Reclaiming sacred spaces - Muslim Women's Struggle for Entry into Haji Ali Dargah

Reclaiming sacred spaces - Muslim Women's Struggle for Entry into Haji Ali Dargah 
https://notionpress.com/read/reclaiming-sacred-spaces

This book captures the journey of Muslim women led by BMMA to gain entry into the sanctum sanctorum of the Haji Ali Dargah. In 2012, BMMA activists could not enter the sanctum as women were barred from accessing and offering prayers near the tomb. This was the first time in the 400 years of the history of this dargah that someone was barred from offering prayers while standing inside the inner room where the tomb lies. For those women living in Mumbai and visiting Haji Ali as part of their growing up years, this restriction came as a shock. It was not only regressive from a gender perspective but also was indicative of more restrictions which might be imposed in future, killing the syncretic spirit of dargahs which have been home to all, irrespective of class, gender, religion or any other category.

The following two years were a struggle outside the court when women tried to negotiate and sort out the issue by demanding the restoration of the status quo through dialogue. When those initiatives failed to give any result, then BMMA approached the Mumbai High Court.

Chapter 1 of the book outlines both, the struggle outside the court and then the struggle within the court. It also looks closely at the role of state and its various agencies whose primary responsibility is to fulfil their constitutional obligation of protecting women’s rights.

Chapter 2 looks at the debate based on the Indian Constitution. The intersectionality of Constitution, religion and women’s rights and how Muslim women invoked the various articles of the Constitution to regain entry into the dargah.

Chapter 3 is about Islam and women’s rights. Quran, as the book of God has emphasized on gender equality unequivocally. It is the Quranic values of justice, equality, kindness, wisdom and compassion which are at the core of Islam. Patriarchal interpretations stand exposed as women themselves begin reclaiming religion from the clutches of conservative religious organizations.

Many annexures capture the journey and the final message of the judiciary. Many individuals and groups came forward to support and show solidarity which is again captured in the annexures. Media played an important role in highlighting the issue and women’s perspective throughout.

In all, this book captures all that one needs to know about the Muslim women’s fight for gender justice followed by a victory which was their first foray into the religious arena. It is a book about the struggle and triumph of Muslim women as Indian citizens, as women, as Muslims.

Nobody imagined that a democratic struggle by ordinary Muslim women would hit patriarchy at its core and yield a great step forward towards gender justice. The ‘Haji Ali Case’ not only challenged the patriarchy within the Muslim community but also created space for an alternative voice which was desperately trying to speak the language of equality, justice and democracy. This struggle created space for an open debate on women’s rights and religion which hitherto was confined to certain academic circles.

Muslim women in India, led by BMMA, are today at the forefront of reforms, especially those emanating from religion. They have kept it simple- Muslim women will take from the Constitution, from the Quran, from CEDAW, from UDHR and from any other document all that will facilitate their betterment and equality. A Muslim woman is a world citizen today and she has all the right to reach out to all quarters so that she can lead the change not just for herself or for her community but for all humankind and indeed for the entire world.

It is hoped that this book which captures the struggle to reclaim sacred spaces from patriarchal forces inspires other similar movements led by women. 

Discrimination at Haji Ali Dargah cannot be passed off as Islamic: Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan

See http://www.firstpost.com/india/discrimination-at-haji-ali-dargah-cannot-be-passed-off-as-islamic-bharatiya-muslim-mahila-andolan-2555176.html for the article 

MUSLIM WOMEN'S VIEWS ON MUSLIM PERSONAL LAW - Zakia Soman and Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz

CHECK http://www.epw.in/journal/2015/51/notes/muslim-womens-views-muslim-personal-law.html

MUSLIM WOMEN'S VIEWS ON MUSLIM PERSONAL LAW - Zakia Soman and Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz

NO MORE "TALAQ TALAQ TALAQ - Muslim Women Call for a Ban on an UnIslamic Practice

CHECK bmmaindia.com FOR THE PUBLICATION

NO MORE "TALAQ TALAQ TALAQ - Muslim Women Call for a Ban on an UnIslamic Practice -
Zakia Soman and Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz 

Seeking Justice Within Family - A National Study on Muslim Women's Views on Reforms in Muslim Personal Law

CHECK bmmaindia.com for 'Seeking Justice Within Family - A National Study on Muslim Women's Views on Reforms in Muslim' by Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz and Zakia Soman 

TOO MUCH WILL BE LOST IF WE DON’T SPEAK - Muslim Women Lead the Way!

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.

So Many Hegemonies to Contend With! Too Many Fronts to Fight On!

So Many Hegemonies to Contend With!

Too Many Fronts to Fight On!

Author – Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz

noorjehan.sn@gmail.com

When the marginalized speak for themselves, many voices emerge to assert on their behalf. Political voices, feminist voices, religious voices, secular voices – all behave as if they have been robed off their job to speak for the marginalized and that the marginalized themselves have no capacity to speak about their own issues.

Since the time Muslim women have released the codified Muslim family law, many voices have emerged; the loudest so far has been the voice of our feminist friends. Suffice it to say that these voices appear wounded and angry. As if they are saying, ‘how dare these Muslim women speak about their own problems? Have we not been doing a good job of it for so many years?! How much do they know about feminism and how much do they know about law? These Muslim women know nothing and then they speak as if they know’. While it was expected that the mullahs will fume and throw a fit, it is the reactions of the feminists that was surprising, although not completely unexpected. What is also intriguing is that the line demarcating the feminist groups and the conservative religious groups is increasingly getting blurred. Sometimes it feels that it is the same voice.

The feminists and the mullahs, both strongly oppose any attempt at codifying the Muslim law. The feminists believe that that the uncodified law protects the rights of Muslim women more than a codified law would. Some strange logic! The mullahs also believe that an uncodified law is good enough to protect the rights of Muslim women.  How is oral unilateral divorce, unchecked polygamy, halala, underage marriage and muta marriage protecting the rights of women only our learned feminists can answer with some help from the mullahs, of course.

The mullahs will make use of other codified laws of the country. They, I am sure, love the Indian Cr. P.C as robbery and theft will not rob them of their hands as is the law in other countries. They love the Constitution of the country as it ensures equality and justice for all. But the same set of clerics will not allow codification of the family law.  So equality and justice for Muslim man, YES !! but equality and justice for Muslim woman, NO !!! Our feminist friends are no better. Some of them practice law and fight cases on the basis of the codified Hindu/Christian and other personal laws. But when it comes to Muslim women, they smugly say codification is not required. For the Muslims uncodified and unjust law is just as good. So much for their commitment to the Constitution which has allowed codification of all family laws!

The mullahs say that polygamy is the right of a Muslim man. He can marry more than once. Our dear feminists say polygamy is good for the Muslim women. All wives can claim rights unlike the poor Hindu second ‘wife’. So both believe that polygamy is generally a good practice. If this logic is extended than the feminist groups in future must demand an amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act to make polygamy legal. You see the Hindu second ‘wife’ will then get all her rights like the Muslim second wife.

And when the Hindu law is amended to allow polygamy, the Hindu right wing will have a lot to thank the feminists groups. You see both want polygamy. Hindu right wing, if our memory serves us right, opposed codification of Hindu family law and one of the reasons they gave was that the Hindu man will not be able to have more than one wife like the Muslim man.

The feminists also don’t want the age of marriage of Muslim girls and boys to be 18 and 21. Some of them are practicing lawyers and when lawyers themselves question the legitimacy of constitutionally mandated laws, what hopes can we have from lesser mortals. Ditto, our mullahs. They also do not want the age of marriage to be 18 and 21. They want puberty to be the age of marriage, hold your breath, for both! No respect for Constitution and no respect for the Quran and the world calls these feminists and mullahs as experts and alims !

And then there is the political establishment and its hegemony. Congress for all the 7 decades kept the Muslim community under the impression that their votes matter. In reality, which the 2014 Lok Sabha elections have proven, Muslim votes don’t actually matter. In this illusion of being an important vote bank or king makers, the community lost out heavily on development. And the worst impact was felt by Muslim women, as the Congress never considered the voices of Muslim women. For them the Muslim male clergy which defended a discriminatory shariah was supreme. This allegiance of the community to the so-called secular Congress has cost the community dearly. And Muslim women had to pay a heavy cost for this paternalism. The legal discrimination weighs heavily on her leading to untold suffering and oppression. The new NDA establishment is no better. It does not even listen to the Muslim male. The marginalization of the community is complete with this new regimen. Moreover as mentioned earlier, in consonance with the feminists demand, this new government also wants a Uniform Civil Code. Here too we see the feminists hobnobbing with the Hindu right wing without a care about the aspirations and demands of Muslim women.

In all the cacophony the voices of Muslim women needs to be louder and shriller because all the above do not feel the need to listen to the Muslim women. Each will have to give up its own agenda and look at issues from the lens of a troubled Muslim woman. Is it expecting too much?