Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (32 page)

“I will talk about this from a woman’s perspective, starting with an important part of many women’s lives: giving birth. A woman carries her child under her heart for nine months. What she eats the child eats. As she cares for her health, she cares for the child’s health. As she breathes fresh air, she breathes in for the nourishment of the child. As she takes care of her spiritual and emotional states of mind, she cares for the child’s well-being. She takes care of all the child’s needs. She carries that child for nine months and this is an act of surrender. She is following the will of Allah.

“This is a marvelous example of engaged surrender. The mother cannot take a day’s rest. She cannot lay the child down beside her on the bed and say, ‘Just for today, I think I will not be pregnant.’ But, even more impor- tantly, after the nine months is over, she may not hold onto to that child. She must surrender the child and give in to Allah’s will. For, just as Allah commanded her to hold on to that child for nine long months, so must she engage in the act of surrender when it is time to bring the child forth.

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“She can no longer hold onto it. If she continues to, it will mean death for her and for the child. So, she will engage in surrender. Each contraction has a duty. As the stomach pulls tight, the cervix opens so that the child might be brought forth into the world. If she resists the contraction, not only will it be uncomfortable for her, it will also curtail the natural motion of the child’s gift of life. So she must engage in surrender in the act of labor. She must focus and not be distracted. With her body engaged with the task at hand, her heart and mind must consciously think of Allah in some form

of
dhikr.
1
She must surrender her body into the natural act of the

contraction in such a way that the child might be brought into the world without discomfort.

“This image of a mother carrying her child under her heart, then bringing that child forward consciously as she participates in labor, is not only a reflection of engaged surrender, it is also not unlike Allah Him/Her/It

Self, who describes Himself before every
surah
2
(save one) as
al
-
Rahman
,

al
-
Rahim.
3

“He is
Rahmah
. He is Mercy. He is the Ultimate mercy. Both His names of mercy,
rahman
and
rahim
, come from the same root word as
rahm
: the womb. Allah thus engages us continually to understand the nature of our surrender. Just as He draws us forth from His spirit, so will He push us out into the world. There is a time when Allah’s
rubbubiyyah
, His nurturance and love, will push us out into the world. There is also a time when Allah’s
rubbubiyyah
will draw us close (to Him). The best articulation of this image that we have (in this world) is the experience of a woman who carries a child under her heart for nine months and then, must let that child go.

“In Surah Inshirah (chapter 94) Allah says: ‘Have We not opened up your heart and lifted / removed from you the burden which weighed so heavily on your back. And raised you high in dignity. And behold with every hardship comes ease. Indeed with every hardship comes ease. Hence, when you are freed from your distress; Remain steadfast and unto your Sustaining Lord turn with love.’ Allah gives us the mother in pregnancy and childbirth as a living picture of this idea of engaged surrender.

“We should know that Allah never repeats something for mere redun- dancy, but to make a point. ‘Indeed with every hardship comes ease’ is part of the engaged act of surrender that is everyday life. Sometimes there is difficulty and sometimes there is ease. As long as we are on the earth, we will experience difficulty and ease and hence the necessity of engaged surrender. Allah has guaranteed that our lives will be engaged with diffi- culty and with ease at all times. The nature of one who is truly Muslim is

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that he/she is constantly engaged in surrender, no matter whether it is difficult or easy.

“This surah also reminds us not to become complacent when things become easy. We should always be conscious, engaged, and we should always keep our hearts open to the surrender to Allah. So that the act of engaged surrender becomes part of our everyday lives, and so that we never take for granted that the ease will go on and on. If we are successful in our businesses, in our struggles against apartheid, etc., it does not mean the battle is over. The battle forever wages on.

“
Marriage:
Marriage is an important part of a Muslim’s life. The Prophet (s.a.w.) said,‘Marriage is half of faith.’ Sometimes we misunderstand this. We think that, if we get married, we don’t have to do anything else. But if marriage is half of faith, then marriage is half of what we need to struggle with to engage ourselves in surrender before Allah. When the diffi- culty is over, we should still be striving. We still strive because our Lord is the goal, as Surah Inshirah says, ‘When you are freed [from distress,] remain steadfast, and unto your Sustainer turn in love.’ As long as we are human beings, we are always in the struggle to attain some level of under- standing and love of the Divine. It is an ongoing process because Allah is our goal, and we can never be finished with our surrender and our engagement.

“Engaged surrender goes on at all times, at all places and for all circum- stances. So we should think of our marriages and family lives as part of engaged surrender. We should not perceive of the situation in such a way

that when the
nikah
4
is over, then that part of our lives is over. We should

not think that once we sign the marriage contract we can now put all of our attention and energy into our jobs, or into our business and political affairs. Instead, we should look at our family lives as half of our engaged surrender for the sake of completing our
din
5
on earth.

“Your spouse – your wife or husband – is a new person every day. You should take the time to get to know that person – every day. That is part of engaged surrender. If she or he changes every day, you must engage anew in knowing him or her. It takes a certain kind of consciousness to treat him or her with respect. Sometimes, we think, we already know what she or he is going to say, so we do not listen. Consequently, we do not hear.

“Part of the engaged surrender of marriage is that we must come to our spouse every day as if they are who they truly are – a new person every day. They have not attained their full Islam, they are also engaged in surrender and we must respond to them as if they were. We must not assume they are

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today the same as they will be tomorrow, because Allah has also challenged and tested them, in the name of Islam, to engage in surrender.

“Perhaps they have been more successful with some aspects of it today than they will be tomorrow. So part of the engaged surrender in marriage, part of fulfilling half of the
din
in Islam, is that we come to that relationship every day, with engaged surrender: with our minds intact and our hearts open. Our minds will engage in accepting that person anew, in respecting that person and honoring that change. Our hearts will open up to loving that person and will surrender and give that person the love and care that is due.

“Allah also says in the Qur’an, ‘And among His signs is that He has created from your own selves mates. And He has made between the two of you love and mercy’ (30:21). There’s that
rahmah
again.
Rahmah
is supposed to be one of the characteristics of how we engage in surrender in our marital lives. We should not take the other person for granted. We should always extend loving care and mercy to him or her.

“Remember the image of the mother – love is both holding and letting go. I must not tell another person how to coordinate his or her life. I, being just another human being, must allow that person to experience life. I must let that person go, and sometimes he or she may fall. This is also what I have to do with my children. I cannot live their lives for them. I must teach them, but I must let them go so that they can also experience engaged surrender.

“We must never assume that marriage gives us the right to dictate the life of another person. It is half of
din
, half of what we have to engage in consciously, as Muslims, to surrender to the will of Allah. It requires more than a few quick commands at the beginning and end of each day. It requires listening and hearing, respecting and honoring, loving and caring. It requires us to be Muslim.

“The idea that we must accept another person unconditionally does not mean we will not make mistakes. Surely, we make mistakes each day, and we ask Allah for forgiveness. And He has guaranteed He has the capacity to forgive. Likewise, others in the path of their own engaged surrender might make errors. If we open our hearts as part of our engaged surrender, as part of our Islam, we will have the capacity to respect and acknowledge that perhaps they have erred, and tomorrow may be able to correct that error. Then again, perhaps I have erred in my judgment and tomorrow I can correct my error.

“So the perspective we have on marriage should be one of engaged

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surrender. And we should come forward with the consciousness and sur- render in our hearts. At the end of the day there is a possibility that this task will be a successful completion of what we know as our Islam.

“I stand before you to remind you and to remind myself that the task of a Muslim is to continually engage in surrender. Sometimes we forget this task. Should we ever forget that we must consciously be engaged in surrender, surely Allah never forgets. He is always available for us, always

accepts our
du‘a
,
6
and always accepts our effort to engage ourselves in

surrender to Him. “Amin.”

These words were given one dreary Friday in August 1994, in response to

an invitation

to address Muslims gathered

for the
jum‘ah
prayer at the

Claremont Main Road Mosque, in Cape Town, South Africa.
7
I gave this address as a
khutbah.
In the mosque, some who attended the prayer received and appreciated these words even as they did not escape the intel- lectual place of gender discourse and the personal politics of power. I submit them here in order to subject them and their context to rigorous analysis for social transformation in the arena of Islamic worship. These words flowed from the center of my innermost yearning for meaning as a woman in Islam. After they were brought forth in full voice in the public domain, the mark of their stature and significance has not been on the basis of their actual substance and particular voice. Condemnation or encour- agement was mainly built upon the circumstances in which they were uttered. These circumstances intensely prejudiced the discussions that followed the event for nearly two years. The consequent discussions shifted the focus away from these words as a meaningful form of expression for understanding Islamic identity and attention was given only on the time and place of their utterance. I will bring the discussion back full circle to the words themselves after entering the intellectual rigors of discourse about gender hegemony to analyze them and the circumstance of their utterance for a more comprehensive perspective on spiritual transformation in the context of Islam and modernity. I will not attempt to avoid the multiplicity of dimensions in the gender
jihad
but I will reprioritize those dimensions especially to remove the substance of the female voice and experience from the periphery. For the actual words of this
khutbah
, before what is mostly or exclusively a male collective Friday prayer, have not been given priority in subsequent discussions. My analysis of their substantive importance will follow the narrative leading up to the event, which will be rendered here

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“the Claremont Main Road mosque event” or simply the “mosque event.” To fully remove the displacement imposed on the most significant part of my personal contribution to this act of gender transformation, I first step forward from the place where I was rendered
khatibah
,
with multiple aspects of my self sometimes in place and sometimes displaced. In this chapter, I will also clarify the interface and complexities between subversive coincidence and purpose.

There are three possible lines of discourse here, each representing different points of interest in the event. One line of discourse is the content of the
khutbah
itself, which had not previously been subjected to consid- erable analysis. Another point of interest or line of discourse – the one that has been analyzed most fervently after the event – is to what extent can a woman perform the role of
khatibah?
This line of discourse was always taken up within the context of pre-existing expectations, either for or against the actions of that day. All previous discussions have failed to give full detailed clarity about the circumstance of my presence as
khatibah
.
Since I did not participate or contribute to any of the public discussions, my contribution here corrects my absence. The significance of both these discursive lines to the greater gender
jihad
and the struggle for justice in Islam is in the possible final line of discourse, the one I take up here. In the confluence between the previous two lines of discourse – content and con- text – the public focus on the latter makes my reflections here imperative for a full discourse. It is this comprehensive look at the utterance and nuances of meaning in the
khutbah
that has remained the most hidden aspect, not only of a single story about my participation in the event and the role I was intended to play, but also about gender, Islam, and ritual worship in these times of change and transformation.