Sisters in Islam (SIS) is a Malaysian registered company committed to promoting the rights of women in Malaysia. Its efforts to promote the rights of Muslim women are based on the principles of equality, justice and freedom enjoined by the Quran. SIS work focuses on challenging laws and policies made in the name of Islam that discriminate against women. As such it tackles issues covered under Malaysia's Islamic family and sharia laws, such as polygamy, child marriage, moral policing, Islamic legal theory and jurisprudence, the hijab and modesty, violence against women and hudud. It is noted for its Islamic feminist research and advocacy.
Its head office is in Petaling Jaya.
History SIS was formed in 1988 and registered as a non-governmental organisation in 1993 under the name SIS Forum Malaysia. The name Sisters in Islam is retained as an authorship name. The organization takes an hermeneutical approach, working to advance the rights of Malaysian Muslim women by sharing its interpretation of the Quran. SIS teaches that, according to Islam, women are equally deserving of and guaranteed justice, mercy, and equal rights.
In 1987, a group of eight women met as the shariah subcommittee of the Association of Women Lawyers to look into problems with the implementation of Islamic Family Law, later evolving into a study group to read and analyze the Quran. They were a group of professional women, consisting of lawyers, journalists, university lecturers, and women’s rights activists. Upon their closer reading of the Quran, they began to question the legal system of the shariah courts, and the basis upon which prominent legislation like Islamic Family Law was based upon.
Sisters in Islam was co-founded by seven women: Zainah Anwar, Amina Wadud, Askiah Adam, Norani Othman, Rashidah Abdullah, Rose Ismail and Sharifah Zuriah Aljeffri. Other members have included activists such as Toni Kasim. According to Anwar, the women of the study group became empowered, having found that upon closer inspection, “women’s rights were rooted in [the] tradition, in [the] faith.”
Zainah Anwar
Zainah Anwar co-founded two (2) ground-breaking women's group that engage with Islam from a right's perspective to promote equality and justice for women living in Muslim context.
In 1987, she co-founded Sisters in Islam (SIS) in Malaysia and became its founding Executive Director from 1999-2008. She “has enjoyed a highly visible and public position” as the head of SIS, leading the organization to prominence in the Muslim world, attributed to her outspoken “personality and passion.” Anwar is the daughter of Anwar bin Abdul Malik, one of the founding members of United Malays National Organization (UMNO), credited for giving the organization its name; despite his lack of greater political participation in the party, this reflects Anwar’s own political background and upbringing, as a politically conscious daughter of one of the founding nationalist parties of the country.Wain, A 2021, 'The politicisation of Islam in Malaysia and its opponents', Islam and Civilisational Renewal, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 27-52. https://doi.org/10.52282/icr.v12i1.829
Anwar also co-founded Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, and was its founding Executive Director from 2009-2021. She now sits on its Board. In 2007, SIS formed a coalition of scholars and activists from around the world, including Egypt, the Gambia, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, the UK, and Malaysia, to create a universal document called the “Musawah Framework for Action”, which built a global model for Muslim women in their respective country’s to campaign and advocate for Muslim family and marriage law.
In 2018, Anwar was honored by Harvard Law School as one of the 25 “Women Aspiring Change” globally in the areas of law and policy. And in 2019, Anwar received the United Nations Malaysia Award 2019 for contributions to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the Human Rights Fundamental Freedoms category. In 2023, Anwar was selected into the Muslim 500 2024: The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims.
Anwar has also been named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of 150 women “who shake the world”. Women Deliver has also called her one of 100 most inspiring people in championing the rights of women and girls, and by the online International Museum of Women as one of the 10 Most Influential Muslim Women at the Global Level.
Rozana Isa
Rozana Isa currently serves as the Executive Director for Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian NGO working on women’s rights within the framework of Islam. She joined the Malaysian women’s rights movement in 1999 to address issues regarding violence against women. This exposed her to the challenges Muslim women face to have their rights recognized and exercised in the context of Islamisation within a democratic nation with parallel legal systems. She observes that while gender, ethnic, and religious diversities are acknowledged and sometimes celebrated in society, their rights as Malaysian citizens or as human beings generally are still strongly negated at different levels of policies, laws and practices. Before taking up SIS’ helm, Rozana worked in various national, regional, and international women’s rights organizations.
Theology According to Anwar, SIS' work is based on the ‘lived realities’ of Muslim women: “For most Muslim women… rejecting religion is not an option… and as believers [they] want to find libration, truth, and justice from within [their] own faith.” SIS operates on the idea that Islam is enough to find the “absolute moral and spiritual equality of women and men,” reflected in the changes over time in their theological approaches to the text.
First, SIS looked to the Quran to improve their legal understanding of Islamic legal code, starting with “iqraq (‘read,’ the first word revealed to the Prophet Muhammad…).”Nouraie-Simone, F. (2005). On shifting ground : Muslim women in the global era. Feminist Press at the City University of New York. Anwar described how shariah law on polygamy in Malaysia was based on Surah an-Nisa (4:3) which says Muslim men can marry two to four women to care for them if they are orphaned, generally understood to mean that they are single, widowed, or lack financial support from male figures in their life. However, SIS points out that the proceeding verse (4:2) reads “if you fear you shall not be able to deal justly with [the] women, then marry only one… this will be best for you to prevent you from doing injustice.” This manner of literally reading and interpreting Islamic text revealed to founders like Anwar that key verses had been only partially interpreted or intentionally left out from legal code to oppress women. From this, SIS derived that polygamy should be conditional and not a guaranteed right of Muslim men, nor did the Quran actually promote monogamy.
Dr. Amina Wadud later introduced an hermeneutical approach to SIS. At the time of their founding, Wadud was a mufassira and professor in the Department of Revealed Knowledge and Comparative Religion at the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur. The group examined the language of the text and its syntactical and grammatical structure, and it looked at the text as a whole to understand its worldview. This combined methodology allowed an exciting interface to emerge between theology and interpretation on one hand, and daily realities of Muslim women within the contemporary socio-legal context on the other. Through this approach, SIS argued that moral values they found in their contextual examination of the Quran were “ universal and eternal and…serve as [their] guide, rather than the cultural and historical specificities of seventh-century Arabia.” From this, SIS argues that polygamy was only justifiable under those specific historical conditions which are no longer relevant as women were now able to own property and care for themselves. Similarly, SIS tackled mandatory rulings on veiling for Muslim women, found in Surah al-Ahzab: “O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad); that is most convenient, that they be known (as such) and not molested.” SIS argues that “at the time women on the roads were assumed to be slaves and thus could be harassed…”Majid, L. A., & Nayan, S. (2021). Ratio-Legal Fazlur Rahman’s Hermeneutics and Its Influence on Sisters-In-Islam. Jurnal Living Hadis, 6(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.14421/livinghadis.2021.2648 SIS also argues that Surah an-Nur which asks women to cover their hair and body to dress piously was because “ at that time [women wore dresses that had a deep cleavage which exposed their breasts…So, what al-Quran suggest is to dress modestly but not as a specific dress code.”
Underlying these activities was the firm belief that, as a concerned group working towards a better society, SIS could not isolate itself from the larger human rights and democratic movements in the country and the world. SIS began to engage with the constitutional framework of Malaysia and other democratic nations, studied international treaties like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and began networking with female Muslim activists in the region and the Middle East. From 2003-2006, SIS arranged international meetings, educational courses, and workshops on constitutional reform and women's rights with international activists, sending educational materials and engaging in discussion with Muslim women around the world. In 2003, the organization held its first international meeting in Bellagio, Italy, bringing together Muslim women from Southeast Asia, Iran, Turkey, and the Middle East to discuss political Islam and women’s rights, sparking the beginnings of Musawah.
Activities SIS areas of work have expanded to encompass larger issues of democracy, human rights and constitutionalism, as well as urging the observance of human rights principles and international treaties and conventions signed by the Malaysian Government. They conduct advocacy through three (3) main avenues: legal consultation, legal reform advocacy, and education.
SIS provides free legal consultation through its clinic, Telenisa, founded in 2003. Its mission is to provide legal help and consultation “in matters related to issues related to Shariah Islamic Family Law such as divorce, polygamy, alimony of wife and children, matrimonial property and others.” Since its founding, it has served over 10,000 clients, predominantly Malaysian Muslim women, but also men and overseas clients. With their origins in legal interpretation, they educate women on their rights according to the Constitution, provide psychological counseling to women suffering from domestic violence, and also serve as legal representatives in court.