Women, Justice, and Shari’ah: Hauwa Ibrahim Speaks to LLM Students
H
auwa Ibrahim first received international attention when she took on the case of Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning under her state’s new Islamic laws for the crime of adultery. With the support Marie-Pierre Poulin of Avocats Sans Frontičres (Lawyers without Borders), Ibrahim convinced the court to overturn Lawal’s conviction. Thanks to their work, Ms. Lawal remains free today.
Speaking to LLM students and faculty as a part of the LLM program's High Table Symposium, Ibrahim shared her strategies for achieving justice for women within the Nigerian context. Her presentation focused on the importance of mixing principle with flexible pragmatism.
She opened her remarks by describing what makes Nigeria unique. This diverse country has an estimated population of at least 127 million, is composed of 36 states, and residents speak over 200 languages. Nigerians juggle four legal systems: common law, codified customary law, un-codified traditional law, and Islamic law, or shari’ah.
In 1999, the gubernatorial candidate for the northern state of Zamfara promised to implement shari’ah as a strategy for improving governance through religious ethics. He won. But implementation proved challenging as poorly trained judges struggled with the law in a justice system heavily influenced by the executive branch. The unmarried and pregnant Amina Lawal found herself caught in a shari’ah experiment that threatened to cost her her life.
In taking up the case, Ibrahim leveraged every possible resource for her legal arguments. She began by pointing to the constitution, which prohibits state-sponsored religion. Next, she referenced international norms that proscribe torture or punishment that is degrading to the dignity of human beings. “Does stoning support human dignity and the worth of a person?” she asked. Then, she reminded the judges about the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. But the relevant documents were mostly in English, a language the judges did not understand. Ibrahim realized her arguments had to be more local.
Islamic law is grounded in the Qur’an, as well as the documentation of the Prophet Muhammad’s words and actions, known as the Hadith. Ibrahim and her team looked to these sources and identified legal arguments that could protect Lawal. Using the framework of the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, Ibrahim convinced the court that Lawal had not committed a crime.
Ibrahim’s success in the Lawal case taught her an important lesson: she learned to be firm in her principles but flexible in the mechanisms she employs. This approach, Ibrahim explained, served her well. For example, she was once condemned by a group of mullahs as being anti-Islamic and anti-shari’ah. Instead of disregarding the attack, Ibrahim, dressed in proper Islamic attire, went straight to the mosque where her adversaries preached. As she approached the men, she took pains to observe local customs like not looking them in the eyes and not sitting on a chair at their level. She actually knelt on the floor before them.
When the mullahs asked her to take a seat, Ibrahim said, “How can I, your daughter, sit in a chair while you, my fathers, are sitting in chairs?” After a pause they replied, “You have not forgotten your culture. You have not forgotten your values.” She said, “I am a silly girl, a silly lawyer. I need your help. I need your knowledge so I can do this right.” It was in this manner that Ibrahim engaged those who had condemned her and actually gained from their wisdom. She was able to deepen her religious knowledge in order to better represent her clients.
In her closing remarks Ibrahim stressed the importance of working within the system. Shari’ah has many moderate proponents who want to apply its principles in pursuit of establishing the rule of law. Instead of disregarding this system, she advocates being flexible to move within it in order to accomplish the bigger goal of helping people.
Ibrahim encouraged the audience to never give up the quest to create a better world: “Even if you only touch one issue, help one person, on one day, we should not be shy to keep going.”
Cybčle Cochran F’09