The Muslim Feminist - Oxymoron?

In 2006, I posted this to my blog. It was an article I’d originally penned for The Muslim Woman. When I read it today (can’t manage more than 2 paragraphs) I cringe. How arrogant, how cocksure, and how foolhardy I once was! Steeped in a sense of self-righteousness. Glossed over by my veneer of piety. How misguided...

Yes, one thing hasn’t changed. I still don’t think women need be imams. But perhaps I understand why there are those who’d want it. Its symbolic.

Being a Muslim woman in the 21^st century is a challenge.

Enter: The men of Learning - telling us what our hijaab means to us and  how we should be covered to save men from themselves. Telling us how paradise will be ours for the asking if we obey (read: are servants to) our spouses. How eternal success lies in us remaining in the deepest, darkest corners of our homes, effectively taking from us what little voice we have. Men who allow (how generous!) women to study in Ulooms provided they don’t ask uncomfortable questions or demand more knowledge than the men are willing to impart. That they never demand actual power or position that will challenge men’s centuries old dominance.

The product of these Ulooms are the fellow muslim sisters (I was one once) who consider being a voiceless entity a virtue. Tell us of the staggering rewards that await us when we breastfeed, cook, sweep, clean. Basking in the glow of their assumed piety and promised salvation

Is that all a woman is? Designed for childbearing and providing sterile milk on tap? Minions. Blindly following our men. Accepting any manner of indignity they choose to heap on us? Because that way, salvation lies? How many women aren’t fed the ‘Sabr’ line, when their husbands degrade or abuse them? Aren't told of the Jannah that awaits, even as their dignity is peeled away from them, layer, by painful layer?

Enter: The ‘West’ with its notion of female liberation. Emancipation. Our Muslim sisters in the ‘west’ who show us that it is possible to be a hijaab wearing lawyer/scientist/brain surgeon. Women who rile against being delegated to the last safs (god forbid, segregated) in the masaajid. Women who demand the imaamat.  The feminists. Those whose cause I was once arrogant enough to call Madness…

Perhaps now would be a good time to answer the question. Am I a feminist?  The answer is not that simple.

I think to call it feminism within the Islamic context is misleading. Since it conjures up images of women demanding complete equality to men. Feminism a la West. And we all know that Allah in His wisdom has decreed a double share for sons over daughters in inheritance. If this was my cause, I’d be contradicting the Quraan. Allah forbid.


I've long since accepted that as a woman, I'm wonderfully different, but equal in the ways that count. 

What I want is for women to be taken seriously. To be heard. To be allowed the same opportunities to learn, advance and grow, as men. And I think we will all agree, that for the average South African 'housewife', options to imbibe Islamic learning are limited. And those that are available tend to push a Tableeghi line, one that I remain exceedingly uncomfortable with.

It is Men of Learning who hijack the deen for their own agendas. That explains my deep seated mistrust of such scholars. It is Men of Learning who change Allah’s laws to suit their needs.

I recently offered to do one show a week for our fledgeling local radio station. They were skeptical (cautious) and asked for a breakdown. This was me asking, after all. And Allah knows why, but I have a reputation for being radical. I know! Go figure!

I sent them a proposal. One of the topics was feminism. Needless to say, I haven’t heard from them since.  See, thing is, by pretending muslim ‘feminism’ (I use the term loosely) isn’t a reality, we fool ourselves.

The feminist movement in the west has been around since 1872. Women have fought tooth and nail to be seen an equals. How well this movement has served their cause, that’s a whole other debate. And within a Muslim context, it will be here as long as men continue to usurp women’s rights and sit on their holy high chairs and fatwa-sise all over us.

Muslim women didn’t need feminism at the time of the advent of Islam. Reading detailed accounts of interaction between Sahabiyaat and their male counterparts reveals women who were dynamic, self assured and completely comfortable and in control of the spheres they occupied in society. And what rights they were deprived of, The Prophet himself (SAW) fought for on their behalf. Islam was radical for it’s time.

It was the Indianisation if Islam and male insecurity that herded women into a corner. A corner where they have (disgruntled though they were) remained for the last several hundreds of years. Pregnant, barefoot and behind the pots, the clichéd reality for many.

Bring on the turn of the century and our integration into mainstream society post apartheid (as opposed to our little Chaar Fiefdoms), and we have a generation of independent women and utterly bewildered men.

Ask any educated,  muslim woman how hard it is to find a secure, confident muslim man who isn’t threatened by her independence? Ask any mummy's little chaarou son what he wants from a spouse and he'll say, a girl just like my mother. 


Stalemate?

I haven't any answers on how to fix it. And still haven't pinned my colours to the Muslim Feminist mast. But they're firmly on the Women are Amazing! mast. And for now, that's good enough for me...