Within the first few moments of any criticism of Muslims and Islam will be reference to the “way Islam treats women.” The usual response would then be an article by a Muslim author written about the rights of women in Islam which would run something like this:
Part One: description of the stereotypes of Muslims women. Make sure to include references to commonly used words by those who are generally not Muslims about Muslim women such as oppressed, uneducated, backward, locked indoors at home and so on.
Part two: the refutation. Illustrate how Islam brought rights to women 1400 hundred years ago, such as the right to own property, to choose her marriage partner, to worship freely, to be considered as equal human beings having souls and spirits of equal value to men. Remember to mention that these rights were far in advance of the West and European women only gained comparable rights in the twentieth century.
Part three: eulogise how amazing Islam is with regards to women’s rights and how Muslims are proud of this heritage, and that these ideas about Muslim women – of oppression, barbarism and subjugation – are simply at best misunderstanding or misconception about Islam born out of ignorance, and at worst a malicious demonisation and prejudice against Islam.
Part four: sit back and admire. Forget to analyse the fact that the social reality of Muslim women’s right is quite different from the theory. Fail to mention that even though the blueprint of gender rights and relations in Islam is something that offers much resource to the gender debate and the realignment of the status of women and their participation in society, there is still much work to be done to reach this goal.
This rhetoric of ‘poor oppressed Muslim woman’ and its counter rhetoric of ‘Islam came to give women their rights’ is precisely at the heart of the problem facing Muslims and obviously Muslim women in particular.
The ‘outside’ view draws a picture of a poor, backward, illiterate and subjugated Muslim woman. Such a woman comes to epitomise what is wrong with Islam, and the image of the veil and even the hijab is the symbol of that oppression, and of all things that are wrong. You’ll notice that TV programmes and newspapers tend to use imagery of Muslim women in headscarves and veils to illustrate stories about Muslims, even when Muslim women are not involved. Watch out for it in the news next time.
These Muslim women become the visual and ideological front line for Islam and Muslims and everything that is ‘wrong’ with them.
On the other hand, the Muslim establishment has always fiercely claimed that Muslim women have many rights, that they are liberated. Islamic teachings brought an unprecedented change with regards to the status and worth of all human beings regardless of colour, ethnicity, religion and also of gender. We have to contextualise this and see that this creed of all human beings being of equal worth was shocking and revolutionary at a time when tribal Arabs considered themselves superior, when black men were considered as the lowest value, when women were inherited from father to son.
There is no denying that the rights and status which both the spirit and the law of Islam tried to instil were a paradigm shift and something that Muslims can and should rightly be proud of.
But Muslims need to do a reality check between this utopia of Islam that exists in our heads and the reality of what it is truly like to be a Muslim woman. And I say this with compassion rather than scathing critique. If we truly wish to create the spirit of Islam we need to at least acknowledge where we are today rather than kid ourselves that we are living in the perfect Islamic scenario. The destiny of the Muslim community is founded on the balanced contribution of both men and women. If women are not participating, contributing and living their lives to the full, then ipso facto, neither are men. This principle applies to both Muslim and wider society.
Much of the time when you hear Muslim women, or indeed any women, talking about their rights, and their abuses, it is women talking to other women, complaining about the situation of women. This is simply preaching to the converted. Men – whether in the Muslim community, or in wider society – need to be involved in these conversations about women’s experiences. We may live in the same families, work in the same environments, know the same people, visit the same shops, schools and places of worship, but how we are treated, what we experience may be completely different.
Given this mismatch of reality and Islamic ideal, Muslim society seems to place the burden of upholding the ideal onto Muslim women. Muslim society is also putting Muslim women into the front line of Islam. Muslim women then become the symbols of a mythical Islam, for both sides. They become the territory over which Muslims and non-Muslims fight. Both sides have an image of what Muslim women are, or should be, and use it to fight their battles, to legitimise their views to attack the other side, to defend their own position.
Muslim women become a battleground in which the legitimacy of their voices is taken away. They cannot have their own opinion, they cannot beg to differ, either because their voices cannot be heard – the European view does not hear the Muslim woman’s voice because (and this is the irony of it) they do not believe that she can have an opinion of her own from a genuinely Muslim because she is so oppressed, or it gets ignored – so they end up treating her poorly. The traditional ‘utopian’ Muslim view sees any voice as dissent, as disloyalty to Islam. The only female voices given airspace are the shrill cries of those who denounce Islam, who cry that everything is wrong with it and that we must move wholly and uncritically to a western model which they ironically brand as a utopia and panacea for Muslim troubles. A compassionate female Muslim voice will go unheard.
This is the War over Muslim Women, where Muslim women become a territory and battleground. Nobody genuinely wants to or can hear the voices of these Muslim women. Muslim women are making huge changes, and those from the wider community need to stop holding up Muslim women as examples of oppression and then cutting them out of any discussion. I believe that if British Islam and Islam in general are to truly succeed from the point of view of Muslims and the wider community then the voice of Muslim women and their contribution will be critical.
The warring parties need to stop fighting their battles over Muslim women. Muslim women need to keep going with the struggle to have their voices heard. One of the reasons I started my blog was to create a space for my own voice, to escape from the black and white. If you’ve been reading my blog which is now one year old, you will see that the opening text talks about how as a Muslim woman I feel caricatured, forced to occupy a box defined by other people. I am trying to create a voice for myself that defines me as I choose myself to be, not how other people want me to be.
The war over Muslim women doesn’t need to be a war. Like women in general, Muslim women are not monoliths, nor are they nonentities or pawns or footballs. We already have plenty of wars, we don’t need another one.
Share on Facebook
