Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (36 page)

What could cause such a divergent reading between a Muslim pro- gressive male and two Muslim females except the distinction between focus on form and focus on substance? I applaud those South African male progressives who were bold enough to orchestrate such an event. Clearly there would have been no event without these brothers, because no woman had the authority to introduce a female into this male sacred space. Never- theless, over time, I was disappointed by the emphasis on form.

In his 1997 book
Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism
, Esack refers to this as a revolutionary event in South Africa. I appear in his account as the form of a female who stood where male forms had previously been exclusively privileged. In reading his account I did not feel I was offered the privilege of being a full human being with any of my particulars as a woman with certain experiences intact. Some of the most momentous particulars can only be retrieved from my actual words, which his exhilaration over the “event” had eclipsed. However, two pages later, he shows he can listen when he gives a detailed account of another woman who shared her story in the form of a lecture after the
salah
at the Claremont Main Road mosque. Sitty Dhiffy, one of many monogamous wives, had contracted A.I.D.S. from her husband. Esack assessed the substance of her presentation as a “most moving initiative . . . Many of us wept openly, for Sitty, for our own ignorance, for the many Muslims who cling to their prejudices and yearning for control, for those who are terrified of shedding their negative images of

the Other, images that succeed not only in blocking out the Other but also of imprisoning the self.”
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In this sensitive and detailed account, Sitty Dhiffy appears as a whole person – female in form, with substance and content.
33
Her particularities are only known by the voice in which she renders them to public space. No attempt was made to have these removed, for they are the basis for her specific presence. Not only is she a woman, she is also a victim for being a woman, having contracted this disease by submitting to an unfaithful hus- band. Although she remained a victim whose situation could not be ameli-

orated by our platitudes, her wholeness as a female Muslim was not left in the shadows or margin. She is a genuine presence, claims a place – even if

Public Ritual Leadership and Gender Inclusiveness
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only to generously facilitate our enlightenment about her plight. Her speech does not call for radical change or reform of gender disparity and the prob- lems of male control over sexuality. The public response is to show proper sympathy toward her plight, not to make any changes in her marginal “place” among us as a living Other.
34

Here, platitudes serve as metaphors against true engagement. As such, the genuine experience of the
other
is so particular it remains outside the norm. The true embrace of women’s marginality can only be within the shad- ows of the margin itself. When women’s stories are brought into the center, they do not recast the center story. There is no substantive change, since the marginality in which women live is still unreformed. This position of women’s lives
in the margins
must be redeemed from where they continue to experi- ence it. No mere performances in the center will reconstruct the status quo. Therefore the task is not so much for women to claim that center space as legitimate for female agency; instead, the whole of the community must enter enter into the margins with women to affirm the place where women’s lives are experienced. It is the only way to create alternative placements as central and to wrench the meaning of the center from its traditional place as the male experience of privilege and hegemony. Such a privilege has presumed that the center of attention must continue to be focused on one fixed place, which has coincidentally been defined by one characteristic: masculinity.

To symbolize this transformation, again consider St. Augustine’s meta- phor with the idea of God as a circle, the center of which is
everywhere
, the

circumference

of which is
nowhere
.
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In addition to an unspecified

boundary or circumference, the center is at
every
place that a human being exists. For each articulation that captures the essence of Islam is the center point. The center is not a fixed place. The margin story may be the center. Women’s stories and experiences have been cast to the side by male definitions of public space. Women most often speak from that place of patriarchal dislocation; the tale is a vital and real articulation in the reality of human meaning and the essence of Islam. We must shift our focus to allow multiple locations of life in service to plurality as legitimate and authoritative without rendering one location as final and ultimate. Just as the mind shifts to the spot of the story that encapsulates the divine center, it shifts to allow new realities continuously. That shift is crucial to the process of freedom and gender.

Esack’s active listening and response to the story recounted by Sitty Dhiffy testifies to this analysis. In his two accounts, one voice has substance and the other is insignificant and therefore still silent. My participation at

180 inside the gender jihad

the Claremont Main Road mosque event was only a formal act, not a sub- stantive one. To persist with these inconsistencies will not remove gender disparity, or shift appropriate attention on the marginality of women’s lives. I once thought my vision too personal. However, the experience of leading prayer in New York in 2005 has confirmed that it did not matter what I said.
36
I take a stand regarding how heavily this weighs against gender and justice. My presentation fell along the same lines of the historical silencing of female voices, and invisibility of their particular experiences and contri- butions. This marginalization of the full spectrum of female experience still persists among some progressive thinkers who never focus on the margin experiences. Any reality away from the center stage of Islamic public dis- course and praxis are measured according to an exclusive male standard of evaluation.

Since this event, the substantive content of my presentation was circu- lated internationally and received some consideration (although not as much consideration as the form where these words were delivered!). Other male Muslim progressives, intellectuals, and activists confirmed that what I said was appropriate in Islam.
37
By accepting the content, they indicate how a woman can make legitimate contributions in Islamic public dis- course. Their acceptance is housed in the language of “appropriate.” But separating that language act from the time and place of its deliverance also falls short of fully considering whether or not the place and time in which it was presented was appropriate. Thus the discrepancy between the oversight of some South African progressive males over the content to focus only on form is still inverted, fragmented, and irreconcilable when the content is analyzed outside of its contextual borders. Although a woman may have something of substance to say, she must still face limitations with regard to the circumstances under which she says it. For complete gender equality, this dichotomy between form and substance must be bridged.

THE CONTENT OF THIS SERMON

Perhaps having been informed that I would stand as
khatibah
only forty- five minutes before the
jum‘ah
service is evidence that what I would say was of little consequence. Nevertheless, even had I known about the event with sufficient time to haggle over what I would say, I do not think I could have come up with anything better. I consider what I said to be my best presen- tation, not only in South Africa during those hectic two weeks, but also in terms of many other public forums since then. The actual substance of the

Public Ritual Leadership and Gender Inclusiveness

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talk resulted from primal inspiration, not only from a source beyond my own conscious construction, but also from a place where I feel intuitively the greatest confidence through a unique, female place of experience: Islam as engaged surrender from the perspective of being female, mother, and wife.

The text of the sermon uses this female, particular reality as public discourse to construct and configure the normative articulation of what “Islam” means. Here, experiences particular to a female define and deter- mine the generic. Here, a woman’s particular reality is normative for Muslim identity. If this articulation seems unusual for public discourse, then it reflects the normative status of the Muslim male to define for all others, male and female, what it means to be
human
. Hence, Islamic public discourse has always focused on the male experience and rendered that experience not only appropriate for men in public spaces, but also for

women.
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The Islamic tradition has the habit of sustaining the normative Muslim as a male. This is the challenge we need to address in our struggles to break through gender barriers. If women only demonstrate and exemplify their ability to be “like men,” or to be victims of patriarchy, then nothing is learned from them over and above men in the pulpits, at the head of the line, as well as in the parliament and bedrooms. If the only women permitted to be “leaders” are those who cease to be overly identified with the experiences of the majority of Muslim women, the
ummah
gains nothing. The voice of a woman must also include something about herself, particularly as a woman, and this must then be incorporated into what it means to be human in the world. If she only offers herself in the public role like a man, what is the advantage? A single model of normative Islamic leadership persists, whether in male or female form. This single model of what it means to be human has consequences within ambiguities of the lives of Muslims today. When the boundaries of identity are no longer so clear, we can benefit from new stories and new centers of attention actually located in the margins.

Women do not have to act just like men in order to be leaders. Martha Minnow
39
seems to suggest that the right to one’s own particular and unique identity while sharing a group identity must not become a contra-

diction. One neither loses individuality by identifying with aspects of group membership, nor does one lose group affiliation by distinguishing oneself from the group. Identity is not so fragmented or so singular. Identity is

a composite of all its fragmented parts. As the
khatibah
,

I am neither a

182 inside the gender jihad

leader nor a woman – I am both a leader
and
a woman.“If I should be for myself as a unique and separate person, I should also be for myself as a member of groups.”
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The struggle to eradicate the formality of gender disparity in Islamic public ritual leadership in this event in South Africa was orchestrated with some cost to my womanhood. I am
not
more human because I am like a man. I am woman; I am human and my humanity is female. I accepted the opportunity to give the
khutbah
at the Claremont Main Road mosque to deconstruct gender hegemony both in form and in substance.

I felt qualified to serve as
khatibah
because, in addition to being a woman, my qualifications also include study and training in Islam as well as knowledge of and dedication to Islam. Despite limited precedent, Muslim women can enhance public discourse by offering what is peculiar to them as women as well as what they have in common with men. Although both these aspects reflect woman as
khalifah
(full moral agent), women’s public roles in this enhancement have not received their full equality through- out Islamic history. Instead, the major canon of Islamic public discourse and ethical articulation makes the male experience and articulation the norm and the standard measurement for what it means to be human in the public

arena. That

which is explicit to being woman has been excluded from

public space and discourse.

Many modern efforts at gender reform allow women to enter the public space only in the secular realm, or only through the non-presence of their sexuality in the context of Islamic ritual, i.e. if they display what men have determined is worthy of precedent.
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While honoring precedent is

important in Islam, women must also contribute not only what historical precedent has lacked but what has also been neglected or silenced in public space. The insights drawn particularly from women’s experiences – as women in Islam – must be rendered legitimate contributions to
general public discourse
. In modernity, this will expand the breadth of meaning for Muslim identity and enhance the perspectives of the entire community.

It is in this way that some progressives and conservatives actually embrace the same paradigm: to be fully human, a moral agent, and a public leader, one must be male. For the conservatives this means that a woman is allowed to maintain her womanhood, as long as she does not draw atten- tion to her marginality by rendering it fully human. For the progressive this means that a woman is fully human and can therefore act in roles hereto- fore exclusive to men, as long as she is not too much a woman. Given such a choice, I reject both limitations. I am fully human; I am fully woman. If

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gender bias in Islamic practices is ever to be genuinely removed, then we women need to articulate from the center of the marginality of our lives. The stage needs to be reset and women’s stories need to become models for the overarching process of Islam as engaged surrender, no matter where it occurs.

Until this event, I had maintained a dichotomy, a conflict between some of my thoughts and my actions. This personal dichotomy was more evident to me when I was invited to perform in the role of
khatibah
. It also struck a blow to one of the survival tactics in the gender
jihad
. Previously, prudence was both a mandate and a subversive strategy. However, such prudence can lead to misinterpretations and misapplications of symbols that can have dangerous consequences. Therefore, when presented with this opportunity to overtly confront certain practices of gender inequality - in a way I dared not do before - the dichotomy had to be resolved in favour of an explicit and sub- versive public act. When I was introduced to this cluster of radical Muslims in South Africa, I revealed more about my intimate reflections on various issues than I had ever done in public. After years of silent deliberation, this event and all its aftermath also inspired me toward greater fervor and a more boldfaced public engagement to break the gridlock of gender hegemony once and for all. Still, despite some radical challenges presented in this event, genuine equality and parity were missing at other levels. Just because female and male bodies are in the same formal role does not always mean that equality has been achieved; sometimes it is mere form. To move beyond form, there must also be celebration of what is peculiar to women in leadership over men and women, just as there must be celebration of what is peculiar to men in such leadership. Otherwise, some women will come to the front