Unveiling The Myths Of Muslim Women
By Moin Qazi, New Age Islam
27 September 2023
"A mother is a school.
Empower her, and you empower a great nation."
—Hafez Ibrahim, Egyptian
philosopher
File Photo
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When Imam Zuhri, a famous scholar of the Sunnah, indicated
to Qasim ibn Muhammad, a scholar of the Qur'an, a desire to seek knowledge,
Qasim advised him to join the assembly of a well-known woman jurist of the day,
Amara bin Al-Rahman. Imam Zuhri attended her assembly and later described her
as "a boundless ocean of knowledge". Amra tutored several famous
scholars, such as Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Hazama and Yahya Ibn Said. Amra was not
an anomaly in Islamic history, it actually abounds with famous female narrators
of jurisprudence, starting with Aisha, Muhammad's wife. A conservative count
would reveal at least 2,500 extraordinary women jurists, narrators of
Muhammad's sayings (hadith), and poets. Yet, their stories are not always
well-known or widely acknowledged. Ground-breaking accomplishments by women
have always occurred. We need to dig deep enough in history to find these gems.
And Muslim women are just starting to get their similar due.
Thanks to the painstaking research of Islamic scholar
Mohammad Akram Nadwi, the dean of Cambridge Islamic College, the stories of
accomplished Muslim female scholars, jurists and judges have been unearthed.
Over the past 20 years, Mr Nadwi's research of biographical dictionaries,
classical texts, madrasa chronicles and letters has led to a listing of about
10,000 Muslim women who have contributed toward various fields of Islamic
knowledge over 10 centuries. Muslims have just begun to discover their own
"hidden figures, " and many more are yet to find. If we fail to deal
with the present-day sexism that has eroded the egalitarian nature of our
historical communities, this excavation becomes all the more difficult.
Not only is the sheer number impressive, but so is how these
women operated: Many were encouraged by their fathers at an early age to
acquire knowledge, and many travelled to seek a more profound understanding of
Islamic sciences. They sat in study circles – with men – at the renowned
learning centres, debating and questioning alongside their male counterparts.
And they taught their study circles to men and women alike. Some were so
revered that students came from near and far to absorb their wisdom. They
approved certifications of learning and provided fatwas (non-binding religious
opinions); as judges, they delivered essential rulings.
A few notable examples include Aisha, the youngest wife of
Prophet Mohammed, who was known for her expertise in the Koran, Arabic
literature, history, general medicine and juridical matters in Islam. She was a
primary source of authentic hadith, or traditions of the Prophet, which form
part of the foundation of Sunni Islam. Umm al-Darda was a 7th-century scholar
who taught students in the mosques of Damascus and Jerusalem, including the
caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. She was considered among the best
traditionalists of her time. And one of
the greatest was the 8th-century scholar Fatima al-Batayahiyyah, who taught in
Damascus. During the Hajj, leading male scholars flocked to her lectures. She
later moved to Medina, where she taught students in the revered mosque of the
Prophet. When she tired, she rested her head on the grave of Mohammed. Fatimah
bint Mohammed al Samarqandi, a 12th-century jurist, advised her more famous
husband, 'Ala' al-Din al-Kasani, on how to issue his fatwas; she also mentored
Salahuddin.
There are but a few of the thousand luminaries found by Nadwi, a classically trained Islamic scholar.
Initially, he thought he would see 20 or 30 women; his compilation now fills 40
volumes. While a 400-page preface (Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam)
has been published, Nadwi's work,
indeed a Muslim country or UNESCO, can help disseminate it.
The Fading Trend
However, that trend is now history. Nowadays, we hardly ever
encounter female Islamic jurists. Women are all but absent from Islamic public
and intellectual life. If we scan the records of the centuries of Islamic
history, we find many women active in all areas of life, only to see them
marginalised dramatically later. So, what happened? How and why have things
changed in the last three hundred years to the extent that it is unusual to
find women involved in Islamic sciences? Unlike in the past, significantly few
Muslim men would even consider being taught by a Muslim woman.
The Qur'an enshrined a new status for women and gave them
rights that they could have only dreamed of before in Arabia; so why the
seeming disparity between what once was and what now appears to be? This is a
phenomenon that requires in-depth research. It is time to re-examine the
sources and reassess how Muslim women in the past achieved such glory so that
we can rid our society of the constraining perspectives that have become the
norm.
Customs have characterised cultures that arose since then
and localised leanings more than genuine Islamic values. The lives of the first
Muslim women represent valuable models, transcending time and physical
boundaries; therefore, these models can serve as powerful, culturally authentic
tools in advancing the human rights agenda toward increased female empowerment
in the political, social, and economic spheres in Muslim communities. The
contributions of these women to the Muslim community are undeniable; to some,
they even appear almost mythical. They mistakenly subscribe to the erroneous
notion that contemporary Muslim women cannot attain such stature. However,
these women represent others who lived, fought, learned, worked, and led during
Islam's foundational period and beyond. Their male companions, the caliphs who
assumed Muslim rule following the demise of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), treated
them with respect, admiration, appreciation, and as equals. Society needs to
guard the female community's progress actively; otherwise, they can regress.
The most common justification for ridiculing Islam is that
the religion is "backward", particularly regarding women as a
fundamental part of its beliefs. The portrayal of Muslim women in the media
arena is grim and sad. The public perception concerning them is one of the
stubborn stereotypes. Supposedly powerless and oppressed, behind walls and
veils, demure, voiceless, and silent figures, discriminated against.
At the same time, the position of women in Islamic countries
has dramatically changed in a few decades, with access to education, birth
control, and jobs. But each advance is resisted, and attitudes are harder to
change than laws. From Morocco to Iran, women—secular, liberal, and religious,
sometimes alone, together—are challenging traditions, demanding greater rights,
and reinterpreting the Holy Qur'an and Muslim history.
As in other areas of life, Muslim women have proven
resourceful, creative, and dedicated to claiming ownership and responsibility
for their faith individually and communally. This is despite the challenges
they have often faced in gaining access to the appropriate religious training
facilities and establishing credibility with the male religious establishments,
particularly the clerical class.
Today, Muslim women
are active in Qur'anic study circles, mosque-based activities, community
services sponsored by religious organisations, and Islamic education as
students and teachers. There are a rising number of female Qur'an reciters,
Islamic lawyers and professors of Islamic studies throughout the world. This
process is also helping to shake up some traditionally held cultural
misconceptions. All Muslims can further activate the reform process by re-examining
the lives of the first Muslim women who lived during Islam's formative period,
not just as historical figures but as modern Islamic models that can be
emulated today.
While many Muslims around the world learn about such
exceptional Muslim women in school, their relevance to the contemporary context
is frequently overlooked. Most critical aspects of their personalities are
glossed over. Through learning and celebrating their examples, men and women
can better understand and build upon notions of the role of Muslim women in a
culturally authentic paradigm. Muslim women's activism around education and
equal opportunities is often underpinned by their emancipatory readings of
foundational Islamic texts. They are also challenging the patriarchy that most
women experience around unequal power hierarchies in society and the
objectification of women's bodies in sections of the media. They believe that
rights have been accorded to them in foundational Islamic texts but that
cultural interpretation of these texts disallows what is rightfully theirs.
They do not call this a feminist struggle but describe it as a reclamation of
their faith. They stand with their sisters of all backgrounds in this quest.
Although traditionally excluded from the male public domain,
Muslim women have been privately involved in the study and oral transmission of
Islamic texts (the Qur'an and hadith). In modern times, they have entered both
secular and religious forms of education with enthusiasm, supporting their
long-standing role as family educators and moral exemplars, as well as training
for professional careers at the workplace outside the home. Central to Islamic
belief is the importance and high value attached to education. From the actual
Islamic point of view, education should be freely and equally available to
women as much as men.
Elsewhere, the fully empowered Muslim woman sounds like a
self-assured, post-feminist individual who draws her inspiration from the
example of Sukayna, the brilliant, beautiful great-granddaughter of the Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH). She was married several times and, at least in one of her
marriages, stipulated in writing that her husband was forbidden to disagree
with her about anything.
All these conditions are based on the canons of Islam and
early Muslim practice. A Muslim woman cannot be forced into marriage without
her consent; indeed, she has the right to revoke a marriage to which she did
not agree in the first place. We now have a curious and empowered female Muslim
generation that will not easily accept rules and codes without reasoning and
arguing on every strand before embracing them.
Feminism and Muslim Women
Few Muslim women outside the urban domain may want to behave
like Western women. A comparison may mean little outside the cultural context,
but it is essential to point out that Western women virtually had no rights in
law or practice until a hundred years ago. Over 1,000 years before the first
European suffragette, Islam gave women far-reaching rights and a defined
status.
Muslim women emerged as the centrepiece of the Western
narrative of Islam in the nineteenth century and, notably, in the later
nineteenth century as Europeans established themselves as colonial powers in
Muslim countries. Their descriptions simultaneously and hypocritically
perpetuated the Victorian English narrative that European men were superior to
women while denigrating Muslim culture for being oppressive to women. But, of
late, Muslim women have transformed a great deal. They certainly do not share
the Western notion of feminism. These women do not accept that being feminist
means being Western and believe Western women should be respectful of other
paths to social change. They argue that Western thinkers and practitioners must
reconsider their assumptions about the role of Islam in women's rights and
approach this topic with a more nuanced lens. They want them to understand the
necessity of recognising and consciously accepting the broad cultural differences
between Western and non-Western concepts of autonomy and respecting social
standards that reflect non-Western values. Muslim women must work in full
partnership with Muslim men, reject Western models of liberation, and, more
importantly, assert their Islamic feminism, insisting that Islam, at its core,
is progressive for women and supports equal opportunities for both men and
women.
First, there are multiple causes of discrimination against
women, and religion is but one. Secondly, gender relations that structure
women's options in all societies must empower women. Thirdly, it is futile to
focus on misery elsewhere as an escape from the realities of our own lives. And
fourth, the issue of power remains crucial for understanding gender inequality
in any society.
Western thinkers and practitioners must reconsider their
assumptions about the role of Islam in women's rights and approach this topic
with a more nuanced lens. They must understand the necessity of recognising and
consciously accepting the broad cultural differences between Western and
non-Western concepts of autonomy and respecting social standards that reflect
non-Western values.
Historically, Islam was incredibly advanced in providing
revolutionary rights for women and uplifting women's status in the seventh
century. Many of the revelations in the Qur'an were by nature reform-oriented,
transforming critical aspects of pre-Islamic customary laws and practices in
progressive ways to eliminate injustice and suffering. Still, it is not enough
to merely flaunt these values. We must act on them. The reforms that took place
in the early years of Islam were progressive, changing with the needs of
society. However, the more detailed rules the classical jurists laid out only
allowed many pre-Islamic customs to continue. These rules reflected their
society's needs, traditions, and expectations, not the progressive reforms
initiated during Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) time. Hence, the trajectory of
reform that began during Muhammad's time was blocked in the medieval period by
further elaborating fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), which was then selectively
codified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Islam also promotes and teaches humans to practice balance
in all aspects of life with moderation. Being humans, we are subjected to
influences by our culture and traditions.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that our world views and religious
views differ from place to place, era to era, and across cultures, thereby
continuing to religion, in this case, Islam, to the oppression of women.
However, efforts are needed to ensure that such changes do not work to
subjugate women. The alleged retrograde practices of the community take the
world's focus away from understanding the overwhelming problems of the Muslim
world and the cause of its troubles. It provides an easy scapegoat for those
looking to legitimise their illegitimate actions, which are detrimental to
humanity. It is one of the reasons for this unnecessary bitterness over plainly
innocuous symbols which have culturally bonded these cultures over the years.
At its very core, Islam prescribes the principles of justice
and equity for peace and human development and compassion for all humanity. We
must mention that the same root word of Islam originates from the word salaam
(peace). Islam is a universal religion that speaks to humanity. The Prophet
summed up his philosophy in his last great address at Arafat by decrying
barriers between people. For him, Islam transcended caste, colour, and race divisions.
"All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a
non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no
superiority over a black nor does a black have any superiority over a white
except by good action."
They are enlightened and responsive and have the same
innovative trait that makes them attuned to their Qur'anic obligations. They
have evolved approaches that meet both their secular and religious commitments.
Modesty has to do with clothes and should be a voluntary choice for women.
Voluntarily. Freedom is about having the option to do and wear what you want;
banning clothing would only counter that freedom.
Islam: The Most Discussed Religion
Women are exposed to organised education for the first time
and are now enlightened enough to channel their cultural, parental and
religious practices and beliefs. Their scepticism on various issues is an
understandable reaction from a minority community that has remained pawned in a
bewildering swelter of ideologies. Muslim communities, and much of that focuses
on women, see Islam as inherently part of the problem—if not the whole
situation—that Muslim women face. Muslim women must not be disengaged from the
religion. We we can achieve anything close to equality or equality; be provided equality in all spheres, which is
their right.
Women are arguing for women's rights within an Islamic
discourse. Some leading proponents are men—distinguished scholars who contend
that Islam was radically egalitarian for its time and remains so in many of its
texts. Islamic feminists claim Islamic law evolved in ways damaging to women,
not due to any inevitability but because of selective interpretation by
patriarchal leaders. Across the Muslim world, Islamic feminists are combing through
centuries of Islamic philosophy to highlight the more progressive aspects of
their religion. They seek accommodation between a modern role for women and the
Islamic values that more than a billion people follow.
Muslims need to look at themselves realistically instead of
their imagined selves. Like their counterparts in other creeds, their
scriptures guarantee that we must respect Muslim women's equality. Women also
believe foundational Islamic texts have accorded these rights them. Still,
interpreting these documents with the prevalent cultural lens disallows what is
rightfully theirs.
Quest for Gender Equality
The stereotype of a Muslim woman as a passive victim is a
dangerous myth. It is promoted by the opponents of gender equality within and
outside Muslim societies and must be abolished. Muslim women's activism around
education and equal opportunities is often underpinned by their empowered
readings of foundational Islamic texts. They are also challenging the
patriarchy that all women experience around unequal social power hierarchies
and objectifying women's bodies; in some sections of the media, women are now
elbowing their way into politics, civil society, and universities. Despite
present cultural and political obstacles, they are finding opportunities to
raise their societies. They feel the key to doing so lies within Islamic
paradigms. There is a need to engage in Islam from a position of knowing to
ensure that Muslim women have access to this knowledge.
Through this knowledge, women can assert their rights and
challenge patriarchal interpretations of Islam. While prioritising a literal,
puritanical reading of the Qur'an, they want to discard the historical reality
of the Muslim world in favour of the ideal society of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and
his companions. Their unifying vision has made collective action possible.
There is no denying that the Muslim world has a significant
amount of ground to cover to protect women's rights and freedoms, and the quest
for gender equality remains paramount. However, the idea that all Muslim women
are oppressed because Muslim men are misogynists is wide off the mark because
women's oppression manifests itself in several ways. Not all Muslim men are the
oppressors.
It is clear that Muslim women's empowerment, like many
things, cannot be imposed on a country or a culture from the outside. Men and
women within these conservative communities must find their reasons and
justifications to allow women a fuller societal role. Increasingly, they are
finding those reasons within Islam. Like men, women deserve to be free. In
today's increasingly global world, everyone has higher stakes than ever.
Societies that invest in and empower women are on a virtuous cycle. They become
more prosperous, stable, better governed, and less prone to fanaticism.
Countries that limit women's educational and employment opportunities and
political voices get stuck in a downward spiral. They are poorer, more fragile,
have higher levels of corruption, and are more prone to extremism.
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Moin Qazi
is the author of the bestselling book, Village Diary of a Heretic Banker. He
has worked in the development finance sector for almost four decades.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/unveiling-myths-muslim-women/d/130766