Muslim Women of Power: Breaking Stereotypes & Challenging Patriarchy
By
Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam
27 July
2023
Muslim
Women of Power: Gender, Politics and Culture in Islam
By
Clinton Bennett
London,
United Kingdom: Continuum International Publishing Group,
Pp
236
ISBN
9780826400871
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Women and
their status in Islam have been a subject of contention for a long time, and
making headlines now and then in the media, be it wife beating, Fatwas against
women or their role in public life. The media has helped reinforce the
stereotypical image about Muslim women being oppressed souls with no freedom of
choice; and Islam being the source of their oppression and miseries.
The present
book under review tries to shatter all these myths about oppression of women by
Islam, authored by a non-Muslim scholar, who objectively chooses to case study
the political career of five women of four countries as heads of the state, and
the influence of their rule on Political Culture, Gender and Women in particular.
The book is divided into six chapters, with a lucid introduction and scholarly
conclusion.
The author
delineates eight issues under each case study. The women heads of state who are
discussed in this book are Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh
Hasina of Bangladesh, Tansu Ciller of Turkey and Megawati Sukarnoputri of
Indonesia, all belonging to the Asian continent, and each chapter has been
individually dedicated to them which addresses their roles as heads of state.
In his
powerful introduction Clinton Bennett deconstructs many assumptions related to
women being heads of state, like in Politics women choose to prioritize and
promote women’s welfare and issues, national prosperity doesn’t automatically
empower women, and women are more compassionate and empathic towards their
compatriots, while men in many cases may also prove more compassionate towards
women welfare. Bennett then debates about the three stances regarding Muslim
women which are
1. Muslim women being equal but Different as
espoused and upheld by most Muslim revivalists and reformers like Maulana Abul
Ala Maududi.
2. Muslim women and men being Equal which
Bennett upholds and describes that Quran too is in favour of the same, but
cautions “construed as many Muslims increasingly do, Islam does not hinder but
encourages gender equality. If we read the Quran predisposed to find sanction
for male superiority, we find this. Yet the lenses we wear do not always
distort what we see, depending on their specifications”. (P-xv). Hence need for
a debate about rival interpretations is felt but the author neglects the same
and moves to the next stance
3. The call to Abandon Islam whose
protagonists are people like Taslima Nasreen and Moghissi, according to whom
Islam is anti-women and remaining within its fold would never guarantee their
rights, instead they seek the replacement of Islam for Universal values which
guarantees equality, liberty and similar rights to women.
After this
debate, Bennett chronologically deliberates the case study of these five women,
giving a brief overview of the woman, her biography and her tryst with
politics, and then analytically focuses on eight issues and tries to
objectively seek answer from their biographies to queries which include:
A) What role did Islam play?
B) What role did culture play?
C) What role did dynastic ties play?
D) Did gender play a significant role in
their rise to power?
E) Did gender play any role in their
exercise of power?
F) Is there any particular relationship
between their gender and strengthening democracy in the four states?
G) Does the post-colonial context have any
bearing on their careers?
H) Did these five women promote women’s
issues and rights?
The
greatest advantage of the book is that each chapter can be read separately as a
political history of the country too especially in case of Pakistan and
Bangladesh as the political culture, scenario and forms of government prevalent
in these countries is vividly described as well as the Gender practices and
culture prevalent in these countries is too taken account for, which obviously
bears a mark of Islam.
All these
countries which these women headed have various similarities, they all belong
to Asian continent, two to South Asia, all these had to pass through an era of
constitutional and political crises as well as the women as heads of the state
had to deal with the army too, which was always lurking in the background power
hungry as ever. All these countries had to deal with internal conflicts,
disturbances and skirmishes though Bennett has tried to answer the question but
only partially as the role these women of power hasn’t been discussed
thoroughly while dealing with conflicts and internal challenges to their power,
and in case of Benazir Bhutto no reference has been made about her dealing with
the Kashmir issue as well as internal challenges which include the political
challenge by her brother Murtaza Bhutto, whose daughter Fatima Bhutto in her
new book Songs of Blood and Sword holds Benazir responsible for the assassination
of her father. The foreign policy of the women too had been given less space.
Though
Bennett offers his readers a glimpse of the literature he surveyed, read,
consulted, analysed and inferred from while preparing his chapters on these
women, which is rare and exceptional, but still on numerous pages the
historical dates have been wrongly scribed e.g. on Page 56, year of formation
of Indian National Congress has been written as 1895 while as the correct year
is 1885, similarly on Page 59, Pakistan is described to have been created on
May 14, 1947 whereas the real date is August 14, 1947, mistakes like these
again repeat on pages 69, 100, 102 which sour the taste of this well researched book.
Bennett though is successful in projecting the
positive, factual picture of women in these nations, who are far from
oppressed, but also acknowledges that the Arab world needs to emulate, learn
and inspire from these nations, for whose women Islam isn’t impediment towards
holding the highest seat of power and directing the affairs of state and
governance. Here Bennett could have made a comparative study of the Arab and
Asian world before the advent of Islam, because in the Arab world women were a
disgruntled, debased, disharmonized, exploited and oppressed lot before the
advent of Islam, while as in the Asian countries women held reins of power too,
though they were also exploited and oppressed, and could have answered the
challenging question whether culture was more dominant than Islam on people??
As both the Arab and Asian world seems to have upheld the cultural practices
preceding Islam, analysing this dimension would surely have added to the
scholarly credentials of the book.
Despite
these shortcomings Bennett needs to be appreciated for his painstaking research,
as this book must be high on the reading list of everyone who wishes to
understand the Islamic perception about women, it is a welcome addition to the
sensitive issue of Muslim women as well as a scholarly treatise answering
certain brutally honest questions, which the Muslim and Islam bashers will find
quite hard to avoid and rebut.
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M.H.A. Sikander is Writer-Activist based in
Srinagar, Kashmir
URL: https://newageislam.com/books-documents/muslim-women-stereotypes-patriarchy/d/130308
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