TOO
MUCH WILL BE LOST IF WE DON’T SPEAK
Muslim
Women Lead the Way!
Dr.
Noorjehan Safia Niaz
We as Muslims are going through
very difficult times. There is Islamophobia on one hand and an increasingly
dangerous and inhuman set of emergent Muslim groups on the other. Both are bent
on destroying the Muslim community and the Islamic fabric. We have earned a bad
name because of the misdeeds of others as well as of our own. But this phase
also gives us an opportunity to recreate and rejuvenate ourselves and break
free from old shackles which will only further target and marginalize us. Easy
as it may sound it is not. For a new dawn to break in the Islamic world the
hitherto silent majority must speak up. This silent majority has for too long
put up with the conservative, narrow, patriarchal, misogynist, demonical and
dominant voices. As a result all Muslims across the world today are despised
and hated. If we the liberal voice do not speak we are doomed, to say the
least.
Indian Muslims are a lucky lot so
far to be belonging to a nation state which is deeply rooted in secular,
democratic and liberal values. Rights of any community and specifically of
vulnerable communities are ensured only in a political space which is
democratic, respects all kinds of plurality and diversity and allows freedom of
expression. We Indian Muslims need to now at a faster pace move towards
ensuring, protecting and promoting this democratic political space, processes
for the same have begun albeit in a small way. Here it is important to
highlight that Muslim women have almost taken a lead in contemporary times to
take advantage of this Constitutionally guaranteed political space by
organizing and mobilizing themselves across the country. Demanding
implementation of Sachar Committee report, drafting and making public a
women-just and Quran compliant Muslim family law, forming Women’s Shariah
Courts, aligning with state structures for entitlements and benefits, fighting
for a secure and fear-free social and political life are some of the very
momentous and significant socio-political actions of Indian Muslim women. These
initiatives of Muslim women need to be supported and complimented by other
Muslims so that the community as a whole is able to lead a life of dignity and
safety. It cannot be that the community demands security and democracy for
itself from the state but does not allow the same for the women. Democracy
within is the crying need of the time.
Also within the Islamic framework
there is a strong need to appreciate and distinguish between the normative and
contextual writings in the Quran. There are many verses of the Quran which have
a normative, immutable and prescriptive appeal. They point towards universal
values of justice, equality, wisdom and compassion which must permeate life of
each and every human being for all times of come. On the other hand are the
contextual and descriptive verses which were relevant for those times and for that
particular society. As a principle new age Muslim women and men must root for
the universal principles and base their laws and their way of life on those. In
other words a humanistic understanding of the Quran will ensure that as Muslims
we are able to live in peace with other communities and also ensure justice
within.
Allah is a universal power which
as per the Tawhidic understanding permeates all beings, living and
non-living. This universal power is rahman and rahim, merciful
and beneficent and is embedded in the Islamic notion of Taqwa or moral/ethical
notions.* It is very heartening and encouraging to note that across the Muslim
societies Muslim women are embracing this very Islamic and universal ideas of Tawhid
and Taqwa which encourages us to love all as creations of one God and
live and let live everyone in peace and tranquility. Emboldened by the
conceptualization of God as merciful and just, Muslim women are now seeking
justice and equality within the families and are reclaiming their right to read
the Quran and arrive at their meanings based on their own lived realities. In
the last couple of decades we have had Islamic feminist scholars like
AminaWadud, Fatima Mernissi, Riffat Hassan, Ziba Mir Hosseini and many others
who have taken up the challenge of rereading, retranslating and reinterpreting
the Quran from a feminist perspective. And what has emerged is a vast amount of
literature which debunks many misgivings and misunderstandings about Islam and
women’s rights. What has been liberating and empowering is the assurance that
the Quran wants justice for all humans so that life can be led peacefully and
in tranquility and in complete harmony with everything around us. So ‘…. problem
is not with the text but with the context and the ways in which text is used to
sustain patriarchal and authoritarian structures’.*
With the emergence of Muslim
women’s religious leadership, we get to hear a completely humanistic and
enabling version of Islam. Women are no longer just recipients of knowledge and
objects to be studied but are now agents of knowledge creation including
religious knowledge. Islamic laws and understanding of Islam itself has been
the domain of men for many centuries now. Extremely patriarchal interpretations
and even translations have created a hierarchy in women-men relationships.
Superiority of men over women is God-ordained and hence cannot be challenged at
all. This understanding closes all doors of negotiations within the familial
relationships. Contemporary Muslim women have
inadvertently opened the doors of ijtihaad by creating knowledge from
their own perspectives and their own lived realities which are largely experiences
of injustice and inequality. In other words there is a move towards ‘democratization
of the production of religious knowledge’.* Women are no longer dependent on
men to know what God wants from them. They no longer have to accept what men
have been telling them. They no longer have to believe that God has created
them as inferior to men. They now read, translate, interpret and explain to the
world that their God is just, loving and merciful and has created them on par
with men.
As Muslim women gain strength and
voice there is hope for the community as well, for women’s voices will be
voices of peace, harmony, justice and equality.
* Completely inspired by:
Ed. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki
Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger, ‘Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority In
Muslim Legal Tradition’, Oneworld Publications, 2015.
