One of things that surprised me when I was in Iran was to find out that the country finances seven times as many sex change operations as the entire European Union. And the reason for that is because Ayatollah Khomeini himself, in the early 1960s, in the same time that he was developing this other idea of an Islamic state, also hit upon the idea that if a person is born into the wrong sex, it was entirely proper for them to change sex.
Sadakat KadriThe politicized version of Shia Islam that we see in the Islamic Republic post-1979 clearly is very conservative, but, there are other things one could say about Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of a Shia state because that in itself is a blasphemy as far as most Shia clerics are concerned. There's a theory that he developed in the early 1960s in the town of Najaf talking about - well not liberalism, necessarily, but flexibility though.
Sadakat KadriShari'a is not just the Qur'an, you see Shari'a is comprised according to all the doctrines. There's consensus and analogy - argument by analogy. These are the four components in the Shari'a. An orthodox Sunni would not accept that the Shari'a was simply comprised of the Qur'an itself and actually there are people who say that it's heretical to believe that. They have to say that because if they don't say that then they would have to accept that, for example, stoning is not a punishment which appears in the Qur'an - it doesn't.
Sadakat KadriAyatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa to that effect, which was then given effect in the Islamic Republic of Iran, so in the Islamic Republic of Iran, it's flexible enough to allow for sex changes, and it encourages sex changes. But if you want to change your religion in Iran, you've got some serious problems. There are other problems. You're allowed to change sex, but if you want to be a homosexual, theoretically at least, you face the death penalty. Quite how often these penalties are carried out is a moot point, but it's there on the statute books.
Sadakat KadriIn 1979, you had the revolution in Iran. You had the Hudood Ordinances in Pakistan, which are the laws that are notoriously used against women, which are theoretically used against thieves although they're never carried out - an actual amputation or an actual stoning. The blasphemy laws, again, never actually carried out, though they're there, heavy with menace on the statute books.
Sadakat KadriThe one fatwa that everyone here is probably familiar with is the Salman Rushdie fatwa, but a fatwa doesn't have to be a violent thing at all. A fatwa is simply a ruling on Islamic law; there can be fatwas on clothing.
Sadakat KadriThere's a feminist critique of Muslim Arbitration Tribunals, which I'm certainly not unsympathetic to, because as I keep saying, I come from a human rights context. But there's a feminist critique of Muslim Arbitration Tribunals specifically, which says women are going to have their rights eroded by virtue of the fact of these courts are going to negotiate settlements and negotiate the dropping of criminal charges against men. There's not been any evidence of that taking place.
Sadakat Kadri