HU

Muslim women's study group

2007-03-26T22:49:00.000Z

One that I'd happily join, for once.

Honor Killings

2006-12-11T23:44:00.000Z

"Shaykhspeara" blogs on honor killings, which now seems to be including a few boy victims as well...

Gustavo Mustafa over at Progressive Islam Org

2006-12-11T18:43:00.000Z

"Adaab" silences Rape in a Muslim family

Harrowing. Personal. Truth.

Essay by Na'eem Jeenah over at Hot Coals

2006-12-06T19:51:00.000Z

FYI- we need more content from South Africa here!

Let the angels sing. That’s our culture

Two quotes, to give you an idea as to content:

I’m wondering whether allegations of sexual harassment in South Africa will soon become ‘normal’, like stories of murder, rape and armed robbery. Will we all become desensitised to it to the extent that we yawn when we see yet another story of accusations of sexual harassment against some or other politician.

and also:

After all, isn’t Islam (or, if you will, “Islamic culture”) often used as a justification for the hateful (and, in fact, unIslamic) manner in which many Muslim women are treated – including the ways they are sexually treated in the bedroom? Indeed, many Muslim men use much more powerful religio-cultural arguments to get what they want from women than the vague resort to “Zulu culture” or “Xhosa culture” which is more easily disputed. And this theology of misogyny is fast becoming part of the popular culture of Muslims in South Africa and around the world.

Interesting article on Lebanese Shi'i women

2006-12-05T19:46:00.000Z

and political/religious participation:

Lebanese Shia Women: Temporality and Piety

PDF article

Bethlehem Soccer Players

2006-12-05T03:27:00.000Z

For Palestinian women soccer players, a field is a dream

Excerpt:

BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK - It's a chilly late afternoon in Bethlehem. Along quiet streets, grocers are hastily packing away vegetable stalls; colorful Christmas decorations glint in shop windows. And, on a steep hill at the edge of the Bethlehem University campus, a group of 12 young Palestinian women are braving the cold for a precious once-weekly ritual: soccer practice.

The women, between the ages of 14 and 22, make up the majority of the Palestinian Territories national women's soccer team, which meets on an improvised concrete soccer field every Wednesday, rain or shine. Currently, they are working hard in preparation for their next tournament, despite lingering questions over whether they will be able to attend.

"We hope," says Samar Araj Mousa, Bethlehem University's athletic director who founded the team in 2003, "that we will play at the second Arab Women's Football Championship in Abu Dhabi in January." Tight travel restrictions and severe financial difficulties may keep the team from competing for their homeland.

The girls, under the eagle eye of volunteer coach Emil Hilal, a sports teacher at a nearby high school and a one-time local soccer star, form a line on the playing field, their breath billowing clouds in the cold air. They begin ducking, weaving, dribbling, and shooting, as Mr. Hilal yells instructions. An excited cheer goes up as goalkeeper Nadeen Khaleeb throws herself fearlessly to the ground, successfully defending her makeshift goal posts.

"They're doing their best," says Hilal, "but they don't have the facilities or the equipment to be as good as they could be."

While the Palestinian Authority pays for the national men's soccer team, which trains abroad in Egypt with salaried players, the women's team mostly fends for itself. Continuing governmental and local authority financial shortages make it increasingly unlikely that money for a women's soccer team, even a national one, will be a priority soon.

But the hurdles are not just financial. Several girls have been hurt playing on the concrete practice field.

Click article link to read more...

Muslim Street

2006-12-04T19:44:00.000Z

UmmAli is going to be hosting some radio shows at Pacifica radio Houston. Title of the shows: Muslim Street. Looks VERY interesting, so check it out!

Tentative Program:

Listen to The Muslim Street on KPFT 90.1FM every Monday at noon from December 11 to January 22.

Program Schedule*

December 11: Heroes or Terrorists? Who is Hizbollah?

Host UmmAli talks to Ibrahim Mousawi Al Manar TV’s Chief Editor of Foreign News about Hizbollah’s emergence as a force in Lebanon’s democracy and the U.S.’s. role in Lebanese politics.

December 18: Islam, Terrorism, Resistance and Just War

Host Sami Hijazi talks to Ali Barakat and Crescent International’s Zafar Bangash on Islamic rules of engagement and concepts of just war and terrorism

December 25: Demographics: Who are American Muslims?

Host UmmAli talks to Dr. Ihsan Bagby author of “The Mosque Study” as well as Dr. Liyakat Ali Takim about American Muslims, who they are, what they believe and how they live.

January 1: The “War on Terror” Prejudice and Psychological impact on the Muslim community.

Host UmmAli talks to Dr. Mona Amer, author of a study on Arab mental health post 9/11 and Sami Hijazi.

January 8: Femperialism
Host UmmAli speaks with Mohja Kahf, Saba Mahmood
and Itrath Syed on Western representations of Muslim women and how U.S. feminism has been used to further
American imperialist aims.

January 15: Islam, Human Rights and Social Justice
Host Sami Hijazi and guests explore the concepts of human rights and social justice from an Islamic perspective.

January 22: Internment Camps of Bangladesh
We speak with author Lorraine Mirza about the stranded Bihari community, stateless people of Bangladesh.

*Programs may not air on these exact dates. Missed programs can be heard on KPFT archives online @www.kpft.org

Helping a Sister in need

2006-12-01T02:54:00.000Z

Salamun Alaikum

Otowi has just blogged about a sister I know out in Denver, who has recently lost everything she owns in a fire. I've met with this sister several times in the past, and while I didn't get the chance to know her well while I was living in Denver for two years, I have always marked her absolute beauty as a Muslim woman. She is one of the more pious, sincere, and caring individuals I have met, and it is rare to come across someone who strikes me suchly, and immediately so.

She is also a widow and the mother of three children, the young is twelve. Otowi suggest people sending her well-wishing cards, but I'll take that further and just be pushy and suggest that they also help out financially if they can. Even if it's a ten dollar gift card to a store, believe me, this will make a huge difference.

If anyone remembers a while ago that Sister Ginny, another American Muslim sister, also lost everything in a housefire as well. Happily, there was a good turnout in terms of aid and support by the online Muslim community. This help crossed the boundaries of sect as well as aquaintance, as many who didn't even know her tried to do what they could. I would really like to see something like this happen again for Sister Marzieh, who not only has herself to worry about, but also her three children. Remember the Quranic injunction to help orphans in need. Remember our obligation to help each other in times of crises. Remember other people, and Allah will most definetly remember you.

Help, even if it is just moral support, can be sent to Sister Marzieh here:

Care of:

Melanie Franklin
13173 East Bethany Place
Aurora, Colorado 80014

Sign the Petition

2006-11-30T21:15:00.000Z

Muslim Women's Freedom of Dress adressing the Muslim community at large (as well as non-Muslims of course)

Please sign it if, after reading the statement, you happen to agree.

And pass the word around via e-mail and your blogs.

She Said No

2006-11-30T19:11:00.000Z

EDITOR'S NOTE
In June 2001 Christopher K. McCarthy, 22, of Concord, New Hampshire, US soldier stationed in South Korea was convicted of killing Kim Song-hui, 32 and sentenced to eight years in prison. He paid about $100 with a credit card for sex with the woman, she refused.

I want to know how that feels
rampant power, blind entitlement,
all wrapped up in six
starred and striped
inches of bludgeoning penis.

Korean waitress equals
receptacle for GI sperm,
sewer for American relief,
what made her think
she could choose?

She said no
so I hit her
I hit her again
and she fell so I kicked her
I kicked her again
and I want to know how that feels:
rage rises
fist in groin,
torpedoes belly,
pythons intestines,
sprouts two wings
like god’s own angels,
thunders bullets
through hands and feet.

I want to know what it takes
to beat a woman to death.

Did she count her savings that day?
Promise her son: tomorrow
if I catch enough tips, tomorrow
we’ll buy your schoolclothes,
and yes, maybe this summer
we’ll go see your grandparents
in the village……
Duh. I forgot
she’s nameless,
faceless, voiceless.
Breasts, hips, vagina.
Slick black hair and
slick red mouth
and open legs and – hang on:
she refused
to have sex with him?
She
refused?

Did the earth stop turning?
Did the sun go out?
Did the stars and stripes
freeze on the flagpole,
shatter in the darkness?
She was a gook!
You know the plot - why
do I have to repeat it?

He has a name.
She has none.
He has a rank, a gun,
family, church, hometown,
high-school girlfriend,
He’s the hero!
She’s a walk-on.
So he had to kill her.
What else could he do?
She was changing the story.

I want to know how it feels,
when the story is you: roots
in your groin, flowers
up your belly, tendrils
your intestines, blossoms
two wings like
god’s holy angels,
testifies righteous bullets
through hands and feet.

Bring in the scales:
Six years for McCarthy,
Thirty one years of her life.
Wait! I’ll put more on her scale:
the dream she had last night,
the ache in her feet from high heels,
strip of blue silk at her window,
history books by her bed,
incense she burns daily
for her grandmother, stitches
her mother had
after her birth -

the scale says: Sorry.
She was only a bar girl
who didn’t know her lines.

I want to know how it feels, McCarthy,
when the story falls apart,
the slick red mouth
says no,
the faceless
grow eyes
that stare into yours.

Does it explode your groin,
slice a bayonet
up your belly,
strangle your intestines,
spawn two monstrous wings
like god’s avenging angels,
shrapnel KILL
through hands and feet?

Because the story
must be restored, the story
cannot be changed, the story
is about
you.
And how did she imagine,
Asian bar girl, yellow void,
where did she get the idea
she could say no?

Copyright Shailja Patel, 2001

More WISE stuff

2006-11-30T03:40:00.000Z

Ani's take on the conference

More on the WISE Conference

2006-11-27T22:00:00.000Z

Over at The American Muslim:

Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity (WISE) Conference: A Beacon of Hope in NYC by Farzana Hassan-Shahid

European Muslim Women: Spirituality and Responsibility Discussed at WISE Conference by IlhamAllah Chiara Ferrero

Muslim and Jewish women's fitness

2006-11-27T21:31:00.000Z

found via a comment on my blog: The Finding Salihah Blog

She had this great article up about Muslim and Jewish women and fitness:

Muslim-Jewish Fitness, On Whalley

Muslim-Jewish Relations Bridged With Exercise
Muslim and Jewish Fitness Trainers Join Forces to Get Women in New Haven, CT Fit

Pakistan to Amend Rape Laws

2006-11-26T18:36:00.000Z

About time: The upper house of Pakistan's parliament has backed a bill amending an Islamic law on rape and adultery.

An E-mail from a Muslim Man

2006-11-22T20:12:00.000Z

Salam everybody, this is Anna whose regular blog is Annalysis. Leila has added me to Hu and I am very honored.

Here is a link to a Muslim women-related post I did over at my own blog. It's very long so I did not want to post the whole thing here. It relates to the everlasting "what Muslim women should wear, because I think so and I am right and everyone should listen to me, especially women" stupidities.

Article at the Christian Science Moniter

2006-11-21T18:40:00.000Z

A bid to bring the female voice to Islamic law

Intro quote:

NEW YORK – For centuries, devout Muslims have looked to the fatwa - an opinion based on religious reasoning of a learned individual or committee - for direction on how to resolve moral dilemmas ranging from the mundane to the sublime. And for centuries, Muslim women have conceded the ground, for the most part, to the men who issue these opinions.
That's beginning to change.

Meeting in New York over the weekend, Muslim women from 25 countries began laying groundwork for the first international all-female council formed to issue fatwas. Their idea: to ensure that women's perspectives on Islamic law become part of religious deliberation in the Muslim world - particularly on issues such as domestic violence, divorce, and inheritance.

Pamela Taylor, one of the attendees, talks a bit about the conference, promising more info later on.

Safety in irrelevance: gender segregation

2006-11-16T05:37:00.000Z

Cross-posted from Koonj.

This Eid, we both made it to Eid namaz. Late.

They were in tashahud when I got in. Why, you ask, is bad Koonj late for namaz? Well, Muslims need to meet expectations. They are always late. Except when WE are a few minutes late. THEN, they start namaz on the dot at 8, and you come in at 8:07 and they're done.

Back to Eid namaz.

When namaz ended, the khutbah started and many women promptly started talking, and socializing. At first I thought, you know, I should be all "ladies, chup karo, listen to the khutbah." Then *I* tried to listen to the khutbah and couldn't make head or tail of what was going on.

The sound quality was appalling. Whatever I COULD hear of the muffled words sounded fairly pedestrian. The same repetition of formulae, the same up and down rhythm of argument, the absence of good humour, the total absence of the sound of a smile, - ho-hum, how many past khutbahs does this sound like? Maybe if they let women khateebs in, we'll hear something new.
And of course, there was no way of lip-reading to understand the imam better. Why? They had put up this 3 foot high plastic partition between the men and the beautiful fitnah-filled women.

When we entered the gym-musalla (it was a community center), we could see the men. When we sat down on the cold plastic-covered floor, we couldn't see anything except a sheet of plastic. Aesthetically, most appealing, of course (NOT). Eid day, big festival, important day after month of fasting - and yay, I get to sit facing a sheet of white plastic and meditate. So why won't the imam shut up so I can meditate? I can't hear him anyway. I can't lip-read. I can't feel like a community. So quiet; let me reflect!

There is method in this madness, they assure us. We can't see the men and we are safe.

Safe? Safe from fitnah. Safe from sexual feelings about the balding bespectacled doctor. Safe from becoming irresistibly attracted to the tubby grocery store wallah. Safe from hearing a pedestrian khutbah. Safe from feeling like part of a complete community.

Safe from being like the Jews and the Christians in their mixed-gender congregations. Safe from interacting with a person of the opposite gender and asking them how they are. Safe from inspiration. Safe from beauty in our surroundings. Safe from poetry in our social arrangement.
Safety seems to be the name of the game in our communities.

We play it safe. We play to the tune of the conservatives. The conservatives want segregation: we offer it up. We play conservative roles. We are Other People in our individual lives, but in Official Islamic Spaces, we play the same roles. What else is it to be two-faced?

All of us talk to both men and women; all of us shop, work, study, with men and women.
But we go to community spaces and pretend. "Oh no, I don't see men. I am pure of gender. We have no gender. We have too much gender. We have no sex. We have too much sex in our minds." Hai hai. Brother so-and-so glanced over to find his wife. Sister so-and-so reached over the partition to grab her kid. Tauba tauba.

Safety - but is it a bad thing?

Then I met up with a woman here the other day. She's a convert, a beautiful person. She hates the mosque. She hates going to community spaces. The segregation kills her soul. It makes her feel cheated. Why do they do this? It's not the Islam she learned. The Islam she learned is about love, connection, wisdom, engaging with life in harmony and clarity. It's about community. It's about being who you are, no matter where you are. It's not pretending here, and pretending there. It's not irrational and obscurantist.

She thought she'd left that stuff behind when she converted. Then she shows up at the
house of God and there it is again.

And then I remember my days at Indiana, BEFORE women became more integral to the community and MSA. They thought they were playing it safe. The Gulf men and women were happy in "their" community. They didn't see college kids except for the grad students. They didn't see any mixed gender socializing, so it wasn't a part of their world. And the whole time, some young men and women at college were experimenting, playing dangerous games, not a part of their religious community, confused, isolated. Safety was in the masjid, the masjid attendees thought: keeping the masjid "pure" of anything that didn't belong in Riyadh, keeping the masjid "pure" of America and "American" ways, - and American Muslim kids.
We play it safe because it's already like this - so why change it? Otherwise, there would be so much change. So much renovation and reconstruction of mosques. So much discussion. So much listening to people in quiet corners. So much listening to people who haven't been around. So much listening to people who you know, just don't seem important to us. So much "dangerous" mixing of men and women.

I've talked about this before, I know. I've talked about how we must bring our religious lives into conversation with the here and now in many ways.

Some of you want to drop it already. "Let's just keep things the way they are. Why rock the boat? Why change anything? Everything is okay. The ultra-conservative brothers and sisters are happy, and the miyana-rau brothers and sisters are tolerant of the setup." The "moderates" (this term has been hijacked, but I refuse to let a central Islamic notion be appropriated by Islamophobes) - the moderates don't love the setup, but they are suave and mild-mannered. Some might they are complaisant, pliable, easygoing. They do not ask for change. They do not ask for relevance. Heck, some might say they are smug, unaware and unconcerned.

Khuda tujhe kisi toofan se ashna karde
Keh teray behr ki maujon me iztiraab nahin
(May God introduce you to a storm,
For there is no turbulence in the waves of your ocean!)

We organize our spaces as if we were not in the US in 2006, as if we were not ethnically mixed communities.

And we THINK we are playing it safe.

By not thinking about the way we segregate and organize our spaces, we are opting not for safety but for DANGER.

We are in danger of being irrelevant to our context. The masjid is in danger of becoming, not a spiritually energizing space but a spiritually enervating experience. We are welcoming some of those who are already there, but we are driving away the others.

This lack of fitnah is fitnah.

I'm in favour of single-sex spaces too. Oh yes, I don't think men are so special that we need them in every space we occupy. And I'm a fan of single-sex spaces for men too where they may exchange the occasional grunt away from women. This is why we have parties. We have parties at people's homes. People who choose to always gender-segregate. So why does the common space of the masjid need to be ruled by the tastes of a minority of Muslims?

Yes, I said it. A minority. Count votes if you like. It's the majority - people who hide in the shadows; people who simply go back home never to return to the masjid again. And the people who know where they live. The people who have children here. The children who grow up here.

It's a simple thing. Those who prefer gender segregation can have segregated spaces or segregated mosques, or content themselves with segregated parties. It's no big deal. We have to sit in musallas that we do not like - they can get their preferred spaces, and we can have ours too.

We live double lives. You and I can pretend, we can play double roles like a B movie from the 70s. But Raihana, Sinan, Hanif, Mariam, Heba, Mahtab, Jannah, Diyanah, Leyna will ask us difficult questions one day. Raihana will be confused about why things are so different between the mosque and school. She will want to know WHY she can't do this and that in the mosque but she can at home.

Is it bad for ammi to talk to men? No. Then WHY? "Because my dear beti, we pretend. Because we're trying to be nice to Uncle Chaudhri and Auntie Sakeena. Because that's the way things are, and we just go with the flow."

She will want to know why ammi is a spare wheel in the mosque, why she can't contribute to the public sphere in the mosque, why she and ammi are invisible, but abbu is in the public sphere.
Raihana will want to know why the mosque has 1/3rd of the men's space for women. Why, when women AND children mostly share that space? I counted the musalla spaces in the mosque the other day. It was about 30+ for women, and 100+ for men. Now this is not a "sister-we-are-helpless" issue: this is a structural feature that we have CONSTRUCTED. We have put it in place, and we are ruled by it. The women's musalla was clogged with activity and children during Ramzan. Why the assumption that women will not be there? Because they don't attend the prayers outside of Ramzan? Well, do the men?! I went for maghrib one day: there was ONE man reciting Quran by himself. The door was locked. I had to hammer on the front door to be let in.

Why can't my religious space be a family-friendly one? Why is it the ONE place I can't share baby-labour with the father? Why is it the one place we can't function as a family unit?

My platitudes won't convince Raihana. I want her to dislike contradictions between word and deed, so why should I support them in the community? I don't want her to get to the point where the cognitive dissonance about her community alienates her from it.

I don't want her to learn to pretend.

I don't want her to learn that the religious space is irrelevant rather than essential to her life.

This safety is danger.

MPACUK

2006-10-31T23:28:00.000Z

Our sisters in Britain, via MPACUK, and access to mesjids.

props to Yakoub/Julaybib, as usual :)

The Hilali comments and the Muslim community

2006-10-29T16:21:00.000Z

Sorry Hu is so late on posting about this subject.

A few days ago, the mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj el-Din Hilali made a controversial khutbah during Friday prayers.

Here are some translated excerpts of his speech at the BBC website.

His assertion that adultery and/or rape is the fault of the uncovered woman is astounding, to say the least. However, let us admit that such attitudes about women and their dress, especially in the subject matter regarding adultery, are nothing new in the Muslim community. Though far from being a universal attitude, I think it is also important for us as Muslims to recognize that this opinion still holds a lot of popularity as well.

And therein lies a larger problem which is currently not being addressed as it should be- the underlying attitudes that some in the ummah hold. I doubt the sheikh would have made such a speech if he thought half of the congregation would stand up and walk out of the mosque. It is something we all need to see for what it is: not only the misogynistic comments themselves, but the silent assent as well as the lack of objection by those of us who disagree vehemently with such points of view. This is what keeps various speakers in their positions of authority-- our lack of vocal dissent.

Another item I'd like to bring up is this: what if Hilali's now infamous speech hadn't made it to the mainstream Western media? I speculate that if it had not, it would have passed by without comment by the majority of the Muslim population there, even though there are now obviously so many who disagree openly and are angered by his words. How many times have we, as Muslim men and women, sat in the mosque during a presentation or speech, and heard something such as this? And how many of us have stood up and challenged it? Even I admit to not speaking up at times when I know I should have, so what about those who are generally less vocal (and I can be LOUD in my protestations) and those who fear a community backlash against them by their peers?

Ideas about the physical hijab and body covering are not new. What should also be out there are the variant views, the reinterpretations, and pure logic. Even in countries where Islamic dress is mandated, there is adultery, and there is most definitely rape. Statistics are unavailable, but I speculate that especially in the case of rape, the numbers are most likely similar to those in the West. However, without numbers, and the lack of reporting due to legal ramifications under various forms of law, family "honor" issues, and fear, I doubt we'll be getting anything accurate any time soon.

Blaming the victim. It is time for it to STOP. It is also, as Yakoub states, the main argument that is used by rapists themselves: "she asked for it."

Finally, one issue not yet brought up much is the issue of how these attitudes relate towards our perceptions of men. These comments are also very offensive in that it portrays the male sex as ill-controlled and sex-crazed. It assumes that self-control is a characteristic not shared amongst the male sex, his control over his urges being weak at best. This right here is the sub-subtext that also needs to be addressed in the larger community: we know that this is not true, yet this is also a common attitude. In my opinion, males don't need to be infantalized any more than women, and this attitude does just that.

More reading on this topic can be found all over the web at this time. I'll direct you towards a few I found good reading:

Another site showing his speech

Yakoub's analysis of what's going on, also bringing in the context of both the media as well as timing, and Australia's circumstances.

Planet Irf's issued statement by many leading Australian Muslims

Firas Ahmed weighs in on the altmuslim website, also with analysis on media response.

A comment over at Delicto Aquinas

The Magic Hijab: a satire piece written a while ago by a fellow Hu-er

Anf from two posts down, Koonj's Moratorium: the subject of women's clothing in khutbahs (talk about timing!)

Vacancy: Ice Maiden at local mosque

2006-10-21T05:07:00.000Z

Surprisingly, your local masjid has a vacancy for an additional Ice Maiden. (We thought all possible positions had been filled, but gatekeepers decided that you could never have too many. Plus, the masjid is overcrowded, and the women's space is too small for the existing attendees, let alone more. Therefore, women must be discouraged from arriving at the mosque.

Ice Maiden must regularly wear black or white headscarf with no frills. She should be prepared to position herself during all masjid events close to the entrance, so that Ice Gaze can be quickly and efficiently administered to all female newcomers before they have a chance to get comfortable. Under all circumstances, comfort on the part of newcomers must be prevented.

Ice Maiden must be equipped with her own Icy demeanour. No training will be provided. If prospective IM's wish to acquire training, they may visit the masjid without hijab or with their male relatives. The Icy demeanours that greet them will serve as training.
Icy demeanour consists of the following essential elements:

Cold look
Complete abstention from smiles, laughter, small talk, jokes, etc
No response to salam (if not, at least gritted teeth salam)
Ostentatious piety
Frequent peremptory directions issued to attendees on where to sit, what to do, where to go, and, of course, everything to NOT do

Ice Maiden must be prepared to pursue with Icy demeanour all single women, non-hijabi women, women in jeans, women in khakis, women in pink and red, women with children, women who speak English (or Urdu, or Spanish), etc.

Ice Maidens will be compensated with fear and timidity on the part of attendees. The sight of women shrinking into the corners and pulling their hijabs tighter around their heads will be adequate compensation.

Truest Religion

2006-10-17T09:34:00.000Z

Cross-posted here.

I was taken by the hand and told I would have a place in Heaven.
Paradise was found in a place at the back in this world.
I squinted at a man from a far away land.He spoke of commandments directed at men.
Few were for all of the Believers.
He spoke of being better than any other people.
The rest were a rot.
He spoke of desired women and veils.
Immeasurable veils.I sat amongst my kind.
They suspected me because of my face and my bloodline.
Although I have gentle eyes.
Sharp eyes.
I thought all equal, one only better because of Piety and God Consciousness.
But she was better because only her eyes showed.
She was better because she had patience with her bad marriage.
The last we had only heard was good because she never went outside.
And the disdained?
This one was cursed with bad hair. Blackness.
That one was from the land of poor tajweed and too many chilies.
This one was worth less than another because she was fat.
Who wants to marry a fat girl?
Covered bodies, respected minds.
A whole human, not an object.
Objectified.
This one was religious now, but Hah!
She used to talk to a boy.
Where, which boy? Let us eat flesh!
No one remembered which boy, one of the good boys in the front.
Was it really our Nature, or did some other half of humanity make us this way?
Oh Allah!
Strengthen my deen and iman and protect me from whispers of all sorts.
Oh Allah!
I once believed in Light coming from faces.
Now I only believe in powder.

Moratorium: the subject of women’s clothing in khutbahs

2006-10-05T20:52:00.000Z

Cross-posted at Koonj.

Ramzan is not a good time for the J.Jill catalogue to arrive.

Here am I, I’m supposed to be empathising with the poor and the starving. Instead, thanks to this little booklet, I’m empathising with the struggles of my upper-class sisters who are in the throes of a decision of what NOT to buy in the new fall line. Instead of being preoccupied with higher things, I’m wondering which of the *clearance* items I might look for on ebay in a few months.

And yet, may I suggest something to those of my brothers (mentioned here) who have an unhealthy obsession with the clothes women wear. May I use this opportunity to offer them a tip: J.Jill is a great place to cover those sinful bodies in loose, floating, modestly thick fabrics–and “your” women won’t rebel against it either.

So let me throw out a deal to the modesty police:

Buy me a metro twee jacket as a modest covering for the unnamed elements of my torso. Or nice roomy naturewalk corduroy pants for the legs that I do not have or you must not acknowledge. Or heck, go to the sale items if you MUST be cheap, and buy me a ribbed silk-blend cardigan that shall serve as a covering for all my other immodest clothing. Or pick up a pair of cropped fine-wale cords - don’t worry, I’ll wear socks - and I shall be your poster child for modesty.

Do this, and you shall not be oppressed by the sight of me prancing around in slightly fitted tees from Target or those slightly cropped pants from Walmart or other nasty sundries from KMart. Save me from falling into the arms of temptation, and falling into slightly sheer outfits from the clearance aisle. Let us cooperate on modesty and goodness. We CAN all be happy.

An obsession with having more clothes is unhealthy, I hear the pious say to me. Yes, indeed, I shoot back to them:

Let us declare a moratorium on all mention of women’s clothing in khutbahs for a decade.

I believe that this will do a great deal of good to certain men. When they utter such words as “women” and “bodies” and “chest” (or worse, “breast”) and “behind,” irreparable damage is done to their focus in the prayer.

And the innocent young men waiting for jum’ah prayer are unnecessarily exposed to this woman-obsession. “We are here for prayer,” their souls cry: “let us pray. Bombard us not with this fixation you have on women and their bodies. We are still pure. We are here for God, not for women. Must we leave every jum’ah more enthralled than before with women’s bodies?”

And the women, in their enclosed spaces, where the imams cannot even see the shock, the humiliation and the boredom on their faces. And some 50-year old physician is thinking, “Hell, I don’t even yell at my fourteen-year old in front of other people. And this 25-year old guy is yelling at me, showing me up in front of that fourteen year old? So tomorrow, when I’m getting ready for work, my teenaged son will screw up his eyes at me with most un-Islamic lack of adab and say, “Mom, why the hell are you wearing that? I can see your whatsies.”"

And some shy intelligent 15-year old girl who just showed up at the khutbah because she read something about Hz Ayesha’s (RA) status as a religious leader, and how even the Beloved Prophet listened to Hz Khadija (RA). She’ll hear the imam and lose all respect for the source of her spiritual life - or for herself - and her budding religious life will lose its energy and drive.

And some husband who recently stopped surfing hardcore porn and got religion, hears the khutbah and picks up ammunition. His low self-esteem for his own soul leads him to start ranting at his quiet, mousy little namazi wife about how she should really start covering her alluring lips and her overgrown eyebrows.

Fear not: I venture to vouch that there will be no harm done if we never mention women’s clothing in khutbahs and “What Is Islam” pamphlets for an entire decade or two. We already have a teeming surplus of words on this subject in tapes, books, booklets, and our stuffed-up brains.

We are so full of “modesty” and “hijab” and “cover” and “fear God, sister” and “khimar” and “chest”–that we have hardly any space left for our souls to breathe. We have barely any air to breathe the fragrance of tafakkar and Hu because we are so straitened by our obsession with the fabrics that must cover our bodies. We are wrapped in the externalities of our bodies so tightly that we cannot penetrate to our hearts.

We stand up in prayer, thinking not of the Majesty of the Lord, but of how much of our ankles are showing. We prostrate ourselves drowned not in nearness but in fear of our rear ends. We wrap our hands in qiyam not in humility but in terror of the rise of our bosoms.

A bunch of empty-headed prudes have tossed dynamite in the women’s and the men’s prayer-halls, and stink-bombed every bit of khushu’ out of them.

Far indeed are we from the days when the Companions were so poor, so simple, so ascetic, and so generous in their charity that they could barely cover the parts of their bodies that common decency required covering — This to the extent that women raising their heads from prostration were greeted by the sight of tight clothes on men’s privates.

For this, they were told not to go buy more clothes (adequate clothes were not something everyone could afford). Instead, the women were told to wait a bit before raising their heads. Adjust your gaze around the clothes, they were taught by the Prophet.

*Sahl ibn S’ad related, “Indeed I have seen the men behind the Prophet (pbuh) tying their lower garments on their necks like the children due to the tightness of the lower garments.

*The Prophet said: “O women, when the men prostrate, lower your gazes. Do not glance at the private areas of the men due to the tightness of (their) lower garments.”

Don’t look straight at the stuff. Just avoid looking at it. It’s there. It’s got to be there, thank the Lord.

Men don’t get to trap women in spaces because of how they FEEL when they see women. Hz Umar (RA) learned that: Hz Saudah (RA) happened to go out one night (yes, at night). Hz Umar saw her and called out, “By God, O Saudah, why do you not hide yourself from us?” She went back, and told the Prophet. He said, “You’re allowed to go out for your needs.” No one, not even a Companion of the 'ashra mubashara –whose piety could not be doubted - could trap women in their homes. What are some men smoking that they imagine THEY can?

So accept this challenge, and dare to look into the silence of your souls. Once you stop obsessing about women and their clothes, you will be forced to look into your own hearts and the rust upon them (as mine has) instead of women’s bosoms. It will be frightening, but we all must do this work. You need to stop watching and evaluating the women in the parking lot. And I should stop reading the J.Jill catalogue.

URGENT: Take action to support the Women's Protection Bill in Pakistan!

2006-09-20T19:23:00.000Z

(Cross-posted at Truth and Beauty)

I've been reading Eteraz's excellent coverage of the Women's Protection Bill in Pakistan and have been meaning to write a lengthy entry about it, but since that isn't going to happen just yet and the topic is of critical concern and Eteraz has already said everything that needs to be said, I am going to go ahead and just post it.

In the wake of sensationalized issues like the Pope's speech or Brangelina, concerns about something as important as the Women's Protection Bill has receive little media coverage, and sadly, scattered blog interest.

Let's work to make this a cause célèbre amongst expat Pakistanis, Muslims and people everywhere.

Eteraz's op-ed gives some excellent background information on the bill.

As Eteraz says, "This is an urgent and imperative moment in the bill. Frankly, having met Musharraf and his wife and spoken with them, I can tell you that nothing will hit him harder than Western Muslim women writing to him expressing their support for the bill, and giving him encouragement."

Please take out a few minutes from your day to write to President Musharraf asking him to SUPPORT the Select Committee Bill. Make sure you use your name and location.

Now is the time to pressurize him to pass the bill which addresses not just rape, but domestic violence, and a host of other problems like forced marriages.

Please post about this on your blog and encourage everyone you know to write to President Musharraf. Something as simple as the following will do, though you can add more too:

"We believe that you should support the passage of the Women’s Protection Act in the form proposed by the Select Committee of Parliament. The passage of that bill would be a significant step forwards in the protection of women’s rights in Pakistan and an achievement for which you would always be remembered."

Eteraz provides text you can use in your letter, here. More information on the Bill can be found here and here, including the story of a shaykh who put himself in the line of fire for this bill.

If he stood up for what he believed, what are we willing to do to help?

A Womans Right To Pray At The Mataf

2006-09-06T08:00:00.000Z

After I returned to Saudi after summer vacation and I learned that there are proposals to change the "womens prayer area" at the Ka'abah itself. This of course is for the 'benefit' of women to protect them and give them required seclusion and privacy. Aren't all changes for women that limits them in one way or another 'for them' at least in the minds of men that decide such rules and regulations? For some reason a selection of men when discussing crowding issues at the ka'abah decided that the best choice of action was to further limit women and their segregated prayer area at the mataf. This again as a way to 'protect' women.

Not one woman sat on this panel nor has one womans voice been heard. For if it had, they would notice a trend among women when it comes to their desire of protection at the kaa'bah isn't about television cameras, or the crowded area of the Mataf. But it is rather about the harsh treatment and utter haram actions when it comes to women visiting Allah's house. Women are harassed by 'officials' be it men or women at the ka'abah, to veil, to pray in a certain area, to walk a certain path, to separate from men even if they are related. Allah's house where neither man nor woman owns, has more privileges to or has a greater right over. A house where all stand equal before Allah for their act of visiting, their intentions for doing so and the hardships that they man endured for getting there.

This is a very common attitude within Saudi Arabia. If there is a social problem the woman are the first ones to be limited as a means to 'protect them'. If men are harassing women as they seek the only available exercise, walking, the women are told not to go out anymore. If a man approaches a woman in a sexual way as she is out and about in a market seeking ingredients for the families meal, it is she that will be limited further in her movement. If women drive they may go off and do wrong things, or Saudi men might go into a sexual frenzy and attack them all. In order to 'protect' the women simply don't allow them to drive. This is a trend that seeks to control a, what is seen as weaker, population of society and avoids actually dealing with the issue at hand in a positive way that protects, rather than limits, society.

While the officials tend to hire "large women" seeking to intimidate the women they are limiting within the Ka'abah there will be women this will not work with. My husband laughed over the idea that they would be able to do this with African women who are going to pray where they want to. I responded it would be interesting to see them try to tell me where to go. They have tried it, I usually ignore them or yell at them to leave me alone. I don't get pushed around easily, especially when I'm at the Ka'abah for I have as much right to that space as any other Muslim there. I'm not doing anything haram so don't annoy me when I've come to Allah's house. This is the one place in this world I should be able to find safety and security. I should not have a thought in my mind of how to deal with such people who seek to harass me because there job tells them to.

The idea that women are going to be told to pray in a certain area away from the mataf as a way to 'protect' them is outrageous. Please don't try to pacify Muslim women all over the world by telling us "you'll have more room, you'll like it better, its to protect you". We aren't stupid and can recognize a limitation when we see it. We, Muslim women, have been forced to accommodate the wants of man for far too long, all on the premise it is 'better' for us. It is time that it stops, and time for men to learn to coexist along with us to face their problems head on and deal with them properly. Instead of taking an easy route and denying women and never dealing with the issues at hand.

Yes there are over crowding issues at the ka'abah but the question is what is best for EVERY Muslim who goes to the ka'abah in order to help aid the situation. It won't be totally rectified because of the number of Muslims in the world and their ability to visit the Ka'abah. Not allowing women in the mataf certainly won't correct the over crowding issue, nor will it really aid in it. The only thing that is done is shifting women from one area to another but at the same time denying women the right to pray in the mataf area. When that doesn't work, and it won't, what will be suggested next? Women only days? Denying women altogether? When will the limitations of women and their right as well as their obligations to live this diyn stop?

I would suggest that no woman at the ka'abah follow any regulations that limits them in such a way. When Umar r.a. tried to regulate the woman's dowry in a way which wasn't right, it was one single woman who stood up and corrected him. He had the ability to listen to her one single voice and refrain from doing so. Imagine if we banded together in a larger unified voice and opposed such limitations. I believe that the authorities who may be inclined to accept this proposal have the ability to listen to us and refuse it. Do not allow them to take our rights away from us on this one. Pray at the Mataf when you see your sisters, pray with them, pray where you have the right to.

over at Anthology

2006-09-04T03:38:00.000Z

Arafat blogs: The dogmatism of (Pakistani) misogyny

related to the protests by some against the idea of ammending current Hudood laws in Pakistan.

Money and Marriage: The one you're looking for is a PERSON

2006-09-02T06:05:00.000Z

Consider this ad from jeevansathi.com.

This isn't a "Muslim" ad from a Muslim country. However to us here in the diaspora, the idea of searching for "an MBA" may often seem pretty outlandish.

It's not ridiculous to our parents, though. Many of them - probably most - still doggedly seek a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer - or just plain wealth, whether it's in a son-in-law or a daughter-in-law. I have heard stories of how parents have turned down religious and otherwise eligible mates because they were not wealthy, or because they didn't live in a detached house, or such other reasons.

To be honest, every now and again, I can understand parents' desire to see their children financially comfortable - through spousal wealth. Parents are often more concerned about their sons-in-laws' careers than their daughters; daughters' careers may also be hampered by pregnancy, childcare and lower incomes for the same jobs than men. I can see how as a parent, I might want to make sure my daughter wasn't married to someone who couldn't make her comfortable.

My cousin (not the regular commenter, but another cousin) "Zahida," for instance, was married to "Mannan." Mannan was from a small town; He thought "Zahida" had "expensive" tastes. (This was funny to us, who thought Zahida's family was incredibly cheap). I remember how Zahida'd come home tired after a journey because Mannan refused to grab a taxi from the bus station and insisted that they walk home.

My family, however, thought Zahida's family was cheap, as I said. And we found out more of this when my sister married Zahida's brother "Tawfeeq."

Initially some were concerned that "Tawfeeq" was from a middle class home with a lower-middle class lifestyle, whereas we were the daughters of a doctor. We lived frugally but comfortably. Tawfeeq's family seemed to live in discomfort for the sake of it. As Tawfeeq's mother said, "Auraton ko mushaqqat ki aadat honi chahiyeh." (Women should be used to hard labour.) And mushaqqat seemed to be their motto in all things.
We discovered that Tawfeeq's family thought eating out was fancy-shmancy extravagant hoity-toity behaviour (whether you had the money or not was immaterial). They preferred to save the money to buy innumerable plots of land and resell them for a profit.

Tawfeeq's parents and my sister's in-laws even got upset at the idea of getting rotis from the corner tandoor. Tawfeeq's father insisted that her mother would make rotis at home, even when she had a stomach ache, rather than bring them from outside. And Tawfeeq's father poked fun at my sister for wearing contact lenses.

When my sister wanted her husband to wear a suit, her father said, "Let him be a Muslim!" Wearing a suit was kafir behaviour to people of his socioeconomic class. It wasn't religiosity - we were fairly religious too. It was religious culture coloured by class.
At that time, I was idealistic about money. It didn't matter whether my husband had money or not. I used to dream of some bearded Islamist who delivered fancy religious speeches to crowds of bearded Islamists. (To those new to this blog, fear not, I outgrew that). My dream didn't feature his car or house or anything like that.

It wasn't just about finding a rich man for your baiti. I also observed middle class young men's parents scour the medical and engineering colleges for daughters-in-law. My cousin Zahida's in-laws did so. Zahida's husband spent an inordinate amount of time earning his MBBS. During that time, Zahida supported him. This was the plan, as far as Mannan's parents were concerned. Zahida's father also gave "her" a house, which meant Mannan didn't have to worry about that either. Mannan didn't bring much by way of income to the marriage, so he was supported by his wife and her family.

Giving Zahida a career and a house was her father's way of "bribing" her husband to keep her as a wife.

This continues to be the case. I remember a "potential mother-in-law" telling me a woman should have a handle on domestic skills or should be a lecturer. I recall, for this woman, her first daughter-in-law was a domestic type, who got bullied by the whole family. The second one was a doctor from a richer background: she bullied the family as they settled into barely resentful servility.

While growing up in Pakistan, I observed this happen all the time. Whether through a young woman's career or through the dowry, the parents of daughters bribed their sons-in-law to marry and then to remain married to their daughters.

It was not uncommon, either, for a groom's parents to straight up demand a house or a car just before or after the wedding. Household furniture was, of course, assumed. The bride's jewellry and clothing was part of the essential package. But in addition to that, the groom and his family had to be appeased through more expensive gifts. The groom's mother and sister/s must receive expensive clothes and jewellry. The cost of the gifts increased exponentially as I was growing up.

Some women's parents even "dangled" a house before my parents to tempt them to arrange a marriage between my brother and their daughter. I felt sorry for them, and for their daughter. After all, how worthless you must feel if you had to come as a package with a house and a car and a (in those days) VCR and TV?

It reminds one of that joke where a guy is selling a camel for a single rupee. Except the camel comes with a cat, which is a thousand rupees. Except it's the other way around, and the woman is worth nothing. Not only is the woman worth nothing, in fact she amounts to negative value. But if you take her, you get the material goods worth thousands of rupees.
The gifts continued to flow as the marriage "progressed." If the in-laws made your daughter a bit unhappy, you should expect to not only shut up and be NICER to them and be MORE servile, you should also expect to fork over more gifts. This could be small things (For example, in my sisters' ex-in-laws' case, the father-in-law would drop petty hints and taunts about how my mother should buy the crib for my sister's baby if she really wanted my sister to be comfortable in her bed). It could be big things, like paying for a trip abroad, or a house, or a car.

The idea of a woman amounting to negative value is a fundamentally materialistic one. But materialism predates modernity, so let me not hear wails of how good things were a century ago. Marriages were being arranged all over the world to augment family wealth. Why do you think Mr Darcy is filthy rich, after all? Jane Austen was no romantic fool. She knew how important the size of a man or woman's yearly income was. Village feudals in Pakistan "married" their daughters off to the Quran in order to keep the wealth in the family.

When I was growing up, I always heard people saying how a girl cost money, and she wouldn't help retrieve that cost. A boy would retrieve the cost through his income, and his supporting his parents. A girl, on the other hand, would cost money to raise as well as to marry off. Dowry created a burden for parents and increased the total cost of having a girl.

(Of course today, when young women are capable of becoming educated and even supporting their families to a great degree, this no longer stands as it used to. I know of young Pakistani women (and other Muslim women) who educated and raised their siblings, and supported their elderly parents. Ataul Haq Qasmi has a poignant story I wish I had in English to share with you, about a young woman who dedicates her life to supporting her mother and sisters. Her mother starts actually opposing her marriage, picking faults in every suitor, so that she will not lose her source of income.)

And not just that. Having a girl meant sorrow: the sorrow of seeing her treated like a servant and a second-class person by her husband and in-laws. No matter what she did, or what her parents did to compensate for her existence, she would be a burden to her loved ones in some way or the other. And to herself.

Though far more cases appear to have occurred in neighbouring India, Pakistan also has more than enough cases of "bride-burning." What happens is, the groom's family is dissatisfied with the size of the dowry she brought, so after a series of taunts, a kerosene stove "accidentally" erupts into flames - all over the bride. And new bride is brought to feed the flames of greed.
I believe in the general rule of "kufw" (general equality in various respects) for bride and groom. I don't think marrying off, for example, a poor uneducated farmer to a PhD woman is a good idea. Nor do I think marrying off an Apollo to a poor disfigured young woman is a good idea.

-- No, no matter how pious s/he is; and this whole "it doesn't matter as long as s/he is religious" is a load of rubbish. Religiosity does not make up for incompatibility. After all, the Prophet's Companions divorced each other, or selected spouses from each other, rejecting some of them. If religiosity was all, surely they would just pick the first one? So I will not hear of people bullying young women into marrying the first prospect because "the Hadith says you must marry a religious man if he proposes to you." These people should fear God for the consequences their actions may have on an incompatible couple.

Marriage should be conducive to happiness and compatibility. I don't think marriage should be undertaken to prove a "point" either. I don't think one should exult in "Yah, I told you I could marry an illiterate girl," or "I showed my fanatically Hyderabadi parents and brought home a Punjabi wife." Marriage is too delicate a matter to play fast and loose with. It's not a place to prove how cool or hip or reckless you are. Yes, indeed, there is a place for fighting prejudice. The Prophet married widows and divorcees, and it is shameful that today Muslims are uncomfortable with marrying widows and divorcees. But don't go marry a widow just to prove a point. You've got to put work into figuring out if you're compatible. Otherwise, she might end up both widowed AND divorced, and she might have just as well waited for a better prospect than you.

It's another matter altogether if the mate is otherwise perfectly compatible and the issues of difference do not become a matter of severe conflict. This is a matter to be decided by the couple. A young woman's parents will not be at her side when she is waiting for her husband to come home from the bar. A young man's parents will not be able to make things okay when his wife can't even feign interest in his hobbies.

Living with another person 24/7 is no small matter. Movies hit "the end" when the couple embraces and get married. The camera stops rolling when the groom runs over to his momma for dinner the very next day and leaves the bride alone in her new dress, or the bride wants to go mega-shopping on a meagre salary. Those physical or verbal encounters that are jarring to the nerves are hard upon a marriage. You don't know them when you are single and you sigh about how lonely you are. And even if you have a marriage made in heaven, you will still probably have enough moments where you wish you were far away from this man/woman.

Arranged marriage used to work. It still works for some people today. I have some in my family. But the stark fact of the matter is, your dad isn't marrying your wife/husband: YOU are. He may KNOW what is good for you in religion and food and reading material, but he doesn't know the secret heart of you that yearns for a man/woman who can really speak/listen to you. He doesn't, because he isn't your spouse: he's your father. He's not really supposed to know.

And certainly parents who think that a car and a house will make their daughter/son happy are not qualified to arrange matches. Unless, of course, a car *will* make you happier than a good wife might. In that case, I don't really care what you do. If a Mustang matters more to you than Myra, well, you can go for a test drive instead of going with your baraat.
This piece would be incomplete if I failed to mention materialistic young women. I remember recommending a very nice young man to a pious young woman and had her laugh in my face and mention his profession (he wasn't some pizza delivery guy, but he wasn't minting money either). And this is what the ad above is about.

I don't think it's wrong for a man/woman to know what s/he can take in a spouse's class background. Class is not just wealth. Class is culture. It's whether you think it's okay to order rotis or you think it's wasteful to eat anything that wasn't cooked in the kitchen. It's whether you think a penny spent outside of Goodwill is a penny wasted, or whether you simply cannot find anything worth wearing outside of Saks. These are the circumstances we OCCUR in. We can't help many of them. I can't help the fact that I MUST have contact lenses. I may be frugal but I have my points where I dig in my heels. And if I marry someone who will be a constant battle over what I spend, wear, eat and do, I'm asking for trouble.

I don't think gold-diggers are ethical individuals. I don't think they're looking for happiness either - but I think their notions of happiness are completely twisted, and they cannot be helped. You can't convince someone who is intent upon marrying a princess that they SHOULD not want to marry a princess. They might end up marrying your sister and making her miserable. So they're not my concern here.

What I'm concerned with here is the fine line between a) looking for compatibility in class, career, and wealth in addition to the most important PERSONAL factors in spousal compatibility and b) looking MAINLY for more money and class than you can already lay claim to.

This much I think I know: if you look for a PERSON rather than a collection of attributes (particular body type + money + doctor, for instance), you have a much better shot at harmony, love and mercy between you and your spouse.

This piece is cross-posted from Koonj.

Dr Mattson is president of ISNA: The times they are a-changin'

2006-08-28T19:59:00.000Z

Prof. Ingrid Mattson has been elected President of ISNA. She is an academic. She is a woman. She is not an immigrant. She is not 50+. Whatever your (and my) differences of opinion with her, this is a historic moment for many North American Muslims.

She was elected by a majority of ISNA members, men and women. This in itself is historic.

Imam Magid of the DC area, imam of ADAMS Islamic Center, who is very popular among moderate-to-conservative Muslims for his egalitarian practices and his accessibility (including to youth) has been elected Vice-President.

Let us give credit where it is due. Times have changed alhamdulillah. Times are changing.

Ten years ago, in the fall of 1996, at the Islamic Center of Bloomington, I was told by a bunch of male graduate students that women could not be elected to the Executive Committee. I approached a young man at ISNA about this. This young manworked with students and continued to do so. He encouraged me to work gradually and to not rock the boat. No assistance was extended from his office to MSA’s such as mine. In fact he came to speak in Bloomington at the invitation of the same organization soon after. I got elected as the first woman in the MSA EC anyway (though I refused to contest the election as president, to avoid needless turmoil).

If Dr Mattson had been in office an hour away in Plainfield then, I think this would have been unimaginable. Inshaallah it is now unimaginable. Tokens and symbols may be tokens and symbols, but they are important. And knowing Prof Mattson and Imam Magid, inshaallah they will be much more than that.

Morocco's Female Imams

2006-07-26T20:24:00.000Z

at the Moorish Girl blog

for women and mothers

2006-07-21T20:17:00.000Z

I am the one
who suffers The Worst Pain of Your Life
to bring new life.
I am
the one whose nipples are sucked to
painful tenderness,
the one whose body--
ravaged by labour,
episiotomies,
hemorrhoids, stretch marks -- yet
whose body is on display and is not
permitted the luxury of cellulite.
The one who’d better
get in shape. The one
who should breastfeed 2 years yet keep
breasts sophomoric for
concubinage
is a religious duty too.

The one who can’t
sleep, eat or rest.
Or read or pray.
The one who does not have
the time to work, who does not have
the freedom NOT to work.
Who got rights 1400 years ago
but cannot own a penny, for what
wife/mother would own/spend for herself?

They give me rights but take away
the right to use them when I want.
They say
I can do this and this and this.
And then say, it's unfeminine
to say I, me, I want, I need.

They say, how great is your glory, woman,
that you spoke out to the Messenger,
that you corrected Umar. Then
they say,
Shaikh X must be obeyed
for surely he in his piety
knows best the fiqh of labour pains.

I am
one who can neither nurse
in public, nor feed formula
without public chastisement.
The one
who must know EVERYTHING about
the baby, the one whose needs
are first
to be forgotten, the one
who never can lose it, the one
who never
can escape.
And if I’m gone for an hour,
motherhood
hunts me like a hungry wolf.

I have
a splitting headache, namaz to pray,
no meal in 15 hours, a child
fussing to be fed
and then
fussing again to poop
and then,
fussing to be cleaned and bathed
and fussing to go to sleep again.

Sometimes it feels
like the universe is wound up so
I can never rest and breathe awhile.

Single, life was hard; married, life's a trial; motherhood, a struggle all over again.

Yeah, motherhood is beautiful
with unending reserves of health.
Ah and that utopian system whereby
in-laws get to claim your child
and you get to be nanny/maid.

One day baby will grow up to see
mummy is the doormat, mummy’s needs
are last.

And then if something
happens,
scholars say
traditionally,
the father gets
the child.
Even if
daddy
can barely put the child to bed?

I'm the one with the lovely task
of nurturing bodies
by cooking food,
the endless labour
of cleanliness, of making home
a place of rest,---
And all the while I do not work.

And then they say,
he must not work beyond 5pm -
he must not lose sleep or meals -- and yet
you are too frail to be president.

And then I am the one with jannah
at my feet

yet my jannah
has separate doors beside the trash.
When I approach the sacred, I am
told I cannot menstruate
told I cannot wear this or that
told I cannot say no to sex
told I cannot not marry, told
I cannot not wash clothes and plates
cannot divorce without penalty,

cannot say
I’m tired.

Cannot say for God’s sake I’m tired.
And cannot
say for once and all
you know what
for all your
apologetics, for all your fancy theory,
this world, this world
this world of yours
just does not work
for me that well.

cross-posted at koonj

Reinterpreting the past

2006-07-11T19:48:00.000Z

Crossposted on Truth & Beauty and will be crossposted at UPI tomorrow, insha-Allah.

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At my halaqa (Qur'anic study group) a couple of weeks ago one of the women spoke about how difficult some of the verses in the Qur'an are for her. She said that reading them made her want to shut the book and never open it again, that they made her feel far away from God.

Many of us around the circle, women and men, nodded in agreement.

It's also a reaction that many believers of other faiths have confided in me about their own texts.

I remember an incident in college where I read a verse that, as translated by that particular author from the Arabic, baldly proclaimed male superiority over women. I didn't open the Book again for years because of that.

It didn't occur to me at that age to look at another translation, to question my own limited understanding, or to ask what that Arabic word really meant (was it "a degree of superiority over women" or a "degree of responsibility" or something else entirely?).

I was taught to accept what I read as the Truth, without question. So I walked away and blamed God severely.

In response to her statement, our shaykh (teacher) asked what the first line in the Qur'an is that we read and in which the rest of the Qur'an must be placed in for context:

Bismillah ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim: In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Without understanding the point from which the Creator Himself begins, how can we hope to understand His message?

Regarding misogynistic interpretations of the Qur'an, he said that we each have the individual responsibility to read and wrestle with the Qur'an and to strive to understand it. He said that one of the differences between angels and humans is that the angels do not question and are created simply to glorify and obey God, but that humans have been given an intellect and the ability to discern and choose, so we must use this ability, quoting the Qur’an:

“Read in the name of your Lord and Cherisher who created – created humans out of a germ-cell. Read, for your Sustainer is the most Bountiful, who has taught by the pen, that which you did not know.” (96:1-5)

In being given this intellect we have also been given a great responsibility. So many of us blame God for everything from homelessness to natural disasters, asking “Where is God? Why did He do that or allow it to happen?”

Perhaps we should also be asking, “What is my response? How can I help or change this situation?”

There will be things that we do not understand and there will be doubts, particularly in moments of trial and pain, but it's how we address those doubts that counts. When in doubt do we walk away or do we seek the knowledge and actions that enable us to stay connected and to grow as humans?

It was only the second time in my life that I’d heard a shaykh say it is okay to doubt, that doubt is a natural part of faith. When I was a child, anyone who doubted was silenced, and those who questioned were told to simply believe.

Being connected to God is no easy task. It is something I struggle to maintain every day. Years ago, I would have walked away when in doubt. Now I dig in my heels and demand help from Him. Then I read and reflect; for as the African proverb says, "Pray; then move your feet."

Over time I've learned to be more accepting of doubt, that half-lit cave where just enough light enters to read by. It is not a comfortable place to be, and the level of patience, conscience, and seeking it requires is hard to maintain. In our culture of instant gratification, it is no wonder that so many people find it difficult to pray, meditate, or to be otherwise spiritually disciplined.

I continue the five-times daily prayers and dhikr (rituals of remembrance of God) while seeking illumination because I feel that the structure and discipline enables me to be more open to the answers. Before, my doubts would have undermined my practice, and my anger at not understanding would have been directed at Him, instead of pushing me to look for the answers myself.

The answers are almost never immediate. But they come, eventually; in the form I am ready to receive and most in need of at that time.

Thinking back to the translation that I read in college that had such a negative effect on me, when I look at 1,400 years of Islamic scholarship, I see the lack of women. A woman can definitely come to the same conclusions as a man, for good or bad, but I can't help but believe that had we had over a millennia of women's authoritative scholarship, Islamic law and interpretations would look quite different in some cases.

So when I read about feminist Jews reviving the mikvah or ritual bath for women (similar to the Islamic ghusl, which is incumbent upon Muslim men and women in different circumstances), I felt excited. For some believers, rituals and customs are more important than their meanings or interpretations; they are a mark of their religious and cultural identity, of belonging to God and community. This is particularly true of the older generation and strains of more orthodox belief.

But for many who have been brought up in a Western intellectual environment where questioning authority and everything else is a rite of passage, often those traditional interpretations are not enough to ensure the continuation of the practice, or of belief itself. Sometimes, in encountering a patriarchal interpretation, of women being "unclean" for example, we lose the practice too, which is a pity.

I see many young Muslims experiencing this. The answers and practices of our parents are often not up to our "Whys?" And so practice fades. But I also see people, lay believers and scholars, returning with new ways of seeing these practices that allow them to reconnect spiritually to God and community.

Some people never move away: the traditional answers are enough, the desire to do it because it is God's will suffices. But if we ignore all those who do ask why, we risk alienating them and casting them adrift.

Instead of trying to silence them, we can welcome sincere questions as an opportunity to look at ritual with fresh eyes, to mine it for new meaning, to make it live in the hearts of another generation. For myself, and many others, it's been a necessary cycle, this one of questioning, doubt, distance, reinterpretation, and re-embrace; of coming back to tradition by assigning meanings that ennoble the woman and bring her closer to her Lord.

muslim women's shelters

2006-06-04T21:25:00.000Z

I want to set up a Muslim women's group shelter.

OK I want *someone* to set up a women's shelter. So that a woman can have options and escape abuse - of any kind. So she doesn't have to wonder - will my parents send me back? Will my siblings take me in and will their families then get upset? Will I have the money to pay for a room so I can escape abuse?

And will I have to go to a shelter where my faith is under attack while my body is protected?
Meantime, here is a list of women's shelters. Got recommendations? Leave comments please.

(Special shout out to Nermeen for her work with Kiran.)

I know many people get irritated with the idea of women's shelters.

Why give women a route outside their "chardivari" (four walls), they say. Shut them up so they can "mould" themselves according to the situation, they say. - The situation being men; men being stone and women being clay.

Women are "emotional," they say. If you give them the choice to leave, they will abandon their homes, husbands and children at the drop of a hat. Yeah, right. Is it women that yell talaq 3x all the time, sleep around with other men while married, leave their children to fend for themselves? Emotional, my ass.

This is why Pakistani NGO women activists are often under fire from maulvis. Here's a funny and scary illustration: I remember some years back, the maulvis in a region of Pakistan preached that any men who MARRIED these NGO women would be rewarded by Allah - the idea being, that if men married these women, they would SUBJUGATE them. And marriage would then prevent them from future women's development work, giving women options and ideas and emancipation and empowerment and all that un-Islamic stuff.

Options. Choices. You can choose to stay with an imperfect man - heck, lots of men stay with imperfect women (here's one). But you should choose. And if it means destruction of your physical security, your emotional wellbeing, and your children--you should have the choice to protect yourself. By yourself. With a helping hand.

Layla Lalami editorial

2006-06-02T02:47:00.000Z

at The Nation:

The Missionary Position

A critical look at some of the more poorly constructed not-quite-good-enough-to-be-feminist-tracts out there which use the topic of gender to make blanket statements about Islam.

Friday, March 31st: I want my OWN labour!

2006-04-08T20:40:00.000Z

Note: I've been blogging at my blog about my pregnancy and about my travails with obstetricians (and soon, hospitals). This is one of the episodes in the story. If you're interested, you might want to look up previous blog entries at my blog shabanamir.com/koonj under pregnancy, health, parenting, and baby stuff.

I told you about the visit to Dr BM the specialist. Well, after that on Friday, after having successfully dodged labour induction, we went to the mall to enjoy the cherry blossoms. it was a gorgeous evening and we were feeling chipper. We walked for almost 3 hours and even played ball.

An hour earlier, my OB (I blogged about him earlier and again) had called in the afternoon. He was trying to be conciliatory - he asked to speak to me (I guess he noticed I was avoiding taking his calls.)

He told me he had scheduled me for a Wednesday April 6 midnight induction. At least it was AFTER my due date as opposed to BEFORE. But I still felt like we were a couple of children dodging a crowd of adults. I wanted to wait for natural labour and these people were RUSHING me. Plus I didn't LIKE these people and I didn't WANT them in the labour room with me.

As an anthropology student, the mind games I've encountered in my experience with 3-4 OB's in my pregnancy have been dazzling.

This was the latest: the OB actually told me I was RESISTING the delivery.

Says he: "You need to know that you're going to have a baby and it's going to be beautiful, and MY focus is the health and safety of the baby. It doesnt matter how it happens, whether it's a vaginal delivery or an induction or a C-section, it's going to be a great day. Believe me, I'm excited about it, and you should be too."
I wanted to laugh in his face at his bossiness, his patronizing assumptions and verbal tricks, and I sort of did. Anyway, we compromised on an induction scheduled for April 6. Fine. I asked him what he did if the induction failed. He said I wouldn't be going home. In that case, I'd be having a C-section. I felt even more trapped. I was furious, and I didn't know how to resist the medical managers of my body and my baby.

In fury, I walked and walked and walked. I have never walked so much in a long long time.

After our Friday evening at the mall, we saw Zahir and Saba at Macaroni Grill, and then we headed home. It had been a great day--in spite of the OB's pressure and the maternal-fetal specialist's nasty head games. By the end of the day, I was tired of thinking about it.

I prayed so hard that night. I cried and felt helpless. I asked Allah to save me from the hands of these people. I didn't want my OB to be in power over my body. It felt all wrong.

I begged to start labour on my own. I wondered if I should be trying to rush it. I dreaded going in on Wednesday night, and being laid down on a bed with an I-V and a patronizing, bossy OB waiting by, knife in hand. I didn't like him; I didn't respect him; I felt he didn't respect me; he didn't look at my body the way I did; I didn't trust him - and he would have all the power of a medical professional over my body. It was a dreadful thought.

All our lives, we muslim feminists struggle to protect our bodies against the gaze, against power - and here I was, feeling like my most important bodily event was being controlled and managed against my will. Against nature.

On Saturday, April 1 2006, I woke up, fell asleep again, and then woke up again at 12:30pm. And that's when my water broke!

It felt like a victory. Yah, I just managed to dodge a Friday induction, and Saturday, my water broke!

Then I made the mistake of calling the doctor on call and ASKING what I should do. It seems that with these interventionists, I should just KNOW what I want and act accordingly, so they don't have a chance to TELL me what to do.

She asked me if I was having contractions. I wasn't really. So she told me to go on ahead and hurry along, and they'd see if I needed to be induced. Drat.

So I pottered around, showered and ate (against her instructions--she was focused on possible surgery and didn't want me to eat), and then we drove around a bit, and went to the hospital around 4:30pm. Driving in there felt like becoming enslaved. I stopped in the lobby, and told Svend to stop there with me. I walked and walked again.

Suddenly I felt the contractions intensify, and after one particularly good one, I laughed and said, "Yeah, we'd better go register."

Pain was welcome! Pain was embraced. Pain was liberating. I'd never experienced anything like this before.

Fitness

2006-04-07T07:27:00.000Z

[Muslim Boarders]

(Cross posted at Truth and Beauty)

We were up at Tahoe this past weekend, blessedly free of an Internet connection - though that didn't prevent four laptops from being brought up anyway.

Two of the group are hardcore boarders who spent Friday and Saturday whizzing down the slopes. One of them, GQ, could not understand why the rest of us bothered coming up to Tahoe at all if we weren't going to hit the mountains. He's a recovering workaholic so can possibly be excused for not realizing how relaxing a snowy weekend spent in front of a fireplace with good friends and plenty of fresh-baked cookies can be.

I mentioned at some point that I was an intermediate skier by the age of 12 but that we moved to Pureland the next year and I never skied again. I did try boarding one afternoon under Basil's tutelege just weeks before my first hospitalization, but honestly I find the whole idea of bulkily bundling up in the freezing cold and trudging about in heavy boots and equipment all for a few minutes of downhill exhilaration not worth my time and energy.

Not to mention that if I'm going to spend $80+ per day (that I don't have) for equipment rentals, winter gear, and lift tickets, I'd rather spend it at the spa getting a Javanese Lulur Body treatment.

GQ's look of incomprehension at this explanation combined with a friend's frustrated search for an active wife got me thinking about physical fitness, or the lack thereof, amongst many Muzzie women. Our friend has met a number of prospective brides but finds himself in the unenviable position that many Muzzie singletons do - of wading through extremes in the hopes that moderates exist.

The girls are either so heavily into a literalist deen (religion) that it precludes the balanced lifestyle he seeks or so liberal that the term "practicing" would be a huge stretch in describing them. He finds that his love of the gym and snow sports is shared by a few of the liberals, but almost not at all by the conservatives, leading him to exclaim, "Don't Muslim women do anything?!"

In his contention # 67 Abdal Hakim Murad states - "Christian women: celibacy. Muslim women: cellulite. Thus have two prophets been forgotten." Men are at least equally guilty of both, but there is truth to the statement regardless.

When I was growing up, the women never did any heavy lifting beyond putting the chicken in the oven. At Tahoe they'd wait at the lodge while the men conquered the mountains. The girls would get dragged onto the bunny slopes but in our teens most settled into lethargy. Sedentary lifestyles coupled with fattening ethnic food would later bloom into health problems in our 20s and 30s.

School sports in Pureland were limited to net- or volleyball a couple of times a week. Academics were always more important than athletics, which were viewed as possible distractions from the path of success carved out by our parents. Girls who were "too active" ran the risk of tearing their hymens - or so elders concerned at their marital prospects said. Girls who spent too much time outdoors playing were also considered high risk to become "fallen women" whether by public perception or actual practice.

We girls were more concerned with the potential ugly darkening of our skin in the sun than with excelling at sports anyway. I didn't step out into the sun for the next six years, if I could help it - until my return to Freeland for college, where tanned skin was considered attractive.

In the wake of this weekend, where none of the three women boarded (and to be fair, neither did two of the four men), I started thinking about the "Victorian Islam" that discourages girls from valuing fitness or being physically strong, while still encouraging them to be attractive in the eyes of others as prospective brides.

I've always looked at my lack of physical activity as an individual phenomenon but when I take stock of my Muzzie girlfriends, only two are active on a regular basis, incorporating running, yoga, and swimming into their daily routines. The rest of us want to be thin but not to break a sweat achieving it. Dieting is far more popular than the gym.

On a wider scale, public girls' schools were prevented from building gyms in December by the Saudi Ministry of Education because some “religious men have a great influence on our education and the ministry listens only to those with certain views about women and their role and place in society.” Saudi Arabia and several other Muslim nations still have no female Olympic competitors. (The Muslim Women's Games, held every four years in Iran, do provide an alternative platform for some Muslim women athletes however.)

Muslim women have historically competed in the Olympic Games both in and out of the hijab and have experienced varying degrees of acceptance from their homelands. In 1992, Hassiba Boulmerka became the first Algerian ever to win the 1500 meters. Fundamentalists denounced her victory for "running with naked legs in front of thousands of men" and she was forced into exile because of death threats from extremists. Sania Mirza, an Indian Muslim tennis player, has also recently been denounced by some mullahs for competing in short skirts. Iranian women, on the other hand, chose to compete in the hijab at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in canoe/kayak and shooting and were supported at home.

Marmaduke Pickthall in his 1927 essay, "Social degradation of women- a crime and a libel against Islam" points out that purdah (the seclusion of women to the four walls of their home) has nothing to do with Islam and was never adopted by the majority of Muslims women for practical reasons. "So long as it was applied only to the women of great houses, who had plenty of room for exercise within their palaces and had varied interests in life" it was not cruel. But its adoption across classes, in South Asia for example, meant that it became manifestly objectionable and a positive evil from the point of view of the Shariah (sacred law), which enjoins kindness and fair treatment to women.

I recently read an article stating that because Egyptians have few public parks and homes are shrinking under population pressures, women and girls are facing increased health problems. In Pureland, we face a similar situation. This pressure to observe purdah creates women with bad health and stagnant intellectual attitudes and prevents them from being productive inside and outside of the home.

As the Muslim Hedonist asks, can "any of us—female or male—[...] accept women as embodied and spiritually equal beings?"

Can we teach girls to value the strength of their bodies and not just to appear thin but to be truly fit? To separate "unladylike" from "muscular, fit, and active" in the minds of parents and society? To convince people who think cooking or cleaning is enough activity for girls of another view? Can we create community acceptance in places where women's presence outside their homes is an invitation to slander? Can we make activities accessible to all since not every woman has the option to go to an all-women's gym (or to join a gym at all) or has a private garden?

Most importantly, can we really support girls to be strong and not suddenly pull our support when it comes to meeting the societal standards of a languid pale-faced thin beauty, idle neighborhood gossip, marriage proposals/wedding preparations, or fulfilling daughterly/wifely "duties"?

The female Muslim Boarders, the Lady Caliphs, Noor-ul-Iman and Universal School basketball teams and a Somali refugee volleyball team working with Nike are all addressing the cultural and religious concepts of modesty while encouraging girls to be active and competitive. We need many more girls like them, as well as open-minded community members who are willing to begin the dialogue and find creative solutions.

On a personal level, I find my commitment to incorporating fitness and a balanced diet into my routine to be very challenging. While I enjoy long walks, I am working against three decades of detesting formal sports and sweating. With the addition of Devic's, overheating can lead to faintness and weakness in the limbs. But I know that I have to embody those ideals if I ever want to make it real for myself and my children.

There is much to be said for the scholar-athlete and her re-emergence amongst Muslim women. Spiritual, mental, and physical excellence are inherently linked and, as Basil once said, "it would appear that Islam provides a framework and mindset to recognize meaning and appreciate Him in every type of circumstance" - whether one is appreciating God-given dexterity while snowboarding on a beautiful mountain or enhancing the mind-body-soul connection which is so vital to fueling all of our worldy and spiritual endeavors.

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Great related posts:

Sunni Sister explores "body image, body insecurity, and factors beyond the 'fundamentalists' and 'Back Homeians' that keep Muslim women / girls from exercising" in Get Ready, Get Fit, Go!

Akram's Razor has two posts related to women's physical fitness: 1, 2.

And Sister Scorpion shares the changes in her body and attitude since starting to excercise in Fitness Stuff.

Go, Lady Caliphs!

2006-03-17T18:19:00.000Z

Check this out, people!

I am so proud of these girls. Go Lady Caliphs!!

Thanks, Fatimah Fanusie for passing this on, and Svend for bringing it to my attention (crossposted at Koonj).

As a woman who is continually hamstrung (excuse the pun) because my body won't keep up with me, because I was always immobile and not expected to move and never developed the habit of exercise, I'm always envious when I see a woman running or bicycling vigorously. - I hope my daughter follows the example of these girls.

A Sorority For Muslim Women

2006-03-14T05:57:00.000Z

Muslim women make pledge to religion, sorority
by
Julia Michel

When University of Kentucky junior Arwa Abualsoud entered college, she sought out a community that would accept her socially conservative Muslim beliefs. Three years later, she joined America’s first and only Islamic-based sorority, Gamma Gamma Chi. But her membership in a sorority didn’t bring her into a non-stop party; she still prays five times a day, wears a hajib, the traditional Muslim head covering and avoids fraternizing with males.
Membership in Gamma Gamma Chi offers Muslim women an alternative to traditional sorority life that respects their religious beliefs. Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, the year-old sorority aims to join the National Panhellenic Conference and establish chapters of the sorority nationwide by 2015. After UKY, another chapter will open in the fall at University of Maryland’s Baltimore campus and Islamic college students from fourteen states, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, have e-mailed co-founder Althia Collins requesting a chapter at their university.

Abualsoud says after pledging to Gamma Gamma Chi replaced her initial social isolation with a strong sense of religious community. “It offered me and the girls a reason to get together regardless of our nationalities and colors. Girls [in the sorority] have almost the same beliefs and maybe traditions. [They] would understand everything I do rather that having a question mark on every move I make, like praying during the day and not eating pork.”

Co-founder Imani Abdul-Haqq wanted to pledge to a sorority her freshman year of college but could not find one that balanced with her religious beliefs. With nowhere else to turn, she enlisted her mother, Collins, to help her form a new sisterhood. “I was interested in joining a sorority and I couldn’t find one that was right for me because of my beliefs,” Collins says. “I see younger Muslims not embracing the fact that they are Muslim and they’re trying to hide it because they want to belong and like be their friends. They don’t think it’s ‘the thing to be’ after 9/11. I was thinking this would be a way to show them more images so they wouldn’t hide anymore.”

Sororities like Gamma Gamma Chi could encourage Muslim women to become more involved on college campuses, Collins says. “So many people don’t think about the fact that these women are born and raised in America and are very traditional Americans. They see the same T.V. shows, read the same magazines, follow the same fashion. No one has ever thought about reaching out to this group and including them. This is for Muslim women who might have wanted a sorority experience but they don’t drink or have the casual mixing with men.”
Abdul-Haqq says Gamma Gamma Chi will help eliminate misconceptions of sorority girls by focusing on traditions of community service and sisterhood. “One thing for sororities is we automatically assume that there are crazy parties, but still the focus of sorority life is on building sisterhood, promoting scholarship and leadership. Those things can be done without mixing with fraternities and alcohol. We’re still following the same traditional goals but leaving out those things that really don’t have anything to do with sisterhood at all.”

Induction of Gamma Gamma Chi to regular campus Greek life will also squash negative stereotypes of Muslim women while promoting tolerance, Abdul-Haqq says. “We’re not oppressed. We’re not terrorists. It’s not so much what we’re not as what we are, although we are Muslims. We are Americans and we want to do everything that we are conditioned to like and gravitate towards as Americans. Although there are sororities in international countries, and we want to do that too, it’s an American trend. We’re not less American. We want to show it with more of the positives so that way people will negate the negatives once they see the things we stand for. It’s not different than Christianity or Judaism because we follow many of the same beliefs. It’s just a new idea.”

Though junior Leyla Norooz, who is Muslim, does not know if she will join a sorority in college, she says the Islamic-based sorority could alter public opinion regarding Muslim women. “If we come together, we can show that we’re not like how a lot of people think we are. A lot of people think that because we’re Muslim women, so we don’t have rights. People see countries like Afghanistan where women can’t vote but the real thing in Islam says both men and women have the right to vote. If they show that Muslim women can do it, people will have different impressions of Muslims are in general.”

Unfounded stereotypes encouraged UKY freshman Hope Johnson to join, she says. “It will show America that Muslim girls are just like regular girls. There is no difference except for our head covering. We try to do good like everyone else does. We are not so intolerant and stuck in our religion so that we know how to blend in and have fun and be together and have friends and still lead a religious life. When I come home I dress up and put on cute mini skirts and stuff, I just know how to limit and still have fun. It will really help the public see the reality of what we are and what we stand are.”

Gamma Gamma Chi provides Muslim women with a support system they might not have otherwise. “We offer an alternative option for Muslim women in particular,” Collins says. “They are pretty much excluded, even if not intentionally. A lot of sororities’ benefits come from networking and the benefit of meeting each other and making relationships, so to make something like this for Muslim women seemed to make sense.”

Johnson says joining the sorority will bring her closer to friends of the same religion and improve her social life. “It will help my college experience because everyone needs to have close friends to study with, to be with, to talk to, to experience things with. I’m going to have more fun with them because they’re like me. I have a lot of Christian friends but they’re not like my Muslim friends. I can talk to them about everything because they understand better.”
Betsy Rogers, class of ’03, pledged to a traditional sorority at Vanderbilt University to continue a family tradition and make new friends, but she says the popular impression of partying sorority girls does not hold true for her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma. “Our big thing is leadership so we do a lot of community service, like Big Brother Big Sisters of Central Tennessee,” she says. “We read to kids at school once a week and we have a bunch of philanthropy events. Also, we can’t have parties at the house. The sorority does have parties but they’re either dress up themes or formal and they’re at a bar or restaurant. There are only three a semester and while there are only a few things with fraternities, compared to everything else it’s really not that much.”

Norooz says the introduction of Gamma Gamma Chi chapters throughout the nation would encourage her to join a sorority because it would combine religious devotion with education. “If I had the option, I would probably go towards the Muslim-based side, but if the Christian side is more reasonable or better then I’d go for that. It wouldn’t be much of a problem for me because that’s what I do right now, it would probably be better for me because I’d practice my religion at the same time as getting my education. That’s a huge advantage.”

Even private universities such as Vanderbilt would welcome Gamma Gamma Chi to encourage diversity on campus, Rogers says. “It could definitely be possible to see that here. There’s a Latina sorority and a couple of black ones. It’s not that other ones are white, it’s that black sororities are only for black women. Regular sororities are open to everyone, so I don’t know if there would be a strong need. I could still see it fitting in and being fine because there are a bunch of other similar sororities and other religious groups on campus.”

Abdul-Haqq says conservative critics of the sorority question the integration of Muslim ideals into Greek life. “There are those who have commented on why we use Greek letters as opposed to Arabic. Why can’t we call ourselves something other than Greek? Some others ask because they say we’re trying to be non-Muslims. They don’t understand our reasons for the name and the letters and the organization for themselves. Some people think we have the MSA [Muslim Student Association]. Why do we need another group? Once they see how well we’re doing and how good it is for the community, and the women and the school, they’ll see how anything benefits.”

Calling all Muslim women

2006-03-11T02:53:00.000Z

Please take time to fill out this survey about Muslim women and the US health care system over at Nermeen's blog

Wasting Energy Of A Woman

2006-03-07T06:00:00.000Z

"Women constitute 50 per cent of society and in the present condition they constitute an energy lost to social needs". Energy that is wasted "should be seen as an important resource that could be unleashed with greater belief in women's abilities and opportunity to better their living conditions".

These were the words of Associate Professor Kaltham Al Ghanem of Qatar University during a speech at the The international conference on 'Arab Women, Past and Present: Participation and Democratisation,' in Doha. It took place over three days, with over thirty five presentations of various women. While these words were uttered with Arab women in mind it can hold true for all Muslim women throughout the globe. Be it in the West or the far East the participation of Muslim women, be it politics or otherwise are not utilized to their full potential, simply due to gender and interpretations related to it.

The statistics of Muslim women and their roles within various societies are mind blowing. Consider Canada, a Western country where one would assume that Muslim women could control their own lives with more freely choosing options than say our sisters in Saudi Arabia. However although Muslim women in Canada are some of the most educated they are also the ones least likely to be employed.

- Nearly one in three Muslim women has a university degree, compared with one in five among all women; twice as many Muslim women hold masters and doctoral degrees as all women in Canada.

- Less than one-half (49 per cent) of the eligible Muslim women participate in tlaborour market compared with the national average of 60.5 per cent.

- In spite of their higher levels of education, Muslim women are concentrated in lower paying clerical and sales and service occupations.

This according to the Canadian Council of Muslim women based on 2001 census data. The rate of among Muslim women doesn't fair any better in Canada. This lack of participation doesn't only involve western politics but it is also reflected in the very Masjids that these women attend. Most Western Muslim women are not involved with the political sphere of the Masjid, they head very committees ties that are not specifically focused upon gender related issues, and have little to no say in the running of the Masjid that they attend, support and fund. MSA's across the western hemisphere also represent a lack woman's mans voice and leadership. Even when women tend to dominate the numbers in various universities the MSA's consist of a dominate male leadership and lack any real leadership roles for women over all.

The Middle East fairs out no better, even though women in many areas of the Middle East women account for 50 percent of the student population in universities. Their participation within the work force no where near represents such strides in education. And even in countries were many women do work they still remain in lower sector jobs, secretarial and remain to more traditional employment which has always been culturally acceptable such as education and health. They continue, even with their vast strides in education, under represented in many areas of the work force.

Muslim women in the Middle East are just as under represented in the political and policy making sectors as they are in employment. Even in areas where women can vote and run for various elected seats they have fewer female turnouts, hold fewer political seats, and have fewer female canidates over all.

This same trend is one which follows through the rest of the Muslim world. One which can't simply be chalked up to politics, cultural differences or other land specific excuses. This represents a global trend that in one form or another is instilled within the Muslim mind when it comes to the appropriate and accepted role of Muslim women. Even with the speeches of Islam and the promotion of women and the great calls to remember past figures that had an economic impact on the Muslim community,think Khadija r.a. Versus the practical application of women's energym, which is under utilized, as some Islamic correct thing to do.

Our community as a whole speaks of gender related issues which tend to end up contradictory. For example our leaders explain the reasons of polygyny is that women tend to out number men and a sister should want for another sister what she wants for herself. A husband and economic supporter for her and the family. Now given way to the assumption that such a claim is correct on its surface, when discussing the employment of women and her seeking economic independence within a society where supposedly she is a majority than we are further given the understanding that women are to stay at home and be good wives. In the next breath we can discuss the rising unemployment among our global ummah and the poverty levels of various Muslim dominated countries around the globe but dare we suggest women actually work outside of the home. At that point we are promoting social fitnah, feminism, and giving into a western understanding of the role of women. Keep in mind we will call on khadijah r.a in the image of an independent working woman who was not only economically blessed but also one which supported the rise of Islam as a wife and businessness woman as a role model for women and their true role in Islam.

I'm in no way suggesting that all Muslim women around the globe enter the work force nor that Muslim men are given a free ride when it comes to thei economic obligations within their households. I am however questioning the waisted recourses of Muslim women within our global ummah which has a negative affect within our societies. I am questioning the teaching which presents an uneducated, unemployed, Muslim female model as the ideal role to strive for. I am calling to the carpet the very contradictory Islamic "image" of the Muslim women that we tend to present to the world.

I say this as a SAHM raising three daughters with ideas that there are many opportunities for them in the world. That education is something that they should love and seek throughout their lives as a Muslim woman fulfilling their obligation for knowledge. I tell them the stories of the women in our Islamic past who had great impacts on issues that shaped our ummah during their time and our own. Those like Khadijah r.a who was businessn savvy and supported the rise of Islam economically. I support their growth with the belief that they have worth and something to contribute to their families as well as to society at large. That they are not to be undervalued based on their gender nor are incapable of achieving goals that they set which are halal. I am like so many other Muslim women I know from many diverse cultures, educational backgrounds, and social upbringings. Yet the hard fact is that these young girls will be under-realized in their abilities and what they can contribute to our global ummah simply because of their gender.

The words of Kaltham al Ghanem certainly ring true and how fitting considering the time. March is woman's History Month tomorrow (March 8th) is International woman's day. Its about time our Muslim Ummah start making Muslim women history and change the notions and beliefs which continue to hinder half of our ummah. And that we finally realize and use the positive abilities that so many Muslim women can give to our ummah and we stop wasting this precious energy just because it extends from a woman.

They've got game--and hijab

2006-02-23T14:04:00.000Z

By Deborah Horan
Tribune staff reporter

February 19, 2006

Duaa Hamoud holds a basketball to her hip. She is standing in a long blue gown in a gym at Bridgeview's Universal School. Her head is covered in a white scarf pulled tightly around her neck. Not a wisp of hair is showing.

Around her, other high school girls dressed in similar flowing robes shoot a few casual baskets while they wait for practice to begin. There are no men in the gym--no male coaches, no boys from school, no dads or brothers in the bleachers.

So when the coach arrives and the real training starts, they can peel off their Islamic dress, exposing their sweat pants and short-sleeved T-shirts underneath.

"We'd run if we noticed a man peeking in the window," Hamoud, 16, explains. "We're not allowed to be seen by guys without [Islamic dress]. We've all learned to accept that."

But the girls can't accept that they have only been allowed to compete against girls basketball teams from other Muslim schools. There are only four in the Chicago area, they complain, and their competition isn't exactly tough.

Since last year they've been beseeching Coach Farida Abusafa, 26, an English teacher who also coaches sports, to ask public schools and non-Muslim private schools if their girls teams would be willing to compete against girls from the Universal School.

The problem is the schools would have to agree to bar men and boys above the age of puberty from watching the games.

"It's not like it's a sin to play a public school," Abusafa said. "The problem is the males coming to the game."

The dilemma underscores the balancing act many Muslims perform as they toggle between American and Middle Eastern culture.

Many of these young girls straddle the divide with ease, yapping on their cell phones at the mall one minute, observing the school's strict gender segregation the next. But the girls are also mindful of the challenges they face.

"It's something you have to decide you want to do," said Shaylin Najeeullah, 16, a member of the varsity basketball team. "You can stay true to what you believe in or you can conform to everybody else and get lost."

The Universal School's principal, Farhat Siddiqi, said there was no reason the girls wouldn't be allowed to play teams from public schools or other private schools as long as the prohibition barring men was strictly observed. But she worries parents from other schools might object.

"I don't want to have to impose our religious requirements on anyone else," Siddiqi said.

The Universal School, a coed private school located next to the Mosque Foundation near 93rd Street and Harlem Avenue, is already a member of the Illinois High School Association. So nothing would prevent the girls from playing other public or private schools, said Beth Sauser, assistant executive director of the association responsible for girls basketball.

"They would have to contact whatever schools they want to play and work it out through the athletic directors," Sauser said.

Rich Piatchek, athletic director at Andrew High School in Tinley Park, said he wouldn't rule out his girls teams playing against Universal but acknowledged excluding men from the games might prove difficult.

"That could be an issue," Piatchek said. "I can't imagine that the parents aren't going to want to come and watch their children play. Most schools would probably have the same problem."

Christine Bochnak, the varsity girls basketball coach at Sandburg High School in Orland Park, said complying with the ban on males could be tricky--her assistant coach, for instance, is a man--but she believes the girls from both schools could benefit from the experience.

"The diversity would be good," Bochnak said. "I think it's always good when there's exposure to other cultures and ideas. It's a life lesson, and that's what we're supposed to be teaching when we're coaching basketball--teaching about life."

Conceivably, the Muslim girls could play in headscarves, sweat pants and long sleeves. But the bulky attire might make playing difficult, they said.

"It would probably be hot," said Shetha Hamoud, 12, Duaa's lanky, doe-eyed sister, who plays on the junior varsity team. Playing in the long gown, called a jilbab, would be worse, Duaa Hamoud said.

"It would be like trying to play in a dress," she said.

Not all the girls' parents require them to wear Islamic dress when they aren't in school. But Universal requires girls to wear the hijab on school grounds when they start the 6th grade. Girls and boys learn in separate classrooms and eat lunch during different periods.

Girls don't sit in the bleachers to watch boys' games unless they have a brother playing, and then school authorities encourage a parent to be present. It's understood that dads and brothers won't watch their daughters and sisters play.

"You just describe it when you get home and hope that's sufficient to tell him what happened during the game," Najeeullah said.

The girls say they don't mind the dress code.

"It was made obligatory by God ... to guard our chastity and our modesty," Hamoud said. They automatically pull on scarves and sweatpants or pop the jilbab over their gym clothes whenever they leave the court for water or bathroom breaks.

Abusafa said she has been considering approaching public schools and other private schools for some time, but so far she has hesitated.

She believes the contests would help improve the girls' games, but she's worried that too much competition might shatter their confidence.

While girls at public schools typically practice six times a week, the girls at Universal hit the court only twice every seven days because they share gym time with the boys' teams.

Scheduling presents another problem. The boys' games start first, throwing off the season for the girls' teams. They start their games several weeks later than the non-Muslim girls teams, Abusafa said.

She has considered asking the other schools to play exhibition games, but IHSA rules stipulate that those games would count toward the season total, so most schools would likely turn her down.

Abusafa has also contemplated the possibility of inviting the schools to play at Universal--even footing the transportation and referee costs--to avoid forcing those schools to comply with segregation rules. Bochnak, for one, said she would consider that possibility.

"I wouldn't have a problem with it," she said.

The girls at Universal say they won't be upset if the other schools turn them down.

"If other schools have a problem with this, it's OK," Hamoud said.

But they look forward to the possibility.

"We just get sick of playing the same schools," said Rana Othman, 14, a 9th-grader who plays on the junior varsity team. "It would be more challenging to play the public schools."

----------

dhoran@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

"Because their not Muslim, right Mama?"

2006-02-16T06:25:00.000Z

Not really a question or a statement, just the working mind of a newly turned 7 year old girl who has been trying to figure out the dress of women for several years. It all started easy enough, easy for me anyway, "why don't you wear your abya on vacation?" "Why do you cover when men come to the house?". These are very easy questions to answer especially to a small child whose understanding of life is so black and white. But as they grow it becomes more complicated to explain things to the mind of a child who still has a hard time understanding the grey areas.

It isn't like I've every been one to say "Oh look at her dress" or assume one isn't a Muslim simply based on what they happen to be wearing at the time. I'm, like so many other Muslim women, long tired of the hijab debate and everyone's judgments of who is a better Muslim based on appearance. I try hard not to make judgments between one Muslim and another simply because one wears a jilbab and covers her hair and face and the other is wearing loose fitting clothing but doesn't cover her hair.

But dress has been an obvious thing for my daughter growing up here in Saudi. Every time I go out I put on a black abya and a black scarf and head out of the door. This is a dramatic change of dress just to go outside so it would be obvious to my daughter. It isn't like I'm wearing clothes and just add a scarf so it is understandable why she would question the whole concept of it. "Why mama" was asked of me early on in regards to the abya it soon became an everyday sight so she thought nothing of it.

Until I didn't wear it on a vacation in Malaysia, "Why mama" she soon asked on why I didn't wear an abya there. People actually saw my clothes, it was all very confusing but easy to explain. Different cultures have different dress when I'm in Saudi I use an abya when I'm in Malaysia I don't. "Ok". Simple enough for her, thank goodness simple enough for me.

But as we sat and watched some gymnastic show of young girls contorting their bodies in ways that just don't seem possible. It came "they dress like that because they are not Muslims right mama." It wasn't a Muslim country performing and it could be a safe assumption that they weren't Muslim so without much thought, and a desire not to have this discussion as at that time, "yes baby." Wrong thing to do and isn't that the way in life, the easiest route not always being the best.

A few days latter an image came on the t.v of a woman dressed in a small string strapped shirt (how else to explain that??) she said "She wears that because she's not Muslim". Now I have no idea if this woman, obviously Arab, is Muslim or not. I think back on some of the dress here that Muslim women wear even close friends of ours don't cover and don't exactly wear what most Westerners would consider conservative. And before I could open my mouth to explain that we can't know what that woman is simply on her dress she said "I wore a dress that had that" as she pointed to her shoulders making a gesture of little string straps. I responded "yes that is right and your Muslim". She went on to agree and reminisced on this dress that she wore to a wedding, how much she loved that dress. I thought the best time for me is right now.

I sat her down and explained to her as much as I could with a child, who only sees black and white, that we can't know what a person is based on what they wear. We can't say a woman is Muslim because she wears an abya, we know many Non Muslim women who wear one here in Saudi. As we can't know if a woman is not Muslim simply because she doesn't cover, for we know many Muslim women that don't. I carefully suggested that maybe we think a Muslim shouldn't wear something, but we can't say they aren't Muslim because of it. And that doesn't make them bad people that we should judge. She agreed and went on to explain different ways of dressing and what she likes and what she doesn't. The mind of a 7 yr old how lovely to be.

But than a few things dawned on me. The first was the thought if what if every Muslim mind was so ready to accept that judgments can't be made on appearance. This is a concept that is taught within Islam, we can easily recall the story of "the one who turned away" within the Qur'an. An old, poor, man seeking to know religion was turned away from in preference of others who appeared to be better suited for such information. Although it would be difficult to get to a point where there was a total non judgment based on appearance I would at least love to get to the place where we don't condemn based on appearance alone.

The other thing that grabbed my attention is that my daughter never expressed concern over a mans dress. She never once pointed to a man and said "he's not Muslim because he wears that mama right?". She never asked her father why at times he wears a thobe and at others he doesn't. It was always surrounded around the female and her dress. While there could be a simple explanation for this, one she being a female relates to the same gender model in her home, two women's dress tends to be more dramatic than men's, or three my husband never shouted "Don't open that door I'm not covered". But this explains the focus of a seven year old not our global ummah.

The emphasis of dress and judgments based upon it have largely been placed upon women. Women have even been attacked based on her dress but we fail to see that happening to the male fraction of our ummah. When was the last time a man in your masjid was condemned to hanging in hell from his feet because he wore long pants past his ankles. Or when was the last time you saw a group of men referring to a male Muslim speaker as a evil conspirator agent of Shaitan because he wore a suite jacket and pair of slacks.

I'm sure some may retort, well the men have the beard issue. But I dare suggest that it isn't as over bearing as the issue of hijab. I remember when my mother converted and a local Imam was invited to give a short talk, I didn't know him but our friends did so no problems. Here is this 50 something year old woman sitting down with her daughter and son in law to take shahadda and all he could think of talking about was hijab. Yes he read the ayat of Qur'an regarding woman's dress and than proceeded to discuss the importance of covering up. I have yet to witness a male conversion that is coupled along with a speech on growing his beard, shortening his pants, and sporting a thobe. And this isn't souly related to one man, in fact when conversions take place in this country they are required to take some sort of class given by the government affairs sector and the women are told all the proper things, covering, submitting to their men and all the other most important factors that a new Muslim women needs to know. A man on the other hand gets a speech about the essence of belief, the required things a Muslim must do never getting the important definition of a Muslim man including a beard and thobe.

I'll continue to teach my children not to be judgmental based on appearance. And inshallah they will go on to implement that in their lives. And I'm sure the time will come when I will have to console them after being judged by others based on their own appearances. Now, if only all parents taught their children the same thing, by word and deed, we could soon wipe out such judgments in a few generations.

For the love of God...

2006-02-13T03:43:00.000Z

I wrote the stories below in an attempt to illustrate something that I think contributes to what we're seeing today. I'm not sure. It's just a thought that came to mind during a conversation I had with UmmAli. I remembered a wonderful article written by Irshaad Hussain entitled Raising Children which discusses raising children with an emphasis on nurturing the spirit rather than strict discipline. When I read his article, I read it in general terms since I've seen examples in both Christianity and Islam. Likewise from my experiences in matters concerning God, it seems there is often more emphasis on wrath rather than love. I believe this diminishes our natural connections to our Creator and His Creation by denying true understanding. As I thought about some of the conflicts we're seeing today, I wondered if perhaps some of it is the result of how we teach our children about God and the world around them.

When I think of God in terms of love, everything else seems to fall into place. For a brief moment in time God, Creation and my place within it once again make sense.

The beauty of the heart
is the lasting beauty:
its lips give to drink
of the water of life.
Truly it is the water,
that which pours,
and the one who drinks.
All three become one when
your talisman is shattered.
That oneness you can't know
by reasoning.

From: Mathnawi II, 716-718
- Rumi

Hellfire

On Sunday mornings, my mother would wake us up early to get ready for church. I considered Sunday part of the weekend. It was ridiculous having to get up early since Sunday was suppose to be a day of rest. Wasn't it a sin to get up before noon? I'd never read anywhere in the Bible that God got up early on the seventh day. Monday through Friday you had to get up early to go to school or work. Saturdays were days for having fun but you still had to get up early in order to catch all of the good cartoons on television. Sundays were the only good days for sleeping late and even God rested on that day. Obviously, the guy who thought it was a good idea to start church so early in the morning did not have to get up early the other six days of the week.

"Get up before I beat the tar out of you," she'd threaten, "we have to leave. God will be mad if we're late." Unwilling to endure a thrashing and the wrath of God so early in the morning, I'd moan myself out of bed and put on my best dress. The ride to church was a brief, ten minute dash in our small town. Our tiny, white church sat across from the railroad tracks that chorded off the poorer part of town. An alabaster guardian, it gobbled up its congregation of sinners. An hour later, the double-doors would yawn open and we'd be spat out like pieces of chewing gum that's been stripped of its flavor.

I enjoyed going to church as a small child before I'd reached my tenth year. We'd spend the first half of the hour in a small room in the back of the building learning hymns and reading stories. The hymns were my favorite part of class. Amazing Grace was my favorite because of the long, drawn out tune. I loved the way it weaved and wavered from my throat and into my ear, soothing my soul and softening my heart so that God would have a nice place to live. Afterward, we would open our little Bibles and read epic tales of heroism, of sacrifice, of miracles and love.

The second half of the hour, we would join the rest of the congregation in the main room where we would watch the adults take communion, plop their donations into a silver platter and begin their own round of hymns. With an 'amen', the heavy doors would swing open and we'd spill out to linger on the lawn. The adults would talk as the kids broke out into spontaneous games of 'it' and ran screaming between the chattering grown-ups. It's an idyllic scene of small-town life, a watercolor representation of communion with God by gathering together in the love of God. It's a picture I cherish even today as a Muslim.

After my tenth year, it was time for me to take my place with the main congregation of adults and older children. As I sat on the pew next to my mother, I looked longingly at the younger children as they hurried to the small classroom to the left of the pulpit. I had learned all I needed from my Sunday school teachers to prepare me for Brother Joe's fire and brimstone sermons. Our preacher was a kind, soft-spoken man in his 60's with a voice that caressed the ear like a piece of velvet. In regular conversation, he could almost lull you to sleep.

Standing behind that pulpit somehow transformed our grandfatherly preacher into God's own megaphone. Thunder would crack through the church as his fists pounded the pulpit with such force, I thought it would splinter under the abuse. Lightning shot from his mouth in the form of graphic descriptions of hell and roasting souls. His voice would ring out, vibrating our ears with such vocal friction that it set them aflame only to be extinguished by nervous beads of sweat that poured from our guilt-ridden heads. I remember squirming in my seat as imaginary flames reached up from Hell to pull me down into the pit of my own fear. It was the first time I remember thinking that God wasn't such a nice guy after all. In fact, He literally scared the Hell out of me.

Shaiton

Monday through Friday, two of my three children attended regular public school like most other American kids. Saturday mornings were set aside for Allah. The local mosque held Quran and Arabic classes for children from preschool age to high school. Only a few years before, I'd had some pretty bad experiences in mosques and had since avoided them. At first, I was reluctant to send my children but a friend convinced me to give it a try. I did want them to learn Arabic and things about Islam I couldn't teach them considering my own limited knowledge. They would be with fellow Muslim children with whom they could relate and interact. There was also that perk of having a quiet Saturday morning to myself.

The first few Saturdays went well and my apprehension soon faded away. I was delighted when my children came home reciting small surahs they'd memorized or would write new Arabic letters they'd learned. They'd talk about the new friends they'd made, tell me about the activities they'd done that day and seemed happy to spend their Saturdays learning about Allah.

One night, my second youngest son who was around six at the time refused to go to bed. When I asked why he only said he was scared but couldn't seem to tell me exactly what he was scared of. My daughter being the oldest thus the more articulate of the two said he was afraid of Shaiton. "She told us in school about how Shaiton comes and whispers in your ear," she whispered. My first reaction was to wonder why they were learning about Shaiton when they were suppose to be learning about Allah. After thinking about it, I reasoned maybe they'd come across something in the Quran mentioning Shaiton. Perhaps their teacher had simply explained who he was and how he tried to tempt people away from the right path. I comforted my son and told him to recite Surah Al-Fatiha which would scare the devil away so he could sleep.

A few nights later, my son spontaneously bursts into tears right before bedtime. When I asked him what was wrong, he could only say he was scared to be by himself. Remembering his Shaiton experience, I asked my daughter what they'd learned about in class that day. "She told us about the bad place," she said, "where demons set you on fire and beat you up." By this time, my son had found his voice and what they told me both shocked and infuriated me. While most of the teachers there were good, there was an older teacher who threatened them with hellfire for the slightest disobedience. She'd given the students vivid descriptions of Hell that can only be described as a combination of Alice in Wonderland and Dante's Inferno. "She told us not to eat with our left hand because that's the devil's hand," my daughter continued, "If you eat with your left hand, Shaiton will get you and make you eat fire."

Not only was I shocked, I was furious! Who talks that way to children? I was very careful about not letting my children see movies or tv shows with graphic scenes of horror yet there they were getting a double-dose in the mosque. They were suppose to be learning about Allah, but were instead getting threatened with violence as a disciplinary measure. I stayed up with my kids most of the night that night trying erase graphic images of "Allah's wrath" from their terrified little minds.

The violence of female bodies

2006-02-07T00:12:00.000Z

The other day, we were watching TV, right, and suddenly this ad for some diet pill came on.

Without giving us any time to react, suddenly images of bikini-clad flabby cellulite-covered rear ends and bellies started flashing on the scene. Svend's reaction was very hetero.

"AGGGHH! It's an assault!"

And I said, "You know, that's how I react when the Victoria's Secret ad comes on. It's an assault."

These days, in my hormone-laden third trimester, when my heart hurts, it connects immediately in mysterious gendered fashion with my clumsy large body. The body feels unlovable.

More than ever, I hate tall leggy women in tight clothes. Make them stay away from me. Oh, and I hate that disgusting Tabasco commercial (a tall leggy woman in a small bikini eats Tabasco and then pulls her bikini bra aside, peeks in at her chest, and looks at the camera coyly; hate it.) Will not buy Tabasco.

And the Victoria's Secret models writhing to the beat of percussion in the TV ads. Not fair. Hurts. Ouch.

I can't be that woman on the screen. And often, you see a totally seductive woman, paired off with a goofy looking chubby man. Because programming is for the male gaze. Sure, the occasional male hottie is produced, but by and large, TV programming is for men.

These things are always an affront, but now they are positively violence and mental abuse. I'm not competing with women who have four salad greens and two pasta shells a day. And a tummy tuck every year or so. (BTW, I've heard liposuction is really picking up in fashionable Pakistani circles. Scary).

I know the world is not equal when it comes to beauty, and women have to deal with hotter women. All women have to deal with husbands and spouses inadvertently looking up at hot women. This is the way of the world, but it hurts.

And what makes me madder, is the men who go to their wives and demand modesty and want them to wear-more-clothes-thicker-clothes-looser-clothes, but at the same time, they can't - no, wait, DON'T - control their own gaze, - because they are after all, not children, and CAN control themselves. They contradict their own ethic of modesty by bestowing lust and desire upon slutty women, and bestowing neglect upon the women closest to them.

As for dirt-ball, sleaze-ball guys, we modest religious women (okay, I'm pretty marginal there, but I'll claim membership nevertheless) - we don't give them the time of day. We pick the "good" guys. Then the good guys betray our shared ethic by giving way to the carnal, while bossily protecting women from the gaze of men like themselves.

Conservative guys licking their lips at pornographic images, or secretly surfing porn - yeah, plenty of them are around, open secret, so let's stop talking about whether women should wear gloves or niqabs and jalabiyyas in addition to hijabs, and instead focus on how men should protect their gaze.

And this whole semi-pornographic splashing of female body parts--separate body parts, like some kind of forensic exercise--on public channels is just violent. And the fact that female bodies are used for the purpose is generative of self-hatred.

For instance, they're showing a commercial for I know what you did last summer, and suddenly you see flashes of cleavage. Okay, I grant that might be Jennifer Love Hewitt's cleavage. But I've seen that movie, and that clip is not familiar. They just randomly tossed in some cleavage, irrelevant to the movie. Violent.

If I have a son some day, I don't want him to sit in front of the TV expecting to be served up with the daily dosage of female body parts. But patriarchy and capitalism and culture and sex and consumerism will continue in their alliance, selling more body for more money, or making it more and more widely available.

The other day, we're watching Law & Order: SVU and suddenly Olivia appeared with her jacket open in the front, her shirt unbuttoned to, like, her stomach, and the cleavage like some kind of lingerie ad. There's not even any sense of relevance in these shots. And it contradicts the whole purported "ethic" of the show.

STOP hurting me. Stop hurting my sisters. Stop hurting us. - We range from pre-teens, to vulnerable teenagers and freshmen, to housewives and graduate students and professional women and working class women and White, Black, brown, Asian, Native women, with bodies that are slightly less than airbrushed tanned perfection served up in lingerie. We don't want to be hurt anymore.

It's my RIGHT to not be hurt psychologically, mentally, emotionally, all the time. I'm attacked from all directions at all times. I'm waiting at the bus-stop, slightly nervous, with a strange man next to me - and a huge sexualized picture of a half-naked woman staring at us. This endangers me, physically and emotionally.

It's there, when I'm leafing through a magazine in Borders, and the images knife through me. - The aggressive hips, the hostile pouty lips, the intimidating cleavage and fat-free waistlines invade my peace of mind.

But when Viggo Mortensen's rear end makes a sudden, brief unexpected appearance in the remake of Psycho, Svend reacts with complete distaste and irony. The male body should not be objectified. It is undignified. Yet, it is relatively rare.

I don't want to be alone in experiencing it as violence. Men need to take responsibility. We are not like some kind of corpses in the hands of popular culture. If I can resist low-rise jeans and low-cut blouses, you can resist looking at them. We are both equally targeted by popular culture. Some of us give themselves the luxury of capitulation and others don't.

Tyra Banks' body is her own, sure, and so is Jennifer Love Hewitt's.
But in some ways, this female body scattered in pieces over the screen is mine. It hurts me to see parts of my body on the screen, served up to the male gaze--in the jeans ad where a hip is selected for zoom, or a set of breasts are cut out, or a leg is followed from ankle to thigh.

It's violent.

Stop hurting us.

(Cross-posted at Koonj)

Fishy Al Fishawy

2006-01-28T08:06:00.000Z

Woman loses paternity suit
AP

Cairo: A family court ruled against the mother in a landmark paternity suit that raised a storm in Egypt, saying that she failed to prove she had an informal marriage with a popular actor who acknowledged he may be the father of her baby girl.

The TV actor, Ahmad Al Fishawy, refused a court order to undergo a DNA test to prove his paternity, but admitted in a television interview last year that he had a relationship with the mother, Hind Al Hinnawy, and suggested the daughter was his.

The case raised a fierce debate in Egypt over taboos concerning sex when Al Hinnawy raised a paternity suit against Al Fishawy in 2004, making public her intention to bear a child as a single mother.

Al Hinnawy said she and Al Fishawy who has also hosted Islamic religious programmes directed at youth had a secret, unofficial urfi marriage. She sought no money from him, but wanted official recognition that he was the father so she could get a birth certificate for the daughter, Leena, now about 15 months old.

Al Hinnawy, 28, said on Thursday she would appeal the ruling.

"I'm going to fight until the last drop of my blood because this is my baby," she said.

"I cannot understand, what do they want me to do? Should I live with a baby that doesn't have any ID? Officially she doesn't exist. There's nobody called Leena," she said.

On Thursday, a family court rejected Al Hinnawy's demand for recognition of Al Fishawy's paternity.

"The illegitimate relationship entails no proof of paternity," the ruling stated. Al Hinnawy did not "submit any proof that she had an urfi marriage with Al Fishawy," it said.

Al Hinnawy has said Al Fishawy took documents proving their informal marriage in December 2003.

I don't know if you have been following this case, but the need-to-know details are all contained in the above Gulf News article.

What a huge step backwards. I don’t really believe in “urfi” marriage, which is viewed by some as an “Islamic” version of becoming a common-law spouse. Intercourse outside of marriage is almost always socially destructive in some way or another, which is probably why it is forbidden by God. Still, in reality people do go bonking around, and the children from such relationships should not have to suffer. Also, women who enter such relationships should not have to pay financially and socially for their bad choices for the rest of their lives while males get off scott-free. I thought it was a huge advancement that the Egyptian courts, which exist in a legal system that is heavily influenced by Egyptian understanding and interpretation of Shari’ah (read androcentric, misogynistic, and altogether backwards in anything regarding women and family/personal law), had acknowledged the validity of DNA testing in a paternity case. The court should have arrested Al Fishawy and forced him to give a blood sample for the DNA test since he ignored the legal order. It is so obvious that he didn’t want his blood tested because he did indeed father that baby girl. Especially since he earlier publically admitted to his relationship with Al Hinnawy. In the end, that poor baby girl is the one who loses out the most.

Article

2006-01-26T21:56:00.000Z

Western "gaze" on Muslim women (Ok I renamed the title, but it's a short article worth peeping at)

Excerpt:

The imperial imaginary

The work of our sociology department on cultural stereotypes of Islam and the Arab world, in both the education system and communications media, has identified a series of common trends. This suggests that there is an 'agreed cultural paradigm' informing the way Western societies look at Arab and Muslim societies, which favours, even determines, the analysis of subjects from those regions. It perpetuates negative, mutually divisive perspectives on what are seen in a rather Manichean way as 'Islam and the West'.

Far from increasing our knowledge of the 'Other', more often than not this treatment leads to distorted conclusions, which strengthen feelings of rejection and incomprehension.

Both Islamic and Western histories tend to emphasise the bellicosity of their relationship, presenting the historical process as one of continuous confrontations (Byzantium v. the Islamic empire, the Christian Kings v. Al-Andalus, the Ottoman v. Europe, Arab and Islamic nationalism against the West). This is just as true of the Western media treatment of the Islamic world - antagonism and threat increasingly predominate in our minds, with the result that Arab and Muslim otherness have come to serve as a 'repellent' in the complex construction of both European and Western identities in general.

This deep-seated cultural reflex has been renewed and reinterpreted since the Iranian 'Islamic Revolution' through the so-called 'threat of Islamic fundamentalism'. As a direct result, numerous Western experts in international politics are now privileging a global theory, which predicts a confrontation between the West and the Islamic world.

Based on the simple premise of a negatively interpreted 'cultural difference', the essentialist view which informs this theory warns that the cultures are closed universes, unchanging in their fundamental aspects; therefore inferior or backward (immutably traditionalist, irrational, aggressive). This deep-rooted 'determinist' view of the Muslim world sees it as a static universe in which the doors of social change and progress have been closed because of innate religious (or tribal in some cases) factors. Everything tends to be interpreted and explained not as a result of specific political or socio-economic situations, but as a consequence of Islam itself.

What occurs happens because 'they' are Muslim, without taking into account local history and geography, the concrete social structure or particular human experience. On the contrary, these are explained only as manifestations of the extreme religiosity considered inherent in Islamic culture.

By contrast, the values of the West are presented as a unique paradigm applicable to the whole of humanity, so that cultural diversity is experienced not as a variety of options of equal value, but as a hierarchical structure in the scale modernisation backwardness. This ethnocentric cosmopolitanism, which exclusively attributes to itself the paradigm of rationality and progress, tends to define the Muslim world as remote from modernity.

single and chaste: the yearning

2006-01-25T21:20:00.000Z

(Sister-Scorpion wanted me to cross-post this from koonj. I wasn't in a hurry to do it because Nzingha's post was so beautiful and I wanted it to remain the front entry for longer, but since the Scorpion commands, I hear and obey.)

TwennyTwo in characteristically and beautifully forthright manner reminded me of how difficult it is to be single and Muslim.

We Muslims pretend that the single life is no big deal, and try to cover up our yearning in embarrassment. But there's no doubt that being Muslim and single and chaste is a jihad worthy of great souls in this world. I'm glad that TwennyTwo said it out loud on behalf of a lot of people. This is so especially in this culture. As a FOB (is it a FOB or an FOB?) I've often felt that this (Western) cultural world thrusts heterosexual romance and sex upon us.

This culture makes you miserable if you don't have a man who buys you roses and diamonds; and for men, I assume it works the same way--unless you have a bimbo on your arm, you feel somewhat incomplete. Marriage per se was socially a much more powerful norm for me (when I was in Pakistan). Yet as a 25-year old in Pakistan, honestly I didn't personally yearn for marriage as I did when I came to the West.

Part of that (not all, but part) is the public nature of romance and sex as a commodity. It is a personal need, to be sure. But it is also a status marker. A woman who is not holding hands with a Calvin Klein model lookalike (okay, not my taste because I think they're way too feminine), feels inferior to the woman whose man kisses her in the metro station.

To digress completely (almost), the Urdu word is hasrat -yearning- the feeling that an orphan has when s/he sees a child holding a parent's hand. I've seen that hasrat in the eyes of 8-year old children of divorced parents whose fathers are absent. When they see Uncle buy a nice toy for a spoiled cousin, their eyes burn with hasrat. And it makes me shudder and think of the hadith that says that the throne of the Almighty quakes when an orphan weeps.

Despite all this, I always want to remind my single friends that no man can be everything to you. This was the best unpleasant (at the time) advice given to me by my friend Yasmin when I was getting married. Even though I'm married to a wonderful, kind and sensitive man. Yet every woman needs to learn to be loved by God, and by herself, her girlfriends and her family.

I have to add something. I was just talking to a dear young friend the other day about how the community urges single Muslims to get married quickly to complete your religion. Though, as my friend said, she made an open-eyed decision, she could not forget the impact an impassioned sermon could make to hurry up and marry. Add this to an existing yearning and it is entirely possible to get rushed into an unwise marriage. She is today left in her early twenties with the emotional baggage of a divorce (resulting from a) her husband's unfaithfulness b) his desire for polygamy, and c) community leaders' support for his desire to dump her in the blink of an eye whereas she was prepared to work things out.)

This whole emphasis upon single Muslims to "get married NOW" is, in a word, irresponsible. Especially with our rising graph of divorce, and our poor track record in terms of how we accept divorced women. So, unlike many married aunties, (okay, I'm not really an auntie), I do not push women and men to get married quick. Get married to the right person. When you find her/him. Don't try to pretend you live in 1965 and like your parents, you can "work things out" even if you're not really compatible. We are not our parents. Like it or not (I like it), we are culturally and emotionally different from them. Generally, we are not equipped with the same constitution of "For 40 years, we stayed together for the sake of the kids."

And if and when you meet your soulmate, and are fulfilled physically and emotionally (as much as anyone can be), you will still have moments of complete loneliness. I regard them as a gift from the Beloved Who draws you aside for a private whisper. Something about the last ayaat of Surah Tahreem make me want khalwat dar anjuman (being inwardly alone while in a crowd). Despite many exegeses (written by men), Surah Tahreem reminds me that a man/spouse isn't my ticket, and for many women--think of Asiyah, Maryam, Rabiah--aloneness or dissociation from men can be the ticket:

Allah sets forth for an example to the Unbelievers the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot: they were (respectively) under two of Our righteous servants but they were false to their (husbands) and they profited nothing before Allah on their account but were told: "Enter ye the fire along withw (others) that enter!"

And Allah sets forth as an example to those who believe the wife of Pharaoh: Behold she said: "O my Lord! build for me in nearness to Thee a mansion in the Garden and save me from Pharaoh and his doings and save me from those that do wrong"

And Mary the daughter of `Imran who guarded her chastity; and We breathed into her (body) of Our spirit; and she testified to the truth of the words of her Lord and of His Revelations and was one of the devout (Servants).

Attacking Gender

2006-01-22T07:39:00.000Z

"Do you ever have doubts about Islam?". This isn't necessarily an unusual question, although I've only been asked by Non Muslims before, this was a Muslim woman asking. There is reference in Qur'an about doubts that a person may have or even that a persons Iman increases or decreases. I don't stand in judgement nor fall in shock and horror that a Muslim would admit that they have had doubts about their religion. But in all honestly I've never doubted ISLAM as it is in basic faith, belief in Allah as one, no partners nor sons and other such basic foundations of faith came very naturally and easy for me. As it is written in the Qur'an "as if a calling from within" is how I found the Quran, Allah's words, calling to me. A truth that was always within me just waiting to hear the external call bring it up from within. But I have doubted what many have told me what Islam is, various interpretations and ideas of what one tries to present to me as Allah's decrees.

The woman was than very forward and told me that she has had doubts and that she at times wonder about the religion. We than go to talking about how, as women, there are things that we may have a hard time accepting or understanding. Take for instance the "wife beating" verse that is often tossed at us at one point or another. Such things, I believe, for many women are difficult to grasp, to understand fully and accept without question, especially depending on the understanding and application of such verses are placed upon women. I think most women would stop and wonder why a man could just up and beat her, or why she is deficient, or why men are placed in such a power and controlling position, which they forcefully claim, over women. As we spoke this womans head was nodding in agreement and I could see the sigh of relief on her face when she heard some of the things that have been going over in her mind and perhaps causing her doubt. The conversation was candid and non judgmental on either of our parts which made for a nice exchange. But I wonder how many women do not have an opportunity to have such conversations without condemnation and reticule for their feelings.

I can recall many conversations with many different types of Muslims about various issues that I as a woman, not just as a Muslim, had taken issue with. It could have been a certain scholars take on a woman related issue, or ones interpretation of an ayah of Qur'an or a hadith that was presented in a way to attack women just for being women. Such conversations were always met with judgements against me, accusations against my intentions, even calls that question my faith. Of course the ever so common 'feminist' word was flung my way and of it was meant to be dirty and insulting. There were also attacks on my entire woman hood, I was the picture perfect example of womens deficiency and a prime example of why we are all fitnah. I was usually talked down to as if I had suddenly dropped major IQ points for voicing an objection to a Muslims accepted understanding.

What is unique in this, is that I as a Muslim woman am attacked on the mere basis of my gender. Never does a man who may present the same objections, questions, or observations that a woman has, suddenly become attacked based on his gender. There is the general sense of "man" but this in reference to mankind, not a male in the sense of his maleness and all that it includes. An entire gender isn't suddenly put down to the lowest of the low, like a vile stench that has offended the senses, when it comes to a man. But for a woman the exact opposite is true. Suddenly it not only becomes acceptable to put down an entire section of the human race, it becomes religiously sanctioned. It isn't necessarily my thoughts, my feelings, or my perceptions that are at issue, it is my gender that is the problem of this cursed fitnah that I supposedly present.

One would think that this is basically a mans reaction to various issues that are presented by Muslim women. Think again, many women have denounced, not only my womanhood, but also their own in the course of doing so. This of course becomes extremely odd to me as a woman being told by another woman that I'm so wrong in my observation because I am a woman and I being the vile slug that emits pure fitnah and can never understand the truth that she, a woman, is telling me about. If it is my womanhood that is at issue shouldn't hers be an issue as well? Needless to say such discussions didn't fill me with warm fuzzies that wanted me to seek out the sister again and invite over for tea and biscuits. Nor did the attack on my womanhood make her position any stronger in value and firmer in truth, nor did it guarantee that she accepted it and fully understood the position she gave herself. For many women are told in the same manner and than simply pass it off to other woman in the same exact package it was given to them. For it was only the very abuse on their gender that brow beaten them into submission, be it a right or wrong position.

What is even more ironic about such situations that for most women the issues at hand are gender specific issues. It is the question of all woman being fitnah that makes us question, ponder, object even, that leads to the attack on our gender in the end. These aren't attacks we would consider against a particular race, tribe, or ethnicity of an individual questioner. Such thinking would be deemed unislamic, racist, bigoted and down right haram. But when it comes to the attack and degradation of one specific gender we (as an Ummah) hardly bat an eye. This attack on the female gender when it comes to observations, objections, or questions related to various issues within Islam has far reaching consequences. It not only affects an entire genders self esteem leading to utter helplessness to change our situations, be it spousal abuse, (dis)honor killings, FGM, acid attacks and a slew of other gender related violations in our ummah. It also affects an entire genders right and obligation to ponder, give thought to, and voice various issues she may have.

This act studs the growth of an entire gender, although the gender may become highly educated in university degrees, the genders overall grown within the ummah is non existent. It is only when we as entire ummah learn to stop attacking the entire female gender will we correct many of the gender related issues within our community. It is only when we allow and encourage women to be comfortable in their womaness and not feel less than or degraded due to their gender will we, one half of the ummah, be able to make positive changes that benefit both genders. It is only when we feel comfortable enough to question, ponder, reflect and seek answers will we be able to fulfill an Islamic obligation to do so.

It is only when the entire ummah finds it unacceptable to demean and devalue one particular gender will we be able to embrace woman and all the goodness that she is. Will all husbands be able to treat their wives with respect, honor and dignity. It is only when women are free to voice their doubts will they be able to seek the answers and strengthen their iman. It is only when we find it unacceptable to attack women souly based on their gender that we will be able to raise our fellow Muslimahs to the position in which they should be, in honor and respect.

Lesson plan PDF online

2006-01-18T16:57:00.000Z

Written by Kamran Scot Aghaie: Muslim Women through the centuries: grades 7-12 lesson plan

Clothes, class and religion

2006-01-14T21:19:00.000Z

As a FOB, and a frugal middle-class one, I've long been struck by how often class and religion combine for (visible, high-income) American Muslims.

This is actually something I was writing about in my dissertation recently, but somehow Haroon reminded me of this in his blog entry on fat people and Islam.

The most high-profile second-generation American Muslims of immigrant origin tend to be high-income, upwardly mobile, elitist. And very fashion-conscious.

As a result, their notions of "modesty" are pricey ones. These notions are pretty specific. The clearance aisle at KMart does not cater to these notions of modesty. Heck, Marshall's doesn't. Sears doesn't. Yes, you can tell meri haisiyyat (my status) from the store-names I drop ...

Since I arrived as a FOB on a scholarship, I've struggled with these assumptions as I tried unsuccessfully to keep up with the Jamalses.

I've also observed other people who are NOT daughters of doctors and engineers agonize over the same issues. Mention "tailored jackets" and "long but elegant modest skirts" and we moslem scrubs know exactly what you're talking about. The Gap aisles are cleaned out of those $50 skirts before we get to the sales. Scrubs like me can't afford them Saks tailored jackets. We end up with sagging chenille sweaters and Payless shoes.

When I first landed on these shores, I noticed how nothing I wore was quite an ensemble the way American Muslim girls at muslim events put together ensembles.

Not to stereotype, but man,-America, Islam, culture, money, class, the mosque, MYNA, MSA, Camps, ISNA, -- something seemed to have engineered a particular type of stylish trendiness that I hadn't been initiated into. (Yes, that was when I did wear hijab). The pants and the skirts that were stylish yet modest; the shirts that were modest yet perfectly cut; the jackets that were just fitted enough to make sure you know "this girl is not fat, she's just modest; she has a figure, but you will only see hints of it." I never could make it into that inner circle. Simply couldn't afford it. I ended up either looking dowdy and modest, or immodest and marginally stylish.

I heard a young black convert talk about this one day. She mentioned how she wanted to be professional as a hijabi. And I instantly knew what she was talking about. She was on a scholarship, and rather short of cash. A lot of the girls she looked to for American Muslim Religious Style didn't have to try so hard as she and I did. We had to work hard around ebay and savings to come up with a modest but stylish and cutting-edge wardrobe--and we still couldn't quite make it.

But a lot of these girls (and boys) hadn't the slightest clue that their wardrobes actually cost money. Many of them, immersed in a lifestyle that combined religion + relatively easy money + a relative ease of class and style, simply didn't know what it meant to take out a couple of factors in that equation.

These kids thought they were being frugal by buying Victoria's Secret suede coats on sale. Some of them looked down on us short-sleeves and unmatched hijabs ("tsk tsk they make us muslims look so bad"). They were quite unaware that the difference was class. Not religiosity, but class.

And then there was the time when this convert was getting ready to attend an MSA conference. The night before the conference, the authorities sent out an email warning all sisters to dress modestly (plus specific guidelines such as no tight pants, hijabs all the time, etc). This young woman, who at least once just ran out of money, was at her wits' ends what to do. She had one pair of jeans. She didn't have those perfectly tailored pants and skirts. And then there was the issue of physical type: she was head and shoulders taller than desi girls, and couldn't find long skirts in her size. Her hair wouldn't be controlled into scarves the way these girls' would. She had already spent enough money trying to get good deals on scarves on ebay. But the brothers (and probably also sisters) at MSA hadn't a clue that clothes cost money.

It made me sad for both sides.

Koonj has moved to shabanamir.com/koonj.

Muslim Girl's Basketball Team

2006-01-11T00:53:00.000Z

Courting an Understanding

Islamic school enjoys the game, while staying true to its faith
Home News Tribune Online 01/7/06
By GREG TUFARO
STAFF WRITER
gtufaro@thnt.com
Members of the Noor-Ul-Iman girls basketball team generate curious looks as they run through their pregame warm-up routine.

Beneath white head scarves, matching long-sleeve mock turtlenecks, blue sweat pants and red game jerseys are ordinary teenagers. They are, one could say, as American as the colors they wear.

But because the players are covered from head to toe in the modest attire their Islamic faith requires, they look out of place on a basketball court, where tank tops and shorts comprise the traditional uniform.

Some of the incredulous spectators sitting in the stands at East Brunswick Tech on this December afternoon whisper politely among themselves: "Are they really going to play dressed like that?"

A tiny, non-profit Islamic school at the Islamic Society of Central Jersey in South Brunswick, Noor-Ul-Iman has 420 students in grades pre-K through 12. It's one of only a handful of Islamic institutions with high school-aged students nationwide that fields a girls varsity basketball squad, according to Karen Keyworth, director of education for the Islamic Schools League of America.

The Noor-Ul-Iman girls basketball program is in its third season. After competing in a recreation league two years ago, the team played eight varsity games last winter. Noor-Ul-Iman will play 16 games this season including five against Greater Middlesex Conference foes.

The six-year-old high school with just 48 students — nearly 80 percent of the girls play varsity basketball — has overcome incredible odds to start a program.

Read Entire Article Here

Raniya: Homeland Insecurity

2006-01-07T08:16:00.000Z

fiction prose

Raniya walked her husband to the door for the third night in a row. Out of habit, she kissed him on the cheek, waited until he pulled out of the drive way and the shut the door. She walked to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. While the coffee pot spit and sputtered, she put the last of the dinner dishes in the dishwasher. There was no need to rush. She knew her husband wouldn't be back until some time after 1 or 2am.

He'd been going out to meet his friends more frequently over the last few months. They were a bunch of single guys who seemed to constantly need advice or help with one thing or another. This often required her husband to go out till all hours of the night. Lately, the custom seemed to be hanging out at the local book store until it closed and then sitting in Denny's until early in the morning drinking coffee. At least, that's what he told her. She had no way of knowing. When she asked too many questions about what he did when he went out, he told her it was not her place to ask. A woman's place was in the home and her husband's dealings were none of her concern. "Did the Prophet's wives nag him about what he did when he went out of the house?" he chided.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at her computer. Time to log on and see who's online. She immediately heard the up-chime of her aol, saw the flash in her toolbar indicating she'd just received an instant message.

"He's gone?"

down-chime "Yeah, he just left."

up-chime "How are you doing?"

down-chime "Alhamdulillah, pretty good, I guess. You know how it goes."

Since she'd discovered the instant messenger, Raniya began to enjoy the time her husband went out. She took the time to get together with friends and talk. She didn't have many friends from among the local Islamic community, but the IM allowed her to make friends from all over the globe. They would get together and talk about things she wouldn't dare discuss with the wives of her husband's friends. She'd made friends of like mind and attitude, smart women not afraid to question and criticize. It was through them she'd learned about women's rights in Islam without the cultural, male-biased filters. Her husband had been surprised when she'd refuted some of his claims with references of her own.

up-chime "Have you scanned your machine?"

down-chime "It just finished a few minutes ago. It's clean."

up-chime "Hasn't he learned yet that it's haram to spy?"

That's why when she'd found a keylogger on her machine, she'd been furious. She'd noticed her machine running slowly and told her one of her chat friends who suggested she run a spyware check. Within the first few minutes of the scan, the anti-spyware program uncovered the culprit; net detective. She located the folder where it was stored. After poking around, she discovered it was just a shareware version. The limited version allowed her to uninstall it which she did. Feeling mischievous, she then reinstalled it with a different password and waited to see what happened. She hadn't been disappointed as she had watched her husband's frustration grow everytime he tried to access his virtual mata hari. Trying not to giggle, she'd asked him if anything was wrong.

Once busted, he had claimed it was his right to know who she was talking to and what they were saying. He'd even cut her connection to the internet for a while, basically grounding her. "You could have just asked!" she'd told him, "You know it's haram to spy in such a way. Do you need references? I'm a grown woman, not a child!" From that point on, it became a cat and mouse game of intelligence/counter- intelligence. Indignant and offended, she learned about firewalls, anti-spyware programs, hardware and software spy tools. For every attempt to spy, she made a counter-attempt to protect her privacy.

down-chime "He knows it's haram to spy, but said it was permitted in this case. He claimed it was to protect the safety of the household. You know, in case I gave out personal information and someone came to kill us all."

up-chime "Ohh, the old homeland security excuse."

down-chime "lol Yes, ironic isn't?"

2006-01-07T07:05:00.000Z

May Allah have mercy on the souls of the people crushed in the hajji hostel in Makkah. The death toll is at least 76. No survivors were found Friday.

Can't we all just stay in a village for the rest of our lives?

2006-01-05T03:37:00.000Z

I'm bummed. Our friends Hina and Shahed are moving to Austin. We just got back from saying goodbye to Hina, who is jetting off to her new job at U of Texas. We'd gotten so used to having them around when they moved here from San Francisco, and now they're leavin' us.

Man, when you're my age, it's hard work finding friends:

a) you love to hang out with
b) you don't bore them and they don't bore you
c) you agree with mostly and when you don't, it's fun
d) your schedules match somewhat
e) they don't already have hordes of cool friends they'd rather hang out with than with you
f) both spouses like each other

Finding good friends is like finding a spouse. And boy, that's hard, I know. And then you find these friends. And then someone has to move, dagnabbit.

Those who aren't immigrants don't quite get it - Okay, you might get it, but I'd like to lord it over you anyway. When I moved from Lahore (where I spent most of my childhood and youth) to Islamabad, I made a whole new set of friends at the Islamic University, soul-sisters that I loved even when they drove me out of my mind.

Meantime (and we're talking about bad Pakistani phone lines and no email yet) - dust settles on my Lahore friends, and the ties are fading away. This becomes a pattern. Much of the problem is that email comes along only two or three decades into my life.

Then, I get on a plane, and fly off to England. A whole new set of soulsisters in Cambridge, with study circles and tea in my little attic-room on Mawson Road. Email contact still rather slow in developing, and phone calls cost by the minute in that part of the "first world." Plus, I'm still poor, so I don't have money for phone bills. Then I take the bus to London, and hang out with an Egyptian family, pick up a bunch of masri Arabic, make friends at FOSIS, and retain some of the Cambridge ties, - but make a whole new set of soul sisters at the FOSIS women's hostel on Brondesbury Park.

Okay. Then I get on a plane and jet out across the Atlantic, end up in Bloomington, Indiana, make a whole new set of soul sisters (and here, brothers too) and manage to keep occasionally in contact with the Cambridge sisters--but not enough.

But then I get married and move out to DC ... and where are we all now?

I thought if I'd just settle down in one country, things would be simpler. Oh, but then I had to settle down in the country that's like, almost a continent (and I concede any geographical issues Canadians want me to concede here): so when people move it could mean you don't see them again for a long, long time. And it just so happens that we also live in a very mobile culture and very mobile times. So nothing can be predicted about where life, work, and education will take anyone.

Pieces of my heart are scattered in Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Toronto, Bloomington, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, London, Cambridge, Kuwait, ... the list continues. And now, with all these virtual bonds, I'm getting emotionally all messed up.

My universes that were complete at different times, -- [Farah, Ayesha, Rasheda, Romana] ---> and [Rizwana, Ambreen, Maimuna, Samina]--> [Raheela, Tahira, Saima, Shaheda Kathrada, Qamariya, Mareeya] --> and [Tehzeeb auntie, Hafeeza, Sophia] --> and [Gulnaz, Naheeda, Hina, Shabiha, Susan] ---> and [Riffat, Shahnaz, Asma, Aliya] and ---> [Abeer, Nuha, Palo, Najeeba, Watie, Maha, Siddika] -- all my emotional universes keep collapsing and giving way to new ones. Except I'm old now, and my new skins like a snake's won't moult and grow so easily. Or I don't want them to collapse and moult. I just want to keep the same ones and grow old with them.

Chhoti, now so close that I see my fleece robe bouncing upwards from her kicks, will leave as well. But so will we.

When you talk to a friend after being apart for two years, or even ten months, something's happened. You can't just jet off for a visit, and expect that it'll be like old times. You can't always just pick up and resume where you left off. And then that bond that you built, over hours of talk and debate and pizza and peanuts, -- It's not lost, but it's not ready and waiting cosily for you on a Friday evening, like a hot cup of tea in the morning. It becomes a halalco packet of meat in the freezer. It'll need to be thawed, when you have the time and opportunity to cook it.

We want to act like we live on in predictable lives and solid homes, but we're reminded constantly that life is unpredictable. Our rizq (sustenance) is unpredictable, and that includes the important emotional rizq--So we're drawn from attachment to particular Names to the encompassing Essence.

Kullo man alaiha fan - everything upon the earth is perishing. Al-Muhiyy and al-Mumeet are both simultaneously manifesting their glory.

First post from koonj! So psyched about being here.

Getting Girls To Exercise- In Saudi Arabia

2005-12-30T19:02:00.000Z

According to the Saudi Ministry of Education and their fine leaders who make up some of the most mind boggling rules girls can not have physical education. Yes even with the increasing amount of obesity and over weight problems among children in this country and their supposed focus to combat it, girls can not exercise. For some reason their thinking is that girls and exercise goes against the religion, culture and values of this society. Maybe they should sit in the second grade girls class of my own daughter and tell the moderate to highly overweight class mates she has whey they shouldn't exercise. It will come as a shock to them as they are put on diets, yes diets at 6-7 years of age, as to why they can't get exercise to help maintain a healthy weight and over all good physical fitness.

My own daughter, Hannah, is a chubby girl, not that she is obese or severely overweight she just always tended to be on the higher end of the pediatric growth chart. She is one of those girls who loves to eat, she takes after her mama, and she doesn't necessarily just choose junk, she loves fruits, soups and other healthy foods. She is also very tall, at almost 7 years of age (come January) she has been wearing a size 10 for the past year. And much of that is height not necessarily the waist line, she would do better with a size 9 but they are difficult to find. Size 8 is way to small, both in waist and length so she is, mashallah, one big girl and always has been. Majority of her class is the same way, big girls. Some are way overweight and very few are the average weight or lower and very few get the opportunity to truly exercise. Since we have moved Hannah has been doing a lot more physically, riding bikes, swimming, and being more active over all. This has shown on her body, she has slimmed out a bit and I keep asking her where are all the 'chubbers' going and she laughs. But all it takes is a little movement to actually keep the waist line down on these young girls who are more often than not filled with way too much energy and should be letting it out anyway.

Some of the Saudi families that she goes to school with are lucky in that they live on a compound so they do have access to physical activities. However there is a thought that after a certain age girls shouldn't be outside roaming around like boys do. I've touched a bit on this issue before when I wrote about sexualizing children so I don't want to go that route again. I would like to point out however that according to studies done within this country obesity and overweight issues are reportedly a higher risk for girls rather than boys. While there are studies that do show that girls who get regular exercise as a younger child are more apt to be keep up physical exercise latter in life rather than boys. Obesity among adults in this Kingdom is widely known especially when it comes to women who have fewer options to actually exercise and most wouldn't know how to if they could. Never having such options growing up exercise is not seen as an important thing for girls. Boys are expected to be active but girls generally are not expected to be after a certain age. This of course could be the major component in the growing health problems among adult women and even girls in this country.

According to other Saudi authorities in various ministries (there are too many of those) there is a campaign against the rising obesity and overweight issue that exists in this country. Study after study within the Kingdom and internationally has proven that obesity and overweight are not only an issue but a large cause of the huge numbers of diabetes in this country. We also know that obesity and overweight is also the cause of many other health problems, such as cardiovascular, mental health, bones and the list continues. The fatty, oil filled, and sugar rich diets are not the only blame for this problem in Saudi, the lack of physical movement is also a major contributor, not only for the female population but also the male. Historically however the male population has been more active, be it by sports like soccer or physical outside jobs. Now this culture has adopted some of the same very habits of the US and other Western nations, less movement, longer work days, fast foods, added along with their traditionally fatty diets to begin with. This makes for a very real problem for the Saudi society one which will affect not only individuals but also the society at large. The government, who pays for the health care of all it citizens ill regret the choices they make today for the medical costs that will continue to rise to treat generations of unfit obese or overweight citizens will be at their cost.

Even with all this common knowledge that is no secret to any informed Educational ministry legislator they decide not to let girls have any physical education. They will still have classes on hand sewing, how to make milk from the udders of sheep, but to educate them on the health of their bodies in some ways goes against the religious and national responsibility of this society. How did they come up with this view is far beyond my comprehension, I'm simply a Muslim woman who feels that health prevention is not only a common sense notion but also an Islamic one. Our duty to care for our bodies, not to harm it or mistreat it is a duty that we all have. To seek health care is, for most scholars, a requirement rather than choice when it comes down to saving our lives. So for some reason preventing a health epidemic within this society is against religion especially when your born with a womb.

For some reason it is better to give our six year old girls complexes when it comes to food consumption, dieting, and looks rather than teach them a good overall heathy lifestyle. Its better to deny them foods in the hopes of loosing a few kilos without any physical movement to help get it off and keep it off. Its better if they are overweight and grow up to be obese and have diabetes than to let them exercise in a school gym without being in the view of males. Its ok to open all female gyms here but just don't teach our girls in school good physical education. Its fine if your a private school, but just don't be a public one. No don't exercise, especially don't ride that exercise bike she may no longer be a virgin if she tears her hymen, the whole thought of something between a girls legs might send Saudi men into some sexual frenzy that causes them to invade a high school gym attacking the girls. Or something as equally as ridiculous that some, in the desire to punish girls for just being girls, will be the reason for doing so.

Keep in mind I'm not saying this as some workout freak, in fact I can't stand the thought of a work out room. Lift weights? Run on a treadmill? Have you lost your mind? The thought of joining an exercise class here on the compound is one that seems ok until I think of the actual energy I have to spend doing it then I loose all interest. However I'm also one that within the past few years has lost 38 lbs (17.3 kilos) and I have about 8 lbs left to get to my goal weight. I've been the severely overweight bordering on obese gal, and let me tell you the feeling just plan stinks. Chasing after children is a task, finding fat clothes in a land where everyone is fat but thinks squeezing into a size 4 is a possibility is even more difficult than running after a 4 yr old boy who thought it was funny to strip naked and run through the puddles after the rain. (And I have pictures to prove this). I know how difficult it is to loose the weight after it is there and to keep it off once it is gone but I also know the greatness of movement being able to run down the street after a child who did something wrong. Or swimming with my children for all the time they can go without getting out of breath and tiered. Or even something as simple as swinging on a swing, going down a slide, or riding bikes with my children is a great feeling and something that they really think is great. Now I now the fat ladies association will email me and say "I'm big and I swim" which I don't doubt, but there are few healthy fat people, not that they don't exist at all. For the most part being overweight or obese means a lack of energy, a lack of being able to do, a lack of good physical health. And while I'm sure that there is a large and in charge type of gal who can go father in distance running than me, I can get my butt onto a swing now holding my 1 year old and enjoy her excitement as feels the wind on her face.

Now I've said all of that to let it be known I'm an average type of mom who may not be into sports as a hobby or even a favorite on my top 200 but I know the importance of movement in my children. I know the importance of my girls being active and living a life that all children should, with energy being let out in a positive safe way outside rather than a it being pent up and being destructive for the children themselves. Being active leads them to being happier, although sometimes over tiered and cranky, for the most part there is less fighting between siblings and more happiness to be had as they are out and about. To deny girls in this country an opportunity to move, to be physical and let out some of the energy that they have within them is more harmful to them as children as well as harmful for them as they grow older. Teaching them that they are girls so they are to stay cooking, mending clothes, and waiting on men is outdated and not in tune with the realities of our religion let alone the very culture where they are brought up. Its time those in the Education ministry start looking towards the needs of the girls and what is best for them and this society in the long run versus sticking with their narrow views of religion and this culture.

Sick and tired

2005-12-06T17:21:00.000Z

I recommend Shoot the Women First, a book about women in radical groups from the PLO's Leila Khaled to Basque separatists. I read it a few years ago, and it's an old book - written before all this focus on so-called "Islamic terrorism."

I thought of it after reading this over-simplified Newsweek article, the Women of Al Qaeda. The reporter writes:

In jihadist propaganda, the invasion and violation of Muslim lands is intimately tied to the violation of Muslim women, either directly or through the corrupting role of Western values and attitudes.

First, that propaganda is in direct response to colonial Western propaganda. As Leila Ahmed has written, Lord Cromer opposed women's suffrage at home in Britain, yet he wanted to liberate Egyptian women from the veil. Propaganda and debates over "their women versus our women" dates back to the Byzantines and Ottomans, if not further back.

I am writing from Afghanistan - Saira Shah's beautiful documentary Beneath the Veil was not aired on CNN Presents before September 11. After 9-11, they played it over and over. How many times did they cite the Taliban's abuses against Afghan women as a reason for liberation?! Photos of women throwing back the burqa made the New York Times cover page. Powerful images - but nothing new. Muslim politicians and their adversaries have tugged the the hijab back and forth between them, using it as a banner for their causes.

Second point. The women who join or support these groups, be it Muslim Brotherhood with its silly "Islam is the Solution" slogan (how is "Islam" the solution to your unemployment?) or Al Qaeda are nothing more than pawns and instruments of their own oppression. If you believe women should stay in their houses or that they should go out in burqas, fine, but do not DO NOT impose your idea of Islam on millions of others who do not believe in these things, who never grew up with these ideas, and who helplessly wonder why their religion is alien to them when seen through the eyes of Al Qaeda and the media.

I say this to the media and to the fanatics. If there is only one Islam (sarcasm), present it now, and if it's the media version or Al Qaeda's, then count me among the kafireen.

Denied The Right To Pass On Citizenship

2005-12-05T03:47:00.000Z

"We have enjoined on man kindness to his parents; in pain did his mother bear him, and in pain did she give him birth" (46:15).

In pain a woman carries her child and in pain she gives birth but even with that pain in many Muslim countries it does not entitle her to pass citizenship on to her child. Citizenship happens to be an invention throughout time rather than being some Islamic born right of any single individual. This doesn't suggest that a woman has less right to pass on citizenship to her child than a father by Islamic standards, it just shows that the decision to pass on such an invention is only prohibited for so many Muslim women due to men. I say men rather than women because for much of our history determining laws has been a very male dominated act. Sure there have been several women in the course of our Islamic past who were very influential on law and other areas of knowledge, but they are an exception rather than a rule. One can argue why that happens to have been in our past, as well as our present, but this isn't within the scope of my thoughts today.

I sat in the home of a friend in Malaysia and we were discussing having children, I was taken aback when she informed me that she had to travel in her last months of pregnancy to Malaysia from the US by herself in order for her first two children to have citizenship. Unlike a Malaysian male citizen who can pass on his citizenship to his children no matter where they are born, a woman can only pass on citizenship to her children if they are born within Malaysia itself. She not only had to make a very long travel from the US to Malaysia on her own, which is normally frustrating, tiring and tedious, but she had to do it at eight to nine months pregnant. And although women are not suppose to fly in such a late stage of pregnancy so many of our Muslim sisters make such decisions in order to ensure rights to citizenship of their mothers own country.

In Malaysian law women are full citizens, taking part both politically and economically just like a man. They are held responsible to Malaysian laws like any other citizen and are able to gain any benefits any other Malaysian citizen does. But this isn't reflected in the laws when it comes to passing on citizenship. This is also not limited to being forced to be in Malaysia when giving birth but she is also hindered when it comes to passing on citizenship to her foreign spouse. If the couple decides to reside in Malaysia permanently her husband can not become a citizen based upon his marriage to her. This is unlike a Malaysian man who can pass on his citizenship to his foreign wife.

In Iran the situation doesn't get any better for an Iranian woman who has a child with a foreign man. In such a case the child takes on the citizenship of the father, the mother does not hold any rights to pass on her citizenship even if the child is born in Iran. An Iranian man however, who is married to a foreign woman can pass on his citizenship regardless of where the birth occurs. All the man has to do is register his child like any other male citizen does and the child takes on his citizenship. His foreign wife can also obtain Iranian citizenship through him, but this same right is not granted to women. An Iranian woman's child who is born in Iran can seek to obtain citizenship after 18 years with some conditions. But there is no guarantee that he will be granted the citizenship. This of course unlike the law which applies to Iranian men.

Things do improve for women in Pakistan in regards to passing on their citizenship. According to the amended (2001) original law which granted the right to pass on citizenship to men only, women are now included. This of course doesn't even start to correct the many biased laws within Pakistan when it comes to women, but it does show that it can actually be done. Jordan has also amended their long standing laws and allowed women to pass on citizenship to their children if they are married to foreign men, but only if they are divorced widowed or have been abandoned for five years. Currently married Jordanian women to foreign men can not pass on their citizenship. According to sources in Jordan this move to grant such limited citizenship rights was a 'humanitarian effort'.

As you move along much of the Arab world doesn't fair much better when it comes to womens right to pass on her citizenship. In Yemen women not only need to seek permission to marry a non Yemeni man, she can only pass on her citizenship if the father dies, if she divorces, of if she goes insane. Women in UAE who marry a non UAE national are stripped of their own citizenship all together and become foreigners in their own homeland. In Saudi Arabia a woman has to seek permission to marry a non Saudi man and can not pass on her citizenship. There are some exceptions such as Egypt which recently amended their laws in to allow women to pass on their citizenship to their children and in Algeria women can pass on their citizenship to both their children and husbands. But even in 'progressive' Muslim majority countries such as Tunisia women are still prohibited to pass on her citizenship.

So what does this mean for the families who live in such a situation this means that if they choose to live in the country of the wife? And do keep in mind that some men have been born and raised in the countries that their wives are a citizen of, but are unable to receive the same citizenship (even if born there) due to very strict citizenship laws in general. The man will always have to apply for the proper documents to reside within the country of their residence, and so will the children. If the country allows for a free education to its citizens the children can not take advantage of it and must in some cases seek basic education at a price to the family. If the country has government health care, which many Muslim countries do, that means that the children are not eligible for it. It also means that if the family wishes to travel in and out of the country, like so many of us do freely, they must ensure all the proper government stamps and approvals are sought and paid for. In some countries this isn't a major issue, but for the majority it is a routine hassle that just reminds the family, that they are "not of" that society.

This would also affect women in cases of divorce or in the event of her spouses death. She would then have to find a way to 'sponsor' her very own children, born of her womb, to live in her country. If she is not approved she as a citizen would have to take her 'foreign' children and move to a country which she will than be a foreigner. This is also the risk if the foreign husband looses his sponsorship to work in the country which she is a citizen. For example: in Saudi Arabia, while a woman could legally sponsor her husband for him to live in that country he would not be able to work for any other person or company legally when she holds his sponsorship. If he looses his sponsorship from the company he may have been working for, he will have to leave the country which leaves two options for the family, they all uproot, leaving her family and possibly his own behind, or the family is left without a father until other arrangements are made. Of course since it is usually the man who sponsors his own children and not the woman, this move would also mean her children would go with the husband unless other arrangements can be made.

This is a constant worry for the family, always living a life of a foreigner in a country that most likely the children see as their own. I talked with a Saudi woman of Palestinian decent, her family received Saudi nationality many years ago. Her husband, also of Palestinian decent holds a passport of his own country and not that of Saudi. Every two years the husband must go renew his working permit, coupled along with blood tests, photos, fees and just in general a hassle. Every two years he must supply pictures of his children who are sponsored on his own work permit. Although their children view themselves as Saudi, having no nothing else but that their entire lives, they don't enjoy the same rights as a Saudi and are not viewed as Saudi by the government nor other Saudis.

Nationality is a major issue within the lands which deny women the right to pass it on. Everything you do there is a question of nationality. School forms, there is no 'race' box like there is in the US, but there is the "Nationality" question coupled along with copies of the proper paperwork. Going into a hospital, height, weight, known allergies, Nationality are all common questions when receiving any care. As if nationality plays such an important role on your medical well being if you fell down the steps. Are American bones stronger than that of Saudis? Will one heal quicker than the other? Will one brake be treated differently due to the passport which one holds?

Since such importance is placed on ones nationality on this side of the world it is even more insulting and damaging that a woman is denied the same rights as her fellow male citizen. There are several woman's groups in various countries, such as Lebanon and Bahrain that are seeking to change these very obvious discriminatory laws based only on gender. And the question is asked, what gives a man more right to pass on his citizenship more so than a woman who is a citizen of that very same country? When Muhammad pbuh formed the first Muslim state within Madina, women were not discluded from the benefits of being a part of this community. Women were not denied any benefits and were seen as equals in the aspect of being members of that state. Their children when born, regardless of the identity of the childs father (known or not) were seen as full members of that society as well. To assume there is some Islamic backing that denies women a right to pass on a created citizenship is far fetched, even if one stretches the understanding of a child taking on the fathers name. The child, in birth, will take on both equally from the mother and father as far as lineage. Priority isn't given to the father simply because he is the man. The womans lineage becomes the childs, her history becomes part of the childs, her tribe is also an extension to the child, for the cut off to be citizenship in our modern day world and all of the benefits and obligations that go with it is ridiculous. There is no logical basis for a woman to be denied such a right like other members of the same society. No Muslim woman should be punished for a halal choice in marriage nor should any child be punished as well and this is exactly what such laws are, a punishment.

My comment on World AIDS Day

2005-12-01T16:03:00.000Z

As I was reading this article on the Indian PM's public comments about safe sex, I thought ...

If HIV is spreading beyond traditional, high risk groups like truck drivers and prostitutes to rural villages, then that says several things, if my scenario is accurate. Married truck drivers who return to their cities or villages after being on the road infect their wives and potentially, future children. These women don't have the right, I imagine, to demand that their husbands use a condom. So how can health workers educate about HIV and AIDS except to say: these are the signs of infection. How much can prevention really help these women?

Let that weigh down your brain.

How Afghan Captivity Shaped My Feminism

2005-12-01T14:51:00.000Z

Phyllis Chesler, whose new book has been praised by all the usual neocon suspects, wrote this in an essay. I will reserve comment until you've read the article. Here's an excerpt:

Today, women in the Islamic world are increasingly pressured into arranged marriages, forced to veil themselves, not allowed to vote, drive, or travel without a male escort, to work at all, or to work in mixed gender settings. Worse, many are genitally mutilated in childhood, and routinely beaten as daughters, sisters, and wives; some are murdered by their male relatives in honor killings, and stoned to death for alleged sexual improprieties or for asserting the slightest independence. Such violations of women's human rights are increasingly taking place among the Muslim community in Europe and in North America.

Westerners do not always understand that Eastern men can blend into the West with ease while still remaining Eastern at their core. They can "pass" for one of us but, upon returning home, assume their original ways of being. Some may call this schizophrenic; others might see this as duplicitous. From a Muslim man's point of view, it is neither. It is merely personal Realpolitik. The transparency and seeming lack of guile that characterizes many ordinary Westerners make us seem childlike and stupid to those with multiple cultural personalities.

Link to article here.

This post has several points to make

2005-11-30T18:22:00.000Z

1. That fanaticism or moderation has little to do with one's being a convert or "raised" in a particular faith.

2. That women are capable of violent acts as well.

3. That while we know that the terrorist acts which are done by Muslims is a miniscule portion of its population, it in fact knows neither ethnicity nor national origin. (and hence, profiling by appearance or faith doesn't really work)

Iraq Bomber was a Belgian Woman

Marjane Satrapi on women & sex

2005-11-29T16:29:00.000Z

Interview with Marjane Satrapi on AlterNet

Is sexuality among older people more accepted in Iran?

In Iran, sex is not considered something bad. A woman can complain if a man doesn't satisfy her. If you read the original version of One Thousand and One Nights, they are fucking everywhere. I mean, you have the robbers and the flying carpet and all of that, but basically, it's full of sex.

People might be surprised to hear that Iran might have more progressive notions about sexuality.

In Iran, you don't need a prescription to get contraceptives. It costs almost nothing. There isn't really this feeling of guilt about the idea of abortion, even though it's not something the law permits you to do. All the friends of my mother have had abortions. Many of my friends have had them.

What do you make of sigheh [a Shi'a "temporary marriage"]?

Well, that means they can marry a woman for one or two hours. If you are a virgin girl, your father has to give you permission. But if you are married and then divorced, you don't need a witness. You can be his wife for one day, or three hours, or a quarter of an hour, depending on what you want to do, of course.

Some critics say it's just prostitution without the economic exchange.

You could say that, but imagine a woman who is divorced or a widow, and she wants to have a sexual affair and doesn't want to feel guilty towards her God -- that makes it possible.

It's interesting how you're reframing it -- most of what I've read about sigheh talks about the benefit for the man.

All these points of view completely forget the pleasure of the woman. If the woman can also have pleasure in the sexual act, it can also be freedom. To be honest, in most of the sigheh cases, it is the man who has the woman. But a sexual thing is made by two people. If it isn't, yes, it could be rape or prostitution. But if you like him, you can also have satisfaction.

It's clear in your work, however, that women's choices and pleasure exist concurrently with societal, economic and governmental control over their sexuality.

Absolutely. The day we can say that we are civilized is the day when women can have the same relationship to their sexuality that men can. If we could share the notion of satisfaction, we could be equal toward the notion of pain as well.

You are nothing more

2005-11-29T16:17:00.000Z

than a hijab. If you wear a short skirt, you are simply a bad, bad Muslimah. Tennis? Woe upon you! Life is but a game! Will you remember tennis when the fires of hell are burning the dark Indian hairs off your legs as you walk the razor thin bridge in the hereafter?

Jamiat-ulema-e-Hind leader in West Bengal Siddiqullah Choudhury denied his group had threatened Mirza.
"These are rumours, we have not threatened to stop Sania or anybody else from playing," he said.

"Though it is true that the kind of dress Sania wears offends us - we don't expect a Muslim girl to wear such skimpy clothes in public."

Rising star

But the police in Calcutta say they are not willing to take any chances after such groups stopped Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasreen addressing a public convention against fundamentalism in southern Bengal some months ago.

Sania Mirza has refused to be drawn into the controversy, merely asking forgiveness "for whatever I have to do on court as an 18-year-old."

She has also told reporters not to quiz her on religion.

Go Sania. Why are reporters asking her about her religion. Do they ask Maria why she's not a good Catholic girl? So what if fundamentalists and conservatives think she's wearing inappropriate clothes. Ask millions of other Muslims - they will say, Who cares what Sania wears.

It's not just non Muslims. We Muslims give Muslim women's dress undue attention too. If journalists ask, it's understandable. They interview the voices of fundamentalism, and when we see images of Muslims we don't often see women like me, long brown hair blowing in the wind. It's the tail end of a scarf blowing in the wind, or a turban.

Baaah.

Rights activist's case shows hard-liners still wield influence

2005-11-29T01:23:00.000Z

Posted on Blue Wolf's blog:

By Kim Barker
Chicago Tribune
Published November 26, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The prosecutors say Ali Mohaqeq Nasab deserves to die for what he did. Jailers shaved his head. He was pulled into court wearing handcuffs and leg shackles.

His crime? He is no killer, no kidnapper, no rapist. In a case reminiscent of the strict Taliban era, Nasab has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for blasphemy, for going against Islam. And prosecutors are appealing.

"There should be a bigger punishment for him," said Abdul Jamil, who is in charge of prosecuting attorneys in Kabul. "If he intends to keep to what he said, then he should be executed."

The case of Nasab, 47, a liberal Shiite cleric who flouted conservative Islamic beliefs in his Women's Rights magazine, is at the crux of a quandary for the fledgling Afghan democracy: how to reconcile the constitutional guarantee of free speech and the protection of Islam.

His jail sentence presents a problem for President Hamid Karzai, who is facing pressure from Western allies to pardon Nasab and pressure from powerful clerics to keep Nasab in jail. At the same time, a conservative parliament has just been elected, one that is likely to resist any attempts to free Nasab.

Karzai's office has been largely silent. Officials from the presidential palace say Karzai will not interfere with the court system but add that Nasab's case should have been handled by the media commission of the Ministry of Culture and Information. At a recent news conference, presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi said only that the office hoped for "positive results," without specifying what those might be.

"No one can intervene" with the courts, Rahimi said. "This is a fact. We hope this issue is solved in a better way."

The minister of culture and information has objected to the prison sentence. The media commission believes that Nasab did not commit blasphemy but that he should be removed as editor to placate any religious concerns.

Nasab disagrees.

The outspoken editor is not exactly helping his own cause. Although he appeared meek in court, since then he has repeated the kinds of statements that got him into trouble in the first place, even going on television from jail to challenge other clerics to a debate.

Nasab says the clerics who complain about him are illiterate. He says his prosecutors cannot even understand his writings, in Arabic and Farsi, a language closely related to Afghan Dari.

And Nasab challenges conservative interpretations of the Koran, of Islamic law and of the Prophet Muhammad. He says Muslims who commit adultery do not deserve to be stoned to death. He says Muslims who convert to another religion do not deserve to be killed. He says a woman's testimony is equal to that of a man, not half as much.

`I am not a criminal'

In jail, Nasab was unrepentant.

"I am not a criminal," he said, fingering yellow prayer beads. "Why should I be in jail? Every day that I stay in this prison, that's illegal."

Nasab started Women's Rights magazine shortly after coming home to Afghanistan two years ago from Iran, where he also faced problems for his liberal views. His magazine is a curious mix of Western pop and women's stories, including cover photographs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of celebrity Alicia Silverstone and of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, which were destroyed by the Taliban.

Articles tackle why women set themselves on fire in Afghanistan and say that the Koran guarantees equal rights between men and women.

Nasab is not alone in his views; in Iran, a small group of liberal Shiite scholars have long challenged conservative Islamic thinking. But in Afghanistan, he is an oddity. Most of the Taliban fled four years ago, but their mind-set remains. Conservative clerics run the Afghan courts; soon they will join parliament.

Muhammad Aref Rahmani, a member of the national Shiite Council of Ulema, or Islamic scholars, said he felt fear reading through the first seven issues of Women's Rights magazine. He worried that Nasab opened the door to Muslims converting to Christianity and Judaism, which would move Afghanistan toward secularism, liberalism and infidelity.

"Sometimes the whole religion and the rules of the religion were attacked," Rahmani said. "For instance, he says one woman should be equal to one man, as a witness in a case, which is completely against our religion."

After Nasab was arrested Oct. 1 and sentenced three weeks later, local media defended him, running an open letter signed by Afghan intellectuals. International news media groups complained. Fahim Dashty, the editor of The Kabul Weekly, ran a free ad that took up one-fourth of the front page: "President Karzai, show us that you are in power and not the Taliban, again ... Free Mohaqeq Nasab!"

But since then, outrage seems to have faded. It is as if no one wants to align too much with the jailed editor. Even Dashty squirms when talking about what Nasab wrote.

"He's talking about very, very, very important religious issues," Dashty said. "But for me, it seems too quick, too strong and too hard, which is, of course, dangerous."

A tipping point?

Nasab's case is only the most extreme example of media intimidation, according to the Afghan Independent Journalists Association. Since forming in June, the association has handled 15 cases, including that of two college students in the western city of Herat accused of blasphemy and called "infidels" in posters hung around town, said Rahimullah Samander, the head of the journalists association.

But Nasab's case could be the tipping point in the new Afghanistan, a predictor of future jail sentences and how free speech really is. It could have a chilling effect on the Afghan media.

"It is a sign," said Hazrat Wahriz, who helped found the Union of Freedom of Expression in Afghanistan. "In every mosque, they are agitating against anything having to do with democracy and anything to do with freedom of expression. Every Friday in every mosque, all over Afghanistan".

The Male and the Female voice

2005-11-28T19:45:00.000Z

I snatched this study info after finding it on another blog today. I do have some things I think should be pointed out, though:

1. Only 12 people were studied
2. All those studied were men
3. We don't have the entire study to examine (ie how many voices were played, etc)

However, I thought it was still interesting, even though this is nowhere close to being anything conclusive:

Study: Female Voices Easier to Hear

Aug. 1, 2005 — The human brain processes male and female voices differently, according to a recent study that looked at how the human brain reacts to male and female voices.

The research explains why most of us hear female voices more clearly, as well as that we form mental images of people based only on the sound of their voices.

The findings, published in the current journal NeuroImage, also might give insight into why many men tire of hearing women speak: the "complexity" of female voices requires a lot of brain activity.

"It is females' increased use of prosody, or the natural 'melody' of speech, that makes their voices more complex," said Michael Hunter, one of the study's authors.

Hunter, professor of medicine and biomedical sciences at the University of Sheffield's Cognition and Neuroimaging Laboratory, explained to Discovery News that these qualities are not related to pitch, but rather to the vibration and number of sound waves.

For the study, Hunter and his colleagues played recordings of male and female voices to 12 men while they underwent MRI brain imaging scans. Test subjects assigned a gender to the voices they heard while the scans took place. These identifications were 98-99 percent accurate. Researchers monitored the areas of the brain that showed activity during the scans.

The scientists determined that female voices activated the brain's auditory section. Male voices activated the area at the back of the brain called the "mind's eye," where people compare other individuals and things to themselves.

While the researchers only analyzed how a male brain works, they theorized that female voices always are processed in the brain's auditory region, even when women are listening to other women. However, Hunter thinks it is possible that female voices also activate the mind's eye in females, since a woman would compare her voice to that of the other female speaker.

Since humans process female voices in an area of the brain that's geared for sound, we tend to hear female voices more clearly. While Hunter believes female voices are complex, he said that once they are interpreted in the auditory part of the brain, they are more fully and readily decoded.

The study also sheds light on aural hallucinations. People hallucinate when the brain spontaneously activates. People who hear false voices usually hear men because, according to Hunter and his team, it is easier for the brain to create a false voice in the mind's eye as opposed to the more complex auditory region.

When we cannot determine the gender of the speaker, we tend to classify the voice, and therefore the person, as "unnatural," according to the scientists. The brain then undergoes additional activity to try to solve the mystery, since voices allow our brains to determine the sex, size, age and other aspects of the speaker.

Studies on deaf schizophrenics by neurologist E.M. Critchley and team at the Royal Preston Hospital revealed that false brain firings caused the individuals to think they were hearing male voices, which suggests that the brain is hard-wired to process male and female voices differently, even when hearing is lost.

Pragmatic Truths about Wearing Hijab

2005-11-28T09:28:00.000Z

The hijab issue has not ceased to be controversial despite the fact that it has been hashed out over and over again, ad nauseum. Here is some more oil for the flames:

Pragmatic Truths about Wearing Hijab

1. It does NOT eliminate either the need or the ability to be fashionable

2. It eliminates the need to regularly style your hair if you don’t want to

3. People will become extremely curious and judgmental about what your hair looks like

4. You will have a hard (yet often fun) time matching clothes with your scarf

5. You will sometimes feel dowdy

6.You will be grateful to be able to cover figure flaws and wobbly bits with your scarf and loose clothes or overgarment

7. People will NOT suddenly begin to judge you for your mind rather than your looks

8. It makes you easily identifiable to other Muslims (except for the really daft ones who ask you if you are a Muslim even though you are wearing a big fat hijab, especially if you are a convert)

9. Non-Muslims may initially be scared and intimidated by you

10. In these difficult times, you may be viewed as a political symbol by both Muslims and non-Muslims

11. In a non-Muslim context, people will often think that you don’t speak English

12. In a non-Muslim context, people will often think that you are brainwashed, oppressed, meek, and submissive...and these days, a terrorist!

13. In a Muslim context, people will be extra judgmental about what behavior is deemed as appropriate for you and hold you to a higher standard

14. Non-Muslim males will (almost) never sexually harass you in public, but Muslim males will, especially if you are in a Muslim majority country

15. It will NOT protect you from sexual assault

16. With some Muslims, you will find that hijab is not enough and you will be strongly encouraged to start wearing niqaab as well

17. Wearing it does NOT mean that you are especially religious, nor will it inspire you to become more religious or make practicing Islam any easier

18. People might think you are a very wise and spiritual person and come to you for advice all of the time (regardless of if you are or not)

19. You will represent Islam and Muslims in everything that you say and do

20. Since you represent Islam to non-Muslims, it will really make you watch your public behavior, which is a way to strengthen your character

And my Heart Breaks (reblog)

2005-11-25T00:13:00.000Z

Originally posted at Nzinghas' Soap Box and re-blogged with permission.

I can't help but cry for this small six year old child, Rahaf, who was abused so severely by her stepmother. I know abuse is not unique to Saudi and I also know that so many parents and adults can be so cruel to children all over the world. So I don't want anyone to think that this is something that only happens in Saudi, but I would point out that there are unique issues which only happen within Saudi Arabia. It is my hope that the abuse and rejection of this child breaks the hearts of all others in Saudi who are capable and willing to make the necessary changes to protect children such as Rahaf. I should also add here that I'm extremely happy that such cases are publicized now and that point out the many problems within the Saudi system that deals with such situations.

The press today had more to offer on her case, it appears as though her father went to the police station to 'drop the charges' against his wife, her stepmother. This reflects the thinking that a child is property, and the father holds more ownership than a mother. When a child is looked at as an individual with full rights and protection under the law of the state it isn't up to a father or the mother to drop charges against one who is abusing them. Because the power is taken from them as they are not owners of a tangible good, the are guardians or caretakers of a precious gift that was given to them by Allah. So it then becomes the duty of the community or in the end the state to ensure that this individual (a child) is given protection and their rights are guaranteed under the law just like any other citizen of that state. There will of course be some difference in the application of the law, or what rights are granted to them because they are minors. But basic protection against abuse for a child who is unable to seek justice on their own behalf must be ensured by the state.

I can not speculate what is going through this fathers mind when he walked in a police station to drop charges of such severe abuse against his own child. I can however feel the pain of this girl as she witnesses her own father protecting a woman, not of his own flesh and blood, who abused her when he failed to protect her. She is a six year old girl, seeking nothing more than any other six year old child. They want comfort, security, normality, protection from all things they fear, guidance, and love. Now what she is getting is a great failure on behalf of her father, who is THE world to every six year old girl, to do these basic things she needs and also an obvious choice to protect the one who is harming her. This must be completely devastating for this little girl and my heart breaks.

Her mother is now remarried and has lost the right to custody under the present custody law that exists within Saudi Arabia. Most women here will loose custody in a divorce when a child is of a certain age, or she remarries. It is a common belief that a woman will fail to protect and give her child the basic care necessary in such a way that she will neglect them or harm them in order to seek the pleasure of her husband. As I once sat in my idealism I thought how ridiculous a thought, what does this really say about women as well as men. As a mother I can say I will never choose a man, not even their father, over them. I would never neglect them because a man is not mature enough to handle the thought that attention from his wife will not always come his way. I would never fail to protect them from a man who thought he could abuse them, and I would stand with fists clenched to fight to the death in order to protect my children. I'm not sure if this is a state of fitra, our nature as mothers who protect these children from the time in our wombs in three veils of darkness to sustaining their life from our breasts even if it depletes us. A natural desire to protect them and see them strive and do good. Or if this is something we learn be it from our families, our cultures or a submission to Allah.

I would also say that this is not something unique to women, fathers also have such feelings. I know my husband would do all he had to do to protect his children. Never choosing a woman, or anyone, over them. He would also stand with his fists clenched ready to fight to the death in order to protect them. Is this part of mans fitra as well? Which is why it is even doubly hard for me to understand any man who would seek to harm their child, or choose not to protect them.

The mother of Rahaf will not seek custody of her child, although she would stand a very good chance now. She won't do it because her current husband will not allow the child in his home. In my total idealism it is at first very hard for me to comprehend a woman who would choose a man over her child. Here this mother knowing the abuse that her own daughter is going through chooses not to take her because of her choice of a man. In my idealism I could easily become enraged towards this woman, but as I sit in a society that forces such a choice on a woman I've come to understand, although still not accept it. I can understand that this woman is remarried which she may feel is her last and only hope, it isn't easy for divorced women to get remarried to begin with here. She most likely thought her daughter would be safe in the home of her exhausted and she could continue to see her and know her as she grew. But now she probably fears what the consequences would be if she chose her daughter and left her current husband. Most likely she has no financial independence, might not have good supportive family, her options will be severely limited and like so many other women living single with children in this country left to welfare. This is not a society that would make it easy for her to leave her current husband, gain custody of her daughter and live a guilt free independent life raising her daughter in self respect. It is out of my idealism that I've come to understand that she unfortunately is a victim as well. And still my heat breaks.

We also learn that Rahafs aunt came to the hospital seeking to take her home. At least there is one who is choosing her, coming for her to hopefully protect her. But when denied this request is reported to have washed her hands of the whole situation claiming it 'none of her business'. Oh but it is all of our business that this child is in harms way. That she was beaten, denied safety, harmed, denied food, neglected, denied comfort, tormented and denied love. It is all of our business what happens to this girl and the many other children in this Kingdom and the world just like her. It is our business for we are to protect the weak when we are strong and capable. We are to hate the wrong and embrace what is right. We are to stand against injustice and protect and aid those who can't stand for themselves. It is our business when a child is harmed, it is our duty as Muslims, as a part of humanity, as submitters to Allah to stand up for this girl who is unable to stand up for herself. And my heart breaks.

Is there not anyone who understands this? Is moved by this? Wants to just take this young girl and supply her with the protection, love and guidance that she so badly needs. To just hug her and say "I'll be here for you even if something goes bump in the night. I'll be here to embrace you and let you know it will be alright. I'll be here to keep those bad people away." Yes there are, there is the teacher who did take enough time to notice the girl and sought to protect her. It is the administration of that school that called police and ensured she was taken to the hospital. It is also those teachers who are filling her room with good thoughts, presents and a sense of love. It is strangers who have come forward to offer their homes, their lives, their selves to this girl providing her a home to live in and inshallah be a part of. So as my heart breaks as I know is the case for so many others in the kingdom as they read about her, I am happy that people have come forward to offer this young girl what unfortunately others have failed to give her. And again, it is my hope that with the breaking of many other hearts true changes will come to protect so many other fragile children out there like Rahaf.

News Sources: Arab News and Saudi Gazette.

Blog entry over at Ihsan

2005-11-22T15:16:00.000Z

Aussie Muslim model lambasted by cultural Muslim leaders

And other relevant articles online about Michelle Leslie:

I'm not a fake Muslim, says Leslie

What's basically going on is that some Muslim groups in Australia are disavowing her because she is a model, stating that she wouldn't really be a Muslim if she continued this line of work. Some have even insinuated that it was a ploy to get out of a jail term for a drug charge in Indonesia (never mind that she had converted two years before). As for me, personally, I don't see how such a criteria is an actual litmus test for one's Muslim-ness or not. There are plenty of Muslims out there today who are very good at projecting the exterior image of being a "good Muslim" or an "authentic Muslim" but who do plenty of shady items outside the visual range of the community.

Could it not be said as well that her being a woman (as well as a convert) has something to do with the level of vitriol being directed towards her by the Muslim community (its spokesmen, anyway) in Australia? I should think so, at least from my own experience with the Muslim community here in the United States, wherein many male Muslims commit all sorts of acts which are far worse, but welcomed with open arms into the mosques, even into leadership positions. I've seen this myself where a Muslim male who may be a womanizer, a sex offender, or a drunk. But if it were a woman disrobing in anyway (and this itself doesn't even include any sort of sex act, mind you) becomes an instant non-Muslim and a walking pariah.

The Bravest Woman in the World

2005-11-20T02:11:00.000Z

At Glamour Magazine's Women of the Year awards:

Mukhtar Mai

via the SAFspace blog

2005-11-19T02:53:00.000Z

What's a Modern Girl to do?

On the notion that younger women are more maritally malleable. ha!

Article

2005-10-31T23:13:00.000Z

Woman In Chains at Alt.Muslim

A Female Perspective on the Modern Muslim Man

2005-10-25T05:45:00.000Z

It seems to me that there are a lot of books and articles circulating around our Muslim communities that contain advice for Muslim women. Nearly all of these books are penned by male authors who explain to women how to be a proper Muslim wife, an ideal Muslim woman, what a woman’s place is according to Shari’ah, and so forth. Recently, I even saw one such book written about how to be a good Muslim mother. It was authored by a male with no special qualifications (like a background in child development, for example) to justify his authority on the subject. I find it very interesting how so many Muslim male authors have so much to say about their understanding of the role of Muslim women. I thought it would be interesting to turn the tables a bit and ponder the issue of what makes a good modern Muslim man and husband from a female perspective, specifically in the eyes of a progressive minded, modern Muslim woman.
After much thought, I have attempted to identify the characteristics that make a good modern Muslim man and husband. It is important for young Muslim women to take these characteristics into consideration when evaluating a potential spouse, and fundamental that men consider these characteristics when evaluating their own personalities. Defining the good modern Muslim male is extremely relevant considering that we are living in an age of great social change in which women (especially Muslim women) around the world are enjoying rights and freedoms not permitted to them in previous ages, though these rights are supposed to have always been guaranteed to us by Islam. The characteristics I have highlighted are largely based on personal impression, but these ideas have been gathered from much reading and discussion. I feel that I have been able to identify the essential characteristics of a good Muslim man and husband in contemporary society.
Firstly, a modern Muslim man is, by definition, a religious and practicing Muslim. He prays, reads the Quran, seeks Islamic and secular knowledge, and uses the framework of Islam to form his worldview and make his place in society. If a woman marries a man who fears Allah and has iman in his heart, then she will never having anything to fear. He will always behave with the values of Quran and Sunnah in mind, and he will use the spirit of the message of Islam to guide his every action. He will be fair, gentle, and kind. Within and outside of the realm of marriage, he will show his utmost respect for women and womanhood. He will be a lover of family life and children. He will be a supporter and defender of gender equality, and his treatment of his wife and his children of both sexes will reflect this. What distinguishes the “modern” Muslim man from a good and religious man of any time period is that he is abreast of the issues of today. He is not influenced by cultural mores that are contrary to Islam like the old-fashioned man is. Also, he does not accept puritanical and/or patriarchal ideas about the inferiority of women or the limitation of their roles and contributions to society.
A modern Muslim man does not have a speck of doubt in his mind about the equality of women and men. He knows that males and females are equally valuable members of society. He knows that both sexes have the same religious duties and are judged equally before Allah. He also recognizes that while many women are physically unequal to most men in terms of size and strength, and that each sex may have other slight characteristic differences, intellectually, men and women have the same potential abilities. He supports a woman’s right to contribute to household decision making, to pursue an education, a career, increase her knowledge of religion, and to practice freedom of worship and receive extra reward from Allah by praying in mosques. He does not restrict her movements by holding the culturally based notion that only women of ill-morals spend time outside of the home. He doesn’t question her choice to visit friends and family, attend religious lectures, or do other activities in public, as did the women in the time of our Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). He supports a balance between home life and life in the public sphere for both men and women. He shows this by meaningfully contributing to housework and child rearing, like our Prophet Mohammed (pbuh), who did household chores and was regularly available for his family’s needs. He does not subscribe to cultural beliefs that housework is the realm of women, and public life is the realm of men. Nor does he feel threatened by a woman’s desire to spend time with her own friends and family, have a career, or seek to enrich her understanding of Islam. He should be a pinnacle of balance and open mindedness within the framework of Islam.
A modern man rejects pseudo-Islamic notions about the different “nature” of men and women, which are clearly unsupported by the Quran and ahaadith, and simply untrue. Many puritanical scholars make claims that men are superior to women. They say that women are so emotional that it clouds their logic and rationality, rendering them unable to make decisions or contribute to society by doing more than housework and mothering. These scholars contend that Allah has created man with superior intelligence and ability to deal with difficulties. Therefore, according to these scholars, husbands are supposed to take on the role of working in the outside world, and be the sole provider for their families. They say that women are naturally created to deal with children, and are unable to deal with the stress of life and work outside the home. They contend that women earn merit in the eyes of Allah by single handedly bearing the responsibility of managing all of the housework and child rearing. They also say that since men have so much stress outside the home and since women should naturally be in the home, women earn merit from Allah by providing their husbands with the utmost servitude and comfort after a hard day of work. They claim that women attain Allah’s pleasure through their husbands’ pleasure by being attractive to their husbands, obedient, and taking on all of the burdens of cleaning and child care. This paradigm is extremely sexist, and deviously disguises certain cultural notions of manhood and womanhood and of each sex’s respective gender roles in the form of religious mandate. These puritanical scholars would have people believe that it is Allah’s plan that men are superior to women, and that essentially, men are their families’ wallets, while women are their families’ domestic servants. None of these ideas are expressed explicitly in the Quran or Sunnah. However, our religious texts are unable to speak to us, and we use human interpretation of our holy book to guide us. These scholars support their interpretations and ideas by pure conjecture. Reality tells us that these patriarchal notions of gender roles are flawed. First of all, they do not apply to less privileged Muslim women who work outside the home out of necessity. Nor do they explain how, if women are so emotionally fragile and irrational, Muslim and non-Muslim women alike work in just about every imaginable profession, from store clerk to business owner to teacher to street sweeper to bone surgeon to astronaut. These scholars also fail to reasonably explain why the women of the time of our Prophet worked and even fought in battles. For some reason, extreme interpretations about how to maintain modesty through gender segregation, woman’s fragile nature, woman’s family responsibilities, and all of the other excuses used to prevent Muslim women from taking an active role in public life, did not prevent the women of the Sahaabah from being active members of society.
In support of his spouse’s active life, the modern Muslim husband is deeply involved in his children’s upbringing. He doesn’t think twice about cleaning up after, playing with, or tutoring his children, or comforting them when they are upset. He doesn’t view these tasks as solely the duties of women, and he recognizes that such a view is sexist and un-Islamic because it contradicts the Sunnah of the behavior of our Prophet (pbuh).
The old-style Muslim men are mother-lovers. They acknowledge that paradise lies at the feet of mothers, and that a child’s first duty is to his/her mother, three times more than even to the father, as per the ahaadith. Certainly, in every person’s life, one’s mother is the person dearest to one’s heart. The problem with being a mother-lover is that certain men feel that good women express true love by a mother-like coddling of their husbands. A mother selflessly serves her children and caters to their every need. The old-fashioned man feels that all women, especially his wife, should be equally self-sacrificing, and display her love by subservience and deference. She should not eat until he has eaten, prepare a cup of tea for him when he enters the house, prepare foods to suit his preferences and tastes, serve his plate personally by hand at meal times, iron his clothes, fetch items for him, tidy up after him, and perform every other duty that a mother would lovingly do for her child. What the old-fashioned man fails to see is that mothers do these things for their offspring because children are helpless and are unable to perform these duties by themselves. Also, just because a mother shows love by doing these things for her children, this display of self-sacrifice and servitude is not the appropriate way for a wife to display love to her husband. Modern, enlightened men should hold their own mothers in the highest possible esteem, but they should not expect their wives to continue to coddle and suckle them as their mothers did. They should know that they are loved when they are in an open and trusting relationship, with good communication, mutual respect, and understanding as a foundation. These are the qualities of marriage expressed in the Quran.
A modern Muslim man lowers his gaze and protects himself from the lascivious and haraam influences that are flaunted as part of today’s so-called liberated society. Such activities include watching lewd performances of music and dance, watching entertainment media that depict sexual and violent scenes or debase women by showing them dressed in objectionable clothing, or listening to music with overtly sexual and vulgar lyrics. The backwards Muslim man enjoys these things himself but forbids his wife and female children from engaging in them. Even worse than this is the man who considers himself modern because he doesn’t think twice about himself or his wife and children engaging in these lewd activities. The correct modern Muslim husband values entertainment for both himself and his family, but stays far away from haraam forms of it. He and his family enjoy family oriented entertainment. In addition to this, there is a stronger focus on religious and spiritual development than on entertainment in the home. The modern man, his wife, and his children are busy seekers of spiritual enrichment, and they often enjoy different forms of halaal entertainment.
A modern Muslim man protects his chastity before and after marriage. The old fashioned Muslim man believes that chastity and modesty are more important virtues for females than for males. That a man’s honor lives within his female family members’ bodies is an idea that is completely contrary to what the Quran tells us. It is ignorant to think that young men can play and experiment with their sexuality, or that it is only natural for men to have extra-marital affairs, while girls and women who do so should be scorned and even corporally punished. Such ideas come from being culturally rather than Islamically socialized. In the Quran, Allah puts the same requirements on females as on males in terms of guarding oneself from unchaste behavior. To think otherwise is purely based on cultural notions of sexual propriety and in direct conflict with Islamic belief. The modern Muslim man will uphold high standards for his own chastity, and encourage both his male and female children to do so.
The modern Muslim man openly attacks backwards and puritanical ideologies about women. He uses articulate and decisive criticisms to defend women from gender discrimination masked as religion. He does not overlook injustices such as the denial of a woman’s right to pray in mosques, to have a decent space allotted to them within our mosques, to participate in the community, or to hold a position of leadership. He finds the denial of such rights inherently offensive, and tries to right these wrongs. The modern Muslim man does not go about life complacently while his sisters in Islam suffer. He is not suspicious of Muslim women who actively try to claim their rights. On the contrary, he aids and supports them.
In conclusion, a good man separates cultural practices that are derogatory and oppressive towards women from his thoughts and actions based on his wife’s and his own rights, duties, and responsibilities as a spouse and parent as they are defined by an unbiased understanding of Islam. A young woman might only be willing to consider prospective partners who have a strong university education, are good looking, are rich, have a great job, drive a nice car, or possess any other combination of a number of superficial qualities of a “good catch.” However, these things do not guarantee that a man is a good Muslim and is of good character. More important are his religiosity and world view. In the end, a woman would surely be happier with a man who respects her and supports her rights than with a man who only has a big house and a nice car. Any woman considering someone as a husband should gauge his perspective on women according to his understanding of Islam. Every Muslim man should throw off the shackles of gender discrimination for the betterment of the Muslim Ummah and of society at large. Every woman deserves someone who is willing to complete half of her religion by being a cooperative partner in marriage. If people enter a marriage with good intentions and Islamic values, and men and women view each other from a modern and egalitarian perspective, then Inshallah they will have a successful and fulfilling relationship and a happy family, and ultimately please Allah.

Fatima J. 2005

Came across a blog recently

2005-10-24T04:03:00.000Z

and I am truly ashamed to say that I've never seen it before. But I wish I had!

Thara: A weekly review of scholarship, culture, and literature on women. (Arab & Mid-East Women focus)

wow! Into the sidebar it goes!

The Women

2005-10-23T19:49:00.000Z

The Women
As a Daughter, Wife & Mother

from Mardhiya magazine

DAUGHTER
The religion of Islam vehemently opposes discrimination in the variance humanity is born into, such as colour, race and geographical location. All which, the individual has no freedom of choice in. Another one is the sex a child is born. Did you and I have any say in our gender makeup? Of course not!

Did the female child have a choice in her being born female? Of course not! So in light of that fact and seeing that the choice is Allah's, how is it possible for Him, the Just to condemn the female.

God forbid, for He is Greater than that, or what, they ascribe to Him.

The religion of Allah explicitly states, for example, that both the deeds of the faithful male and female will be measured equally in the scale of deeds, and punishment or reward will be equitable for both regardless of sex. "So their Lord accepted their prayer: That I will not waste the work of a worker among you, whether male or female,.."[Al-Imran 3:195]. Similarly eternal bliss is promised for both the faithful male and female. "If any do deeds of righteousness, - be they male or female - and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the least injustice will be done to them" [an-Nisa' 4:124]

Allah on the other hand condemns the mentality, which decrees the female a lower-class creation, "And when a daughter is announced to one of them his face becomes black and he is full of wrath. He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that which is announced to him. Shall he keep it with disgrace or bury it (alive) in the dust? Now surely evil is what they judge. [an-Nahl 16:58-59]

Islam is in fact the first religion to fly the banner of ‘equality of the sexes’. Before presenting the Islamic teachings as brought to us from the Holy Progeny, in relation to how Islam views the woman as a wife, daughter and mother, I shall give a few examples of how the female was looked upon in the prior religions.

Judeo-Christian beliefs go back to the conception of life. They view Mother Eve as the origin of all sin. She was the seductive temptress that tempted Adam to eat from the forbidden tree, causing his downfall, and the downfall of Man.

"No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman...Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die" (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).

"The birth of a daughter is a loss" (Ecclesiasticus 22:3)

This is how they view a woman who is menstruating, and the drastic measures taken if one comes in contact with her. "When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening" (Lev. 15:19-23).

The Talmud considers a menstruating woman "fatal" even without any physical contact:

"Our Rabbis taught...if a menstruate woman passes between two (men), if it is at the beginning of her menses she will slay one of them, and if it is at the end of her menses she will cause strife between them" (bPes. 111a.)

The above examples represent only the smaller picture of the dangerous and biased teachings of the Talmud and Bible.

In comparison, compare below what the Holy Progeny’s teachings were in relation to the female:
DAUGHTER IN HADEETH
Imam al-Sadiq said, "Your female offspring are good deeds (hasanat) and the male offspring are a benefaction (ni'ma). One is rewarded for the good deeds, while the benefactions one is asked about" (Makarim al-Akhlaq, P219)

Prophet Mohammad said, "The best of your offspring are the females. Whoever has one, Allah will cause her to be a veil from hellfire, and with two, Allah will enter you into paradise, and if they are three, then participation in jihad and giving of alms is lifted" (Makarim al-Akhlaq, P219)

Omar binYazid said to Imam alSadiq, "I have daughters" Imam al-Sadiq said, "perhaps you wish for them death? If you have wished them death and they die, you will certainly not be rewarded and you will face your Lord as a transgressor" (Makarim al-Akhlaq, P219)

Prophet Mohammad said, "One who supports three daughters or three sisters, heaven is inevitable for him". He was then asked, "O'Messenger of Allah what about two?" He replied, "or two". Again he was asked, "O’Messenger of Allah what about one?" He again replied, "or one". (Makarim al-Akhlaq, P219)

In the next narration The Messenger of Allah does not distinguish between males and females when he says, "Kiss your children, for with every kiss you will be raised a degree in heaven; between each degree is a distance of 500 years" (Makrarim al-Akhlaq, P220)

From 'Nawadir alHikmah', Ibn Abbas: The Prophet said, "Whoever enters the marketplace and buys a gift and takes it home to his family, is likened to one who has carried alms to a group of needy people. And he should begin with (give first) the females before the males. If one brings joy to his daughters, it is as if he has freed a slave from the children of Ismael...." (Makarim al-Akhlaq, P221)

And of course we have the exemplary standards the Prophet set in his dealing with Fatima (as). Yes, Fatima was the Chief of All Women, but Prophet Mohammad was not treating her that way for that reason alone. In it was a lesson for the ignorant who till this day feel embarrassed to say they have daughters, or to even hug and kiss their daughters.

We find that during the lifetime of the Prophet (sawa), he only kissed two hands. One was the hand of Fatima (as). Everytime she entered, even at the tender age of nine, the prophet would stand, kiss her hand and sit her in his position. And the other hand was that of a labourer. One day he shook hands with a man. He found the man's hands to be rough, so he asked him why his hands were so rough. The man said, "O’Messenger of Allah, work". So the prophet bent down, took his hand and kissed it saying, "This is a hand, which Allah and his Prophet love"

This was all a lesson, a path paved for all to follow and emulate.
WIFE
Celibacy is a way of life condemned in Islam, with Much emphasis put on the union of marriage. The Prophet said, "There was not a structure built in Islam more loved by Allah than marriage" (man la yahdarahu alfaqeeh V3 p236).

The Marriage referred to in the above narration is a marriage that is based on love, compassion, and understanding. A marriage built on rights and mutual respect for each other. One in which a man doesn’t interpret the physical stature he has been endowed with as a sign for him to control, overpower, or oppress the weaker sex, or vice versa.
SPOUSAL RELATIONSHIP IN THE HOLY QURAN
Marriage is about completing each other, as the Quran says: "…They are an apparel for you and you are an apparel for them..."[al-Baqarah 2:187]. In his Tafseer 'Taqrib al-Quran ilal ath'han', Sayed Shirazi says: "Just as clothes protect the body, and just as clothes are shaped for the body and are intimate with its nakedness, so too is each spouse with respect to the other".

Ali Akbar Mazaheri in his book, 'Youth and Spouse Selection' says, "Dress saves and protects a person from the effects of winter and summer. The spouse too saves one from worries, futility, shelterlessness, aimlessness and solitude similarly. Dress decorates man, spouses too are the decoration of each other".

Also in the Quran, "And one of His signs is that He created mates for you from yourselves that you may find rest in them, and He put between you love and compassion; most surely there are signs in this for a people who reflect."[ar-Rum 30:21]. "This peace and comfort is not the common and ordinary conventional comfort which the psychologists and psychiatrist describe; instead, in addition to that, it includes dignity, grace, balance of thought and vision and spirit and the feeling of being worthy and having a grave personality and the achievement of additional honour, status and so on" (Youth and Spouse Selection P37).
WIFE IN HADEETH
Ibn Fath'aal narrates from Younis bin Yaqoob that he heard Imam al-Sadiq say: "Much goodness is in women" (man la yahdarahu alfaqih V3 P237)

Mohammad bin Muslim narrates from Imam alBaqir: The Messenger of Allah said, "Gabriel entrusted me with (the matter) of women, so much so, that I assumed that it was undesirable to divorce them unless one commits a visible act of lewdness.” (man la yahdarahu alfaqih V3 p274)

Ishaak bin Ammar asked Imam alsadiq about the rights of a woman. The Imam said, "to fill her stomach, clothe her body and if she becomes ignorant (in certain matters) that he forgive her" (man la yahdirahu alfaqih V3 p274)

To Clothe and feed (provide subsistence) for a man in a permanent marriage, is compulsory. Should there be a failure to provide these necessities then it is a legitimate reason for her to seek divorce even without the husband’s consent.

Narrated Abi Baseer: I hear Abu Jaafar alBaqir say: Whoever has a wife and does not clothe her enough to conceal her body or feed her enough to keep her body erect, it is the right of the Imam to separate them" (man la yahdarahu alfaqih V3 p274)

As for a narration, that I myself have heard repeated often, that most inhabitants of Hell are women. My personal view on it was, this narration inclined more towards the same erroneous path of the Judeo-Christian’s, who deemed the woman as the source of all evil and that of Wahhabism, which talks about a woman, dog and donkey in the same breath. They, the Wahhabis claim in their sahihs (books of narration) that if a woman, dog or donkey passes in front of a man praying, then his prayers are invalidated.

Imam alSadiq said to Fudail who had asked the Imam regarding this matter: “Is it true that most of the inhabitants of Hell are women?” The Imam said, “and how is that so, if its possible for a man in the afterlife (paradise) to marry a thousand of these worldly women in a castle of pearl?” (man la yahdarahu alfaqih V3 p295)

The narrations that come to us from Prophet Mohammad also relate that a pious women from this world will have beauty far and beyond that of the heavenly Houris as narrated here by Imam alSadiq: The Righteous and good from the women of this world are more beautiful than the Houris...." (man la yahdarahu alfaqih V3 p295)

The Prophet said, "The best of men from my nation (ummah) are those that are not aggressive towards their wives, are compassionate towards them and do not oppress them.” He then read, 'Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because God has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what God would have them guard…"[an-Nisa' 4:34]

In the Quran we read, "...As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For God is Most High, great (above you all)."[an-Nisa' 4:34] Many men interpret this as concession for them to abuse their wives. When in fact this is only a last resort for violation of marital duties. And the only marital duty incumbent on a woman is not to deny her husband herself.

"As for some, who resort to beating their wives at times, for this is an inexcusable crime...Light beating that does not hurt might be the solution for some wives, and they are very rare. But for this to be carried out on the wider scale, it is indeed wrong..."(Marital Relationships, Sayyed Hadi alModaressi p41)....

The Prophet said, "I am amazed at the one who beats his wife, when in reality he is the one more worthy of being beaten. Do not beat your wives with a stick, for there is punishment (for the one who does it) (Safinatu alBihar V2 P586).

The Prophet also said, "He who lays a hand on a woman, has laid a hand in Hellfire"

Khowla, the woman in the Quran who went to the Prophet and complained about her husband, said to the Prophet, "I (adorn) and perfume myself for my husband as if I'm a new bride. I then come to him under the blanket but he turns away from me, I then come and face him but again he shuns me. I feel aversion from him towards me. O’Messenger of Allah, what do you order me to do. The Prophet said, "Be pious and obey your husband". I said, "What are my rights over my husband?" He said, "Your rights over him are that he feeds you from what is eaten, and clothes you from what is worn, and that he does not strike or yell in your face". She said, "and what are his rights over me?". He said, "That you do not leave his house except with his permission, or fast voluntarily (recommended fasts) except with his permission, and that you do not give alms from his house except with his permission, and if he calls you, even if your on the back of a camel that you respond”.

Imam Ali said to his son Mohammad bin alHanafia, "Son! If you grow strong then grow strong in the obedience of Allah. And if you grow weak, then grow weak in the disobedience of Allah. And if its possible for you not to assign to a woman anything par which concerns herself then do so, for that is better for her beauty, and more relaxing for her mind, and more beneficial for her being (condition). The woman is a sweet smelling flower and not a workhorse, so please her and treat her with kindness, then your life will be more comfortable". (Makarim alakhlaq P218)

--
"Worship Allah (swt) as if you see Him. Even if you do not see Him, He sees you." Holy Prophet (saw)

Group aims to empower, support Muslim women

2005-10-21T20:14:00.000Z

300 N. Texans team up to dispel stereotypes, provide social services

By JAKE BATSELL / The Dallas Morning News

Subservient? Silent? Not at all, these Muslim-American women say.

ERIN TRIEB/Special Contributor
Foundation member Anisa Adem (second from left) introduces Plano Mayor Pat Evans (left) to Minassie Beyene and his wife, Rebecca Testaye, at an event at a Plano bakery. Linda Stockstill (seated) also attended. Many Muslim women in the Dallas-Fort Worth area say that in the four years since 9-11, they have kept to themselves as they struggled with such outside stereotypes and internal questions about their identities as Muslims and as Americans.

But about 300 North Texas women – at least half from Collin County – are launching a group aimed at raising their public profile: the Texas Muslim Women's Foundation.

"We are citizens in this country, and we are welcome in this country," said Dr. Hind Jarrah of McKinney, the foundation's president. "Our mission is to empower, promote and support Muslim women."

The group, which formed in August, is among dozens of cultural organizations scheduled to appear at Saturday's Plano International Festival at Haggard Park.

click to read more

Int'l Congress on Islamic Feminism

2005-10-20T22:40:00.000Z

Next week, in Barcelona

Looks like an interesting line-up, and is indeed international in scope (see program schedule). Anyone want to buy me a ticket? ahh, I thought not.

Female firefighters find they can take the heat in Iran

2005-10-19T11:28:00.000Z

Roya emailed this and asked that I post it on Hu.

By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

KARAJ, IRAN – The rewards are great - and the disappointments as powerful as any felt by firefighters around the world.

But at Station No. 9 in Karaj, west of Tehran, a small unit prides itself on being like few others: the only squad of women firefighters in the Middle East.
Not every rescue requires a feminine touch. But in the Islamic Republic, which tolerates little public mixing of the genders, the 11 women here are breaking new ground and creating a model for cities across the country. They also represent a strain of pragmatic progressivism in Iran that is rarely matched elsewhere in the region.

Women are still subject to a strict Islamic dress code here, though at the moment it is loosely enforced. But there is a women's police division. Women parliamentarians and even vice presidents and a Nobel Peace Prize winner voice their opinions loudly. And in Iran's roiling political atmosphere, women can be criticized as harshly as men.

Wearing polished silver helmets - with only a head scarf underneath to distinguish their garb from the men's - this squad slides down the fire pole when the alarm sounds, just like their male peers.

"When we rescue a child, and the mother cries and comes to us to thank us, we feel so good," says Mahboubeh Khoshsolat.

Finding a balance between Islam and gender issues is easier in Iran than in some other Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive, much less hold office.

A women's unit might have made a difference in the holy city of Mecca in March 2002, during a blaze at a girls' school. Some 15 girls died and 50 were injured when Saudi religious police, according to eyewitnesses, beat the girls and kept them from leaving the burning building because they were not wearing "correct" Islamic dress.

Firefighters here in Iran, men and women alike, say men have not hesitated to help in gender-sensitive situations. "Of course we still do it," says Ali Aghayari, a mustachioed 25-year veteran of the department. "It can be a matter of life and death."

But the women think their presence inspires others to take on jobs usually reserved for men. "100 percent," says Zahra Haji, who has been with the Karaj force since the women's unit was created three years ago.

The women are part of a department that includes 11 stations and 375 firefighters. Divided into three shifts, they work 24 hours on, 48 hours off.

While they respond to every alarm alongside the men, these women also describe rescues in which their gender helped get the job done - such as the time a large woman had fallen into an narrow underground septic tank, up to her neck in sewage, and needed rescue with a harness and ropes.

"I've seen them in action and they are good, they are strong - sometimes they are better than the men," says Mr. Aghayari. When they are in protective gear, fighting alongside the men, he says he can barely tell the difference.

"Physically we can manage it, we don't think we are anything less [than the men]," says Zeinab Karimi. Her father's tales of his work as a firefighter shaped her as a girl. When ads for the positions appeared, he mentioned them to Karimi, who had never thought she'd fight fires herself. "We believe in our abilities."

Those abilities are honed by training the same way as the men's, rappelling down a multistory training wall, jumping from heights, carrying the injured, and finding escape routes. Members of the unit have long experience with competitive sports, and their daily routine includes 30 minutes of vigorous exercise.

Such preparation can pay off. Karimi remembers a call at 3:30 a.m. A gas truck was burning so hot that a neighboring building caught fire.

"The whole area was lit up like day, and it was tough. [T]here was the possibility of an explosion," recalls Karimi. "It was so frightening, but [we] controlled the fire. Even our gloves were burning"

Not all stories end happily. Ms. Haji relates a call this summer when the unit was unable to resuscitate a toddler who had fallen in a pool. Several of the women went to the boy's funeral to offer comfort. "It was my first bitter experience," says Ms. Haji. "But they were appreciating us."

Such performance has not gone unnoticed elsewhere in Iran, where a number of cities have expressed interest. "Karaj is a good model," says Gholamreza Abbasi, head of the program. "The [Islamic] system will accept it, and people want it."

Muslim homecoming queen at North Carolina A&T State University

2005-10-14T15:32:00.000Z

Beauty queen glad to honor her faith

Roanoke's Anisah Rasheed represents North Carolina A&T State University.

By Pamela J. Podger
The Roanoke Times

Excited and jittery, Anisah Rasheed of Roanoke pondered a fashion dilemma that few beauty queens have faced before: Matching her coronation gown with her hajib, a headscarf worn by Muslim women.

Rasheed, 20, was crowned Miss A&T for 2005-06 on Thursday night in a sparkling fishtail gown -- with a tiara glittering over her golden hajib -- during homecoming ceremonies at North Carolina A&T State University.

University officials say Rasheed is the first Muslim selected as campus queen by the 11,000-student sAdvertisement

chool. She'll be featured, along with others from black colleges and universities, in an upcoming issue of Ebony magazine.

Rasheed was elected at a forum in April, competing against eight women in the categories of talent, formalwear, speech and debate. She said no one has made an issue of her faith or covering her body with traditional garb.

"Once you learn to accept yourself, it washes away everyone's opinions about you and lets you do what you will in life,'' she said. "I'm glad I'm a role model for Muslims, but it is for everyone who faces challenges. It is about being confident."

Worldwide, there are just a handful of Muslim women who've won beauty pageants. Some conservative Muslims say the contests defy Islam's edict requiring public modesty in women. Other Muslims frown on men or women flaunting their sexuality and say exposing the body is degrading. Still others oppose pageants on feminist grounds, considering the contests as throwbacks that objectify women.

In September, a Muslim leader in Liverpool, England, urged an Iraqi woman to withdraw from the Miss England competition. In the past few years, there has been friction over Muslim contestants in beauty pageants in Pakistan, Canada and elsewhere. In 2002, Nigerian crowds rioted after an English newspaper made a disparaging remark about Islam's prophet during the Miss World competition.

But Leila Ahmed, a Harvard University professor of women's studies in religion, said she doesn't see anything controversial.

"On the face of it, I don't know why her faith should interfere with her. There is nothing she is doing that is degrading. Why do women who wear the hajib also put on makeup and tight jeans?" she said. "It is true that Muslim requires modesty and you shouldn't be flaunting yourself sexually. But isn't that also true for people who are of Christian and Jewish faiths?"

Rasheed is at peace with her decision. Occasionally, Rasheed said she felt like "an outcast" as a Muslim and at times didn't wear her hajib because of "peer pressure" at her junior and senior high schools. At university, she embraced her religion, saying people treated her with respect and honored differences.

"At the end of the day, it is between me and God,'' said Rasheed, a senior marketing major. "I know I'm doing what God intends me to do."

Her father, Correlli Rasheed, who is the imam -- or leader -- at Masjid An-nur mosque in Roanoke, said he is proud of his daughter, who has a long list of successes as a student, athlete and young entrepreneur. She graduated from William Fleming High School in 2003.

"It is just a testament to her leadership and her desire to serve people and others,'' he said of his daughter's latest achievement. "One of the things I've always admired about her -- even with all her accomplishments -- is she is really one of the most humble people I know.''

Even if Miss A&T was a Muslim who wasn't his daughter, he said, "My thoughts would be about the individual and about their faith: Is this something that could cause them to go farther away from their faith or is this another experience in life?"

With the composure of an older woman, Rasheed said the Miss A&T competition is about poise, intellect and quick wits. She said there wasn't a swimsuit category at her school competition nor was there one at last weekend's National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame Queen Competition in Atlanta.

"Here, [on campus] it is an election and a forum to see what you have to offer, and the students decide if you have the brains to win,'' Rasheed said. "One thing about the pageant in Atlanta -- it is not about your outer beauty, but is about your intellect.''

Rasheed received a budget for her coronation and will get free room and board and a monthly stipend during her reign.

Her mother, Valerie Rasheed-Dale, was thrilled for her daughter.

"This is phenomenal. She's a very focused person. She told me in her freshman year that she wanted to be Miss A&T,'' she said. "I know when she sets her mind to something, she puts her whole heart into it. To raise a child, it takes a village, and Roanoke, Virginia, has been her village."

Muslim woman named in top 10 college women in the US

2005-10-14T14:05:00.000Z

Rensselaer Senior Named One of Top 10 College Women by Glamour Magazine

Ghofrane Benghanem is tutor, biochemistry and biophysics student, Muslim, hospital volunteer, woman mentor, biomedical researcher, community advocate, teaching assistant, and more. She also has recently been named one of Glamour magazine’s Top Ten College Women in the United States.

Glamour Magazine profile

Muslim Women and Other Misunderstandings

2005-10-13T19:28:00.000Z

"Is there such a thing as the Muslim world? Is the "veil" a sign of submission or courage? Is our Western concern about women in Islam really a concern for the well-being of women? Our guest, Egyptian-American Leila Ahmed, challenges current thought on these and other questions."

Listen to program

Leila Ahmed is also the author of Women and Gender in Islam : Historical Roots of a Modern Debate and A Border Passage : From Cairo to America--A Woman's Journey.

New Afghan women MPs pledge to roll back the tyranny of men

2005-10-03T12:30:00.000Z

Tim Albone, Kabul

WOMEN poised to take their seats in Afghanistan’s new parliament later this month have promised to press for changes in the laws under which men are entitled to sell their young daughters to prospective husbands and teenage girls can be sent to jail for being raped.

Female candidates say they will fight for equal rights and the end of forced marriages. They will argue that all women should have the right to leave their homes without a male escort and should be free to choose whether to wear a burqa.

Preliminary results of the September 18 election are expected early this week and since a quarter of the seats have been reserved for women, many are confident that they will be elected.

Among them is Sabrina Sagheb, 25, who is typical of the new breed of female politician. Her election posters, showing her wearing lipstick and a yellow headscarf, angered conservatives but captured the hearts of young men.

Sagheb, head of the Afghan Basketball Federation, has promised to improve women’s rights if she is elected. “The gunslingers and conservatives are complaining about women getting seats in parliament but we have been mistreated and not given rights throughout the history of Afghanistan,” she said. “This needs to change.”

There is no more poignant symbol of the struggle they face than Pul-e-Chakri prison, on the outskirts of Kabul. The medieval establishment is home to 72 women, many of them charged with so-called “moral crimes”: running away from an abusive husband, having an affair or, most troubling, being the victims of rape.

Among them is Khatira Queemzada, 18, an intelligent young woman accused of deserting her violent husband. “My husband and his family were illiterate and jealous of my education,” she said. “They used to beat me so I ran away. My family didn’t help because once you marry you are no longer their responsibility.”

Under Afghan law, Queemzada would be freed if she agreed to go back to the husband who beat her. Despite pressure from her family, she prefers to stay in prison and fight her case when it comes to trial.

As she told her story last week, a woman convicted of robbery repeatedly beat her hand against her head and screamed for her family.

The women prisoners sleep 20 to a fly-infested room. The stench is overpowering and the air is muggy.

Some 86 children are incarcerated with their mothers. Dressed in rags, they have no access to education and will remain in prison until they are old enough to fend for themselves or until a relative offers to take them.

At 16, Fariba Wardak is still a child, yet in the eyes of Afghan law she is already a criminal. She is shy and when she talks to men she covers her face with her black headscarf, but it does not obscure the desperate nature of her plight.

She said her father had twice sold her into marriage and had then run off with her mother and both the dowries. Wardak found out that she had been sold only when both prospective husbands turned up to collect her.

Although it is acceptable for Afghan men to have more than two wives, it is a crime for a woman to have two husbands. Wardak has spent nine months in the jail and is due to remain there for at least another three.

In the centre of town is another jail for women. Woyalat prison is in the central police compound and here the conditions are worse. The cells are mouldy, hot in summer and freezing in winter, disease is rife and the air oppressive.

Read complete article

Going through death to give birth

2005-09-29T17:31:00.000Z

Seventeen years old and visiting a doctor for the first time in her life, Amira, married a few months back, finds out that she is pregnant. She remembers that about to years back, the health worker had advised her to take vitamins because she used to feel fatigued. Today, the doctor tells her that she is anaemic. Her blood test suggests that her haemoglobin level is as low as 6g/dl. The doctor tells Amira’s mother-in-law that she will have to be careful about Amira’s food and care, otherwise, Amira and her foetus may not be able to pull through. Amira’s mother-in-law is insisting that the doctor should give her daughter-in-law some tablets. But the doctor replies that it may not be good idea because Amira is already suffering from diarrhoea and the medicines used in cases of anaemia have a tendency to cause constipation or diarrhoea may aggravate her condition. Amira is angry. She can’t understand why she has to go through this when other girls her age are going to the school, and do not have to worry about anything. The doctor tells her that she is in this situation because she is married and pregnant while her friends may not be. He explains that at 17 she is still growing; her own body requirement of red blood [haemoglobin] is high. Pregnancy at this age means far more increased demand for red blood [haemoglobin] to meet the needs of the foetus. Since her body is producing more blood to meet the needs of the foetus without having enough iron in her food, it is causing wateriness in the blood. “it is like adding water to blood to meet the quantity requirement but it reduces redness in blood and causes all the trouble that she is facing”, the doctor explained.

Amira’s village falls within the service catchment area of a health centre. The centre is not far from her home. “It is useful for children”, says Amira about the centre. Her family did not want her going to the centre when Amira complained of dizziness a couple of times. This centre has no facilities for women’s health other than an examination room. Amira did not complain about it, “I don’t like to go to the health centre, anyway”. But her family took her to the centre when she developed persistent irregular bowel movements. The health worker prescribed her medicines meant for diarrhoea. Amira’s mother-in-law patiently listened to her grumblings and cajoled her to take the medicines as prescribed by the health worker. Two days later Amira fainted. Her husband collected his savings and decided to take her to a private hospital in a neighbouring town. Her mother-in-law gathered a few things that may be needed in case they have to hospitalize Amira. She loves Amira. She frequently asked her son to be gentle with Amira and showered extra affection on her thinking she is a delicate girl who is having difficulty adjusting to the married life.

Safiah, Amira’s mother-in-law is around 40 years old. She is dressed in a black abaya and a black pair of gloves which reflect her family’s modest condition. The opening in her naqab for the eyes has lost its shape and is partly covering her left eye. When the doctor was explaining Amira’s condition, she could feel a lump in her throat. She couldn’t help breaking into loud sobs when Amira’s angry voice asked why she has to go through this. Safiah is not convinced with the doctor’s explanation. So while the doctor was explaining she interjected many times to tell the doctor as well as Amira that it is women’s fate to go through death to give birth. Like many traditional Yemeni women, Safiah believes motherhood is a holy duty that every woman must perform even if it means risking her life. But she is desperate to protect Amira. Once they came out of the doctor’s room, she dragged her son to one side and asked him to pray so that Amira’s first child birth goes smoothly. In a slight indirect way, she asked him to give Amira some rest.

read entire article from the Yemen Times

Bosnian Serb first to face national war crimes court

2005-09-29T17:21:00.000Z

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29731546.htm

AMSTERDAM, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The Hague war crimes tribunal, under pressure to end hearings by 2010, sent a Bosnian Serb detainee back home on Wednesday, the first time it has handed back a suspect for trial in a national court.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said Radovan Stankovic would be tried on charges of four counts of crimes against humanity by the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"The Tribunal views this as a landmark event, being the first transfer of an ICTY accused to be tried in a national jurisdiction," the court said in a statement.

Under pressure to speed up hearings into war crimes from the Balkan wars, the U.N. tribunal wants to transfer some mid- and low-ranking cases to national courts and focus on major suspects.

Some of Europe's worst crimes since World War Two were committed in the 1992-95 Bosnian war that claimed up to 200,000 lives. Most cases so far have been tried by the Hague court.

Stankovic is suspected of crimes in the eastern town of Foca during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Prosecutors say he was in charge of a house used to detain at least nine Muslim women and girls who were assaulted and repeatedly raped.

It has taken Bosnia 10 years since the end of the war to fulfil conditions set by the international community to conduct high-level trials -- it has built facilities, passed legislation and educated specialised staff.

Five teams of prosecutors will handle war crimes cases transferred from The Hague and potential cases against thousands of suspects charged by local courts.

"The tribunal has ... undertaken an intensive and wide-ranging effort to help strengthen the capacity of national institutions to process war crimes cases," the ICTY said.

U.N prosecutors have requested the transfer of several other war crimes cases to Bosnia, including four Bosnian Serbs accused of crimes in detention camps in northwest Bosnia.

Bending like Beckham, in Tehran, that is

2005-09-29T17:18:00.000Z

Muslim women in a football league of their own

By Arifa Akbar
Published: 15 September 2005
Rimla Akhtar was the only girl in her school football team. As a teenager, her idols were Gary Lineker and Paul Gascoigne.

Her room was plastered with posters of the Liverpool players John Barnes and Jamie Redknapp and she was a regular on the terraces at Anfield. By the time the film Bend it Like Beckham was released in 2002, featuring Parminder Nagra as a footie fanatic, Ms Akhtar, 22, from north London, was streets ahead of her fictional counterpart.

Article Length: 504 words (approx.)

In Iran's all-women games: a US athlete

2005-09-28T15:57:00.000Z

RUNNER: Saira Kureshi, a member of the US Global Sport team, holds Iraq, Iran and US flags during the opening ceremony of the 4th Women Islamic Games in Tehran on September 24.
(REUTERS)

http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050926-034815-1202r

TEHRAN -- Tehran may be a long way from Texas, but American runner Saira Kureshi feels right at home as she prepares to be the first woman to represent the United States in Iran's Islamic Women's Games.

Kureshi, 26, will compete in the 800 and 1,500 meter runs in the fourth all-women games, an event launched in 1993 to allow Iranian women to compete while observing their strict dress code of being covered head to toe.

Since arriving in Tehran on September 22, the Texan-born Pakistani has been busy settling in, meeting fellow athletes and offering her support to sportswomen from 48 countries, including neighboring Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.

Kureshi jumped at the opportunity to represent her nation and two cultures after the games organizing body, The Islamic Federation of Women's Sport (IFWS), opened up the event to non-Muslim nations for the first time in a bid to attract more athletes.

"To come here, meet the athletes and go back home to the United States to tell everyone what I saw. It's also a wonderful opportunity to come to Iran as an ambassador," Kureshi explained.

She also hopes to present a positive image of an American to Muslim nations, increasingly engaged in tense relationships with her home country.

The US and its allies still occupy neighboring Iraq and on September 22 Washington reiterated its call for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program.

"At the moment, especially with everything that's going on in the US, in Iran and Iraq, it's really important to be here," Kureshi explained.

"People here could not care less about governments," she added.

When she finishes her medical studies, Kureshi hopes to return to the region to work after being inspired by time spent helping refugees at camps on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

In the meantime she will focus on her athletic disciplines, two out of 18 being run at the event, which runs until September 28.

Athletics, shooting, table tennis and taekwondo have attracted the most participants.

The games have garnered an increasing amount of high-profile support over the years, notably from the International Olympic Committee, which regards the event as a chance for Muslim women to strive for sporting excellence.

The head of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, praised the competition at its opening ceremony on Saturday.

"These games will give women the chance to experience the joy of competing as well as feeling part of the global movement to promote women in sport and through sport," said Rogge.

Opponents of the games, however, regard the meet as little more than a sideshow to gag women competitors denied access to international sporting events, particularly the Olympic Games.

"Women can no longer be stopped from playing sports in [Muslim] countries, so they are allowed to play but in a controlled environment," said an international table tennis referee, requesting anonymity.

Since the Islamic revolution Iranian women have been mostly banned from such events due to the obligatory headscarf and long coat that they must wear in front of men, even abroad.

Male coaches, referees and spectators are banned from attending except for golf, shooting and archery, where participants are modestly dressed and veiled.

Under the previous reformist government of the last eight years, Iran started sending women athletes to competitions abroad in the few fields where women are able to compete and wear the veil, such as shooting, taekwondo, fencing, canoeing, chess and horse riding.

The IFWS, however, dismisses the argument that the event reinforces the segregation and oppression of women in Muslim societies.

"We are seeking to empower and encourage Muslim women, who are absent from the international sports grounds due to their beliefs," said Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of the former president and games founder, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Although Iran has been approached by other Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Qatar wanting to host the games, Hashemi sees little chance of them leaving Iran.

"Other countries have different interpretations of Islam. I am not sure they would be able to hold the games like us with such observance of Islamic rules," she said.

In the eyes of the Iranians, Pakistan blotted its copybook by sending a woman swimmer to the Athens Olympics Games.

And it is difficult to see the likes of a Nawal Al Moutawakel or Hassiba Boulmerka emerging from the Tehran Games.

Morocco's Moutawakel became the first woman from an Islamic nation to win an Olympic medal and the first Moroccan athlete of either sex to win a gold medal when she won the 400-meter hurdles at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

In 1998 Moutawakel was chosen to be a member of the International Olympic Committee.

Boulmerka scored a stunning upset victory in the 1,500 meters at the 1991 World Athletics Championships. When she returned to Algiers she was hailed as a national heroine and as a model for Arab women who wanted to break away from restrictive roles.

But she was also condemned by Islamic fundamentalists and was forced to move to Europe to train.

She went on to win the 1992 Olympic gold medal.

When Kureshi takes to the starting blocks she will also be making history as the first American woman to compete, not just in the games, but in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But she is not the first American athlete to come to the Islamic republic.

In 1998 an American wrestling team took part in the international Takhti Cup tournament.

PAKISTAN: Women more confident in reporting sexual violence

2005-09-15T03:50:00.000Z

(note- sorry I haven't been posting here often enough)

article link

LAHORE, 6 September (IRIN) - The tale of Sonia Naz, the latest case of alleged gang-rape to be widely publicised in Pakistan, has left even the most hardened observer badly shaken. But the very fact that the incident has come to light is indicative of a growing willingness among many women in this devout Islamic country to report such crimes.

Sonia's ordeal began nearly six years ago in the industrial city of Faisalabad, about 200 km west of Lahore, when her husband, Asim, was arrested by police. Asim, a low-level clerk in the revenue department, was involved with nearly a dozen other officials in a corruption case.

Most senior officials initially arrested were soon free. Asim, on the other hand, seems to have vanished - and while his family paid many bribes, and Sonia, expecting her second child at the time, repeatedly visited the police station - the young man was never located.

In despair, Sonia, in April of this year, turned up at the national assembly in the capital, Islamabad, leaving her two small children with her sister in Lahore. "I hoped to meet Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and tell him my story. I was certain he would help," she said.

Sonia, barely educated and unaware of protocol, was accidentally waved forward by a security guard right into the chamber, where she took her place among the legislators. When her presence was noticed, the bewildered Sonia was dragged away by guards, taken to a police station and charged with breaking into the assembly.

After being released following pressure from journalists and rights activists, she was re-arrested in Lahore in May, where she says she was repeatedly raped, stripped naked, beaten and abused by her police captors, despite her pleas for mercy.

After her story was published, the prime minister and President Pervez Musharraf swiftly intervened to order an inquiry and the suspension of Superintendent Khalid Abdullah and Inspector Jamshed Chishti of the Lahore police, allegedly involved in the sexual assault.

Leading rights activist and Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) chairwoman, Asma Jehangir, has been nominated as her lawyer, and after meeting the police inquiry team at Jehangir's office in Lahore she was moved at the weekend to a secure shelter for women run by Jehangir's legal aid firm, AGHS.

"This is definitely one of the most terrible stories I have ever heard and we deal with women victims of crime almost every day," Jehangir said.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Zafar Qureishi, heading the inquiry into the alleged rape, said: "We began investigations immediately after recording Sonia Naz's statement. Nothing will remain unprobed."

While at least three other incidents of brutal rape in police custody have come forward this year alone, many others are thought to have gone unreported, the HRCP said.

The commission said Sonia's case demonstrates a growing determination on the part of many Pakistani women to fight back against violence. "It is in a way very important that Sonia has had the courage to go public about what happened. The times when women, fearing social stigma, refused to report such crimes or were too scared and ashamed to do so are changing," Mehboob Ahmed Khan, legal officer at the HRCP, said.

The HRCP said it had details of more than 250 incidents of rape and gang-rape in the first six months of 2005 alone. The fact that the figures are significantly higher than in the same period of 2004 is put down to an increase in the reporting of such crimes by victims.

"This is a huge triumph and shows rights campaigners have succeeded in at least convincing women victims of rape that they must come forward, and must not blame themselves for what happened to them," Khan said.

Women parliamentarians held a demonstration outside the national legislature in Islamabad on Thursday protesting against the alleged rape and abuse of Sonia Naz. The demonstrators demanded the government bring the perpetrators to justice, whilst carrying placards against the abuse of power by police officials.

Imrana and the Shariah Controversy

2005-07-11T20:02:00.000Z

by: Yoginder Sikand

For all the additional pain and unwanted publicity that Imrana has suffered as a result of the controversy following a fatwa from the Deoband madrasa nullifying her marriage after being allegedly raped by her father-in-law, the brouhaha has had a curious positive consequence. It has led to heated debates among sections of the ulama belonging to different Muslim sects as to exactly what Islamic law or the shariah is all about. The ulama and Islamist ideologues never tire of insisting that the ideal solution to the myriad problems besetting humankind lies in the shariah. Hence their passionate advocacy of an Islamic state that would enforce the shariah as the ideal political dispensation. By provoking the ulama of different sects to articulate different, indeed, mutually contradictory, interpretations of the shariah on the particular issue of a woman raped by her father-in-law, the Imrana controversy strikingly reveals that the shariah is not the monolithic or well-defined system that it is generally made out to be, by the ‘ulama and Islamists as well as those opposed to their claims. The controversy has also made amply clear the limits and internal inconsistencies of traditional shariah-based discourse. If the ulama themselves are so confused and divided as to what exactly the shariah lays down on this particular issue, how, one may ask, do they propose to undertake the ambitious task of running modern state systems based on shariah laws, which is what they believe Muslims everywhere must strive to establish?

A related aspect of the Imrana controversy is the contested nature of Muslim religious authority. Who exactly speaks for the shariah? Whose interpretation of the shariah is to be held by Muslims as normative and binding? If contradictory positions are offered on a particular legal issue by different Muslim sects, based on their different understandings of the shariah, what is the criterion to decide between them? Each Muslim sect claims to represent normative Islam. Each claims to be based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah, the path of the Prophet Muhammad, and asserts its own understanding of the shariah as authoritative. Each sect’s claim to representing normative Islamic includes an in-built rejection of the claims of other sects. Consequently, polemics between the ‘ulama of different sects are often centred on diverse understandings and interpretations of the shariah on a range of issues, as the controversy over the Imrana affair well illustrates.

In the wake of the Imrana controversy numerous ‘ulama belonging to different sects have expressed their respective views on the issue of a woman raped by her father-in-law in the columns of the Urdu press. They seem to be agreed that the issue is essentially a religious one, which requires a religious, that is to say, a shariah-based, response. As Maulvi Jameel Ahmad Ilyasi of the self-styled All-India Imams’ Organisation, insists, ‘This is a purely religious question’. Or, as Maulvi Muhammad Saeed Mazhari, chief administrator of the Madrasa Mazahir ul-‘Ulum Waqf, Saharanpur, argues, ‘The Imrana case can be solved only on the basis of the commandments of the Qur’an. It is a purely shariah-related issue. It is not a political or social matter that one can garner public support to solve it through strikes and demonstrations’.

Because the Imrana case is projected by the ‘ulama as a religious issue, and not simply a case issue of gender injustice or violation of human rights, they insist that they alone have the right to solve it. Insisting that the ‘ulama have the prerogative to deal with the case, the Deobandi scholar Maulvi Mubin Akhtar Qasmi of the al-Mahad al-Qazi, New Delhi, says, ‘It is no advisable for ordinary people to issue statements on the Imrana case. The ulama have provided full guidance on every sort of burning issue […] They are aware of international affairs and have full capacity of giving the right decisions’.

Other than the ulama, no one else, not even the courts, ought to ‘interfere’ in the Imrana affair, some ulama appear to believe. Thus, Maulvi Muhammad Ahsan Qasmi, deputy Mufti of the Dar ul-‘Ulum Waqf, Deoband, asserts that if the courts counter the Deoband fatwa and decide that Imrana’s marriage remains intact despite having been raped, it will be ‘construed as interference in religion’, since such a decision would be opposed to ‘the clear commandments of the Qur’an’. In such a case, Imrana will have to decide whether to accept the verdict of the court or ‘bow her head before the Qur’an and the commandments of the shariah’. Similarly, Maulvi Habib ur-Rahman Khairabadi, Chief Mufti of the Dar ul-Ulum, Deoband, defends the fatwa calling for the dissolution of the marriage of a woman raped by her father-in-law, and opines that if the issue is taken to the courts ‘we think that, keeping in mind the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, they will come to the same decision and give a verdict in the light of this’. He sees the issue as being ‘directly related to the Qur’an’, and insists that ‘a matter clearly specified by the Qur’an cannot be debated’. In other words, he appears to insist, the Deobandi interpretation of the Qur’an on the matter of a woman raped by her father-in-law simply has to be accepted by the courts.

Because Imrana is a Muslim, the ulama argue, she must abide by whatever the ulama claim that the shariah lays down. As the Deobandi Maulvi Muhammad Saeed Mazhari writes, ‘If Imrana was raped by her father-in-law, she has been oppressed and he is a tyrant, but the matter does not rest here. The matter is not simply about this, but is also about the principles and laws of the shariah. A Muslim has no freedom to decide on his own. Allah says that Muslims must observe Islam fully, and so they must not do anything that goes against the shariah. Imrana, too, will obey the shariah, and indeed, has expressed her willingness to do so after the Deoband madrasa issued its fatwa’.

Yet, despite insisting that the question demands a shariah-based answer that only the ulama can provide, and despite arguing from within the same shariah-based discourse, the writings of the ulama of different sects on the Imrana issue express strikingly different conclusions, amply illustrating the ambiguity of what is traditionally understood as shariah as well as the significant sectarian differences on precisely what the shariah is thought to lay down on numerous substantive matters.

Most Indian Muslims are associated with the Hanafi Sunni school, and articles and statements by several Hanafi ulama have appeared in the Urdu press on the Imrana case. Since the Hanafi school interprets the shariah as ordaining a woman’s marriage annulled if she is raped by her father-in-law, almost all the Hanafi ulama writing on the subject have repeated this position and have fiercely supported the Deoband fatwa. Interestingly, support for this position has been expressed by both Barelvi as well as Deobandi ulama, bringing together the two major groups of Hanafis who otherwise see themselves as bitter enemies.

The Hanafi position, which is what the Deoband fatwa is based on, is explained in a lengthy article by Maulvi Yasin Ahktar Misbahi, a noted Barelvi scholar. He cites a Qur’anic verse that forbids a man from marrying a woman whom his father had married. He uses this verse to conclude that this also means that a man is forbidden to remain married to a woman who has had sex, whether consensual or forced, with his father. Hence, he lays down, Imrana’s marriage has been dissolved and she can no longer live with her husband. She is, in other words, haram (forbidden) for him, as well as for her father-in-law. ‘Just as if a drop of alcohol or urine is dropped into a glass of water, whether accidentally or deliberately, the water is rendered impure’, he writes, so, too, ‘if a woman has sex with her father-in-law, even if through rape, she can no longer remain the lawfully wedded wife of her husband’. He insists that this edict is not his personal opinion. Rather, he claims, this is what the Qur’an itself ordains, a position that, he adds, is firmly supported by various classical books of Hanafi jurisprudence. Further clarifying the Hanafi position, Mufti Mukarram Ahmad of Delhi explains that if a man so much as touches any part of his daughter-in-law’s body with lust, her marriage to her husband is dissolved. How, then, he asks, defending the Deoband fatwa, can a woman raped by her father-in-law remain married to her husband?

If the Hanafis insist that the shariah demands that a woman’s marriage be dissolved if she is raped (or even, as Mufti Mukarram tells us, simply touched with lust) by her father-in-law, other ulama, non-Hanafis as well as some dissenting Hanafis, tell a different story. The Urdu press has also highlighted the views of scholars associated with the Sunni Ahl-i Hadith and the Jafari Shia sects who have come out in opposition to the fatwa. These scholars claim that according to the shariah, as they understand it, the marriage of a woman raped by her father-in-law still remains intact. No matter who rapes a woman, writes Maulvi Syed Nasim Abbas Abidi, principal of a Shia madrasa in Uttar Pradesh, her marriage is not affected. Likewise, Maulvi Asghar Ali Imam Mahdi, General Secretary of the Markazi Jamiat ul-Ahl-i Hadith argues that through a forbidden (haram) act like rape, a legitimate (halal) relationship like marriage cannot be made haram. To ordain divorce for a woman raped by her father-in-law, which is what the Deoband fatwa lays down, is to give her a ‘double punishment’, which, he says, a ‘just religion like Islam cannot allow’.

An influential critic of the Deoband fatwa is Maulvi Abdul Wahhab Khilji, a leading Indian Ahl-i Hadith scholar. He sees the fatwa as reflecting ‘intellectual stagnation’ and ‘obstinacy’ in following ‘self-made paths’ instead of divine guidance, the Qur’an and the Hadith, sayings attributed to Muhammad. This is probably a reference to the Deobandis’ insistence on taqlid or strict conformity to the rules of medieval Hanafi jurisprudence, which the Ahl-i Hadith believe violates the Qur’an and Hadith on numerous counts. Maulvi Khilji insists that if Imrana had indeed raped by her father-in-law, to claim, as the Deoband fatwa does, that she can no longer remain married to her husband, is to ‘go beyond the limits set by Allah, besides constituting a clear interference in the shariah, because no haram act can make a halal thing haram’. He points out that the Qur’anic verse used by the Hanafis to dissolve the marriage of a woman raped by her father-in-law refers to a ban on men marrying women whom their fathers have married. To claim that this implies that a man cannot remain married to a woman raped by his father, as the Hanafis believe, is, he writes, ‘against tradition and reason’.

Maulvi Khilji’s opinion is seconded by a certain Qari Muhammad Miyan Mazhari of the Islamic Council of India, who terms the Deoband fatwa as ‘inappropriate, unjust and one-sided’ and as having ‘ignored all the principles of Islamic jurisprudence’. ‘It will promote doubts in the minds of people about Islam’s system of justice’, and ‘give rise to a new conflict (fitna) in Muslim society’, he warns, adding that ‘according to the Qur’an, those who create fitna are guilty of a crime worse than murder’. He claims, as Maulvi Khilji does, that the Qur’anic verse that the Hanafis quote to justify their stance dissolving the marriage of a woman raped by her father-in-law is ‘not at all relevant to the case’ as the verse forbids a man from marrying a woman whom his father had married and does not refer to rape at all. He argues that his position is supported by the Shafi’ and Mailki schools of Sunni law and the Jafari Shia school, and suggests the possibility of Hanafi Muslims resorting to the opinion of one of these schools on the matter.

Maulvi Ikhlaq Husain Qasmi, who, from his title of ‘Qasmi’, appears to be of Deobandi background, also refers to the Shafi’ position in order to indirectly critique the fatwa. He claims that the Qur’an has appointed the husband as the head of the family and that, therefore, it is only the husband who can end the marital tie. Neither the woman nor any ‘evil deed’, including rape, he says, can do so, unless the husband also chooses to divorce his wife. Since marriage is a ‘blessing’, it cannot be undone simply by an ‘evil deed’ such as rape, no matter who the rapist is, so Imam Shafi’ is said to have argued, Maulvi Qasmi says with approval. He does not, however, go so far as to declare the Deoband fatwa as void.

The possibility that some ulama hold out of resorting to other schools of Islamic jurisprudence to resolve contentious issues, such as rape of a woman by her father-in-law, on which the provisions of Hanafi law are seen as problematic, is, predictably, opposed by numerous diehard Deobandi ulama, who defend the fatwa as being in consonance with Islam. This reflects both a deep-seated belief in the superiority of the Hanafi school as well as a concern to protect the power of the Deobandi ulama. It is clear that large sections of the Deobandi ulama believe that if Muslims are allowed to resort to other schools of law in difficult situations their own authority would be undermined. Some Deobandis, while agreeing to the theoretical possibility of resorting to other schools on certain contentious matters, lay down almost impossible conditions as a means to actually prevent people from doing so. Thus, Mufti Muhammad Ahsan Qasmi of the Dar ul-‘Ulum Waqf, Deoband, writes that in order to resort to the ruling of another Muslim school on a particular matter there has to be a consensus of all the muftis and ulama authorizing this. However, in the Imrana case, he hastens to add, ‘in the face of the clear Qur’anic rulings, there is no possibility of this’. In this way he insists that the Deoband fatwa is entirely in accordance with the Qur’an, ruling out the possibility of resorting to the Shafi’ or Maliki position in order to salvage Imrana’s marriage.

As the ulama writing in the Urdu press in defence of the fatwa see it, the Imrana case is being unfairly projected by what they call the ‘enemies of Islam’ in order to sully the image of the faith. Islam, it appears to them, is surrounded by a vast number of mortal enemies out to destroy God’s own religion. Therefore, it is in constant need of being defended. Although this is not explicitly stated, what they see as their defence of Islam in the Imrana case is actually a concerted effort, in the face of fierce criticism, to justify their own interpretation of the shariah that calls for the dissolution of the marriage of a woman raped by her father-in-law.

For these ulama, Hanafi jurisprudence comes to be as synonymous with Islam itself. In defending the fatwa from what its ulama supporters brand as the ‘enemies of Islam’ the plight of Imrana is forgotten and the critique of their understanding of shariah mounted by their opponents, rather than being engaged with, is dismissed as altogether worthless. Thus, Maulvi Salam Qasmi of the Dar ul-‘Ulum Waqf, Deoband, labels the opposition to the fatwa as ‘an organized conspiracy’ by elements who want to ‘paint a bad picture of the Muslim community and its religion’. Maulvi Saeed Mazhari of the Madrasa Mazahir ul-‘Ulum Waqf, Saharanpur, accuses what he terms as ‘so-called freethinkers and enlightened people’ of ‘shedding crocodile tears for Imrana’ in order to ‘make fun of the pure shariah’ and to project ‘the ulama who correctly interpret Islam as an object of blame’. Those who present themselves as Imrana’s sympathizers, thunders Mufti Muhammad Ahsan Qasmi of Deoband, actually want to ‘ruin her life in the Hereafter, after her life in this world has been ruined by her father-in-law’. If Imrana were to act on their ill-conceived advice and remain with her husband, he warns, she would be guilty of violating the Qur’an and would have to suffer after death for this.

As the Hanafi defenders of the fatwa see it, there is simply no merit in the arguments put forward by their critics, both Muslims as well as others. The critique of the Hanafi position on the matter of a woman raped by her father-in-law is deliberately construed as an assault on Islam itself. In this way, arguments against Hanafi prescriptions that are patently anti-women are sought to be robbed of all legitimacy, even when these arguments are put forward by believing, practicing Muslims. Thus, the redoubtable Ahmad Bukhari, of the Jamia Masjid, Delhi, the self-styled Shahi Imam, decries the opposition to the fatwa as part of an ‘anti-Islamic agenda’ that ‘seeks to prove that Islam cannot protect women’. ‘In actual fact’, Bukhari insists, ‘the opposite is true’. ‘So-called intellectuals, legal specialists and self-appointed reformist Muslims’, he adds, are using the Imrana case to argue that ‘there is need for reform in religion’, but, he says, ‘according to the Qur’an, Islam is a complete religion and there is no need for any reform it’. Rather, he insists, it is the opponents of the ulama who need to be ‘reformed’. Another strident defender of the fatwa, the Barelvi Maulvi Yasin Akhtar Misbahi, dismisses the critique of the Hanafi prescription as being a covert attempt to ‘defame the shariah in the name of protecting human rights’. Seeking to counter his detractors, he claims that the shariah, which he appears to equate with the traditional Hanafi corpus of laws, lays down such rules to ‘protect’ women as ‘are not even remotely approximated in other religions and ideologies’. There is, thus, not an iota of merit in the arguments of the fatwa’s detractors, its ardent ulama defenders appear to argue.

Framing the Imrana case in solely religious terms, the ulama have sought to reduce it a question of the shariah, over which they claim to have expertise and the sole authority to pontificate about. But doing so has not made the controversy any less intractable. By speaking in different voices about what precisely the shariah says or does not say on the issue of a woman raped by her father-in-law, we are left grappling with the question of precisely what the great shariah debate is really all about: the plight of Imrana and women like her or the authority and privileges of the ulama.

Bahrain women's activist pleads not guilty

2005-06-08T14:36:00.000Z

Thanks to Chan'ad Bahraini!

ADNAN MALIK
Associated Press

MANAMA, Bahrain - An outspoken women's rights activist pleaded not guilty Saturday to charges of slander for publicly criticizing family court judges, a case that has garnered attention from international human rights groups.

A small group of women cloaked head-to-toe in black abayas gathered in the courthouse to support Ghada Jamsheer, 40, who has lobbied for years against the use of Sharia, or Islamic law, in family courts. She said Sharia undermines women's rights.

"I prefer to go to jail than to live with restrictions and without rights for women," Jamsheer said after the 15-minute hearing. "They want me to shut my mouth but they will never make me."

Jamsheer, wearing a beige T-shirt and orange slacks, her shoulder-length dark hair streaked with blond highlights, calmly chewed gum as the three-judge panel read the charges against her. They included slander for calling family court judges in Bahrain "corrupt, biased and unqualified" and using abusive language against a former judge.

The judges said the comments were made between October 2002 and June 2003.

Jamsheer's defense team of six lawyers asked for more time to prepare their case, and the trial was adjourned to July 2. Jamsheer could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted, said one of her attorneys, Mohammed al-Mutawwa.

After entering her plea, Jamsheer called for the resignation of the general prosecutor, prompting applause from nearly 20 supporters in the audience.

Outside the courtroom, women carried placards promoting Jamsheer, and some strung a garland of flowers around her neck.

"Me and my mother were kicked out of our house by a Sharia court judge. Where should we live, on the streets?" one sign asked.

Hayat Sharif, a 29-year-old divorcee, said, "The authorities should put us all behind bars, because Ghada stands for our rights and we all say what she says and we are with her all the way."

Jamsheer has led efforts to move family cases to civil courts rather than religious courts. She also wants women granted the right to divorce, which can be difficult under Islamic law, and is pushing for a ban on polygamy. Muslim men can have up to four wives at a time.

Bahrain's family courts are based on Islamic law. Two separate courts exist for Sunni and Shiite Muslims, ruling on personal cases, including marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance cases.

There are no written personal status laws in Bahrain, which gives judges the authority to render judgments according to their own interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence.

"I have nothing personal against the judges. I am just trying to fight the system that hinders women's rights," Jamsheer said after the hearing.

Jamsheer heads the Women's Petition Committee, which monitors family court cases for women's rights violations. She also is president of the Bahrain Social Partnership for Combating Violence Against Women, which is under the supervision of Amnesty International.

In April 2003, the Women's Petition Committee collected some 1,700 signatures on a petition demanding legislative and judicial reform of the courts. For the past several years she has organized protests, vigils and a hunger strike in an effort to draw attention to the suffering of women in the existing family court system.

Jamsheer's trial has caught the attention of international rights group and local activists, who are rallying for her cause.

New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Bahraini government Wednesday to drop the charges against Jamsheer, saying there should be no criminal penalties for slander that does not "involve direct and immediate incitement to acts of violence or discrimination."

LaShawn R. Jefferson, the group's women's rights director, said, "Rather than putting one of Bahrain's most committed activists on trial, the government should work with Ghada Jamsheer to immediately address the issues that her organization has brought to light.

"These lawsuits are a blatant attempt to silence her and undermine the reform efforts she spearheads."

Related: Courts Try to Silence Women’s Rights Activist

Iranians become first Muslim women to scale Everest

2005-06-01T19:04:00.000Z

Iranians become first Muslim women to scale Everest

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Two Iranian climbers have become the first Muslim women to reach the top of the world's highest peak, Mount Everest, officials and climbing historians said on Tuesday.

Nepal's tourism ministry said Farkhondeh Sadegh, a 36-year-old graphic designer from Tehran, and Labeh Keshavarz, 25, a dentist from Zabedan, scaled the 8,850-metre (29,035-feet) mountain on Monday from the Nepali side of the mountain that straddles the border with China.

"These are the first Muslim women to reach the summit of Everest," a Kathmandu-based mountaineering historian told Reuters.

Many Muslim men have already climbed the giant peak.

A total of 102 women, including the Iranians, are among more than 1,600 people from 65 countries who have climbed Mount Everest since it was first scaled by New Zealand beekeeper Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Ministry official Rajendra Pandey said the Iranians used the South Col route used by Hillary and Sherpa.

Japan's Junko Tabei was the first woman to climb Mount Everest in May 1975. She also used the same route.

Pandey said Sadegh and Keshavarz were accompanied to the top by four other climbers and four Nepali sherpa guides, part of a 20-member Iranian team which had seven women members.

"About a dozen climbers from different countries have scaled the mountain on Tuesday. But it is not clear yet if there are more women among them," another official said.

On Monday, 46 climbers from different expeditions reached the top of Everest.

At least 187 climbers including seven women have died on the slopes of Mount Everest on both sides of the mountain that can also be climbed from Tibet.

Iranian American working with Afghan women.

2005-05-24T05:12:00.000Z

Iranian born American fashion designer Sarah Takesh, guest designer at this year’s VCUQ fashion show, is a unique personality in her field, courtesy her fusion of social and profit objectives. Not many from her industry might opt to operate out of a place like war-torn Kabul in Afghanistan. Tarsian & Blinkley, with the young designer as the creative and managing director, directly impacts the lives of 300 women in Kabul.

“Afghan women have gone completely unnoticed in the past,” observed Takesh who explained that despite the country undergoing a devastating phase it retains a rich cultural legacy.

The firm pays the women they employ wages that are well above the country’s standards and expose them to market-sensitive practices of quality control while its partners provide the women with skill training such as tailoring and literacy.

Here's another link about this designer Sarah Takesh. I've always believed that for Afghan women to gain expanded rights - like the right to take an active role in society, including holding political office and working outside non-traditional sectors like education and health - they need to control their own finances. But a lot of women are unable to keep their wages. Today I helped do some translation work for a documentary. A woman had come to a regional legal affairs office to complain that her husband cut her hair and threatened to kill her if she didn't bring more money home. He would take the money from her and spend it to his liking and beat her if she didn't make enough. Needless to say, that is one extreme case, but in general, women who are the primary breadwinners in their home are accorded more respect and independence. Kudos to Sarah Takesh for helping Afghan women.

Spurning the Stereotype: India’s Largest English Islamic Magazine’s Woman Editor

2005-05-22T21:39:00.000Z

by Yoginder Sikand (owner of the Qalandar website),

*note* magazine is now online-- Islamic Voice Magazine, online edition

She isn’t the stereotypical ‘Muslim woman’, draped in a burkha or kept confined to her home, that the ‘mainstream’ media portrays Muslim women as and as traditionalist Muslim clerics would like them to be. Nigar Ataulla is the editor of India’s largest-selling English-language Islamic magazine, Islamic Voice, based in Bangalore. She enjoys the enviable distinction of being one of the few women editors of any major religious periodical in the country.

‘Both my parents were academics’, the soft-spoken Ataualla tells me, ‘and they insisted that all their children—we three sisters—should be well-educated and stand on our own feet’. After taking a degree in journalism, Ataulla worked for several years with an advertising agency, till she decided that making commercial advertisements was not really what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. ‘I had an irrepressible urge within to communicate to a wider audience and that is how I entered the field of journalism’, she explains. She began by publishing letters in various newspapers, and then did a short stint with ‘Meantime’, a Muslim-owned monthly, till three years ago when she was appointed as editor of Islamic Voice.

A woman heading an Islamic magazine, Ataulla says, may not raise many eyebrows in many other countries, but in India it certainly is a major challenge. Although her appointment as the editor of Islamic Voice did not stir any controversy, she says that some people might have balked at the idea of a woman editor when other, and what they thought of as equally capable, men were available for the job. Managing an Islamic magazine, Attaulla says, is no easy task. ‘We have to be constantly cautious of how even a minor remark or statement would be received, because some people might get affronted as raise a hue and cry’. Since Islamic Voice aims at a broad Muslim audience, unlike many other Islamic magazines that cater to particular Muslim sects, an innocuous article on any issue might be construed as an attack on a particular sect or its beliefs and practices. Attaulla cites an example. ‘I wanted to write a lead article on the popular practices associated with the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday, the processions that are taken out in the streets, the bursting of crackers, feasting and so on. I wanted to say that all this is unnecessary and is not taught in the Qur’an, but I was not able to do so for fear that it would anger a particular Muslim sect that believes these practices are all allowed for in Islam’.

Another major problem that bedevils the Muslim media in India, Attaulla says, is the paucity of people who can write on social issues. ‘Very few of our contributors are willing to do any field-work or investigative stories that entail travelling to the field. They would prefer to sit in the comfort of their homes or libraries and simply quote from the Qur’an or the sayings of the Prophet on this or that issue, thinking that in this way all our problems will be solved’. This simplistic approach, she says, informs Muslim publishing in general in India. ‘Muslim publishing houses specialise in producing books on Islamic theology and law, and very few of them have published anything on actually existing Muslim communities and their real-world social problems and concerns. They seem to imagine that preaching about Islam is a substitute for actually engaging in understanding and working to change society’. Likewise, she says, in the madrasas, where the ‘ulama or Muslim clerics, are trained, students are, in general, kept ignorant of contemporary social reality, because of which they are unable to write on anything other than strictly religious issues. Similarly, few Muslim bookshops stock anything other than religious books. Even fewer sell books by liberal Muslim thinkers. ‘For these sorts of books’, Attaulla tells me, ‘I inevitably have to go to non-Muslim bookshops. I think this really tells a lot about the level of intellectual discourse in our community’.

Attaulla pleads for Muslim journalists and publishing houses to think beyond simply religious issues narrowly defined. ‘It’s as if they believe that confronting the real world, which is far from the ideal world that they aspire to, might weaken their own faith. This has to change if Muslim journalism is to be responsive to people’s lived realities’, she insists. An ‘obsessive concern’ for religious issues, and ignoring other aspects of life, she says, is a dominant feature of much of the Muslim press. ‘Muslims, as a rule, respond only to religious issues or issues that concern them alone’, she says. ‘We need to think also of the wider society, and of issues other than those strictly religious as well. How else can we expect others to take an interest in our issues and problems?’, she asks.

‘Most Muslim publishing houses and organisations are ideologically driven’, Attaulla explains. ‘They are associated with one or the other Muslim sect and see their mission as promoting that particular sectarian view in the name of Islam’. Consequently, alternate views are frowned upon and are often sought to be suppressed. She cites the instance of a function organised recently in Bangalore by a certain Islamic organisation that included a book exhibition. ‘The organisers sent out a list to the different groups setting up bookstalls at the event mentioning the titles of the books that could be advertised or sold. Many of the groups protested at this attempt at moral policing and refused to participate in the function’. ‘Unless we are able to openly express diverse views and engage in dialogue, rather than branding each other as enemies how can we progress?’, she asks, explaining that Islamic Voice seeks to rise above sectarian differences and thereby help promote a climate conducive to dialogue within the community as also between Muslims and Hindus.

Our conversation turns to the issue of Muslim women and their portrayal in the media. Attaulla admits that the ‘mainstream’ Indian media does have a tendency to sensationalise the marginalisation of Muslim women and thereby portray Islam as ‘obscurantist’. ‘Mainstream’ papers rarely publish any positive stories about Muslim women, thereby reinforcing the stereotypical image of Muslim women as oppressed and pathetic creatures. At the same time, Ataulla argues, deeply-entrenched patriarchal structures and prejudices within the community cannot be ignored and must also be challenged. Yet, she adds, patriarchy and women’s oppression, she says, is a universal phenomenon and one that is by no means specific to Muslims alone. Hence, she says, Muslim women must also work with their sisters in other communities to critique patriarchy and struggle for their rights. Ataulla believes many secular women’s groups are seriously committed to Muslim women’s issues, and she herself has worked with them on numerous occasions. She tells me, with approval, of the Muslim women who regularly approach a secular women’s group in Bangalore for counselling or who visit the family court located in the Police Commissioner’s office for help. ‘If the ‘ulama or Muslim organisations are unable to provide them the support and comfort they need, it is but right that these women should look for other sources of help. After all, these other groups are not engaged in any anti-Islamic conspiracy, as is sometimes alleged by some Muslims’, she says.

Attaulla describes herself as a believing and practising Muslim. She does not see Islam, as she understands it, as sanctioning gender inequality. ‘I believe that every woman must be educated and must also be economically independent, even after marriage’, she insists. She sees nothing ‘un-Islamic’ about this, and argues that the opinion of the conservative ‘ulama that women must remained confined to their homes is not strictly Qur’anic. ‘The argument that women must always be accompanied by men every time they step out of their homes is completely wrong’, she says. ‘Why should women be controlled in this way? Islam preaches freedom, so it is not Islamically legitimate to oppose a woman’s basic freedom, provided she abides by basic moral virtues. The same holds true in the case of a man, although, unfortunately, this issue is hardly ever raised’.

Rethinking traditional rulings on a range of issues, including women, Ataulla argues, is imperative in order to develop a relevant understanding of Islam for today. The conservative ‘ulama who insist on women being kept cloistered in their homes have mistaken medieval Muslim jurisprudence or fiqh for the divine law or shariah, she explains, and says that this has led to the growing irrelevance of many of their pronouncements on women which few educated Muslim women would willingly assent to. Medieval fiqh texts, she says, continues to be taught in the madrasas unmodified and are presented as the normative shariah, valid for all time. Since the corpus of medieval fiqh developed in a hierarchal and patriarchal society, it naturally reflects patriarchal biases. ‘The task before Muslim intellectuals today’, Attaulla insists, ‘is to go back to the Qur’an for inspiration, instead of blindly following what the medieval scholars said and wrote’. The distinction between the letter and the spirit of the shariah must also be kept in mind, she argues, in order to interpret the shariah in consonance with modern concerns and sensibilities. In Attaulla’s Quran-centric vision of Islam, women and men have equal rights to education and work outside the home, although, she adds, they must both observe proper decorum and modesty.

Getting across this message of Qur’anically-mandated gender equality is no easy task, Ataulla admits. The conservative ‘ulama, particularly of the older generation, she says, have been trained in a patriarchal tradition. She places her hopes in the younger generation of ‘ulama coming out of somewhat more progressive madrasas like the Nadwat ul-‘Ulama in Lucknow, who recognise the importance of women’s education and empowerment. She cites an instance of a madrasa near Mysore she recently visited, many of whose students are from the Nadwat ul-‘Ulama. She was the first woman to speak at the madrasa, and the students, she says, were ‘very open’ to the idea of being lectured to for the first time in their lives by a woman.

The press is a crucial means for promoting gender justice, Ataulla says, but laments that the Muslim press has not seriously taken up this issue. More often than not, she says, Muslim papers uncritically uphold and defend the views on women of the traditionalist ‘ulama. If more Muslim women were to take to writing, she says, they might offer different, more progressive, understandings of Islam, including on the issue of women. As of now, few women are doing that. This owes to several factors, including low female literacy among Muslims, the small middle class among the community that can spearhead reforms and articulate new, more gender-positive understandings of Islam, and the fact that many people believe that women are not qualified enough to speak authoritatively about their religion. ‘We would love to carry more stories written by women in Islamic Voice’, Attaulla says, ‘but we receive so few of them. Most of them are from abroad, and the stuff we get from most women in India are either poems or else quotations from the Qur’an and sayings of the Prophet. We get very few articles from our women contributors, and indeed from men as well, on the actual living conditions of Muslim women or on modernist understandings of Islam and gender justice that are being articulated today in some Arab and Western Muslim scholars and activists’.

Attaulla has mixed feelings on the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, that imagines itself as the sole spokesman of all the Muslims of India. She says, ‘The Board cannot be wished away, but it certainly must be reformed’. She sees it as dominated by older generation ‘ulama, many of whom are out of touch with the times, and argues for the inclusion of younger, more open-minded ‘ulama, particularly from south India, as well as community activists. She also stresses the need to include many more women in the Board, complaining that the few women who are presently members of the Board are not taken seriously. Having more educated and socially involved women members might force the Board to take women’s issues more seriously than it has so far. Partly because of the silence of Muslim women’s voices within the Board, she says, the Board has been unable or unwilling to listen to their demands for reforming Muslim Personal Law. In this regard she terms the Board’s recently released ‘model’ nikahnamah or marriage contract as failing to meet women’s demands. ‘It does not outlaw the un-Qur’anic practice of triple talaq in one sitting, and nor does it insist on the need for absolute equality and justice between the wives in the case of a polygamous marriage’, she complains. The exclusion of tafweez-e talaq or delegated divorce that allows for the dissolution of a marriage if the husband fails to meet certain specified conditions is equally ‘unfortunate’, she says, although she adds that the inclusion of a clause in the nikahnamah specifying the mehr or dower received by or promised to the wife is a welcome step.

On the Board’s controversial appeal to Muslims to have their marital disputes solved in dar ul-qazas or shariah courts manned by traditionalist ‘ulama, instead of the state courts Attaulla is clearly not enthusiastic. It is likely that women may not be able to get justice from these parallel courts, she says, because the ‘ulama who man them generally uphold the rules of medieval fiqh that militate against women’s equality, and also because in their decisions the state courts would be more likely to be governed by the facts of the case than by a dogged commitment to medieval fiqh prescriptions, in contrast to the ‘ulama. She disagrees with the argument, put forward by some members of the Board, that the state courts are not competent to try cases under Muslim Personal Law or that they might be engaged in a ‘conspiracy’ to ‘destroy’ Islam and Muslim identity by interpreting the shariah in a manner that, while granting women more rights, departs from traditional notions of fiqh. ‘Muslims do feel that their identity is threatened, especially from Hindutva chauvinists, but I think we Muslims also overdo this conspiracy theory sometimes. It is ridiculous to claim that just about everything that the government wants to do for Muslims is actually a so-called anti-Islamic conspiracy’, she exclaims.

It is now prayer-time and the call of the muezzin from the mosque nearby rings out. I take my leave and, walking down the street in the scorching sun, I muse about the fallacy of stereotypes and of how the woman I have just met hardly fits the mould of the stereotypical Muslim woman that the ‘mainstream’ media, the conservative ‘ulama and die-hard Islamists have so sedulously colluded in constructing.

Kuwaiti women get the vote

2005-05-18T16:54:00.000Z

I was listening about it yesterday on NPR. Right on!

Kuwaiti women hail voting rights move as historic

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwaiti women on Tuesday hailed as historic a decision to allow women to vote and run for parliamentary polls which was taken despite fierce resistance by Islamist and conservative MPs

"Thank God now we got our rights," said university professor Siham Freih. "Until yesterday Kuwait's image to the world was tarnished because women were taking part in all professional fields but were deprived of the vote."

"Before this I didn't feel as a citizen. They (lawmakers) restored our right that had been robbed from us," said law professor Dr Badria al Awadi.

The law is seen as a breakthrough in Kuwait, a strategic U.S. ally which has pledged to pursue democratic reform.

The all-male parliament passed the law on Monday with a wide majority after a marathon nine-hour session. Thirty-five voted in favor, 23 against and one abstained in the vote that had met strong opposition from Islamists and conservative tribal MPs.

Politicians said the controversial bill was approved after some concessions. The pro-reformist government had tempted some Islamist and tribal lawmakers by agreeing to a popular bill to raise salaries for most public and private employees.

In another sign of compromise, Islamist MPs added a clause to the bill on Monday stipulating women must abide by Islamic Sharia law when voting or running for office. This would imply separate polling stations for men and women.

Read entire article

Women's Rights Flickr Album- many photos from Kuwait

"be patient, sister" aka "the khula hoop"

2005-05-12T16:05:00.000Z

I'm tired. Far beyond the point of any anger or the justifiable desire to just freak out.

No, dears, this isn't about me. My marriage is generally pretty stable and happy.

But not so for so many others...

In the last nine years of living in the Muslim community, I'd have to say one of the worst offenses committed by the community as a whole (in other words a generalization, but an earned generalization) is the dragging of heels in giving women their much-needed divorces.

A man only has to declare it, evidently. A woman may wait years in limbo, appealing to various sheikhs or imams to grant her what God has given her in the first place- the right to disengage herself from an unwanted relationship. So why is it so much more difficult, even past the delineation set forth by the Quran and hadeeth collections of pretty much every school of thought?

At any given time in my existence and life as a Muslim, I have always known several sisters who are currently looking to get a divorce. Many of the times, it is going for a specific type of divorce which is initiated by the female spouse, called "khula." The specifics on the procedure vary from school of thought to school of thought, but it basically it would be where the wife feels she can no longer live with her husband, and as a result, surrenders a part of her maher (dowry given to the wife at the time of marrying from the husband) to him. As many mahers today are basically only given in portion at the time of marriage (ie the rest being a deferred maher), sometimes she will agree not to ask for the rest of the deferred portion at the time of divorce.

You've got to love the economics of marriage. If only it were that simple.

A good number of women seeking divorces have some very big, very valid reasons as to why they'd like to end their marriages. Failure of maintenance. Abandonment. Abuse in all its forms, including physical, sexual (yes there is indeed marital rape), psychological, economic, and emotional.

When going to their local mesjid to seek an alim to grant them a divorce, they are met with the three notorious words of failure: " be patient, sister."

I, personally, would like to know when and how the situation developed in all schools of thought where the power of granting such divorces fell to religious scholars. At the time of the Prophet, it was he himself who granted such divorces, and he did so quite freely in the case of women petitioners, even granting a divorce to a woman who did not like how her husband looked. So when did this change develop to make things far more difficult, and why is it continuously justified or left quietly unopposed by the majority of the Muslim community?

Be patient, sister.

What I see now are sisters waiting even years for a divorce that should have been instantaneous once petitioned. I see sheikhs and imams more worried about their communities' (or should I say, the male communities') opinions of them as re-enforcing a certain status quo, a status quo which has little to do with religion and more to do with maintaining a fabricated sense of separation and the power and worth disparity between the two genders. The Quran itself declares that women's rights over men are similar to those of men over women, so why is it so rarely given heed?

Must we be patient?

Some say now is not the time to be asking these questions. That sisters must sit back and wait. Islam is under attack, the community is weak and rocking the boat any further will only serve to divide the ummah (community) into more discord.

What these nay-sayers must also remember is this: that one of the biggest critiques of Muslim communities by non-Muslim islamophobes is the charge of sexism and the subjugation of women.

So what is it?

A) The community is sexist,
B) but don't try to change this because
C) there's a group of islamophobes out there who are calling us sexists.

Does anyone else see the not-so-hidden irony within this sentiment?

IRAQ: Doctors warn of increasing deformities in newborn babies.

2005-05-01T04:35:00.000Z

BAGHDAD, 27 April (IRIN) - Doctors in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have reported a significant increase in deformities among newborn babies.

Health officials and scientists said this could be due to radiation passed through mothers following years of conflict in the country.

The most affected regions are in the south of the country, particularly Basra and Najaf, according to experts. Weaponry used during the Gulf war in 1991 contained depleted uranium, which could be a primary source for the increase, scientists in Baghdad said.

"In my experiments we have found some cases where the mother or father were suffering from pollution from weapons used in the south and we believe that it is affecting newborn babies in the country," Dr Ibraheem al-Jabouri, a scientist at Baghdad University, told IRIN.

According to Dr Nawar Ali, at the University of Baghdad, who works in the newborn babies research department, a significant number of cases of deformed babies had been reported since 2003.

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