Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (23 page)

. . . There are critical moral and political questions for us to ask in deter- mining who is responsible for the ways that care work is done, and what caring work is done and what caring work is left undone.
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The intrinsic empowerment of grassroots African-American Muslim women’s caring networks is in its direct relationship to their responsibilities “for the ways that care work is done” and in meeting the needs of other community members, with the faith perspective that builds personal dedication in care work. It is not motivated by what grants them the greatest global recognition, money, status, or legitimacy. Being women who struggle through untold hardships to sustain a genuine place in whatever they themselves think is “Islam” motivates and sustains their communal contributions. At the same time they seek to grow and flourish while creating a mirror of hope and mutual self-support for those whose hard- ships highlight not only the personal struggles they bear, but also the complete and utter failure of whatever discourse predominantly calls itself “Islam” despite the extent to which it ignores such basic needs among the

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inside the gender jihad

women. While they may suffer in the name of fulfilling “Islam,” they pray only to be better Muslims.

Over time, women’s collectives may form into, or from, study groups, make efforts to form nurseries and schools, build activity centers for children, develop scholarship programs, oversee teen organizations, and form gatherings to engage all Muslims. The most popular form of collective activity that has formed uniquely in North American communities is the women’s retreat. These retreats are usually held in places away from women’s daily responsibilities in the domestic sphere. They may include a conference, workshops, entertainment, banquets, fashion shows, and shopping for Islamic wares from other female Muslim entrepreneurs. The multipurpose retreat brings Muslim women together where they inevitably share experiences and vicariously support each other in their mutual struggles to be Muslim even when what stands as status quo “Islam” in their local communities might totally neglect them or is the cause of their

oppression. They

are strengthened by each other’s company in their

efforts to learn the truth about “Islam” as the core basis of their spiritual identity. I will briefly profile two Muslim women who have formed and remained central to such Muslim women’s collectives in the Richmond area, Muslim Women United and T.R.U.T.H. The women who have founded or presided over these collectives have been especially important to my faith experience and the nature of the work I do when little has inspired me in the Richmond area.

I came to live and work in Richmond, Virginia

after teaching at the

International Islamic University in Malaysia. I spent all three years of my contract there working within the larger community of Muslims, especially women and as a core member of Sisters in Islam. A similar organization does not exist in Richmond, but Muslim women have demon- strated their exemplary roles as care-workers and leaders characteristic

of the African-American

women’s

survival and advancement. Latifah

Abdus-Sabur and Jennah Aminah Qadir
14
are two of the most courageous and generous women demonstrating this kind of leadership as care-worker that I have known as a Muslim. Despite personal struggles, they have both contributed more to the Muslim community – through which they claim their identity – than many other community members, who have often been recipients of their noble deeds. Latifah is the chairperson and chief organizer of Muslim Women United. Jennah Aminah had a vision to start an organization called T.R.U.T.H. Neither one of these women has sought recognition for her contributions. Yet they have continued to serve out of

Muslim Women’s Collectives
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personal spiritual motivations drawn from what Islam means to them. They are care-workers, but not for money.

Muslim Women United, Richmond, Virginia

According to their mission statement, “Muslim Women United (MWU) . . . was established in 1989 by a group of muslim women . . . who recognized the need to uplift and enlighten muslim women in the practical application of Islam through education, networking, programming and philanthropy.” Latifah was a principal player in organizing this group and has been the primary chairperson of this organization. In the late 1980s she moved to Richmond from another state where the Muslim women had already formulated activities for women. Muslim by choice for nearly thirty years now, she did not find such activities here and so met with other African- American women to start M.W.U.

Latifah is one courageous Muslim woman activist who had struggled for years as a single parent to her children while her husband, their father, was in prison. Upon release from prison he began to take responsibility for his family and to continue his efforts to develop himself as an upstanding member of the Muslim community. She notes:
“
A proven prison statistic is that the majority of men, including Muslim men who have been incarcerated for a number of years, are trying to ‘catch up.’ They desperately try to regain the past and in so doing, they reach for that which has passed them by. Trying to recapture the missed years, and regain their youthfulness, or the past they thought they had lost.
”
So his manner of responsibility did not last a year. He was soon chasing after young, single, and non-Muslim women until one of them became pregnant. When Latifah finally asked for a divorce, the man married the young pregnant woman who then converted to Islam.

My attention was drawn to the strength and stamina of the Muslim woman activist with visible signs of the burdens of betrayal overshadowed by her continued generosity providing services for other Muslim women through contributions with M.W.U. My response to her was, “I could not do what you do.” She replied, “That’s what everyone says.” What is it that she does that causes others to recognize her as unique and to aspire to her role modeling? Whatever it is, it is the crux of my own aspiration in writing to acknowledge Muslim women’s networks worldwide.

Since its inception in 1989, M.W.U. has had its ups and downs. Core membership has fluctuated between five and nineteen. These members come from various local community collectives, not always able to work

106 inside the gender jihad

together for the sake of a Richmond-wide experience of practicing Islam. They experienced one major rift between core members from one local collective that led to a complete break. New members followed their decision to remove themselves from M.W.U. Later they returned as members. A maximum of ten women have bonded with and beyond the projects in which the organization has been engaged.

Such varied projects have included conferences, workshops, luncheons, festival celebrations, special event issues, “problems and solutions for Muslim women,” and invited speakers, and these projects have been inclusive of all Muslim women in Richmond, irrespective of their particular allegiances to sometimes contesting mosque organizations. Some side activ- ities, like an occasional sleepover, and all their planning sessions, are not open to the general public. They have engaged Muslim men and children – including a “Father–Son” function – with non-Muslim specialists, as well as with Muslim women. They now belong to a regional network of Muslim women with organizers from similar groups along the U.S. east coast. Different women are responsible for various committees with specific areas of focus required to bring about their many activities. Their primary annual function is a regional retreat with workshops, speakers, banquets, a bazaar, and entertainment. The annual retreats bring together two to three hundred women, primarily from Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and North Carolina, with scattering numbers from other major east coast areas. Latifah is a woman who can do what others cannot. What does she do that encouraged me to single her out among the collective that has worked together with various numbers and toward a variety of goals, all beneficial to creating and sustaining the sense of faith and spiritual well-being among their sister Muslims? She lives what she speaks and speaks what she believes in an exemplary manner that gives her the quiet fortitude of Islamic leader- ship in concert
with
other Muslims, not in imposing her authority over them. She is known for her skills and has presented several workshops on this topic from Virginia to Pennsylvania. This kind of leadership is more exemplary of Muslim women’s grassroots organizations. It creates an arena of productivity (
din
), and hope with no need for exerting the false self-appointed authority

essential to local, national, and international male Muslim collectives.

What I admire about her is her extensive ability to sustain the care- worker role, even when the care promised to her for being Muslim, a woman, awife, and a mother has not been provided to assist or relieve her from the

burdens of husband, children,

divorce,

and other outspoken Muslim

women,often the first to complain but never to orchestrate and participate in

Muslim Women’s Collectives
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extending the best available, as Latifah does through her belief in Islam toward a community of friends and strangers. She is the epitome of the fundamental understanding that faith alone does not make Islam, but only with her faith does she bring forth meaningful actions and the fulfillment of good deeds. She tells this story, on her own behalf.

“Call Latifah” is the word in the community. Her organization has been instrumental in aiding the needs of the community. On one occasion, she was approached after a
jum‘ah
service [Friday prayer] and told that a family needed assistance. Latifah was able to organize M.W.U. members and off to the grocery store they went. She and the other M.W.U. members cried, as they witnessed one of the family members pick up a bag of sugar and kiss it.

T.R.U.T.H.

Jennah Aminah Qadir began her Islam in the Nation of Islam temple in the Bronx, New York, with Louis Farrakhan at its head. It was 1969. When

W.D. Muhammad inherited the organization he recommended that the followers accept what was good from his father’s legacy. Jennah took that lesson to heart and has continued from that moment until the present, focusing on her own understanding and implementation of Islam as both growth and development. Her life has been characterized by many such transitions. Mother to four children, all adults now with an array of under- standings about Islam, she had left Richmond only to return in 1999 to bury one of her daughters, who had placed her life in the hands of drug addictions and paid the ultimate price. One night during Ramadan that year, she awoke with the word “truth” going round in her mind. Although she tried to return to sleep she spent several hours wrestling with what that word could mean. Eventually, she came to this conclusion: Together Righteousness Unites The Hearts: T.R.U.T.H. She has devoted herself as a care-worker to demon- strate just that point.

Sometimes she has done so single-handedly; now there are eleven members working, at different levels, to support her vision. Again her contributions are not for money or personal recognition. Initially she charged a subscrip- tion of one dollar a month to any sister who was interested in receiving a monthly newsletter that advertises local and regional events benefiting the growth and union of Muslim women’s hearts. She single-handedly collected, alphabetized, and distributed an information list with over 300 Muslim women, mostly in the Richmond area. T.R.U.T.H. organizes sister functions for women to take care and be taken care of. One such function,

108 inside the gender jihad

“Pamper-Me-Plus,” provides opportunities for women specialists to per- form their services at reduced rates to other women who may never take the time to give themselves a facial, foot massage, or certain foods for body and mind.

When one Muslim woman needed a heart transplant, T.R.U.T.H. organized a walk-a-thon to raise money from those willing to pledge per mile. Hundreds of dollars were presented to help the heart patient through her ordeal. Nothing was put in Jennah’s pocket although she works as a vendor of Muslim wares and on occasion does odd jobs for wages. During the last few years she provided daily care for an ailing mother with diabetes, high blood pressure, bone cancer, and foot disorders, wheelchair-bound and requiring dialysis three times a week in addition to other continued visits and admissions to the hospital. Jennah Aminah has an especially intimate level of personal spirituality. She is the only person I have ever known who makes occasional calls after
salat-al-fajr
(the dawn prayer), just to check on how I am doing. She reads the Qur’an every day and enjoys the
tarawih
, a

special twenty-unit

prayer during the month of Ramadan, as well as

collective and individual
dhikr
(prescribed acts of remembrance).

As Tronto reminds us, “care is needed”, and care-workers provide that care. Latifah and Jennah are care-workers for love through their faith in Islam. They are the living embodiments of one of the better notions of Islam to which any Muslim can aspire, agency through service. Both women demonstrate the priority of unity – as the words “united” and “together” imply from their respective group names. However, unity is never used for uniformity, as demonstrated by the inclusive nature of the forums they conduct. Muslim women and men, adults and children, from all mosque affiliations and all from convenient geographical locations and with diverse perspectives on Islam, are invited and attend.One visible indication of this is seen in the variety of dress for the women’s retreat – with women who wear no head covering to women who cover their faces – all present are equally welcome to participate in the forums organized. The indigenous African- American
hijab
is not monolithic. It reflects styles worn by non-Muslim women, elaborate and colorful wraps like their African sisters, and various styles worn by Asian and Arab women. Through their examples, inclusive Islam moves from potential to reality. In that reality, the woman care-worker is the community exemplary for compassion and care.