Islamic Feminism
Opium of Islamic Feminism shaking the Foundations of Muslim Homes
Fatimah Bint Muhammad
With the egalitarian understanding of gender equality entering our bedrooms, the concept of ‘Islamic feminism’ has fundamentally shaken the foundations of our homes. To begin with, the discussion doesn’t require statistical data on the injustices unleashed on women, the genuine problems of women today, the trampling of their rights or whether sections of women need liberation; if we look around, we observe that though stats are skewed towards the fairer sex, men and kids too are thrown into the burning cauldron of injustice and struggle.
A groundswell of
feminist sentiment has gained momentum in the Muslim households to reclaim the
‘equality’, mentioned in the Holy Qur’an! The goal of the ‘Islamic feminists’
is to reinterpret the Qur’an in the light of liberal/feminist values, and not
in accordance with what Allah SWT has revealed for them.
Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), founded by Zakia Soman in 2011, is one
such body. An autonomous, secular, rights-based mass organization fights for
the citizenship rights of the Muslim women in India. BMMA conducted a Study of
Muslim women’s views on reforms in Muslim personal law— 'Seeking Justice Within
the Family' across 10 states that revealed that a large percentage of muslim
women had no property in their name and no independent income of their own.
She has been a vocal advocate for reform of Muslim personal laws (dealing with
marriage, divorce, inheritance etc) to ensure gender justice — emphasising that
faith and women’s rights are not mutually exclusive.
Noorjehan Safia Niaz,
co-founder of BMMA does not support practices such as the hijab; she is
a vocal critic of practices like polygamy, unilateral divorce (triple talaq),
and unequal gender treatment under personal law — aiming to reform them for
gender justice.
Her work exemplifies
“Islamic feminism”: advocating equality and justice from within a Muslim
cultural and religious framework.
Another on the list is Jamida
Beevi, first Muslim woman in India to lead a mixed-gender Friday
congregational prayer. Her act challenged traditional gender norms in religious
practice, showing that women can exercise religious authority as well. She is
the General Secretary of Quran Sunnat Society. She believes that the Qur’an is
Allah’s sole bequest to humans and no other book needs to be followed. The
Qur’an has the capacity to reflect and absorb changes in society over time.
Everything else like the Hadiths were written long after the Prophet's death!
Nigar Fatima Haider,
a legal scholar, writes on Muslim women’s rights, reform in Muslim Personal
Law, and gender-sensitive interpretation of Islamic texts. She supports
ijtihad-based reinterpretation of scripture to ensure fairness, dignity, and
legal protection for women.
There is a long list of
women past and contemporary who share the same musings like Shah Bano, Rana Safvi, Hasina Khan etc.
BMMA is an Indian
version of Musawah (working in the West) which describes itself as ‘a global
movement for equality and justice in Muslim families,’
They claim for themselves the right to shape the interpretations, norms and
laws that affect their lives. Musawah undertook to reform the concepts of qiwamah
and wilayah, which are commonly understood as sanctioning men’s
authority over women.
According to Amina Wadud, a self-proclaimed scholar, an Islamic feminist
renowned with a focus on Islam, justice, gender and sexuality, “the influence
of patriarchy on interpretation of the Qur’an and the practices of Muslims has
restricted realization of the Qur’anic message of equality and justice.”
The women associated with Musawah, believe in ‘anti-patriarchal reading of the Qur’an,’ thus
challenging centuries of male-dominated exegesis.
Asma Barlas is a Pakistani-American writer and academic. Her
specialties include comparative and international politics, Islam and Qur'anic
hermeneutics, and women's studies says,
“to read the Quran in her youth she was caught in a ‘seemingly irresolvable and
agonizing’ dilemma of how to reconcile this message with the verses that are
read by many Muslims as saying that men are better than women, their guardians;
that they have the right to ‘unfettered polygamy’ and to beat their wives?”
She believes in ‘anti-patriarchal reading of the Qur’an,’
thus challenging centuries of male-dominated exegesis. She openly states: “Many
of the more controversial aspects of Islam as practiced with regard to women
have their roots in hadith (tradition) rather than the Qur’an itself.”
Barlas believes that hadith shouldn’t be taken as a source
to deduce Shariah law, as it was compiled by humans, and thus is subjected to
human fallibility, ‘For a believer, the Qur’an is a divine discourse and the
hadith are not … Many people who are using the hadith are unhappy with the
egalitarianism of the Qur’an. Whatever the Qur’an opens, the hadith can shut
down.
They call for reformation of Islam within the Islamic
framework by combining the teachings of Quran with their personal yardsticks,
and feminist theories.
It amuses me to remind Barlas if she vehemently rejects hadith on the ground of
human fallibility, then what pleases her to find a solution to her feminine
fetishes in the Qur’an, which too was a revelation, memorized and compiled by
humans later? Just a quick recap, in case she forgot!
Like Jamida Beevi, Amina Wadud also led an intermixed
jumu’ah prayer… an apt case of make-believe in the ‘qatai’ Ahkaam, an
established fact not open to interpretations! Where is the question of finding
a solution to women’s problem within the ambit of Islam, if you go on altering
the laws of Allah SWT?
No wonder, feminists have always declared all things ‘intrinsically’ better
that’s done by men!! And then applies their rhetoric of equality over it!
It all drizzles down to one single
thing: they are not worried about comprehending Allah’s will or to follow the
commandments of Qur’an, but rather to validate their erroneous beliefs, and to
impose their flawed feminist ideals on others.
Knowingly or unknowingly, the corruption in thoughts have
affected even the nicest of brains within the Muslim household in India. And
they have reluctantly started to feel Islam treats women as second-grade
citizens. I have met many Muslim women in India, who have faith, who pray and
are literally good women, but on certain instances, when it comes to
husband-wife relationship, women issues and hijab, they feel uncomfortable with
the laws of Islam. They somehow feel Islam has been unfair to them.
Most of the educated women in India are obsessed with going
out to earn – they want to be independent. It’s their right! They want to bring
home a handsome salary like her husband and are not dependent on anyone for her
expenses, or permission to do anything. They feel equal, they feel liberated
and they feel dignified!
Have we ever wondered why women feel this way? And why are
they slowly but gradually buying the fake dreams they are being sold?
It would be unfair to blame only women. In the Indian
subcontinent there are compelling rationale behind this degeneration of
thought. Rome was not built in a day, neither are these feminist thoughts!
The absence of comprehensive implementation of the laws of
Islam has given way to two extremities –
1. The oppression of women
The traditional and oppressive treatment meted out to
homemakers, wives/mothers in the name of Islam has subjugated women for
decades. Despite injustice and disrespect, she was required to silently endure
every harm, every insult because obedience of husband in Islam is ‘fard!’ The
women are taught to be submissive, in order to save their marriage, or the
future of their children; ‘divorce’ is hardly an option in society. And the
so-called Islamic scholars also did nothing to address the issues and tried to
maintain the status quo. Of course, the more the women knew about their
rights in Islam, the more the problem for the men!!
And to get a fresh lease of air, the women started looking
outside, towards the West, the wave of feminism wooed them. They found a ray of
hope in ‘feminists’ – who they thought are living better lives. And thus, the
disaster struck.
2. The broken homes for
feminist ideals
Is the situation any better for feminists, who are
independent, and working? Nope, it doesn’t seem so. How can departure from
Allah SWT’s design bring peace and stability in the lives of women? When our
thoughts become individual - ‘me’ and ‘him’ instead of ‘ours’ it has in it
every potential for family destruction. Though women have money, are affluent enough
to purchase whatever they want, feminism has dragged women on edges of
loneliness, power struggle within family, and mental health issues. On top of
that, it is always women who have to bear the pressure of having it all! If
they choose to work – they have to juggle between work and home, thus adding to
their misery. Many women today come in front of the media only to complain how
they lost it all because of feminism! No stability in life, no partner, choice
of not having kids for most of their lives, have often rendered them childless.
This is against the fitrah of women.
Whether it’s feminists in general, or Islamic feminists,
they look at every problem facing women as gender based. It’s the advocates of
the liberation of women, who have contributed more towards razing the family
structures. Equality, as they view it in relation to men, leaves a number of
unanswered questions in the context of human relationships. Does this
‘equality’ seeped in individualism define how men and women would cooperate in
their roles and responsibilities in cohesion? How would this one-word assertion
be able to handle the disputes and organize the relationship that develops
inside a family? Who will be the arbitrator if things go wrong, with both
clinging to their ideals and beliefs?
Just imagine, how would the family that lays the foundation
of a healthy society be like – reduced to a mere set of individuals with no
knitting factor left?
This is exactly what’s happening with grossly inaccurate
understanding of power share between men and women – spiraling cases of
domestic violence, coining of the concept of marital rape, body autonomy (my
body, my choice), divorce and kids’ custody issues, adultery, psychological and
emotional abuse of men etc.
These liberators have only made the complexities worse!
How Islam liberates women
Allah SWT has honored men and women in their own distinct
nature, with both created to serve the same purpose of ibadah, to please Allah
SWT. Women and men are equal not in relation to each other, but in relation to
Allah SWT. Feminists have problems with a wife's obedience to her husband, and
how Islam views men a degree over women (men acting as qawwam)… but they never
question how the same Islam, which sees women as inferior raises mothers to a
rank that no man can ever achieve!! Has any man ever cried for it as how a
woman's stature can be so high that jannah lies under her feet? The problem
arises when we shift our gaze from Allah SWT to His creation. When instead of
enjoying our own share of good, we sneak and think, ‘his share’ is better!
Leave our own to rot and fight to have a bite from his share until we end up
losing both!
Allah SWT reminds us in
Surah Taha, verse 123-124, “Whoever follows My Guidance shall neither go
astray, nor fall into distress and misery. But whoever turns away from My
Reminder (That is, neither believes in the Qur’an nor acts on its orders)
verily, for him is a life of hardship, and We shall raise him up blind on the
Day of Resurrection.”
Muslim women don’t need the opium of
feminism… they need to wake up to Islam. Islam is sufficient for them. They
need to go back to the Quran, Sunnah and how the salaf women were. The solution
to our problem lies there, and in raising boys and girls with the teachings of
Islam, so when they grow up, they don’t trample each other’s rights, rather
live in tranquility and peace according to Islam.
Though I am not a big fan of the
Ottoman Caliphate, even in the residues of Islam, we get to see its beauty and
might.
An
observation made by Lady
Elizabeth Craven, 18th century travel writer, about the women of the
Ottoman Caliphate:“As to women, as many, if not more
than men, are to be seen in the streets [i.e. going about their daily
activities, etc] […] I think I never saw a country where women may enjoy so
much liberty, and free from all reproach, as in Turkey […] The Turks in their
conduct towards our sex are an example to all other nations; […] and I repeat
it, sir, I think no women have so much liberty, safe from apprehension, as the
Turkish – and I think them in their manner of living, capable of being the
happiest creatures breathing.”
And today Islam is nowhere to be seen. The Muslim countries
are not Islamic, neither do they mirror the values of Islam.
The oppression, and the problems of women are due to
secular-liberal values and not Islam. To obtain our rights, justice and honor,
we need to bring Islam back on the radar, for people to see its justice. Since
Islam is absent, and people are being oppressed everywhere, it’s out of
‘desperation’ that people are running after this mirage of feminism too…
