Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (7 page)

At the level of the average Muslim man or woman on the street, Islam is whatever they have inherited, culturally and ethnically. Since they are Muslim, they do Islam. When my youngest daughter goes to a mosque or community function she is enthusiastic about the opportunity to eat

What’s in a Name?
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“Muslim food.” Here, her Islam is somehow essential to basmati rice, curried meats and vegetables, certain seasonings or Mediterranean deli- cacies, and chapatti bread. Fatima Mernissi
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elaborates on what might be called Islam by birth in Arab culture in her chapters “The need to be Arab” and “The need to be Muslim”:

By affirming its claim to be Arab and Muslim, Morocco expresses a view of the world based on specific aspirations and drawing its ideology from specific sources. Islam
is not merely a religion
. It is a holistic approach to the world characterized by a “unique” insistence upon itself as a coherent and closed system, a sociological and legally and even politically organized system in the mundane world. (emphasis mine)

Leila Ahmed also refers in her memoirs
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to her inheritance of Islam as the upbringing by Muslim parents or in a Muslim cultural context. Here the emphasis is shifted to undefined qualities resulting from cultural experience whether or not they include aspects of volition regarding acceptance of definitions given to methods or conclusions of historical study. Cultural affiliations may not even be related to observation of religious rituals. She once told me she had been asked, “Are you a practicing Muslim?” Being “in the West” – with its conspicuous community of Muslims, including those who transit into Islam (converts, reverts, born-againers); those who are transnational (immigrants from cultural and ethnic communities with a long history of Islam) and their descendents; those with various orientations toward Islam, such as neo-traditionalists, recently formed clusters of reformist (still not always clearly identified against Muslim liberals) pro- gressives; those who reject Islam; as well as secularist Muslims – she faces an unprecedented set of criteria used to determine status in Islam. Within the female space of her cultural upbringing, which created its own self- identity distinct even from practices and perspectives dictated in mosque discourse, she was exempted from such concerns over identity as Muslims. Consequently, her diverse position within this amalgam qualifies her and others to remain
within
the boundaries of Islam in the ways most meaningful to their personal identity and the methods and motivations used to determine the boundaries of Islam.

Within the context of definitions and conceptions of “Islam,” I also began evaluations of gender and was led ultimately to justify the need for extensive reform in Muslim thought and praxis. My first question was how are women treated in “Islam”? The answer to this question I presumed would primarily be based on how women were treated as individuals, in

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families, and as members of Muslim societies, all of them patriarchal. The resulting research and observation primarily showed grave inequalities. I learned and began to teach the significant distinction between “Islam” and “what Muslims do.” The main way Western media uses the term “Islam” is based on whatever Muslims do. If they treat women cruelly despite its incoherence from a long intellectual tradition of Islamic principles, ideals, and values, the resulting reform is insufficient because it is incomprehen- sive. With such a definition, Islam is the reason for Muslims who are abusive and therefore only the full destruction of Islam is mandated. While this book focuses on the need for reforms, it provides some theoretical justifi-

cations from a

theological perspective. It looks at strategies toward

constructing such reforms from within the framework of my primary use of the word “Islam,” as premised upon the conceptual framework that Muslims either choose engaged surrender to Allah’s will or justify deviation from it by selective inclusions and omissions within the broad possibilities for naming “Islam.”

The more years I have lived as a Muslim woman, the more inequality I have discovered between women and men. My initial theoretical concern was to determine if the cause of women’s inequality was because of “Islam” itself. I did not fully grasp how this question not only presumed a uniform understanding of “Islam,” but also presumed that all Muslims used that definition to do whatever they do. It did not take long to identify how certain definitions of Islam were condoned or condensed exclusively by male authority, by various ideologies, as well as by culture, history, and by the sheer privilege of presumption – even up to the present time.

Despite numerous definitions, historical and current, whether explained or not, knowingly or unknowingly, each user assumes some authority that justifies him or her to determine when others would be considered adherents to their understandings, practice, and limitations of “Islam.” From the multiple parameters of these understandings of “Islam,” the discussions with diverse presumptions, the social-cultural climate, and the positions of authority, others could be accused of heresy, deviance, or even blasphemy or
kufr
(unbelief or infidelity to Islam). Meanwhile, if one intends to work from “an Islamic perspective,” he or she does not want to forfeit Islamic legitimacy. One of the most intimidating strategies used to deter women from working openly on reforms within an Islamic framework is the powerful force of techniques that accuse others of denying or going against “Islam.” So as Muslims learn about developments in Islamic

thought, either for themselves as believers or as potential and

actual

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participants in establishing and maintaining a reformed “Islam,” they either become skeptical of themselves or of the intent of certain references used negatively to accuse them of “going against Islam.” Eventually, this skep- ticism has led many to question whether the solution to establishing a just society or human rights lay within “Islam” at all.

I reclaim the right for all Muslims to accept their own identity as Muslim while holding a vast diversity of opinions and experiences. While I accept their identification as Muslims, I also expect their acceptance of others who identity as Muslims. Over time, my concept of “Islam” has gone through several transformations. In the earliest days of my research, I agreed wholly with Fazlur Rahman, that the best way to determine what is or is not

Islam is on the basis of the primary sources.
9
“I welcome the phenomeno-

logical approach with the provision that its users recognize the Qur’an and the
sunnah
as normative criteria-referents for all expressions and under- standings of Islam.”
10
While Muslim scholars and laity who claim to

articulate “an Islamic position” refer to these sources, the various conclu- sions drawn from their claims lead to an important caveat. As they analyze the same sources, their diverse conclusions indicate that what is basic to “Islam” results from only the human interaction with those texts – an inter- pretive process. Ultimately textual meaning is neither fixed nor static. Hermeneutics, as core to the act of interpretation, must be emphasized,

since a single source can and has led to diverse conclusions.
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This

historical and current method of interpretive reference mostly excludes women and women’s experiences. Therefore interpretations of the textual sources, and application of those interpretations when constructing laws to govern personal and private Islamic affairs and to construct public policies and institutions to control Islamic policies and authority, are based upon male interpretive privilege.

Using the Qur’anic text to define “Islam” has the same potential pitfalls as claiming certain definitions of “Islam.” The patriarchal norms of seventh-century Arabia left its mark upon the nature of the Qur’anic articu- lation and continued to do so for centuries with interpretation and implementation. Furthermore, narrow minds point to even more narrow interpretive potential of textual references. Hopefully, reformists will not only point to more liberative and egalitarian references, they will also elaborate on those references to free the text from the potential snares in some of its own particular utterances. This fortunately lends support to accepting human agency as a critical resource for establishing and main- taining dynamism between a linguistically articulated text, of divine origin,

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addressed at a fixed time while simultaneously intending to provide eternal guidance, as well as for understanding the meanings of Islam.
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ISLAM AS ENGAGED SURRENDER

Most introductory textbooks and courses on “Islam” equate Islam with the word submission. “Islam means submission to God’s will.” Since “God’s will” is a complex conceptual assertion too – for example, one that equates “God’s will” with the historically developed legal system through
shari‘ah
, because it was explicitly derived by the use of divine sources – then the

meanings of

“God,” “Allah,” and of “God’s

will” also require clarifi-

cation or definition. After some thought, I departed from one norm by rejecting the word submission. I prefer to use Islam as “engaged surrender.”

Although subtle,

the distinction

between

submission and surrender is

significant. I understand the word submission as involuntary, coerced exter- nally and limited to a prescribed set of required duties. Many Muslims actually confess that a Muslim
must submit
to their understandings of a prescribed set of required duties as if there is no choice. Submission is enforcement situated completely outside of the one who submits. However,

if such a

coercive construction really existed, then the extensive and

continual failure of Muslims to submit – as evident throughout Muslim history and in the present – would be impossible. Islam would be univer- sally sanctified and religiously exemplary. Muslims disobey Allah’s will obviously because they
can
exercise choice.

In this respect, engaged surrender emphasizes the requisite role of human agency. It is conscious recognition of choice and exercising that choice as an agent, not a puppet. For example, even if a woman is under duress, say at knifepoint, to submit her purse, she still has choice. She could choose to resist the command, accepting responsibility for the potential perils and even catastrophic consequences of her resist- ance. Ultimately her choice might not save her purse or her person from the one with the knife. However, she still has the agency of choice in facing the situation and ultimately shares responsibility in the conse- quences. In choosing the term
“
engaged surrender
”
for Islam, the outcome shows greater agency exercised through personal conscientious partici- pation.

No definition has been as significant to my identity and work as a Muslim woman in the gender
jihad
as has Islam as “engaged surrender.”
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The combination implies the acknowledgment of some standard idea of

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Islam that includes Allah’s power over His creation with simultaneous free will in the human response. The form of submission or surrender to His will, that is human obedience, calls attention to the significance of the human response at his or her discretion as agent. Meanwhile it takes nothing away from the ultimate power of Allah’s will. It simply constructs its availability in the mundane realm through voluntary human action or interaction and renders to Islam a much more dynamic formula by recog- nizing what human surrender means vis-à-vis Allah’s will. This is confirmed by the Qur’anic identification of the human being as
‘abd
, or servant. Surrender is mutually accepting human volition while recognizing Allah’s ultimate authority. As a servant one must act in accordance with how one understands Allah’s will. It is abundantly evident that most people on the planet do not surrender to Allah’s will; they surrender to greed, ego, desires, and whims.

The term “engaged” confirms human volition. A human can surrender but only through the autonomy of full consciousness. One can choose not to surrender. This makes it easier to understand Allah’s unique gift to humans as morally free beings. Engaged surrender binds human agency and divine will into the dynamic and enduring relationship that is always being exercised from one moment to the next whether in public or private human actions. Often tension arises between the divine will and human agency, so Islam is the voluntary choice of surrender. Emphasis is placed upon the agent for the choice he or she makes to surrender to Allah’s will. That should be taken for granted, not as blame for the chaos and destruction that human civilizations have chosen to create, be they Muslims

or not.
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I will return to look at agency in more detaill after my discussion

of
tawhid
.

The Tawhidic Paradigm

Tawhid
is the principle theoretical or foundational term underlying my use of the term Islam to claim that it does not oppress women. I have developed what I call the
tawhidic paradigm
.
There were many experiences of being a woman engaged in the gender
jihad
that influences my thinking and drives my research
.
This book will include selective references to some of these experiences integral to my journey and theoretical conclusions. As the
tawhidic
paradigm is discussed here, it is unequivocal and fundamental to my work on gender. It began with experiences of Muslim gender “double- talk” that presumes that “woman is
not
to man as man is to woman.”

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