Khalid Chraibi - Women Cite Qur'anic Rights to Confront Culture of Oppression

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Khalid Chraibi - SaudiDebate.comMuslim society issues - Islamic law

Women cite Quranic rights as Muslimmodernists use law to confront culture of oppression Monday, 02 April 2007

By Khalid Chraibi

The status of Arab women underwent a drastic change in the 7th Century, with the advent of Islam. The new faith liberated them from a situation of tutelage and granted them their fullshare of rights and responsibilities within Muslim society. The part they played in family lifeand in the community increased markedly, as they acquired the right to inherit property,conduct business, and have access to knowledge.

But these rights, to this day, arent properly implemented in many communities, and the issueof womens rights continues to be at the center of a controversy in many countries. Thus,associations handling the cases of women in difficult situations describe innumerable

instances of oppression, exploitation or mistreatment, with many women living under thethreat of repudiation, polygamy, domestic violence, honour killings, and the like. At work,women suffer from discriminatory practices with regard to employment status, pay scales,responsibilities, promotion, not to mention sexual harassment.

In recent years, womens rights have further deteriorated in various areas of the world, asextremist groups have become increasingly influential in the political and legislative life of different African and Asian countries. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan illustrated thisdevelopment, imposing strict segregation between the sexes, compelling women to wear a

burqa covering them from head to toe, denying them the right to education and to adequatehealth care, and preventing them from work. It also instituted lashings and amputations asforms of corporal punishment.


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But the experience of Afghanistans women under the Taliban was in no way unique, asZainah Anwar wrote of Malaysia : New sharia criminal laws were passed [in the 1990s inMalaysia], designed to ensure that the Muslim lifestyle does not transgress Islamic teachings.

New offences were created, and moral surveillance, strict enforcement and more severe punishment of Muslims were introduced. The Islamic Family Law, one of the most

enlightened personal status laws in the Muslim world, was amended to make divorce and polygamy easier for men, and reduce mens financial responsibilities towards women.

Women reading the Shariah

Until these developments, women's associations throughout the Muslim world had given high priority to putting pressure on Governments to implement the UN-sponsored internationalconventions these countries had signed, concerning human rights in general, and women'srights in particular. They also wanted them to withdraw the reservations they had expressedon signing these conventions concerning various provisions on the grounds that theyconflict with religion since the reservations had the effect of diluting much of theconventions usefulness.

The changed conditions in the Muslim world led these associations to redefine their prioritiesand to include a serious study of the Shariah, in order to determine for themselves what itreally said, with the objective of developing new tools to oppose the repressive new laws,

policies and amendments to existing laws that were being introduced by Islamic groups.

Says Nora Murat, from Malaysias Sisters in Islam organisation: If, as believers, we want tolive a life according to the tenets of our faith, a simplistic call to return to an idealised goldenage of Islam, that has little bearing on the realities of todays world, cannot be the answer.

And yet the answers can be found within our faith - if only we have the intellectual vigour, themoral courage, and the political will to strive for a more enlightened and progressiveinterpretation of the Quran in our search for answers. For us in Sisters in Islam, this is notheretical; rather it is imperative, if religion is to be relevant to our lives today.

Women's associations were further motivated in their study of the Quran and Sunnah by therealization, in the words of Pakistans Riffat Hassan, that there was a big gap in what theQuran was saying about womens rights and what was actually happening in Muslim culture.So, one has to distinguish between Quranic text and the Islamic tradition. The interpretationof the Quran from the earliest times till now has been done almost entirely by men. It wasalso done in a male-dominated patriarchal culture. So the Quran was interpreted through a

male-centric cultural lenswhich obviously has affected womens rights.

Womens study of the Shariah convinced many of them, in the words of Nigerias AyeshaImam, of the need to distinguish between Islam the way of Allah on the one hand, and,what Muslims do those who believe in Islam and attempt to practice it on the other. In a

paper entitled Women's rights in Muslim laws, she explains: Islam is not questioned. But,what Muslims (human fallible people) make of Islam can be.

She observes that, though religious laws draw their inspiration from the divine, they are notthe same as divine laws. They do rely on human agency to elaborate, implement and enforcethem. She explains that, in many situations, even the experts do not agree on the definitivemeaning of verses in the Quran. Moreover, it is admitted that many hadith (accounts of thelife of the Prophet) are apocryphal, motivated by inter-sect and dynastic rivalries. Several


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hadiths of this type seem to have had as their principal aim to put restrictions on womensrights, although they do not fit with surahs (chapters) in the Quran or with other hadith.

Ms. Imam adds that many people believe the shariah to be the same everywhere, throughoutthe Muslim world. But the fact is that it varies significantly from one country to another, as

well as over time. The existence of four main schools of Shariah in the Sunni traditionillustrates the diversity of interpretations. The founders of these schools themselves declaredemphatically, and repeatedly, that their views should not be considered as final or binding onall Muslims. So, refusing further ijtihad (personal reflection) is not a religious or divinelysanctioned act. It is not required in the Quran or by the Sunnah. To the contrary, both theQuran and hadith refer approvingly to thinking, reasoning and diversity of opinion.

Though Ms. Imams analysis may come as a surprise to readers who have been raised in the belief of the singularity of Shariah in Muslim countries, the facts suggest otherwise, as iseasily verified by a comparison of current Personal Muslim Law in various countries.

Personal Muslim Law also undergoes important changes over time within the same country,as illustrated, for example, by the evolution of family law in Egypt in the 20th Century. Thereform of Moroccos Family Law in 2004 illustrates, for its part, the considerable change inwomens rights that can be achieved over time, through a progressive, but faithful andequitable implementation of the provisions of the Shariah.

Change within the religious framework

Moroccos Moudawana (Personal Status Law) of 1957, though relatively modern andequitable in many respects, showed a clear conservative bias in its interpretation of many

provisions of the Shariah, putting several undue restrictions on womens rights. The network of Moroccan women associations fought for a half-century to obtain its reform.

In methodological terms, the revision was to be based on a very attentive reading of theShariah, taking into account as faithfully, as fully and equitably as possible, all relevantsurahs and hadiths applicable to every aspect of Muslim personal law. Nevertheless, a major controversy developed around the project, between modernist groups and conservative

political forces, jeopardizing the whole operation, which was only saved through the personalintervention of King Mohamed VI.

Acting as Amir al-Moumineen (Commander of the Faithful), and assisted with the advice of

the Council of Ulama, the King of Morocco had the final say on how to resolve difficulties of a religious nature, and he provided detailed explanations to Parliament on the choices hemade. The Parliament had the final say on non-religious issues.

The reformed Family Law came into effect in 2004. Among other things, it makes the familythe joint responsibility of both spouses, rescinding the wifes duty of obedience to her husband. It allows women to be their own guardians, and raises the minimum age of marriagefor women to eighteen years. It puts prohibitive restrictions on polygamy, by requiring theconsent of the first wife, the notification of the second wife of the existence of the first one,and a judges consent to the second marriage which may be granted if he is satisfied that thehusband will grant equal status to each wife, in every respect. The Law makes polygamygrounds for divorce by the first wife, and promotes the use of a marriage contract to excludethe possibility of a second marriage by the husband. It puts repudiation under strict judicial


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control, and requires an equitable distribution of the couples assets before a divorce can befinal.

The Moroccan Family Law of 2004 may have its shortcomings, but it is unquestionablyrooted in the Shariah, in every respect. Nevertheless, thanks to a more modern interpretation

of the stipulations of the Shariah, it affords a considerable progress in the situation of womenin Morocco.

Who decides what is Islamic?

Most womens associations working in the field of womens rights understand fully, today, theusefulness of the strategy of change within the religious framework. Having drawn the lessonsof past experiences, they are better prepared to confront the real issues. This shows clearly inthe following observations by women working in the field.

Asks Zainah Anwar: If Islam is to be used as a source of law and public policy to govern the public and private lives of citizens, then the question of who decides what is Islamic and whatis not, is of paramount importance. What are the implications for democratic governancewhen only a small, exclusive group of people is accorded the right to interpret the Text andcodify it? Particularly when they do so very often in a manner that isolates the Text from thesocio-historical context in which it was revealed, isolates classical juristic opinion from thesocio-historical context of the lives of the founding jurists of Islam, and isolates the Text fromthe context of contemporary society.

Adds Nora Murat: Knowledge that the Quran supports the universal values of equality, justice and a life of dignity for women, gives us the courage and conviction to stand up and

argue with those who support discrimination against women in the name of religion. It is thisknowledge that gives us the confidence to tell them that there are alternative views on thesubject and that their obscurantist view, which discriminates against women, is not the onlyview in Islam.

References :

Zainah Anwar : Islamisation and its impact on laws and law making process in MalaysiaNora Murat : Sisters in Islam: Advocacy for change from within the religious framework Riffat Hassan : Interview by Samina Ibrahim, Newsline, Karachi, April 2001Ayesha Imam : Women's rights in Muslim lawsMorocco : Family Law 2004

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Khalid Chraibi - Women Cite Qur'anic Rights to Confront Culture of Oppression