Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (11 page)

What’s in a Name?
39

emanates from within the person out into the realm of actions. Although the semantic word
taqwa
was used before the Qur’anic revelation, it is in the Qur’an that it gains a certain religious meaning and moral implication, and according to Fazlur Rahman is “perhaps the most important single term in the Qur’an.”
49

While it is most often simply translated as “piety,” I define
taqwa
as moral consciousness in the trustee of Allah. It is the motivating instinct to per- form all actions as though they are transparent. The Qur’an grants free will to an agent as part of the greatest paradox in the divine–human relationship. The idea of responsibility or accountability reinforces this relationship be- tween Allah’s absolute sovereignty and absolute freedom of an agent to choose how to act. Ultimately, the agent is held accountable for all choices made.

To embrace the responsibility of agency means knowing that one is completely free to choose. Instead of deferring to escapism, leaving every- thing a consequence of Allah’s sovereignty, the agent accepts a dynamic partnership between Allah’s will and his or her choice as agent whether to follow that will or not. That is why Islam, as engaged surrender, reflects both the conscious choice to accept or reject one’s surrender – a choice not granted to all of creation. The Qur’an is replete with messages that encourage the agent to exercise responsibility in making choices and performing actions that demonstrate the power to choose, and the wisdom and guidance to make those choices reflect surrender to Allah’s will also elaborated in the text. According to the Qur’an, however, all choices have consequences.

Since Allah is the ultimate Judge, and Allah is always watching, there should be no double standard whereby one chooses to commit an act only under the condition that it is not witnessed by another human being. Rather, one acts within moral constraints by one’s own volition. One’s actions are always under judgment. Islamic metaphysics reflects constant awareness of the omniscience of Allah. Allah sees the outward deed as also judged by
shari‘ah
,
but Allah also knows and will judge by the innermost secrets of the heart. Domestic violence research, for example, documents the increased rate of abuse in those circumstances when the abuse is unknown to anyone except the perpetrator and the victim. The victim is often silenced by the threat of further violence should the secret be revealed and by the cultural support of the idea that the domestic domain is the private realm of male dominance where women must obey. Such a dis- advantage results from the split between personal Islamic identity and forces of institutional and political Islamic policy. Without comprehensive

40 inside the gender jihad

(i.e. female-inclusive) Islamic moral policies, Muslim women are continu- ously exposed to abuse but forced to comply by circumstances that justify their silence.
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At the spiritual level,
taqwa
establishes moral character based in personal and social practice that reflect moral self-constraint and self- sacrifice. Moral self-constraint forms the foundation of all human inter- actions, inclusive of the family and extended to public policy. Human civilization benefits from our romantic ideals about “family,” no matter how crucial it is as the cornerstone of society and community life. Critical analysis of the basic oppressive nature of the patriarchal family structure, past and present, is not always integrated into discourse over policy reform. Yet, not surprisingly, gender disparity occurs first within the family. Women are oppressed
by those who love them
: their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons who enjoy the fruits of their labor without acknowledging the full extent of that labor as a set of moral and volitional acts performed through

the graciousness of female agency with indispensable moral impact on the well-being of society.
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This idea of the oppressed Muslim woman, mostly often characterized as the norm by Western media, is also the principal motivation for struggling in the gender
jihad
. Muslim family life is acculturated by ideas that encourage the performance of
taqwa
in women and in the raising of girls. But according to
shari‘ah
women are not full, autonomous, and indepen- dent agents in the family. They are only a facility to its wholeness and well-being. They are taught to sacrifice or develop personal interests to the higher goal of family well-being. Meanwhile men and sons are encouraged to develop ideas of manhood as unlimited empowerment. Therefore, sons are raised to fulfill the view of themselves as masters, providers, and protectors in the family. Such characteristics of manhood minimize the ideals of deference to women, women’s services, to children, and even

among themselves,

but this deference is not equally emphasized in the

development of manhood. Instead, autonomy and independence are woven into the ideas about their Islamic responsibility as leaders in both the public and the private domain. Occasionally
taqwa
for men might be referred to through the rhetoric of a Friday
khutbah
(
sermon) or in community discus-

sions. It remains disconnected from fundamental or intimate

family

relationships of genuine spousal reciprocity since its discussion remains locked within the rhetorical double-talk and the language of complement- arity. Furthermore, the domestic parameters of
taqwa
are never essentially integrated as a basis for public policy. The purpose of public policy has been

What’s in a Name?
41

the power of men in the male public space. Women and women’s organiza- tions increasingly raise issues of the domestic realm and the politics of family as a mandatory part of public policy. Therefore an epistemological schism forms, which restricts the dynamic incorporation of
taqwa
from its comprehensive contribution to the building of public policies and for its private establishment within men as fundamental to a truly just social order.
Taqwa
is one of those few principal theoretical ideals or concepts outlined here as part of the foundation of a paradigm shift in the movement to attain social justice in the context of today’s Muslim communities. As I mentioned above, my first inspiration to consider these ideas from the Qur’anic worldview was Rahman’s insistence that the purpose of the

Qur’an was to establish a just social order.
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As a conceptual ideal the word

taqwa
continuously surfaces in confessional discourse. Here I draw directly from female inclusive readings of their fundamental Qur’anic origin in order to mainstream women’s voices into political reforms.

Therefore these articulations are premised upon some of the inter- relations between previously existing themes and principles such as
tawhid
(the unicity of God),
khalifah
(moral agent), and
taqwa
intentionally recon- structed to build more gender-inclusive understanding of human nature and to effect changes in laws and governance on behalf of Muslim women’s mainstreaming in “Islam.”
Taqwa
is essential to the moral attitude of the agent as an individual as well as a member of society since it assists in activating the
tawhidic
principle, both as a matter of personal practice and as the basis for extensive Islamic legal reform. Injustice is a sign of neglecting these concepts. Muslim women have been victims of such injustice in their homes, in Islamic cultural practices, and in public policies, in various ways in modernity as the idea of empire is transformed into that of nation-state.

Despite the utility of these social justice aspects of
tawhid
and
khalifah
, I reiterate that theory alone will not suffice to bring an end to patriarchy and gender asymmetry. There is a crucial interplay between belief in certain ideas and the practical implementation of gender justice in the context of the present global circumstances. This book will address this further in various ways since the relationships between theory and practice, and between Islamic ideas, ideals, goals, and the historical development of
shari‘ah
, all bear some effect on efforts to construct gender-equal Islamic reforms.

42 inside the gender jihad

Justice and Human Dignity

I further developed my ideas about the importance of considering the implications and significance of underlying ideas about human nature as related to the politics of gender theory and reform when I read Alison Jaggar’s groundbreaking book,
Feminist Politics and Human Nature
.
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One objective of her book was to highlight the underlying philosophical ideas about human nature elemental to four major types of feminisms. From there I compared various ideas about the meaning of human nature in Islamic discourse, as described above, the term
khalifah
providing the irrefutable genesis to Muslim historical thought and practices – especially as eventually canonized in legal codes for over a thousand years. The idea of
khalifah
regarding gender issues was related to the formation of public policies. Islamic ideas of humanity are integrally connected to the mutuality of the Allah–
khalifah
relationship and are meant to determine people’s actions, public and private. Although we accept that Allah is the ultimate judge of human actions, because only Allah knows the full cosmic, existential, and practical implications of all our actions, our intentions must continuously correspond to the call of our
din
as active agents fulfilling those intentions. Every principle underlying the context of building a living community committed to certain actions is articulated fundamentally in the Qur’an. The Qur’anic articulations are often specific to the time and circumstances of its revelation. Particularities are even more evident in the
sunnah
of the Prophet. He was the exemplar par excellence
under the specific circumstances of his community
. The fundamental principles, however, must be continuously re-evaluated from the perspective of the time of their specific embodiment throughout the challenges, changes, and limitations of history. Understanding and implementing the fundamental values were fine-tuned relative to their coherence to the circumstances and

actual dictates of human life.
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One aspect of evaluating values and principles is based upon their purpose or intended results.

Most importantly, justice is one value that is both universal in principle and relative to its manifestation in time and space. Drawing a coherent line between the universal and the relative is the place where living communities must be in continual dialogue. Legal codes are major considerations to human polity, governance, and social order. But no single set of legal codes could ever be expected to sustain or support the universal purpose of justice given the complex developments and constant change in human life. The past few centuries have stimulated human knowledge, with concern for both the inner human constitution and well-being and the many external

What’s in a Name?
43

areas of industry, technology, medicine, psychology, economics, militarism, biology, and globalism, which have developed at a mind-boggling and still increasing rate. For sustainable justice, these external areas of change require sincere and sensitive consideration of their moral impact on the totality of what it means to be human. Measuring current results by poverty and consumption alone indicates staggering disparities
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that are actually within our global means to help eradicate. The problem seems to be the absence of the internal human will to introduce the means for eradicating these disparities. At one time it seemed we could simply refer to the world’s religious leadership for inspiration along these lines. But religion has largely become victim to mere formal dogmas and creeds with little continued

connection to the grand human spirit beyond solely personal

terms, as

unintegrated and inactive in genuine terms of saving the whole of humanity and the whole human person as it is of saving itself. Simultaneously, organizations formed to articulate and activate these religions into playing a more ecumenical role in issues of poverty, disarmament, family, and global conflict are constrained by their determinations of what is necessary to respect the integrity of each particular religion’s dogmas and creeds, however diverse, while challenging issues of moral disintegration. Ecumen- ical discourse tends to accept the established status quo within the other traditions. In this way, it achieves the goal of mutual discussion, but fails miserably on how mutually to enhance the overall ethical grounding of living religious traditions and the catastrophe this world has become.

Joan C. Tronto
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raises valuable and inspirational ideas about politically

incorporating the voluntary moral contributions of nurturance and care – historically and currently performed primarily by women in the private sector. In the Muslim world, these contributions, especially their voluntary nature, are used to define and confine women’s identities relative only in

terms of

families. They are never looked at as detailed aspects of moral

agency indispensable to human well-being and equally available for men and women to practice or implement. Tronto considers them transform- ative aspects of policy and governance even so far as to define the citizen as a care-worker. This removes the private and often privileged access that mostly male wage earners have to support networks integral to developing human well-being. As so deftly explained by Terri Apter, “Men often do get, when they marry, a partner who looks after their domestic needs, cares for their children, accommodates their changing occupational needs, and puts family responsibilities first and foremost. The ‘woman behind the man’ is the wife who takes care of everything else, so the man can concentrate on