Tag: women

While the Moroccan program to train female Islamic scholars and spiritual guides (called 'mourshidat') is laudable and admirable, it is far from the revolutionary step that the BBC claims it is. The BBC article states that the mourshidat are the "first women ever" to perform all the functions of male imams aside from leading prayer. This is patently false. There have been female sheikhs since there has been Islam, and some of Islam's greatest thinkers, including Ibn 'Arabi, studied under women. In my interview with Mufti Ali Gomaa, he pointed out that the Sufi mujtahid Al Jeeli learned hadith from no less than fifty female sheikhs.

Last year I interviewed Sheikha Sanaa Dewidar for the Canada National Post. She gave some fascinating insights into the spiritual potential of women and the role of female spiritual leaders in Islam. Sheikha Sanaa has over 150 disciples--both male and female--spread across two countries. Married at 17, a mother at 18, and called to a path of spiritual mentorship and discipline shortly after, Sheikha Sanaa is a deeply traditional woman who represents an established history of female leadership, not a modern innovation. 

While I am glad that a program to educate Muslim women and endow them with authority has earned the support and interest of the BBC, I really wish they had done their homework before making such a sweeping statement. You don't need to tear down history in order to honor the present. 

It was an unremarkable village, the only thing different about it was that it was surrounded by mountains on three sides so that its main connection to the outside world was a pass. It was somewhat far from other centers of population, so for the purpose of this story it does not matter when this story took place, it could have taken place today, yesterday, a year ago, five years ago, a hundred or even five hundred years ago. The location is also of no consequence.

On that fateful day Fatima, the daughter of a poor farmer, got separated from the rest of her group while coming back from the fields. While trying to find her way back to the village she came across a group of men who had less than noble intentions. She cried for help and struggled but there is no person who could help her. After desecrating her body the men left her for dead. After many hours of searching her father and the village folk came across her and took her back. Fatima and her family were traumatized, but not completely broken even though people were saying 'things' and pointing fingers at her. She knew who were assailants were - the powerful and the influential in the community but she had faith in justice. The case was presented before the judge, the accused of course feigned ignorance and innocence. The qadi (judge) declared that Fatima should produce four witnesses otherwise the court has no doubt that she was involved in adultery and the society must be cleaned of her abominable presence. As expected, the two aggressors were set free by the qadi. Fatima insisted that this law was unislamic and that they were twisting the laws for their own benefit but her voice fell on deaf years.

Fatima was thus condemned to death by the court and abandoned by her family since it was now clear to everyone that she had dishonored her family and there is no other way for them to reclaim their honor. The next day she was brought to the main square to be stoned. She expected justice from men but men are imperfect and often times their justice is also imperfect. Dejected and wronged by her people Fatima turned to God, the only one who can deliver perfect justice and so right before breathing her last she asked God if the perpetrators of this crime would face the same humiliation that she had to face so that in the future men will think a million times before even thinking about desecrating a woman.

In a move that will stun the Muslim world, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt and one of the highest-ranking Sunni authorities, has said that hymen reconstruction surgery for women who have lost their virginity before marriage is halal (permissible) and that a man has no right to demand proof of a woman's virginity if he cannot provide proof of his own. In addition, the fatwa states that a woman who has had sex before marriage but has sincerely repented is under no obligation to inform her husband of her sexual status. 

The Daily Star has the full story.

This is brilliant: "It is not rational for us to think that God has placed a sign to indicate the virginity of women without having a similar sign to indicate the virginity of men," Gomaa says. (My emphasis.) For those who claim that logic is out of vogue in the corridors of Muslim power, prepare to revise. As far as I know, this is the first fatwa from a sheikh of this rank that declares the hymen an illegitimate 'sign' of virginity. Since the hymen of an active girl is often worn away by the time she reaches a marriageable age, this bodes well for millions of Muslim women around the world. Finally, reality-based physiology from the clerical class. 

The fatwa has been seconded by Azharite scholar Sheikh Khaled El Gindy, who, when challenged about 'traditional beliefs' which hold that a woman's virginity is sacrosanct while a man's is not, said "Islam does not care for the feelings of ignorant people, just as the law does not protect the idiots."

What is remarkable about this fatwa is that while it accepts the underground hymen-surgery racket, it does not endorse it; it considers the practice acceptable only because it protects a woman from potential violence. The real meat of the fatwa is in its de-emphasis of the need for proof of virginity--and in a region of the world where a woman is not considered a virgin unless she bleeds on her wedding night, this is a serious blow to entrenched un-Islamic misogynistic cultural practices.

In an interesting side-note, the hymen is mentioned nowhere in the Qur'an or the two commonly accepted books of hadith. Not once. The word for 'virgin' in Arabic--bikr--means simply 'unmarried woman'.  

Today is a very good day for women's rights in Islam. Alfa shokran, Sheikh Gomaa and Sheikh Gindy. 

Related: Azhar outlaws female circumcision. 

The Pakistani government seems to be capitalizing on the momentum created by the recent reforms in its Zina Ordinance. The National Assembly has now begun work on The Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Bill, which bans six practices, namely 1) depriving women of their property rights, 2) vani (marrying girls off to settle blood feuds), 3) forced marriage, 4) divorce by pronouncing it three times in one sitting, 5) marrying women to the Quran and 6) watta satta (exchange marriages).

The most interesting provision for me is this - the bill says that husbands who bring charges of adultery against their wives, but cannot prove it, will face charges of slander. I'm curious about what kind of punishment those charges entail. I am even more interested in the part that says that in such cases, the wives would have the right to initiate divorce proceedings. Since women do not have the unilateral right to divorce in Islam, I wonder how such divorce proceedings would work.

These bills are so necessary and no doubt a result of some hard fought political and ideological battles. But they will not have an effect on the ground until and unless the victims feel safe enough to vindicate the rights given under these laws. And that security will not come unless the everyday man's attitude towards women changes, when she is not looked upon as an chattel or object to be exchanged (in the case of vani or watta satta) or be disposed off (in the case of uttering "divorce" three times in one sitting).

Grassroots efforts to reform these attitudes need to be undertaken not just by NGOs or social groups, but especially by the local Imams and religious leaders, who have more sway with the man on the street than all the NGOs in the world combined. After all, it was a local Imam that condemned Mukharan Bibi's rape and encouraged her to come forward with her story and file charges. A few more like him, and these laws will truly become powerful weapons against men who oppress the very women whose honor they claim to uphold.

Especially among Muslim women. Thus, DC Muslims are creating a Muslim Women's Shelter. Via Tariq:

The project of a Muslim Women’s shelter has already been initiated by Asma Hanif, the owner of the Muslimat An-Nisaa, a holistic health and wellness center for the Muslim woman. Baitul An-Nisaa is an attempt of the Muslimat An-Nisaa to address the problem of homelessness within the Muslim community.

Hanif has compiled a comprehensive proposal which outlines every minor to major detail of her vision of a “safe haven” for the Muslim woman. Hanif has the plan, but she needs the funding. She has compiled an extensive amount of research on homelessness in the Baltimore Area and put together a proposal on how the Baitul An-Nisaa will be operated.

Make checks payable:

Muslimaat An-Nisaa | PO Box 31529, Gwynn Oak, MD 21027

Here the spearhead of this initiative leaves a painful message reminding how many of these women are often preyed upon by charlatan "brothers."

I recommend Sister Hanif also contact the local chapter of CAIR -- which just happens to be CAIR National -- and seeing if they got any money.

Also, I'd personally like to see the "comprehensive" proposal on a website somewhere so we can link to that as well. 

Sometimes a picture is not worth a thousand words; sometimes a thousand words are necessary to explain a picture. This one, which ran in the January 28 edition of the New York Times, needs at least that many, and what I will say will merely scratch the surface. 

I was alerted to this picture by my wonderful mother, who, like many non-Muslim friends and family who have spent any  length of time with me in the Middle East, now delights in opening up a magazine or newspaper and being able to read between the lines of reportage dealing with the Muslim world. I get a constant trickle of links to articles or pictures like this one, from colleagues and friends turned citizen journalists, with surprisingly astute commentary on aspects of a certain situation or idea that the writer of the article has missed. It gives me a boost of optimism; if ordinary people are this excited to understand what previously confused or frightened them, there's still hope left. A lot of hope.

What my mother understood, looking at this picture, was the following: while a girl in a headscarf looking at a display of lingerie is meant to appear as a contradiction (the accompanying article suggests that the increase in veiling in Egypt is a social and religiously cosmetic phenomenon), it isn't. Why? Because the hijab is not interchangeable with a nun's habit. It is not a western symbol, and cannot and must not be interpreted through a western social lens.