Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (54 page)

10 Ibid., p. 27.

1. Aliah Schleifer,
   Motherhood in Islam
   (Louisville, KY: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996).
   

2. This is an excellent book. My concern here is only about the use of the sacrifice and martyrdom paradigm mentioned. I do not think the evidence she chose makes a clear a case, but that she read this image into it.
   

3. Atkinson,
   The Oldest Vocation
   , p. 241.
   

14 Ibid., p. 246.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., p. 243.

17 This section of the chapter is dedicated to my mother, whose death at the end of a research leave to work on this very topic at the Harvard Divinity School’s Research on Women and Religion Program in 1996 reminded me of the frailty of mothers against such constructs. An extended version of this work was first presented in 1999 for a workshop on Islam,

272 inside the gender jihad

Reproductive Health and Women’s Rights, organized by Sisters in Islam, Malaysia, who published it in a book by the same name in 2000.

1. One abuse resulting from unexamined notions of family is dealt with in my discussion on H.I.V./A.I.D.S. and vulnerability in chapter 7, “Stories from the Trenches.”
   

2. W. Robertson Smith,
   Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia
   ([c. 1903]; (rep. by Boston: Beacon Press, n.d.). He states, “the object of the present volume – to collect and discuss the available evidence as to the genesis of the system of male kinship, with the corresponding laws of marriage and tribal organization, which prevailed in Arabia at the time of Mohammed; the general result is that male kinship had been preceded by kinship through women only.” He indicates that “the steps of the social evolution in which the change in kinship law is the central feature” led to the male kinship model. He builds “a self- contained argument on the Arabian facts alone” (pp. xix–xx).
   

3. Ibid., p. iv.
   

4. Ibid.
   

5. Atkinson,
   Oldest Vocation
   , p. 24. This book outlines some of the changes in human know- ledge and the effects these changes have on what we know about physiological mothering, let alone ideological, social, cultural, or religious mothering.
   

23 Ibid., p. 243.

1. Smith,
   Kinship and Marriage
   , p. 203
   .
   

2. Shere Hite, “Bringing Democracy Home,”
   MS Magazine
   , March/April, 1995, p. 57.
   

3. Smith,
   Kinship and Marriage
   , p. 27.
   

27 Ibid., p. 50.

28 Ibid., p. 53.

29 Ibid., p. 52.

30 Ibid., pp. 66–67.

31 Ibid., p. 65.

32 Ibid., p. 69.

1. Atkinson,
   Oldest Vocation
   , p. 246:
   “
   It is also a historical construction
   –
   embattled, vulner- able, requiring recreation in each generation. To recognize its historicity is to begin to assume responsibility for the character of its reconstruction.”
   

2. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im,
   Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law
   (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1990); Asifah Qureshi,
   “
   Her Honor: An Islamic Critique of the Rape Laws of Pakistan from a Woman-sensitive Perspec- tive,
   ”
   in
   Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists in North America
   , ed. Gisela Webb (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000), chapter 5.
   

3. Based on the U.N.D.P. Human Development Report (Oxford, 1998).
   

4. Atkinson,
   Oldest Vocation
   , p. 242.
   

5. Lorde,
   Sister Outsider
   , p. 111.
   

6. Nimat Barangzangi,
   Women’s Identity and the Qur’an: A New Reading
   (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004) goes so far as to erroneously refer to this financial role as biological. In addition, she says, “all men are financially responsible toward the women in their household” (p. 74).
   

7. Nurturing and care-taking are learned traits, not exclusive to one gender. An Islamic scholar of
   usul al-fiqh
   from Sarajevo was emphatic that he
   could not
   do his wife’s job of taking care of children. It was against his natural disposition. It is easy to see that more men need to learn these skills as well, instead of abjuring them on the pretext of some biological predisposition. Otherwise women will continually be presumed to be predisposed to them, rather than acknowledged as exercising their agency in service to others.
   

   Notes
   273
   

8. Suad Joseph, “The Kin Contract and Citizenship in the Middle East,” in
   Women and Citizenship
   , ed. Marilyn Friedman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 151.
   

9. Ibid.
   

42 Ibid., p. 157.

43 Ibid., p. 159.

1. Patricia Hills-Collins, “Work, Family and Black Women’s Oppression,” in
   Black Feminist Thought
   (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), p. 44.
   

2. See two explicit examples in chapter 3, “Muslim Women’s Collectives, Organizations, and Islamic Reform.”
   

3. Niara Sudarkasa,
   The Strength of Our Mothers: African and African-American Women and Families: Essays and Speeches
   (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1996), p. xvii
   .
   

4. Carolyn Moxley Rouse,
   Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam
   

   (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), p. 51.
   

5. Ibid.
   

6. Amina Wadud,
   Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspect- ive
   (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 1–3, 5–10, and 99–104.
   

7. Shere Hite,
   The Hite Report: Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress
   (New
   York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), p. 57.
   

8. Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza,
   Bread not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpre- tation
   (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), p. 5.
   

9. Carol Tarvis,
   The Mismeasure of Women
   (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 17.
   

Notes to Chapter 5

1. A formula of remembrance of God.
   

2. The word for a chapter of the Qur’an.
   

3. The Merciful and the Mercy-Giver.
   

4. Marriage agreement.
   

5. Way of life, religion.
   

6. Personal prayer or supplication.
   

7. I am very grateful the late South African activist Soraya Bosch, from the Muslim Youth Movement Gender Desk in South Africa, who transcribed the presentation from a video recording made that day. I am also grateful to the editor, Na’eem Jeenah, and to the staff from
   The Call
   , a progressive Muslim newspaper for publishing the entire lecture.
   

8. It made little difference that one of the organizers was female. As a non-Muslim scholar of Islam, at that time Muslim female identity was apparently not an issue of concern for her.
   

9. They were unable to secure funds at that time, but since the conference organizers were paying for my air fare, they could take advantage of my presence in the country to set up their own program.
   

10. I wrote many journal entries after my visit, including the following account of meeting Shamima: “As I entered the place for the workshop I was met by a young
    Muslimah
    of Indian descent. She greeted me with a handshake and quick embrace: starting on the left side. We almost bumped heads as I headed for the right: the protocol of the Arab world, Asia and the U.S. Despite almost kissing a total stranger in the mouth, I liked her right away: she had no airs; no fan fares, no feminine vanities. She impressed me as a person who worked with a cause, and found meaning in doing: I liked her right away.”
    

11. One evening during the conference, I attended an awards ceremony for President Mandela with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as the keynote speaker and awards presenter.
    

274 inside the gender jihad

1. Throughout this chapter, as elsewhere in this book, I refer to some individuals, real people with real-life expectations and capacities. I mention them only to facilitate my construction of a narrative, even while acknowledging that no one is reduced to a mere facility in my construction in real terms. I also realize that my reference to them is not even-handed: some are only mentioned in passing, while others feature more significantly in my narration and interpretation of the event. It is especially important how a prism of paradoxes bounces between my own intentions and outcome, and these various characters. That they configure differently, in my telling of the story, than they may configure in another telling, leads to two inevitable hermeneutical considerations: whose version of this story is true? Or, how are
   all
   versions of this story true?
   

2. See discussion below on the significance of embracing between Muslims.
   

3. See the full details of the
   tawhidic
   paradigm in chapter 2. Here I will provide succinct reiter- ations as they bear on gender equality in public ritual leadership.
   

4. A body of (usually all) men attached to particular Islamic community associations to decide on matters of significance to the community and Islam.
   

5. Lucinda Joy Peach,
   Women and World Religions
   (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002), especially the brief preface, pp. xi–xii.
   

6. Once the public frenzy over the March 18 congregational prayer in New York was in full thrust, I also remained silent. By this time, I had experienced enough public controversy to learn one lesson very well. To react to the sensationalist nature of the immediate discussions will have little or no effect on disentangling the substantive issues from the immediate sensationalism.
   

7. On the one hand, many people would openly speculate whether I had a personal desire to be leader, which, according to some traditions,would render me unworthy of leadership. On the other hand, one progressive, Ebrahim Moosa, told me, this event had
   nothing
   to do with me.
   

8. As discussed in chapter 3, “Muslim Women’s Collectives, Organizations, and Islamic Reform.” I will return to this in chapter 7, “Stories from the Trenches.”
   

9. Farid Esack,
   Qur’an Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression
   (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1997), pp. 38–42 and 179–206. “In South Africa those who identified with the oppressed similarly refused to distinguish between their commitment to Islam and their commitment to the liberation struggle. Instead, they viewed both commitments as strands in a single tapestry” (p. 199).
   

10. That thought will prove to be a litmus test in these deliberations.
    

11. A complete discussion on the
    hijab
    is included in chapter 7, “Stories from the Trenches.”
    

12. Relative by blood or marriage.
    

13. Barbara Metcalf (ed.),
    Making Muslim Space: in North America and Europe
    (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 31–64.
    

14. The Call
    .
    

15. A lengthy discussion of
    hijab
    is given in chapter 7, “Stories from the Trenches.”
    

16. Most female Muslim academics in North America do not and will not wear
    hijab
    , especially in Islamic studies. It is as if being an academic and progressive demands the removal of all external symbolisms as well, as discussed in chapter 2, “The Challenges of Teaching and Learning in the Creation of Muslim Women’s Studies.”
    

17. Leila Ahmed,
    Women and Gender in Islam
    (New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 1992), p. 61.
    

18. See Abdulkader Tayob, “The Pre-khutbah, Khutbah and Islamic Change,” in
    The Call,
    

    August 1994, p. 15, where he commented on this rhetorical irony.
    

    Notes
    275
    

19. The Call
    , August and September 1994.
    

20. This question will be answered in chapter 7, “Stories from the Trenches,” where I give a brief discussion on the March 18 congregational prayer in New York City in 2005.
    

21. Esack,
    Qur’an, Pluralism and Liberation
    , p. 247.
    

22. It is also worth noting that Esack is the founder of Positive Muslims, an organization that addresses H.I.V./A.I.D.S. and Muslims directly.
    

23. At the Second Muslim Leaders’ Consultation on H.I.V./A.I.D.S. in Malaysia in 2002, I learned that Sitty Dhiffy had died from A.I.D.S. I discuss gender and the H.I.V./A.I.D.S. issue at greater length in chapter 7, “Stories from the Trenches.”
    

24. As discussed at length in chapter 1, “What’s in a Name?”
    

25. Discussed in full in chapter 7.
    

26. Notably, Chandra Muzaffer and Hasan Hanafi.
    

27. I once attended an
    ‘
    Id al-Adha celebration where the
    khutbah
    focused on what type of man Abraham must have been to circumcise himself without anesthesia, to demonstrate his obedience to Allah. Such a reference cannot have the same meaning for women as it must have for circumcised men. Clearly, exclusive male experiences are deemed the highest. In addition, although the sacrifice of the son is part of this occasion, we are rarely reminded of Hajar, the mother, who was abandoned in the desert by that very same man. See chapter 4, “A New Hajar Paradigm: Motherhood and Family.”
    

28. Martha Minnow,
    Not only for Myself: Identity, Politics and the Law
    (New York: New Press, 1997).
    

40 Ibid., p. 26.

1. This may be one explanation why so many modern writers point to
   hadith
   collections and
   sirah
   literature that includes women in acts of war; as if the particular violent form of heroism is the litmus test for full humanity!
   

2. Ali Shariati, “The World-View of Tauhid,” in
   On the Sociology of Islam
   (Berkeley: Mirzan Press, 1979).
   

Notes to Chapter 6

1 Ebrahim Moosa, “The Debt and Burden of Critical Islam,” in
Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism
, ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003), p. 125.