander. These "reliable
sources" should have been arrested immediately and charged to court. They
are to produce four eye-witnesses to the crime of zina (illicit sex) of which
they accused a believing woman behind her back. This much is clear from books
of Law and Ibn Rushd, the Maliki jurist, stated in his book al-Muqaddimat
al-Mumahhidat that if anyone says "so-and-so is an adulteress" he
must produce four witnesses. It is not enough for us to have been seen playing
together, you know.
In the time of the second
caliph ‘Umar, some companions reported one of his governors, Mughira Ibn Shu’ba,
for adultery. Three of them testified to having visualized the governor’s dinky
in the woman’s pinky but the fourth witness faltered. He said he saw some
swinging bum bums but as for the real thing he could not swear. So the three of
them, including one of the Holy Prophet’s closest companions ‘Ammar Ibn Yasir,
were given eighty bulalas for slander. This story is there in the books of Law
as a precedent. I hear even books of history, like Ibn Katheer’s al-Bidaya wa ‘l-Nihaya
have the record. Why was my case different? Why was I called to defend myself
when the charge of slander had not been prosecuted? Point number one.
May Allah bless the
companions of the prophet who gave women the benefit of doubt. A woman was
brought before ‘Umar with pregnancy and she said; "O Caliph! I am a heavy
sleeper and a man came upon me one night. I did not wake up until he had
finished and turned his back." He let her go. Another woman said to ‘Umar:
" I was thirsty and I asked a shepherd to give me water to drink but he
refused unless I lay with him so I did." ‘Umar said to ‘Ali, "what is
your view on her?" ‘Ali replied, "I think she was pushed by
necessity". So ‘Umar gave her a few lashes and asked her to go. In fact a
woman was brought to ‘Ali when he was caliph and he kept saying to her,
"perhaps he romanced you? Perhaps he merely rubbed himself between your
thighs? etc" until she took the hint and said "yes."
It is not that the
Caliphs believed these incredible tales. But they believed that the gates of Allah’s
mercy were very wide. They knew that it is better for 1,000 adulteresses to
escape stoning by man than for one innocent Muslim woman to be so stoned. Those
who escape can always repent and be of use to their society and religion. Allah
is a Most Merciful God. This much the Caliphs, but not our generation of
mallamai, understood. For this reason in every Sunni School of Law today I can
go back to court and say I lied, that I do not know how I got pregnant, or that
I was charmed or tricked or anything and I am free. But not the Maliki school,
which we insist on following in this matter. Here, pregnancy is evidence of
zina and I am presumed guilty until I prove my innocence.
If I say I was raped I
must prove it. If I say I made a mistake it will be accepted only if
"reliable men" in my village testify that I am a nice girl. It is a
Law that contravenes the general principle that I am innocent until proven
guilty. The fact of pregnancy is taken as proof of guilt even though zina
requires, in addition to proof of intercourse, proof of consent and knowledge.
These points are documented in books of Law. You can check Ibn Qudamah’s
al-Mughni, or al-Jaza’iri’s Kitabul Fiqh ‘ala ‘l-Mazahib al-Arba’. I know some
Hanbali jurists, notably Ibn Taimiya, support Malik’s view. Fortunately, our
mallamai have always taught us not to listen to that puritanical predecessor to
the Wahhabiya and ‘Yan Izala. So who decides for me that I must be judged by
Malik’s Law?
To ask me to prove my
innocence contravenes Islamic Jurisprudence, Fundamental Human Rights and the
Nigerian Constitution. To bring me to court, even after I ran away in terror
the first time, nullifies my confession. It was clearly extracted and not
voluntary by virtue of the circumstances. This seems clear from Shaikh Wahba
al-Zuhaili’s work, al-Fiqh al-Islami wa Adillatuh. If my confession is invalid,
then my conviction is based on the fact of pregnancy and valid under Maliki Law
only. Why can’t I be judged by the Law of Shafii, Abu Hanifa or Ibn Hanbal? If
Malik’s Law is "Allah’s Law" then whose Law do the Shafii Muslims (of
Indonesia, Malaysia, East Africa etc), and the Hanbali Muslims (of the Arab
Gulf), and the Hanafi Muslims (of the Indian sub-continent) operate? But you
know I am a woman. I cannot argue with the alkali.
There are other
interesting points to note is that stoning to death, as punishment for
adultery, is not mentioned in the Qur’an. Believe me. The Qur’an says in
Chapter 24: Verse 2: "The woman and the man guilty of zina flog each of
them with a hundred stripes." This is what the Book of Allah says and the
word zina refers to sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not
married to each other. No verse of the Qur’an was revealed abrogating this
judgement or amending it ( If you discount the problematic claim by some that ‘Umar
said that such a verse existed at a point. Its text was abrogated but its
verdict remains!). However, Muslim jurists make a distinction between
fornication (or zina by one who has never been married) and adultery (zina by
one who has passed through Ihsan and become a Muhsan).
A Muslim becomes a muhsan
once he/she consummates a valid marriage in a state of adulthood and sanity. So
if he/she is found guilty of zina the punishment, according to jurists is
stoning to death, based on the Traditions of the Prophet, not the Qur’an. Most
jurists of Sunni and Shiite Islam accept this position. Some early jurists,
particularly among Kharijites, reject this distinction as a baseless
innovation. In addition to the verse quoted above, a second verse makes the
matter most problematic. In the Qur’an Chapter 4: Verse 25, Allah encourages
Muslim men who cannot marry free women to marry Muslim slaves with the consent
of their families or owners. He then adds: "If, after their Ihsan, they
are found guilty of indecency their punishment is half of the punishment of
Muhsanat." Now if the punishment of the free-born adulteress is 100 lashes
then the punishment of the slave adulteress is 50 lashes and there is no
problem there.
If however we say the
punishment for the muhsanah is stoning to death, what does Allah mean by
prescribing half of that for the slave? You must forgive me, for I am a mere
woman. I am unable to calculate half of stoning to death. Is it stoning to
half-death? Or half-stoning to death? Or stoning half to death? The Kharijites
gave our ulama a lot of trouble on this point. One of our best brains, Ibn
Qutaiba, wrote spirited defences in two books, Ta’weel Mukhtalaf al-Qur’an and
Ta’weel Mukhtalaf al-Hadeeth. On this point, though, I am not sure he answered
more questions than he raised. It seems to me he ended up saying that Ihsan
does not mean consummating marriage so he turned everything we read in Law on
its head. He also resorted to drawing an analogy between woman, on the one
hand, and a cow or she-camel, on the other, to wriggle out of the problem.
Anyway all this is water under the bridge. The reality is that this debate has
been buried so deeply it cannot be revived-certainly not before my sentence is
due to be carried out. In any event, the Kharijites are counted among the lost
sects (al-firaq al-dhaallah) so their view carries no weight with our scholars.
You see, dear reader, I
remain faithful to our scholars. I do not challenge them, even where I have my
doubts. Ask the alkali. As he pronounced his sentence on me, I said nothing to
indicate I knew these things. I am a woman, totally invisibilized behind the
veil and inside kulle. I know my place. But one thing I cannot accept is to die
alone when I know and the alkali knows I could not have made this baby alone. I
mean I am not the Virgin Mary! Even that inyamiri, Anyim Anyim, has said so.
The jurists, including Maliki jurists, who produced the body of knowledge
called fiqh (or law) lived at a point in time in history when there was no way
of establishing the paternity of a child. I can understand if they said
pregnancy is evidence of zina, even though it is a harsh verdict, but I know
the only reason they prescribed nothing for the man was because they had
nothing to go on apart from the woman’s word.
Today the alkali has
options. Science can establish who is telling lies between Yakubu and I, and
DNA tests are used by courts all over the modern world to settle these matters.
Of course they are not 100% faultless but my guilt has also not been 100%
proven. At least he should take that one step of testing for paternity. But no.
This will not happen because men will also die. If we stick to the law as
inherited from the past, men of the present can impregnate us and deny us.
Brilliant, aren’t they, these men? They commit a crime in the 20th Century with
rooms and curtains and airconditioners available but can only be convicted
based on a Law of Evidence made for the 7th Century with people doing it in the
open desert or makeshift tents! Four eye-witnesses to sex in the NICON Hilton
in 2001? So Bariya was whipped, Safiya will be stoned, who next? All the men
escaped because of lack of evidence. So long as men are not punished for
impregnating women nothing will change.
And herein lies the
injustice of the Law. I sleep with Yakubu and get pregnant. Because only I will
be punished, I insist that my crime is not adultery, but pregnancy. Since only
women can be pregnant this means that the real crime is being a woman. The man
will always commit adultery and escape. The woman is the only one who can ever
conceive, the unknowing depository of the traitor’s semen. It is not Allah or
his Prophet or even Malik who says so. It is our scholars, our men, who hide
behind the lie of being loyal to the past to perpetuate the crimes of our
present and escape. Now you know why I said I was convicted of being a woman.
Maybe it makes sense to you, maybe it doesn’t. I have no illusions, for I am a
mere woman.
I am glad Nigerians are
talking. I have already filed an appeal. I am not asking for my death and
Yakubu’s. I want to be given the benefit that the early Caliphs gave all those
women. I want the chance to repent. Allah has opened His doors to his servants
who go astray and wish to repent, why should men close that door in my face? I
want the Law to be truly Allah’s Law and not a concoction by men. And if men
themselves differ on what Allah means, who is to decide Allah’s true intent?
With your help I may yet live. I only pray I will not be back on trial for
murder. You see, given my experience with my husbands, my lover, my
fellow-villagers, the police, the judiciary and even my governor, I have come
to see men in their true colours. I have seen, first hand, the extent to which
they have cheated women, and the lies they have spun in the name of Allah and
His Messenger. Now this is my fear. If any man after this as much as winks at
me, I will most joyfully slice off his you-know-what.
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