Parliament committee to look into case accusing Sheikh Ilyas of making misleading statements

Parliamentary committee reviewing the Penal Code Bill has raised concerns alleging that Adhaalath Party’s Scholar's Wing President Sheikh Ilyas Hussain has spoken misleading statements during a sermon, saying that the current draft of the Penal Code Bill allows consensual sex outside marriage.

The issue was brought to the committee’s attention by its member, Thulhaadhoo MP Nazim Rashaad. He has asked the committee to investigate the case.

The sermon was given by Sheikh Ilyas Hussain after Isha prayers last Friday. Themed “the purpose of Islamic Sharia”, the sermon was broadcast live on a local radio station "Radio Atoll". The committee decided to write to “Radio Atoll” to provide them with a copy of the sermon.

The committee’s chairman Bileidhoo MP Ahmed Hamza said that the committee will commence investigations once they recieve a recording of the sermon.

Speaking at the committee meeting, MP Nazim Rashaad had refuted Sheikh Ilyas’s statements, saying that Article 130 of the Penal Code Bill states that taking part in a sexual act without the consent of the other partner as a crime, and that context of the article is to criminalize rape.

He said that Ilyas had made his own interpretation of the article, as he had gone on to say that the article implied that a person who commits a sexual act with the consent of the partner is not criminalized in the bill. Nazim said that Ilyas's statement was simply untrue and that a person of Sheikh Illyas’s stature should not make such misleading statements.

Stressing the context of the sexual offences stated in the Penal Code Bill, MP Nazim Rashaad said that Article 144 of the bill criminalizes fornication and that it does permit consensual sex. He said that Ilyas made his statements without a proper understanding of the bill and that his statements were a deliberate act to mislead the public.

“Without proper research of the bill, they keep commenting on it in public, deliberately. To create animosity between the public and the parliament, and the members of this committee,” Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Parliamentary Group Member MP Nazim Rashaad said.

Committee member MP Abdul Azeez Jamaal Aboobakuru said that he does not believe that statements by the religious scholars are a deliberate attempt to create chaos, but said that they are statements without proper forethought and understanding. He said that their statements are a result of the narrowness of the knowledge they had received.