Islamic law aids tsunami widows

"The tsunami really opened our eyes," says Ibu Rosmawardani, a lawyer working with Yayasan Putroe Kandee, a social organization for women and children. "What people are doing now is not according to our Koran or the Hadiths [Islam's holiest books]," she says. "They just want to get money."

Hanisah Abdullah, the only female religious scholar on the Ulema Council, a grouping of Islamic scholars, says that the solution is to educate women and men about what the Koran really says about family law and women's rights.

"The people who put limitations on women don't really know much about the law," says Mrs. Hanisah. "If a woman and a man work together, they divide their property equally."

"We need to teach a new generation of ulema, send them to the villages, and teach people the law," says Hanisah. "But the problem is, we don't have the funding."

While sharia may be a more sympathetic system in regard to women's rights than the cultural behaviors of Aceh, sharia also has a dark side. This spring, in the town of Beureun, 20 men convicted of theft in sharia court were sentenced to public flogging - the first such punishment of its sort in recent memory. Such harshness, and inability to appeal decisions reached by religious courts, leaves many activists here wary of encouraging a revival of sharia.

And some women are reluctant to assert their rights for fear of damaging relations between families united by marriage.

Typical is the story of Hajjah Saidah. This 60-something grandmother is now raising her 8-year-old grandson, Mohammad Jaya, because the boy's entire family was wiped out in the tsunami.

By both national and Islamic law, young Mohammad Jaya is entitled to receive all the property of his parents, including the pension of his father, Muzakkir Rasyid, a government servant. But in the scramble for assets after the tsunami, Hajjah Saidah ended up with the grandson, and Rasyid's family ended up with his assets. Each month, they give 500,000 rupiahs ($102) - a fraction of his salary - to Hajjah Saidah for Mohammad's expenses, and they have promised the boy's grandmother to give the boy the pension once he reaches adulthood.

Hajjah Saidah is worried she may not live long enough to be sure they honor their promise.

"The family said they will give the boy his property when he grows up. If they give it, thank God. If they don't, well, I don't know what will happen then. That's what I worry about," she says. For this reason she is pressing her case, despite threats from her husband's family if she doesn't drop it.

"They just want me to follow what they say," she says. "But I think we should follow sharia."

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