Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (24 page)

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Pro-Faith, Pro-Feminist Movements

In the 1990s a pro-faith agenda was proposed among some Islamic groups and used as a force of strategic, yet radical, operational force for women’s organizations, research, and individual activism. The acquisition of this agenda is a recent move for Muslim women’s groups. Its distinctions are most simply articulated when juxtaposed to Islamist movements that advo- cate a return to pristine Islam, as if that would solve very complex modern problems, and to those Muslim women and collectives working from a feminist or pro-feminist perspective with standards set by the prevailing Western and secular feminist movement. I give some analysis of the histori- cal development, methodological approaches, and perspectives of one such pro-faith group in Malaysia, in which I became a core member in 1989, Sisters in Islam. Not allowed to use the word “Islam” for registration purposes, they registered in 1992 as an N.G.O., under the name “S.I.S. Forum (Malaysia)
Berhad
.” They retain “Sisters in Islam” for authorship purposes and all other forms of public recognition. I will contribute only a few comments about their tremendous record after registration, when my status as core member would change after I returned to the U.S.A.

The Pro-Faith Agenda

Without restriction to a particular religious affiliation, the pro-faith agenda for human rights has two main components:

1. Humanity is interconnected and the destiny of the planet depends on cooperation across ethnic, national, religious, or other boundaries. Such a connection necessarily operates by full validation of diverse religious, spiritual, and cultural backgrounds.
   

2. Commitment to the sacred as a transcendent or ultimate reality con- tributes significantly to the understanding of an ethical world order.
   

It is understandable that spiritual or religious motivations effectively mobilize human participation in sustaining that order. Paradoxically, it can act as a means for upholding the rights of all global inhabitants, or as an impetus to violate the rights of other faith orientations and interpretations, contrary to the perceived integrity of their particular faith. In its more positive modes of operation, this commitment can be expressed in terms particular to one religion as well as in more general terms of moral virtues and ethical principles like equality, justice, and freedom with a transcendent or sacred focal point. I refer to it here from the positive end of the existing

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paradox, without ignoring the pretense of using the same pro-faith perspective leading some to narrow exclusivism. Gender is one common denominator that has led to cross-fertilization and diverse collectivity over shared concerns in concert with the specifics of various women’s differ- ences, including faith perspectives. “Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the
I
to
be
, not in order to be used, but in order to be creative. This is the difference between the passive
be
and the active
being
.”
15

The process of articulating justice in Islam was offered first by Muslim male elites throughout Islamic history. However, since gender as a category

of thought

is a recent intellectual criterion, their perspective on full

humanity was based on the male person. The colonialist period introduced gender discourse to many third world countries, including Muslim nation states. For this reason, many Muslims still subscribe to the idea that gender is a western concept, external to Islam and inherently secular. Because of antagonism over the imperialism of the West, certain neo-conservatives and Islamists dismiss the need to consider gender as part of modern Islamic reform. The book
Tahrir al-Mar’ah
(Woman’s Freedom) by Qasim Amin
16
is still referred to by way of precedent, even as its perspective was aimed at “freeing” Muslim women from their own culture, including or especially from the components of those cultures that come from religion. Thus the impetus to remove religion from the human rights discourse has many arguments.

From the perspective of developing a pro-faith agenda in Islam and human rights, the Qur’an first articulated the notion of human beings in binary terms, distinguishing between “believers” (often simplified through interpreting the term as “Muslim”) and “non-believers,” those who denied the truth of faith and of the sacred. Second, the Qur’an discusses relationships between particular Abrahamic traditions existing in the Arabian peninsula at the time of revelation, as well as the idol worshippers and polytheists in that context. Opposition launched against the fledgling Muslim community was eventually, after thirteen years of pacifism, countered by explicit calls to fight against their opponents, specifically on the grounds of “Islam.” The Qur’an also begins to critically nuance even the notion of believer with extensive discussion about hypocrites: those who give the appearance of being Muslim in public but betray the faith in private. Finally, the Qur’an presents many aspects of the binary relationship between males and females in the seventh-century context. Yet all are human beings, including women and those outside of the Islamic faith, although this was difficult to

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reconcile under the precedent of historical experience, and Islamic thinkers soon developed a particularized religious dogma.

That which makes one “inside” the community of believers, and conse- quently possessed of all rights imaginable, also delineates those who are “outside,” reducing their human rights relative to their cooperation with the insiders’ goal to preserve Islam. This is the implication for the legal status of
dhimmi
, non-Muslim citizens in a Muslim polity. They have responsibilities, prohibitions, and protections in a second-class status. This binary has become a rigid perspective
inside
the Muslim community as well. To point out inconsistencies between the status of women and men “in Islam” is to point to women’s outsider status compared to that of the privileged male Muslim, conceived as the penultimate human being and exemplar of “Islam.” One is also called an outsider for pointing this incon- gruity out. To struggle to create a horizontal relationship of reciproc- ity – despite its
tawhidic
, intra-Islamic, and Qur’anic origins – threatens the status quo by implication of shared responsibilities and privileges. It is not surprising that the modern movement toward full human rights for women
in Islam
started outside an Islamic framework, or was influenced by Western colonialist or Western feminist discourses.

The step to move women’s rights discourse back
into
the core of the Islamic worldview was radical, for several reasons. The first reason was that it points to the means for “dismantling the master’s house” by using the “master’s tools.” By invoking
usul
methodology, rules formulated by earlier generations of exclusively male Muslim thinkers could be shown in their wide diversity and internal self-interrogation. Islamic thought is a consolidation of its historical epistemological transformations and social and political contexts. This precedent legitimates the continuation of histor- ical inquiry at this current juncture. The aim is not to deconstruct Islam, but to radically
reconstruct
the tradition from within; in particular, to incorporate ongoing human intellectual developments, with a specific integration of
gender
as a category of thought. In addition, at the epistemo- logical level, the aim is to leave open the idea, mentioned elsewhere in this book, that the Ultimate is
unknowable
. What humans have come to know as the divine always evolves within the limitation of mundane human knowledge against the ultimately unknowable divine. Allah cannot be fixed by any one moment, any one text, and any of the multiple interactions with that text. But as human knowledge and epistemology continues to develop, so do human ideas about Allah. Most importantly, the pro-faith agenda created a mandate to include women, women’s experiences, and

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perspectives in reformulating the creeds and codes on the basis of under- lying principles essential to being human within the Muslim intellectual process.

Sisters in Islam, Malaysia

I first interacted with Sisters in Islam in October 1989, shortly after arriving in Malaysia to join the faculty at the International Islamic University. At that point, I was not joining an organization: it was primarily a study group. As their research continued, I brought out the significance of moving away from secondary sources back to the primary sources, particularly to the Qur’an itself. My research on the Qur’an had been done with an eye for gender justice, egalitarianism, and the capacity of agency for women. It indicated that much of what plagues the lives of Muslim women results from the authority given to implement and acculturate male interpretations. Little wonder that such interpretations espouse theories of women’s inferiority and utility before men. Depsite the difficulties of this intellectual field, responding to the status quo by using sources external to primal Islam, such as the writings of modern Western and Muslim secular feminists, was less effective. Status quo authorities would simply de- legitimize them publicly by marking everything outside of
“
Islam
”
as un-Islamic. The well-intended but critically uninformed general Muslim population did not question these claims. Liberal theories of the West were categorically rejected as un-Islamic and therefore could never be seriously considered viable options for Muslims. In addition to problems of legit- imacy, it is true that the application of such theories alienates Muslims from a significant aspect of self-identity and points to one premise of reformist discourse. Islamic reform is a product of an indigenous Muslim transformation through our Islamic historical tradition to our current Islamic circumstances.

When Sisters in Islam changed the research strategy to focus primarily on the Qur’an they felt an elevated self-confidence. We were no longer dependent on centuries-old patriarchal interpretations of the sources as the only viable ones for determining our roles today. This was proven to be one of the most significant aspects of our effectiveness. When the core of our strategizing for change gained ideological authority equal to that heretofore exclusively belonging to males, women acted on the right to voice opposition to mainstream discourse. This led naturally to a third unantici- pated strategy, which proved pivotal in the position of Sisters in Islam vis-à-vis public opinion.

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Some disturbing events were making the local newspapers again, in particular a hotly debated polygamy case. Sisters in Islam drafted editorial responses to popular status quo public opinion. Our editorials in the local papers were our first published self-representation. Although signed by each of the members, only the group title was published: “Sisters in Islam,” later given the acronym S.I.S. (from
S
isters in
Is
lam). It would soon become a catch phrase for female-inclusive alternative opinions on modern Islamic issues. Our responses to this first issue, polygyny, were focused on intra- Qur’anic considerations that deconstruct its practice as an unbridled right of Muslim males. We rescripted the issue through Qur’anic evidence showing it was a serious and conditional responsibility. Nowhere had there been such a well-articulated, Qur’anic-supported contradiction to the pop- ular notion of polygamy as a privilege and irrefutable right of Muslim men. Our editorial not only discussed how the Qur’an considers it a responsi- bility, but also rendered it virtually impossible today to undertake properly such a responsibility while fulfilling the requirements needed.

As other issues pertaining to women hit the press, S.I.S. responded with similar editorials offering detailed source-based arguments as authoritative alternative viewpoints. As our responses to various issues became antici- pated, since they had gained considerable public attention, so too would those not favoring these new opinions pay attention. This was a departure from the norm where modern liberal thinkers argued cogently against the “accepted” authority of narrow-minded clerics. Our responses were clear and rational articulations, substantiated through innovative female- inclusive experiences applied to interpretation of the primary sources. S.I.S. prepared for the next-level strategy: to launch the core group of eight in a public forum as we presented the publication of two pamphlets: “Are Women and Men Equal in Islam?” and “Are Muslim Men Allowed to Beat their Wives?”

At that time an underlying pro-faith premise for Sisters in Islam was that we would not abandon our cultural or spiritual heritage as Muslims, with the social harmony and personal spiritual strengths it grants us, in favor of an agenda exclusively defined and set by male elites whether from our own cultures, those relative to it, or those totally ignorant of our realities, just because they used the name of “Islam.” It is clear that the male definitions of appropriate Islamic behavior and intellectual thought have influenced women to acquiesce to oppression if not to openly or secretly abandon Islam. We reclaimed Islam as our own by including our input to clarify its definitions and the interpretation of its primary sources. This offers a

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legitimate alternative to oppressed Muslim women and conscientious men in understanding a primary aspect of their identity. In addition, we dedicated ourselves to changing the course of development for religious institutions when detrimental to the spiritual, physical, emotional, intel- lectual, political, educational, and economic, i.e. the human liberation of Muslim women.

It is primarily male thinkers that have produced what passes as funda- mental paradigms in our religious heritage. Many ordinary Muslims have come to consider these narrowly produced paradigms as universal – even divine. Yet the vision of past scholars was limited in two particular ways: