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Woman between the honouring of Islam and the humiliation of Jaahiliyyah
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dalia*: [QB] [qb] RESCUE US FROM THIS TOWN: CONFRONTING THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN IN MUSLIM SOCIETY[/qb] By Shabana Mir We often tell ourselves, “why rock the boat on the issue of empowering women when XYZ political issue is obviously far more important?" Well, now it's clear that this isn't a minor issue after all. As the recent MWU! coverage of the recent conference on AIDS that took place in Malaysia indicates, it's a life and death matter. My purpose here isn’t to establish an individual as the ultimate authority on Islam. We are all free to agree or disagree with Dr. Amina Wadud. And when we discuss Islam, we are essentially “trying” to reach the Truth. As such, humility and courtesy are necessary guiding factors in any dialogue about these matters. What is also essential is a seeking of the betterment of God's servants. So seeking to improve the plight of women is a religious endeavor, not just a secular, anti-religious one. Strange, is it not, that “women’s rights” has become a dirty phrase in the world of Islamist discourse. There are too many unfortunate realities in Muslim communities and countries. It’s time to overcome our fear of facing those realities, and it’s time to work to change those realities. That work isn't only about getting men jobs and getting people to pray and fast more. A lot of that work is very uncomfortable work, which entails us feeling guilty, angry, and ashamed about our larger Muslim family. None of us wants to see our family behave in cruel, bad, and shameful ways. Most of us will react with disbelief if we are told that our family members have behaved in these ways. But in order to correct them, we must face up to their actions. In Pakistan and many other Muslim countries, for example, it is commonly believed, and not just by uneducated people, that a husband is a wife's 'majazi khuda'—that he is her ‘god’ in a sense. Reported sayings of the Prophet like "If a man calls his wife to his bed and she refuses and he spends the night angry at her, the angels curse her until the morning" and "If I were to order anyone to prostrate himself before another, I would order a woman to prostrate herself before her husband" are famous, more famous than many of the other traditions contained in the canonical Hadith collections. This tells you something about the reality of patriarchal Muslim societies and the way religiosity can easily play into the hands of power. This isn't something that will change easily, because the truth is, too many Muslims are invested in a belief in the superiority and the authority of men over women. Generally, this belief is part of the socialization process of Muslim children. Muslim men all over the world are the ones who receive religious education; religious seminaries (jami'ahs and madrasas) are generally open only to men. And the religious seminaries, incidentally, don’t attract the most educated men. The most educated males enter high-status professions such as the civil service, medicine, engineering, etc. So when the maulvi or the mullah tells the man he is supposed to be dominant over women, and he tells the woman she must obey and please her husband in all matters, we don't have to be overly imaginative to know what the results will be. There are no women “mullahs” or--perish the thought--progressive mullahs, to suggest that there might be exceptions to the tradition admonishing wives against disobeying a husband’s desire for sexual relations, such as a husband being promiscuous, or being infected with a sexually transmitted disease, etc. And since most young girls at marriage are desperately unaware of sex and their bodies, marriage ends up becoming a form of rape to far too many of them. “Respectable girls are innocent” said my friend’s mother. So what do you think is going to happen with girls who have grown up with the necessity of obedience drilled into them from birth? Who have grown up with constraints upon their movements, their speech, their thoughts? Who have grown up with guilt about their bodies? When she gets married, and if her husband is promiscuous, it's easy for us North Americans to legalistically claim that a woman can leave him if he isn't pious. All is still well in our jurisprudence. But the fact is, she usually has no means of supporting herself. Society (including her own family) abhors a divorced woman, and her children will be ruined. She's never been taught to see herself as an agent with the power to critically observe and evaluate things for herself. So all the authorities she has always looked to tell her she is duty bound -- as well as stuck -- with obeying her husband, whether he's over-sexed, promiscuous, bi-sexual, addicted to strange and unhealthy fetishes, or anything else you can think of. That’s exactly what happened in the case of one educated Pakistani middle-class woman I know, married to a doctor, with 3 children. Her husband became romantically involved with a female colleague. The “religious” (Islamist) and educated in-laws all stood by the man. When she refused to stand by powerlessly, they supported his beating of her, for after all, she was disobedient to him. When she took a taxicab to visit him at work, all the in-laws threw a fit about her leaving the house. When she dared expressed her anger about his involvement, he beat her, and his purdah-observing “religious” sister supported him: “If you cuss him, what’ll he do? Of course he’ll hit you!” The husband's sexuality was not questioned; her actions were blamed. Generally his promiscuity or unfaithfulness may be blamed upon his wife (did she make herself adequately available to him? How does she behave?). The tahajjud-praying mother-in-law of the woman blamed her for the man's waywardness and told her it was her responsibility to fix the situation. She must make the best of a bad situation by complete compliance, or she will be blamed for all of his actions. Easy for us to say a woman can work, make a new life for herself, support her children. This woman could not support herself because she couldn’t make enough money school-teaching. She lacked societal support for her “rebellion.” Everyone wanted to blame her, to prove that she would never be able to make it. No one wanted to marry her and take another man’s children in (children are very much a “man’s children” in patriarchal societies). The ex-husband, on the other hand, quickly married a far younger woman. The children suffered the consequences of being practically fatherless. No alimony or child support materialized. Not until the woman re-married and handed over the children to the father was she given societal approval. She lives the dilemma of a torn woman today, trying to be a good wife to her second husband and yearning to see her children. The father and the stepmother do not allow her letters to go through to them, or their letters to go to her. She calls; they hang up. When she protests to “family elders,” they tell her she should be patient. This is a very typical story of a middle class educated woman from a respected family. There are thousands and thousands of stories that are far worse. Those of working class illiterate women are far worse. So while we can talk legalistically about whether a wife is obliged to obey a promiscuous husband, the reality of Muslim societies is that she must obey him. She must comply with his demands, and if she does not, she receives no support from anyone. When the Pakistani woman I speak of so much as prayed istikhara to decide what to do, the “religious” in-laws threw a fit when they found out and cut her off from communicating with her family. When they discovered she had consulted a lawyer, they locked the front gate. In Pakistan, you cannot counter such measures unless you are sure you are willing to take drastic action. Unfortunately, maybe the only support she receives -- if she is lucky -- is from secular feminist lawyers because they are willing to speak the truth about the injustice that is being committed, and to rock the boat. So all those utopian ideas about how “Islam” in theory will protect an obedient wife, and how “practicing” Muslims will defend the “righteous one”, and that men are responsible for women and good men will do good by women, otherwise it’s their fault,--do not benefit any women out there today who will contract AIDS or who will be beaten to death or who will be raped with a stick. Those who have religious knowledge generally support the man because he is relatively powerful. They are usually men too, after all, and it is to their advantage to maintain the status quo. (Women who have some religious knowledge or status know that their status lies in supporting the status quo too). The religion has been hijacked because these practices are not rare ones -- they are epidemics in Muslim communities and societies. Even the protest against this hijacking has been hijacked and “kafir-ized”, and labeled “secular”, “irreligious”, “anti-Islamic”, and “feminist.” It's impossible to stand by and be silent. If we allow the hijackers to be the authorities on Islam, we are allowing them to continue with their violence and their sanctioning of violence. And if they continue to be the authorities, we no longer have the right to explain away the prevailing beliefs in majazi khuda, unconditional sexual compliance, and wife beating in case of “disobedience.” Conscientious Muslims can’t just engage in theoretical discussions at Sunday morning interfaith meetings and claim that they’re on the side of peace and justice and equality. We have to confront power. And that's uncomfortable, messy, nasty stuff that embroils us in rhetorical battles. It makes me anxious and extremely uncomfortable! But I also feel good about speaking out -- here in the comfort of my North American home, far away from the realities I'm talking about, the realities you and I have escaped. But sometimes it seems so meaningless to get into verbal arguments about these things, when millions of women are suffering silently. I'm reminded of a verse regarding jihad: “How can you not fight in the cause of God and of the oppressed men, women, and children, who call out: ‘Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from your presence one who will protect; and raise for us from your presence one who will help!’" (Qur’an 4:75) [URL=http://www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2003/06/rescue_us_from.php]www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2003/06/rescue_us_from.php[/URL] [/QB][/QUOTE]
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