Nanette Asimov
"Muslim feminism quietly
flourishes"
San Francisco Chronicle -
10/15/01
An Islamic feminist, many
Americans believe, is a
contradiction in terms.
That view has been widely
reinforced during the past
month as images of all- male
power structures, schools and
businesses in the Middle East
appear nightly across TV
screens. Women also appear,
shrouded and segregated,
perceived as secondary.
Yet even in the most
patriarchal of Muslim nations,
feminism quietly thrives.
"Every country has women's
rights groups," said Mahnaz
Afkhami, author of "Faith and
Freedom: Women's Human Rights
in the Muslim World."
The common view of repressed,
cowed women incapable of
standing up for themselves is
a distortion, say feminists
such as Minnoo Moallem,
chairwoman of women's studies
at San Francisco State
University.
"What we don't talk about is
women as active agents in
their societies and cultures,"
Moallem said. She pointed out
that in such places as Saudi
Arabia, where the sexes cannot
mix, women own banks and run
hospitals -- all for women.
The agenda of feminists
throughout the Middle East is
to increase such opportunities
for women. But often there are
more immediate issues of
safety and dignity.
Some governments using
fundamentalist interpretations
of the Koran have created laws
that appear to justify
violence against women, sexual
repression, forced seclusion,
polygamy and illiteracy, said
author Afkhami, president of
the Women's Learning
Partnership in Maryland, which
aids women around the world.
But she and others say it is
wrong to think that Islam
promotes cruelty. More than
half of the world's 1.3
billion Muslims live outside
of nations where such
conditions exist.
"Women are being oppressed in
spite of Islam -- not because
of it," said Audrey Shabbas,
executive director of Arab
World and Islamic Resources in
Berkeley.
Recognizing this is key to
understanding the feminists'
strategies.
KORAN INTERPRETATION
Just as Christian
fundamentalism suggests
certain biblical
interpretations, Islamic
fundamentalists interpret the
Koran in unique ways, said
Hina Azam, who lectures on
Islamic law at Stanford
University and St. Mary's
College in Moraga.
Islamic feminists seek to
change traditional
interpretations of the Koran,
which is often at the heart of
a nation's laws, said Azam.
Nowhere in the Arab world is
the Koran interpreted more
severely than in Afghanistan,
where beatings, even murders,
are common for such offenses
as showing an ankle, say women
who have fled the country.
Windows at home must be
blackened lest a passer-by see
a female inside.
Even children's drawings
depict women as merely
rectangular shapes. That is
because all women must appear
in public only in the burka, a
full-body enclosure with
netting over the eyes that the
Taliban force them to wear.
The children also portray
Afghan men with their own
ubiquitous accoutrement: a
beating stick.
"Crimes perpetrated against
Afghan women by
fundamentalists (have) no
precedence in modern history,"
says a statement of the
Revolutionary Association of
the Women of Afghanistan
(RAWA), founded in 1977, well
before the Taliban took power
in 1996.
DARING FEMINISTS
The group, described by
admirers as "some of the most
impressive and daring
feminists in the world," say
the Northern Alliance is
little better than the Taliban
for its record of "heinous
crimes and atrocities."
"(The fundamentalists')
ultimate objective is to keep
women under their absolute
power, in the status of
chattel," the statement
concludes.
Elsewhere in the Middle East,
feminists rely on negotiations
with government and religious
leaders, educating other
women, court systems and the
Internet.
One London group, Women Living
Under Muslim Law, was founded
in 1984 after women became
outraged at the cruelty of the
Algerian regime. One case
cited was the incarceration of
three Algerian feminists
jailed without trial and kept
incommunicado for seven months
for discussing laws
unfavorable to women.
Another involved an Abu Dhabi
woman charged with adultery
and sentenced to death by
stoning.
To understand Islamic
feminism, it helps to
recognize the origin of
certain ideas, said Azam, the
legal expert.
Islam arose in seventh century
Arabia, when it was customary
for men to take many wives.
Mohammed ibn Abdallah, a
trader born in A.D. 570, is
regarded as the messenger of
God. His wives were seen as
extraordinary women who should
not have to leave home to mix
with the masses. Instead,
others came to them.
MODEL FOR WOMEN
"The wives of Mohammed came to
be seen as the model for all
Muslim women," Azam said.
"Seclusion and veiling were
marks of distinction. To be as
pious as you could, you tried
to live your life as they did,
conducting activities within
the protected home, not out
and about. And that became
incorporated into Muslim
culture."
But this was a choice, Azam
said, not a requirement.
"One of the slippages was when
these things went from being a
choice to being something that
must be imposed by the state,"
Azam said.
"So what women are trying to
do now is reassert an
interpretation that the total
veiling and seclusion model
was meant specifically for the
wives of Mohammed and not for
all Muslim women."
Muslim women also want a new
interpretation of the Koranic
passage letting men take up to
four wives "if he can treat
them equally," said Afkhami of
the Women's Learning
Partnership.
'TEMPORARY WIVES'
The precedent is that nations
already interpret that
differently, she said. Some
require a first wife's
permission for more wives.
Others allow "temporary wives"
beyond the four. And some
follow secular laws forbidding
polygamy altogether.
Feminists say it is impossible
to treat four people equally
and so monogamy is therefore
consistent with the Koran.
"The Koran says Muslims must
adapt to the social conditions
in which they live," Afkhami
said. "That is what allows you
to be both a Muslim and a
feminist."
Yet "Islamic feminist" is just
one way of putting it, Azam
said. "You could simply call
it being a just human being."
Copyright 2001 S.F. Chronicle