Will the Real Islam Please Stand Up?
I've been asking devout Muslim American women how they feel about the status of women in Islam. Over and over, they give me the romantic apologist point of view: "Islam is a feminist paradise! I wouldn't change a thing."
But then again, many others offer me -- a Jewish woman -- a vastly different, historical perspective: "I love Islam, but I'm sick of the way the men have taken over this religion to control women, and I want to do something about it."
The romantic apologists claim that the beheading several months ago of Aasiya Hassan in upstate New York was not connected with Islam. (Aasiya Hassan was murdered by her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, founder of a Muslim television station in Buffalo, after she filed for divorce.) They are invested in defending their faith as flawlessly realized, and thus are blind to the reality that the typical non-Muslim American murderer does not saw off his victim's head. And the often horrific treatment of women in Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan? Well, that doesn't have anything to do with Islam either! That's just tribal custom! Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, worshiped women, saying that they were the gatekeepers of paradise!
At its roots, yes, Islam truly is feminist. Islam regards women and men as coequals before God. In seventh-century Arabia, Islam gave women rights within marriage (including the right to sexual satisfaction), the right to divorce, and inheritance law centuries before women in the West were granted these rights. The pre-Islamic custom of female infanticide was prohibited. And yes, Muhammad the prophet repeatedly declared that women must be treated with respect. On many fronts, Muhammad improved the status of women.
But men have long interpreted Islam from their own point of view and declared that point of view universal for all believers--just as male Christian and Jewish theologians and religious leaders have done throughout history. This point of view has permitted Muslim men in some cultures through the centuries to take multiple wives and to physically abuse or even murder the women in their lives. More broadly, this point of view has facilitated a general attitude that women have less value than men.
The conflict between opposing interpretations of Islam is played out here in the United States, just as it is wherever there is a Muslim population. A fascinating PBS documentary, "The Mosque in Morgantown," covers one case study. The documentary will air June 15 on PBS stations nationwide at 10pm (check local listings).
"The Mosque in Morgantown" follows journalist Asra Nomani as she challenges the mosque in her West Virginia community to back away from extremism. Formerly of the Wall Street Journal, Nomani currently leads the Pearl Project at Georgetown University, seeking to answer who murdered her colleague and friend Daniel Pearl. After going on hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in 2003, Nomani returned to Morgantown with a renewed faith. She wanted to be part of her local Muslim community and was excited that a new mosque was being constructed.
On the eve of Ramadan, she reached the front door, but was not greeted with "Assalaam aleikum." Instead, the board president yelled at her, "Sister, take the back door!" Most mosques in the United States do not have separate doors for women, but the attitude toward women Nomani encountered was far from uncommon. Meanwhile, the men delivering sermons were intoning that wife-beating is permissible, that "a woman who loses her chastity is worthless," and, for good measure, that "Jews are the descendents of apes and pigs."
Nomani initiated a series of events intended to force her mosque to retreat from its extremist direction. She walked through the front door and insisted on praying in the men's section (the small women's section is located in another space upstairs); she wrote about the gender inequality in an op-ed in The New York Times; she organized a protest outside the mosque and invited the media, including CNN, to cover it. Soon enough, the mosque leadership voted to expel Nomani, the feminist troublemaker, from the mosque.
Nomani eloquently related these events in her 2005 book, Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam. Even if you've read the book (which I recommend: it's beautifully written and a moving story), you should watch the documentary. It broadens the picture by including the voices of Nomani's opponents. Brittany Huckabee, the film's director and producer, persuaded several of them to explain their side.
The wife of the mosque president defends the mosque's separate door and prayer space. "You can't bend the rules," she explains, because the rules are from God. Another woman says accusingly to Nomani, "You do not show respect to yourself," to which Nomani replies, "I show respect to God."
More than anything else, "The Mosque in Morgantown" reveals that Islam is understood in widely divergent ways, even within the same community. It is impossible to give everyone the Islam they want. As one mosque member says with some exasperation, there are just so many strands of thought and they have just one mosque trying to accommodate everyone.
Yes, but there is a false and dangerous belief that the extremist way is most authentic. Alternate interpretations may be even more true to the spirit of the religion. (This applies to Christianity and Judaism as well.) The Qur'anic verse long understood to permit wife beating, 4:34, is now being revisited by scholars and translators who argue that the word translated as "beat" in fact means "to go away." Thus, the Qur'an does not advocate violence against women but rather the opposite: a non-violent separation between husband and wife when their relationship is heated.
Who gets to define Islam--or any religion? Which interpretation is more "real"? And why does unequal treatment of women always become the litmus test of authenticity? It makes you wonder who is the ultimate power--God, or men invested in protecting their own turf?
Never has there been a more important time for Muslims to engage in greater introspection, self-evaluation. We face a Muslim world rife with conflicts, sectarian hatred, misogyny and injustice.
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Although I reject Tanenbaum's claim that only romantic apologists do not distinguish Islam from crimes committed by Muslims, she is to be applauded for calling attention to Asra Nomani's struggle to give Muslim women access to the their legitimate Islamic rights. Of course Asra, like any of us, is a flawed human being and hence her actions and words should be debated. Nevertheless, the extremists with whom Asra is struggling do not recognize that their interpretations of Islam are merely human interpretations of the Divine word and hence should similarly be subject to challenge and debate. Thus, while it may appear that Asra is doing something foreign to Islam; in fact, because she is calling attention to the ignorance of idolatrous "shirk," which among other things equates human interpretation with Divine word, she is actually asserting the Islamic principle that opposes the arrogance of equating one's own opinion with the Divine. The Muslim woman at the end of the PBS trailer who states that Asra "wants to bend of the rules of Islam her own way. You can't do that; these are not human rules" epitomizes the very ignorance of such shirk that Asra is striving against. Asra is not striving against God's rule; she is striving against the ignorance that elevates the claims of today's male egos both to the level of God's word in the Qur'an as well as to the spiritual beauty of the way a 21st century Muhammad might act.
As a journalist who writes about the Muslim world, I have to admit that when I first read Asra Nomani's book, Standing Alone in Mecca, I had my doubts as to whether she could ever gain any influence over the Muslims at her own mosque, let alone Islam as a whole. Years of propaganda from Wahhabi and Islamist-influenced groups had conditioned me to believe that Muslims would never listen to an American-educated woman and an unwet mother to boot! But anyone who saw Asra arguing for the right of Muslim women to choose their own marriage partners on the Doha Debates last week knows just how wrong I was. The Muslim audience voted against a hardline Saudi theologian and with Asra. Women who watched it are still writing in to thank her for standing up to say that Islam does not have to be violent and misogynistic, but can be compatible with human rights. Unfortunately all too many moderate and secular Muslims have been intimidated into walking away from their culture and religion. Asra shows us all what they can do if they stand up to the extremists.
Asra expresses concern about a literal reading of the Quran especially as it apllies to the treatment of women. An Islamic scholar Ms. Bakhtiar commented that a more "correct" reading of the literal word was not as bad as suggested by Ms. Nomani .Here's my comment .
Ms Bakhtiar is learned in the historical intrepretations of words that mean different things to different peoples. However two important points need to be made.
First, If the Quran, the Bible or any religious texts are read like newspaper reports , we are on the road to destructive fundamentalism of the type responsible for so much death and hate world wide…from Jews, Christians and Muslims. Right now we are currently most interested in the Islamic iteration of this problem. Go to the Inquisition and the Crusades we see Catholicism causing the havoc.
Second, the problems experienced by Asra Nomani in her mosque and the filmaker in her Christian Church were the result of seeing humanity as “fallen” and the guilt associated with some creator out there who is saying “you ought to be this way…or that way”. This is essential to the occidental view of the Divine..the 3 monotheistic tradtions share this perspective. On the other hand The oriental view of the divine does not have it separated from humanity, and therefore cleanses the heart from this destructive relationship with the Divine. I am not arguing for no morality…just keep it away from the Divine… which by definition is beyond good and evil.
See Melody Moezzi's Profile
Asra Nomani is an inspiration to Muslim women the world over, including myself. "Standing Alone" is a remarkable book, and I expect that this documentary will be equally so. While I don't agree with all of Ms. Tannenbaum's premises and conclusions, I can agree that Ms. Nomani represents the direction of the future of Islam today. I consider neither her nor myself an apologist for claiming that Islam calls for equal rights for men and women. Who defines Islam for the world? The people who are willing to fight oppression wherever they find it, for the Qur'an repeatedly states that "Oppression is worse than killing." The people who know better than to blindly follow tradition while ignoring obvious revelation. People like Asra Nomani. I am proud to call her a sister in faith.
It's a shame that a Jewish Woman had to write this article. Will the real Muslims please stand up and fight to reclaim your religion from the extremists who have implemented a bastardized interpretation of Islam?
We have stood up and we are ignored and shut out. MSM never books women to talk about the issue. They like the some crazy ranting man who doesn't speak for me instead or the angry woman who hates, rejects, and misconstrues it. Moderate educated female equivalents of Reza Aslan are ytotally ignored.
That being said Asiya's tragic death had NOTHING to do with Islam but rather domestic violence a plague that effects women of ALL religions. Divorce is not a sin in Islam. Tying her death to the demonization of Islam is horrific considering her life's work and please don't call me a romantic apologist. I knew the woman you did not and I am a one of the more well known voices in moderate Islam.
The only true Islam comes from the book. Misogynists interpret it to suit there want for power but that is not the true religion.
The author states the following: "At its roots, yes, Islam truly is feminist. Islam regards women and men as coequals before God." Am I supposed to believe something like this. If this is the case, why do so many Islamic clerics and governments suppress women's rights based on Islam. Look at the Taliban executing women for not wearing burkas or going out of the house without a male escort. Look at the Saudis who exclude women from driving. Look at so many of the Arab countries that allow honor killings of women who are perceived to have shamed the family. Look at the amount of illiteracy among women in the Islamic world. I hate it when liberal western apologists try to twist facts and use out of context comments to misrepresent the truth.
did you get the gist of the article...author points out how the religious extremists are manipulating the religion like the case of women been beaten up in jerusalem for not sitting in the back of the bus or the is.raeli newspaper removing the women politician from group photo to not offend orthodox believers or a rabbi calling women as 'monkeys'....
try to fix your own backyard and then do the crossover....
Ha Ha Ha Ha----nice try. Women in Israel have the most rights of any in the entire Middle East. You are laughable. Israel has a woman leader of the opposition party, one of the most highly educated populations of women in the world, women can vote, speak, dress as they please. Israeli policies and the constitution guarantee women's rights. Your attempt to equate the subjigation of women in all Muslim countries with two tiny incidents from a tiny right wing group in the Israeli democracy is laughable. Ha Ha Ha Ha---you are either incapable of critical thinking, have no sense of context or fairness, or you goal is to just besmerch Israel. I suspect it is all three.
Wow, you really didn't read the article, did you?
See Melody Moezzi's Profile
Seriously, you guys, must we resort to hating on one another like this? In the immortal words of Fergie: Where is the love?! Isn't that what faith should really be about--whatever religion you are?
I'm Muslim; I'm an Iranian-American, and I don't care where it is, Iran or Israel or Saudi Arabia or Vatican City, theocracy sucks and it doesn't matter what religion you claim. Faith is inherently personal. Government is inherently political. We've seen all over the world and all over history that secular democracy is the most viable form of government and religious intolerance gets us nowhere. I'm all up for debate and appreciate all kinds of different perspectives, but let's remain civil here.
As the great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, "A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair." And as the great Persian Muslim Sufi poet, Rumi, put it some 300 years earlier, "There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
Get it my lovelies! Can't we kiss, make up and leave this silliness behind us already!
"From a male point of view". This right here is the reason for a lot of the issues in the world today.
Man's interpretation of the Bible, man's interpretation of laws and the making of laws.
I firmly believe that the world would be a much better place if men would keep their opinions to themselves. What makes them think that their view is the right view anyway?
There are 5 great religions in the world. All of them claim that they are the sole harbours of the ultimate truth and if you do not believe in their ideas, you will go to hell. Seeing that it is impossible to believe in all 5 at the same time, I guess we are all going to hell.
This is false, no where near true. Judism and Buddism does not claim at all that you must believe in their ideas or you go to hell. Your indictment against all five religions is false.
NO, not if you guess right.
Will the real Islam (and all religions) please go away? Enough is enough. These lies and deciets have spread horror and fear over the world for hundreds of years. Why don't people wise up and embrace science? That's where you can truly learn who you are and what you are. Peace, love, harmony, and joy. We are what we embrace. World leaders embrace the opposite of peace and love, so the universe manifests war and misery.
You must remember this - religions have nothing to do with God. They are about power, and power only. Whoever holds the power gets to define the religion.
Everyone should just give up on religion. It is all a bunch of made up b.s. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. etc. What a waste of human time and effort.
The problem of course is conflating social customs with religion.
The history of Islam has many examples of women playing prominent roles and not remaining hidden in the house as some backward folks would have .
Before they were married, Khadijah - who was a successful businesswomen --hired the Prophet Muhammad to manage some of her ventures.
Nasibah (Umm 'Umarah) fought at the Battle of Uhud. When the Muslim Army disobeyed and broke ranks she stopped tending to the wounded, picked up a sword and rushed to side of those who stood fast. She's quite famous.
Aisha (wife of Muhammad) was present at the Battle of the Camel (though unlike Nasibah she didn't fight).
After the massacre of her husband at Karbala, Zeinab (wife of Imam Husayn) made a series of speeches as she journeyed to Damascus where she confronted the Caliph Yazid. And no the audiences at her speeches were not "women only".
Shajarat AdDurr was a military leader in Egypt and her Army captured Louis IX during his "Crusade" in Egypt 1250. Eventually she is recognized as Sultana (the ruler)- meaning her name is on coinage and her name is mentioned in Friday prayers (as was customary to do of the leaders).
Sitt AlMulk ruled Egypt for two years after the death of AlHakim. (Somewhere in early 1000 CE)
Razia AdDin ruled in Delhi for four years. Her father appointed her because his sons were more interested in wine women and song. (1230's or 1240's CE)
"After the massacre of her husband at Karbala, Zeinab (wife of Imam Husayn) "
***correction*** - Zainab was Sister of Imam Husain...
You are of course right and I am of course mortified to have made such a simple but important mistake.
"Who gets to define Islam--or any religion? Which interpretation is more "real"? And why does unequal treatment of women always become the litmus test of authenticity? It makes you wonder who is the ultimate power--God, or men invested in protecting their own turf?"
This is the very heart of the matter.
god is a preposterous fabrication so *anybody* can interpret it *any way* they like and *nobody* can really say they are wrong (or right). Of course, the chosen *men* that gods speak to are free to make it up as they go along. Every interpretation is as invalid as the next.
The unequal treatment of women is a bronze age goat herder thing. I think it's a good idea for those who advocate for women's rights or gay rights to just stop quoting from misogynistic and homophobic source documents.
Denying that they say what they clearly do say isn't very convincing.
I don't wonder about the ultimate power. It's not one of the many gods.
Thank you for this Ms. Tanenbaum. Your commentary was insightful, informative and most of all accurate. Well done!
Asra, thank you for standing up for equality for women of all faiths. How much longer will we let men make the rules? This is true of many religions, not just Islam. Each religion has its own hang-ups, just on different scales. As a Catholic, I have watched men give sermons my entire life. What kind of message does that send to girls? When I was a child, girls were not even allowed to be altar servers. Women need to stand up for each other and stop letting the male clerics rule.
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