Books
|
|
|||
|
Explosive! A Cause Untrue explodes from the first page with the description of an international terrorist incident that is linked to the LTTE, which then desperately tries to hide its guilt. The novel races forward with the speed and power of an anti-tank missile, as it follows gun battles between terrorists and special forces on the streets of Europe and Canada, as well as the jungles of the North and the East. More
twisted and surprising than a Sri Lankan mountain road, A Cause
Untrue has everything a thriller must have, and more. Car bombs,
high-level assassinations, an international hijack; coupled with
cold-blooded killers, beautiful intelligence agents, and spymasters
with their hands firmly on every thread. Add to this the threat
of an Indian invasion, and you have just skimmed the surface of
this unusual and compelling piece of work. David Blacker is himself a former soldier, and his experiences in the North and the East (some obviously bitter) colour the text and add an authenticity that would be impossible through mere research. The descriptions of individual combat and the Army’s attitude to war and the Tamils is both revealing and frightening, and breaks down many of the cliches normally forced on the Sri Lankan armed forces. One of Sri Lanka’s tiny Burgher minority, Blacker would have undoubtedly been part of an even smaller minority within the Army, particularly since he served in what he himself describes as a “hardcore” infantry regiment, going into combat alongside the sons of farmers and bus drivers. Blacker is one more in a long line-up of Burgher authors who have contributed disproportionately to the country’s English literature. Speaking at the launch, Blacker controversially stated that “war itself is glamorous, so glamorous that it’s frightening, and so frightening that the fear ultimately hides the glamour”. An opinion that may not necessarily be popular in this present age, and isn’t always apparent in A Cause Untrue, which is a very brutal look at how a Third World nation fights an international war. Obviously this is not for the weak of stomach. Praise for both Blacker and A Cause Untrue has been quick to come, with critical acclaim from readers who are expert in both language and current affairs. Ruwanthie de Chickera, one of the country’s leading playwrights was quoted as saying that “A Cause Untrue is an intriguing, convincing, very professionally written political thriller”. Arjuna Gunawardene, himself a military historian and author of Dying to Kill, which is a history of suicide terrorism, says that “Blacker dares to tread the fine grey line between the black and white of modern terror and counter-terror operations to write it as it probably is”. Richard Boyle, the Editor of Travel Sri Lanka, who is also a consultant on Sri Lankan English to the Oxford English Dictionary was heard to say that A Cause Untrue is “groundbreaking in the context of Sri Lankan English literature,” and “a breathtaking piece of writing”. “Punctilious attention to detail with regard to context,” says Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Centre for Policy Alternatives. “I have not come across a work by a Sri Lankan author like it.” The launch of A Cause Untrue was itself a fairly informal and unpretentious affair, refreshingly free of the usual stuffy speeches. The hundred-odd invitees, who included well-known authors such as Ashok Ferrey and the now highly-acclaimed film director Boodi Keerthisena, took the chance to mingle and enjoy the party while having an excerpt read to them. A Cause Untrue is available at all leading bookshops throughout Sri Lanka and at selected bookshops in India. It is also available for sale online at www.vijithayapa.com and www.offtheshelf.ch as well as the publisher’s website www.ph-books.com. An excerpt may also be read on www.writeclique.net, a site which is sponsored by the British Council, and on which A Cause Untrue was given a five-star rating by readers. Succession
laws: Complex concepts in simple style I consider it a great honour to be called upon to review Al Haj A. H. G. Ameen’s work entitled “Muslim Law of Succession – A Guide” published by Al-Ameen Publishers and priced at Rs. 500. Al-Haj Ameen must be congratulated for producing a useful guide to a subject which has always been one of great difficulty. Al Haj Ameen has divided his book into 12 chapters, but he provides a useful introduction to the subject in a preliminary chapter. Quoting certain verses of the Holy Quran, Al Haj Ameen observes that succession or ‘Mirath’ is something that belongs to Allah and that when one inherits he does so in the path of Allah. The science of ‘Mirath’ in the sharia’at provides rules for determining who inherits and who is to be inherited, and what shares go to the heirs. The death of a person brings about a transfer of most of his rights and obligations to persons who survive him and are called ‘wuratha’ in Arabic, which means heirs and representatives. In his introduction Al Haj Ameen notes that before the advent of Islam, women were treated as chattels without any freedom extended to them. Female babies were buried alive in Arabia during the period of ‘jahiliya’, one of the darkest periods on earth. During this period, the rules of inheritance excluded women from the inheritance of the estates left by their deceased relatives, because according to them only those who could go to the battle field to defend the clan were allowed to inherit. Al Haj Ameen observes that the Holy Quran brought in reforms through the Messenger of Allah, the Holy Prophet, by way of amendments to the pre-Islamic laws which were not abrogated altogether. The law of inheritance or succession in the Islamic jurisprudence is the most complex subject, and covers a very wide area of relations and provides for even remote members of the family. The sharia’at rules relating to succession are a fusion of the ancient customary laws of Arabia with the amendments brought in by the Holy Quran and Hadith. The
amendments effected by the Holy Quran are summarized by the author
as follows:- The general rule of sharia’at that a female takes only half of what is taken by a male through intestate succession has been criticized on the basis that the sharia’at discriminates against women. This is a most unjust criticism in the context that this general rule is applicable only in regard to residuary heirs, and in fact it is the sharers who have the prior right to intestate succession. It is necessary to stress that out of the 12 categories of sharers who are entitled to specific Quranic shares, only 4 are males, namely the husband of the deceased, the father of the deceased, the true grandfather of the deceased, and the uterine brother of the deceased. It is significant that there are 8 categories of female sharers, namely, the wife or wives, the mother, the daughter, the son’s daughter, the full sister, the consanguine sister, the true grandmother and the uterine sister of the deceased, who will have priority in the distribution of the estate vis-à-vis the residuaries. This very clearly explodes the theory that there is discrimination against women in Islam in matters of succession. Al Haj Ameen deals with the subject of succession in 12 lucid chapters. In Chapter 1, Al Haj Ameen observes that succession could be either testate, where the last will left by the deceased determines the manner in which the estate has to be distributed, or intestate, where the deceased has died leaving no last will and his or her heirs will have to be determined by Court. It is a fundamental principle of the sharia’at that a person may not give away by last will more than a third of his estate to outsiders, or in other words at least two-thirds of the estate of a deceased person should be available for distribution among his intestate heirs. However, in Sri Lanka the Wills Ordinance confers on any person the freedom to dispose even his entire estate by last will leaving nothing to the close relations like the surviving spouse and children. The question arose in Shariffa Umma v. Rahumathu Umma 14 N. L. R. 464, whether the Wills Ordinance has the effect of shutting out the principles of sharia’at law, and unfortunately it has been held in that case that it is so, and that a person professing Islam may deprive his intestate heirs of share in his estate by the simple expedience of a last will. This is shocking, considering the importance placed on the protection of the family by sharia’at law. This is also not a satisfactory state of affairs because the law permits an application of sharia’at principles to deal with intestate successions while precluding an application of these very principles with respect to testate succession. Section 2 of the Muslim Intestate Succession Ordinance of 1931 simply declares “that the law applicable to the intestacy of any deceased Muslim who at the time of his death was domiciled in Sri Lanka or was the owner of any immovable property in Sri Lanka shall be the Muslim law governing the sect to which such deceased Muslim belonged”. This provision has the effect of incorporating the principles of sharia’at law, derived from the Holy Quran, hadith, ijma and qiyas. While the Holy Quran is the divine revelation which will be preserved unchanged to posterity, hadith consists of the sayings and conduct of the Holy Prophet, as recorded by the companions. Al Haj Ameen describes the third source of law, ijma as the “consensus of the companions of the Holy Prophet…..in a particular age on a question of law.” Quoting the famous jurist Ameer Ali, Al Haj Ameen also describes qiyas as “the exercise of private judgement based on analogy”. This in fact is a process of extension of principles derived from the Holy Quran, hadith and ijma to new situations through analytical reasoning. It is the principles of sharia’at law on intestate succession derived from the above four sources of law that Al Haj Ameen seeks to explain and illustrate in his useful work. Prior to the enactment of the Muslim Intestate Succession Ordinance of 1931, the law relating to succession applicable to Muslims in Sri Lanka was set out in the Mohommadan Code of 1806, which was primarily an English translation of the Dutch Code, Byzondere Wetten which sought to codify the religious and customary laws of the Muslims in Batavia which is now known as Jakarta and formed the headquarters of the Dutch East India company. The Code was introduced into Sri Lanka by the Dutch and was applied by the British who succeeded them. However, Justice M.T. Akbar exposed the deficiencies of the Code in a series of articles he wrote, and the 1931 Ordinance was enacted to overcome the criticism that some of the provisions of the Code were contrary to sharia’at law. In Chapter 2 of this important work, Al-Haj Ameen deals with the Quaranic sharers in great detail. Quranic Sharers (Asab al-Fard) are those sharers who have been allotted a specific share in the Holly Quran. He explains the circumstances in which these sharers will be entitled to the specific shares allotted by the Holy Quran. In Chapter 3 he deals with residuaries (Al Sabah), that is the heirs who take the residue of what is remaining after the Quranic sharers take their prescribed shares or where a particular person dies leaving no heirs coming within the categories of Quranic sharers. He classifies the residuaries into four classes, namely descendents, ascendants, descendents of the father and descendents of the father’s father. In Chapter 4 Al Haj Ameen deals with exclusion from inheritance, as for example the rule that a person cannot benefit from his crime, crystallized in the prophetic tradition “a murderer does not inherit”. In Chapter 5 he deals with the administration of the estate of a deceased person. Chapter 6 is devoted to a discussion of the doctrine of Increase (Al-Aul) and the doctrine of Return (Al-Rudd). The first of these doctrines, namely Al-Awl, applies where the Quranic shares of the sharers add up to more than unity, as for example, where a person dies leaving the surviving husband with no children who takes one half, the mother who takes 1/6th , and two sisters who together take 2/3rd which add up to 6/8th of the estate. Although “Al-Aul” literally means increase, an application of the principles results in the proportionate reduction of the shares so that the total will be equal to one. The other principle Al-Radd is applied where the shares of the various sharers add up to less than unity, and it is necessary to increase the share of the sharers proportionately. It is the need to make such complicated mathematical calculations that helped to develop the science of algebra, the name of which exact science had been coined from the name of the famous Arab mathematician Al-Jabrain. In Chapter 7, Al-Haj Ameen describes the concept of Umariyathani which was utilized in the era of Caliph Umar to provide certain exceptions to the general principles in deciding the shares of the mother in certain special circumstances. In Chapter 8, Al-Haj Ameen deals with the right of missing persons to inheritance. In fact, after the devastation caused by the tsunami, missing persons have given rise to several important legal problems, some of which are yet to be resolved. Al-Haj Ameen points out that the rule laid down by Imam Shafie is that a person is presumed to be dead if he has not been heard of for 7 years, which is the period adopted by our Evidence Ordinance. However he also refers to Minhaj-ut-Thalibin in which is stated that the property of “the person of whom there has been no news, should be sequestrated, until death has been legally established or until the lapse of such time as may justify its presumption”. It is noteworthy that even in Sri Lanka the period for the application for the presumption of death has now been brought down to one year in the wake of the tsunami. In Chapter 9 the author deals with the representation of the estate of the deceased, and in chapter 10 provides numerous illustrations of distribution of the estate in specific cases. These illustrations can be of considerable use to the busy practitioner while being equally instructive to the young student struggling to understand the basic principles of the law. In Chapter 11 Al Haj Ameen deals with decided cases and goes on to provide a step by step guide for the purpose of determining the heirs as well as their shares. The book also contains a useful bibliography and index. Al-Haj Ameen’s Muslim ‘Law of Succession – A Guide’ is indeed an essential guide to the principles of law governing succession which can be of immense benefit to law students, legal practitioners, law teachers and even judges in Sri Lanka as well as abroad. Blending the wealth of experience gained through a long and distinguished career as an Attorney-at-law, a member of the Board of Quazis and a member of the Wakfs Tribunal, with the immense knowledge of Muslim law acquired in the process of teaching the subject at the Sri Lanka Law College for a number of years, Al. Haj Ameen has presented in a simple manner complex concepts relating to the Muslim law of succession. Al-Haj Ameen’s work is designed to provide easy access to these principles, in a simple style so very characteristic of this versatile author. |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
