Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (53 page)
Read Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam Online
Authors: Amina Wadud
Tags: #Religion, #Islam, #General, #Social Science, #Feminism & Feminist Theory, #Women's Studies, #Sexuality & Gender Studies, #Islamic Studies
Mir-Hosseini, “Gender in Islamic Legal Thought,
”
p. 3.Richard Valantasis, “Constructions of Power and Asceticism,”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
63 (4) (1995), pp. 775–821.
Notes to Chapter 2
Sachiko Murata,
The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 2.See chapter 3, “Muslim Women’s Collectives, Organizations, and Islamic Reform,” especially on the relationship between theory and practice.
The significance of diversity, coherence, and hegemony in definitions of the term “Islam”
268 inside the gender jihad
itself has been discussed extensively in chapter 1, “What’s in a Name?” It is continually used to grant authority and legitimacy to the user.
Lee Wigle Artz and Mark A. Pollock, “Limiting the Options: Anti-Arab Images in
U.S. Media Coverage of the Persian Gulf Crisis,” in
The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception
, ed. Yahya R. Kamalipour (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 119–132.See endnote 3 in the Introduction for a full explanation.
See “Motherhood Constructs: Prisms of Paradigms, not Biology or Divinity” in chapter 4,
“
A New Hajar Paradigm: Motherhood and Family.
”See Nasr Abu Zaid with Esther Nelson,
Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam
(Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 2004), pp. 121–125: “We separated, but continued to live in the same apartment . . . In the Arab world, it is easy to live separately, but together – all the while
giving the appearance
to your family, your friends, and your colleagues
of a happily married couple
,” p. 123 (emphasis mine).In chapter 4, “A New Hajar Paradigm: Motherhood and Family,” I deal extensively with this illusion and the enhanced burden it causes for single female heads of household. I also give related discussions about notions of family, the birthplace of gender relations, and of the domestic sphere that nurtures patriarchy and the abuse of women.
The theory–practice relationship is a thread that runs throughout this book. In the previous chapter, “What’s in a Name?,” the issue of authority granted by abuse of the word “Islam” is discussed at length. This chapter concludes with some issues of obstruction in the section on “Toward an Islamic Feminist Theory in Muslim Women’s Studies,” while chapter 3, “Muslim Women’s Collectives, Organizations, and Islamic Reform,” provides a section, “Introduction: Theory and Practice,” and chapter 6, “Qur’an, Gender, and Inter- pretive Possibilities,” specifically details the authoritative patriarchal control over interpreting the primary sources.
Chapter 7, “Stories from the Trenches,” provides a complete discussion of Islamic dress, specifically the
hijab
.Artz and Pollock, “Anti-Arab Images,” p. 121.
Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz,
Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-first Century
(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1966), p. 54.
13 Ibid., p. 79.
14 p. 56.
15 Ibid., pp. 51–57.
Amina Wadud, “Teaching Afro-Centric Islam in the White Christian South,” in
Black Women in the Academy: Promises and Perils
, ed. Lois Benjamin (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997), pp. 134–144.This term has been increasingly used to refer to Islamic Studies scholars. It may eventually become standard, but because of its similarity to the term “Islamist,” referring to one of the neo-conservative Muslim groups responding to Islam and modernity, it may cause some confusion.
Gisela Webb (ed.),
Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists in North America
(New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000). Webb identifies two important sessions at the Middle East Studies Association meeting and at the American Academy of Religion in 1995 as the origins of a “particular sense of urgency,” which needed to be collected for publi- cation, and was the coordinator of a unique published contribution on Muslim women scholars and activism moved “by the spirit of solidarity” to collect some of their individualNotes
269work for publication in response to the “urgency of the audiences present at those two meetings,” Introduction, pp. xiv–xv.
V.C.U. summer workshop, “Survival in the Electronic Classroom,” sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Office of Instructional Development, August 7–17, 2000.
The final version of that paper is presented as chapter 5, “Public Ritual Leadership and Gender Inclusiveness.”
The
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
, 16(2) (2000), 73–131, dedicated its round- table discussion to just the topic “Feminist Theology and Religious Diversity,” with some similar issues raised and other problems repeated.In 1997, Michelle Kimbell and Barbara von Schlegell compiled a bibliography,
Muslim Women Throughout the World
(Boulder and London: Lynn Rienner) with an annotated section containing items “which were selected on a national survey of scholars’ choices of the most highly recommended books and articles on Muslim women, and for their originality, perceptive commentaries, and reflection of increasing awareness on the subject,” p. viii. An updated version or new addition of such a bibliography would be an asset in organizing the publications in the early twenty-first century.Fazlur Rahman, “Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies: Review Essay,” in
Islam in Religious Studies,
ed. Richard Martin (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001), especially pp. 195–196.At a historical level, Islam is also an amalgam of how Muslims have understood and lived it.
Abou El Fadl,
Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
(Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001).Gita Sen with Caren Crown,
Development, Crisis, and Alternative Vision: Third World Women’s Perspectives
(India: the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era [D.A.W.N.] project, June 1985): “For many women in the world, problems of nationality, class and race [and here I would insert religion, especially, Islam] are inextricably linked to their specific oppression as women. The definition of feminism to the struggle against all forms of oppression is legitimate and necessary. In many instances gender equality must be accompanied by change on these other fronts. But at the same time, the struggle against gender subordination cannot be compromised in the struggle against other forms of oppression, or relegated to a future when they may be wiped out” (p. 13).From a hand-out “Why Gender Mainstreaming,” generated as part of the workshop documents created by the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, U.N.D.P., Two United Nations Plaza, 12th Floor, New York,
N.Y. 10017.
Simone De Beauvoir,
The Second Sex
, trans. H. M. Parshley (London: Penguin, 1972).Chapter 1, “What’s in a Name?”
Rita Gross,
Feminism and Religion: An Introduction
(Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996), p. 141
.Shulamit Reinharz, with the assistance of Lynn Davidman,
Feminist Methods in Social Research
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 4.Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
(Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984, 14th edn 2001), p. 110.Azza Karam,
Women, Islamism and the State: Contemporary Feminisms in Egypt
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998).Margot Badran and Nikki Keddie, “Islamic Feminism: What’s in a Name?” in A
l-Haram Weekly On-line,
http://www.ahram.org.ef/weekly/2002/569/c
u1.htm, January 17–23, 2002.Rosalind Delmar, “What is Feminism?” in
Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the
270 inside the gender jihad
Humanities and Social Sciences
, ed. Anne C. Herrmann and Abigail J. Stewart (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), p. 5.
36 For example, the nearly unprecedented article by Scott Kugle, “Sexuality, Diversity, and Ethics in the Agenda of Progressive Muslims,” in
Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism
, ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003) challenges patriarchal heterosexual privilege while rescripting the privilege of male sexuality.
Notes to Chapter 3
In another sense, an “idea” does not occur in a vacuum. It flows from influences in one’s context.
Audre Lorde,
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
(Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984, 14th edn 2001), pp. 110–113.Here, the words “it has been said” refer to human speculation, not to Qur’anic articulation or mandate. This is not an attempt to redefine the Qur’anic story of creation or to ascribe error to Allah. I simply point to how human speculation on transcendent ideas, like cos- mology, is embedded in communal discussions whether or not they have explicit textual references from particular scholars within Islamic sciences or other religious discourse.
“
Innama al-a’malu bi al-niyyah
,” in al-Nawawi,
An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadith
, trans. Ezzeddin Ibrahim and Denys Johnson-Davies (Damascus: The Holy Koran Publishing House, 1979).This will be reiterated in chapter 7 within the section “H.I.V./A.I.D.S. and Vulnerability,” when I state that “Islam cannot cure A.I.D.S.”
See chapter 1 for a detailed consideration of this term.
Although I will argue at length in chapter 5, “Public Ritual Leadership and Gender Inclu- siveness,” that rituals, equally incumbent upon women and men in Islam, do not rule out considerations of reform in public Islamic rituals and leadership.
“
Inna li-rabbika ’alayka haqqan, wa li-’ahlika ’alayka haqqan, wa li-nafsika ’alayka haqqan.F’a’ti kulla dhi haqqan haqqahu
.
”Elisabeth
..
Schussler
Fiorenza,
Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Inter-pretation
(Boston: Beacon Hill Press, 1984), p. xiv.Women and Citizenship
, ed. Marilyn Friedman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) provides some interesting articles interrogating concepts of citizenship, creating new ones, and investigating the relationship between various concepts of citizen and the workings of the nation-state. See especially the chapter, “Arenas of Citizenship: Civil Society, the State, and the Global Order,
”
where Alison Jaggar interrogates the newly formed shift in emphasis between civil society and the state. Where some have attempted to apply a more inclusive definition of civil society to integrate work contributed in previously divided public and private space, she avoids the dichotomy. Care work is not relegated to the private sector of society. Work in the public sphere is neither more important essentially nor inherently immoral, despite the exploitative tendencies of state governments. Contributing to the civil society and contributing to the state are both potential arenas for ethical change and devel- opment. This radical inclusive perspective has the potential not only to raise the citizenship status of all women, but also to increase women’s empowerment and access to rights.Although I cannot date the origins of racial oppression, the origin of the mainstream “civil rights movement” in America is circa 1950.
Ihasan Bagby, Paul M. Perl, and Bryon T. Froehle,
The Mosque in America: A National Portrait. A Report from the Mosque Study Program
(Washington, DC: Center on American Islamic Relations, 2001).Notes
271Joan Tronto, “Care as the Work of Citizens: A Modest Proposal,” in Friedman (ed.),
Women and Citizenship
, pp. 130
–
131.Names are used by permission and to explicitly draw attention to the inspiration I have drawn from these two women. My small contribution to them is a necessary part of shining light through public recognition of their services, faith, and care.
Lorde,
Sister Outsider
, p. 111.Qasim Amin was one of the first writers in early modern period to prioritize Muslim women’s rights in his book,
Tahrir al-Mar’ah
. However, his goals were borrowed wholesale from Western secular paradigms.
Notes to Chapter 4
A revised version of this poem will appear in Mohja Kahf,
The Hajar Poems
, forthcoming. A later version of this poem has appeared on the Muslim Wake Up website (January 15 2005): www
.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2005/ 01/the_fire_of_haj.php. Dr. Kahf is a poet who works as Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Arkansas in the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program. She is author of
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
(New York: Caroll & Graf, 2006), among other titles.For example,
Daughters of Abraham: Feminist Thought in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
, eds. Yvonne Yazbeck and John L. Esposito (Gainesville: University Press of Florida,2002)
is the result of an earlier conference with the same theme at Georgetown
University.
Sylviane Diouf,
Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas
(New York: New York University Press, 2000).Nabia Abbott,
Two Queens of Baghdad, Mother and Wife of Harun al-Rashid
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).Audre Lorde,
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
(Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984, 14th edn 2001), p. 111.One notable exception is Khaled Abou El Fadl’s
Speaking in God's Name: Islamic La.w, Authority and Women
(Oxford, Oneworld Publications, 2001).Clarissa Atkinson,
The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 243
.Ibid., p. 5.
Ibid.