Spare Me the Sermon On Muslim Women
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301968.html?referrer=facebook
By Mohja Kahf
Sunday, October 5, 2008; B01
Crimson chiffon, silver lamé or green silk: Which scarf to wear today? My veil collection is 64 scarves and growing. The scarves hang four or five to a row on a rack in my closet, and elation fills me when I open the door to this beautiful array. Last week, I chose a particularly nice scarf to slip on for the Eid al-Fitr festivities marking the end of the month of Ramadan.
It irks me that I even have to say this: Being a Muslim woman is a joyful thing.
My first neighbor in Arkansas borrowed my Quran and returned it, saying, “I’m glad I’m not a Muslim woman.” Excuse me, but a woman with Saint Paul in her religious heritage has no place feeling superior to a Muslim woman, as far as woman-affirming principles are concerned. Maybe no worse, if I listen to Christian feminists, but certainly no better.
Blessings abound for me as a Muslim woman: The freshness of ablution is mine, and the daily meditation zone of five prayers that involve graceful, yoga-like movements, performed in prayer attire. Prayer scarves are a chapter in themselves, cool and comforting as bedsheets. They lie folded in the velveteen prayer rug when not in use: two lightweight muslin pieces, the long drapey headcover and the roomy gathered skirt. I fling open the top piece, and it billows like summer laundry, a lace-edged meadow. I slip into the bottom piece to cover my legs for prayer time because I am wearing shorts around the house today.
These create a tent of tranquility. The serene spirit sent from God is called by a feminine name, “sakinah,” in the Quran, and I understand why some Muslim women like to wear their prayer clothes for more than prayer, to take that sakinah into the world with them. I, too, wear a (smaller) version of the veil when I go out. What a loss it would be for me not to have in my life this alternating structure, of covering outdoors and uncovering indoors. I take pleasure in preparing a clean, folded set for a houseguest, the way home-decor mavens lay elegant plump towels around a bathroom to give it a relaxing feel.
Tassled turquoise cotton and flowered peach crepe flutter as I pull out a black-and-ivory striped headscarf for the day. When I was 22 and balked at buying a $30 paisley scarf, my best friend told me, “I never scrimp on scarves. If people are going to make a big deal of it, it may as well look good.”
I embraced that principle, too, even when I was a scratch-poor graduate student. Today I sort my scarves, always looking to replace the frayed ones and to find missing colors, my collection shrinking and expanding, dynamic, bright: The blue-and-yellow daisy print is good with jeans, the incandescent purple voile for a night on the town, the gray houndstooth solidly professional, the white chambray anytime.
As beautiful as veils are, they are not the best part of being a Muslim woman — and many Muslim women in Islamic countries don’t veil. The central blessing of Islam to women is that it affirms their spiritual equality with men, a principle stated over and over in the Quran, on a plane believers hold to be untouched by the social or legalistic “women in Islam” concerns raised by other parts of the Scripture, in verses parsed endlessly by patriarchal interpreters as well as Muslim feminists and used by Islamophobes to “prove” Islam’s sexism. This is how most believing Muslim women experience God: as the Friend who is beyond gender, not as the Father, not as the Son, not inhabiting a male form, or any form.
And the reasons for being a joyful Muslim woman go beyond the spiritual. Marriage is a contract in Islam, not a sacrament. The prenup is not some new invention; it’s the standard Muslim format. I can put whatever I want in it, but Muslims never get credit for that. Or for having mahr, the bridegift that goes from the man to the woman — not to her family, but to her, for her own private use. A mahr has to have significant value — a year’s salary, say. And if patriarchal customs have overridden Islam and whittled away this blessing in many Muslim locales, it’s still there, available, in the law. Hey, I got mine (cash, partly deferred because my husband was broke when we married; like a loan to him, owed to me whenever I want to claim it) — and I was married in Saudi Arabia, a country whose personal-status laws are drawn from the most conservative end of the Muslim spectrum.
I had to sign my name indicating my consent, or the marriage contract would not have been valid under Saudi Islamic law. And, of course, I chose whom to marry. Every Muslim girl in the conservative circle of my youth chose her husband. We just did it our way, a conservative Muslim way, and we did it without this nonsensical Western custom of teenage dating. My friends Salma and Magda chose at 16 and 17: Salma to marry boy-next-door Muhammad, with whom she grew up, and Magda to marry a doctor 10 years her senior who came courting from half a world away. Both sisters have careers, one as a counselor, one as a school principal, and both are still vibrantly married and vibrantly Muslim, their kids now in college.
I held out until I was 18, making my parents beat back suitors at the door until I was good and ready. And here I am, still married to the guy I finally let in the door, 22 years (some of them not even dysfunctional) later. My cousin, on the other hand, broke off a marriage she contracted (but did not consummate) at 16 and chose another man. Another childhood friend, Zeynab, chose four times and is looking for Mr. Fifth. Her serial monogamy is nothing new or radical; she didn’t pick up the idea from reading Cosmo or from the “liberating” influence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It’s simply what a lot of women in early Muslim history did, in 7th- and 8th-century Arabia.
And would you guess that we’ve also been freer to divorce and remarry than Christian women have been for most of history? In medieval times, when Christian authorities were against divorce and remarriage, this was seen as another Islamic abomination. Now that divorce and remarriage are popular in the West, Muslims don’t get credit for having had that flexibility all along. We just can’t win with the Muslim-haters.
Here’s another one: Medieval Christianity excoriated Islam for being orgiastic, which seems to mean that Muslims didn’t lay a guilt trip on hot sex (at least within what were deemed licit relationships). Now that hot sex is all the rage in the post-sexual revolution West, you’d think Muslims would get some credit for the pro-sex attitude of Islam — but no. The older stereotype has been turned on its head, and in the new one, we’re the prudes. Listen, we’re the only monotheistic faith I know with an actual legal rule that the wife has a right to orgasm.
Of course, I’m still putting in my time struggling for a more woman-affirming interpretation of Islam and in criticizing Muslim misogyny (which at times is almost as bad as American misogyny), but let me take a moment to celebrate some of the good stuff. Under Islamic law, custody of minor children always goes first to the mother. The Quran doesn’t blame Eve. Literacy for women is highly encouraged by the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. Breast-feeding is a woman’s choice and a means for her to create family ties independent of male lineage, as nursing creates legally recognized family relationships under Islamic law. Rapists are punishable by death in Islamic law (and yes, an atavistic part of me applauds that death penalty), which they certainly are not in any Western legal code. Birth control allowed in Islamic law? Check. Masturbation? Let’s just say former surgeon general Joycelyn Elders’s permissive stance on that practice is not unknown among classical and modern Muslim jurists. Abortion? Again, allowances exist — even Muslims seem not to remember that.
It’s easy to forget that Muslims are not inherently more sexist than folks in other religions. Muslim societies may lag behind on some issues that women in certain economically advanced, non-Muslim societies have resolved after much effort, but on other issues, Muslim women’s options run about the same as those of women all over the world. And in some areas of life, Muslim women are better equipped by their faith tradition for autonomy and dignity.
There are “givens” that I take for granted as a Muslim woman that women of other faiths had to struggle to gain. For example, it took European and American women centuries to catch up to Islamic law on a woman’s fully equal right to own property. And it’s not an airy abstraction; it’s a right Muslim women have practiced, even in Saudi Arabia, where women own businesses, donate land for schools and endow trusts, just as they did in 14th-century Egypt, 9th-century Iraq and anywhere else Islamic law has been in effect.
Khadija was the boss of her husband, our beloved Prophet Muhammad, hiring him during her fourth widowhood to run caravans for her successful business; he caught her eye, and she proposed marriage to him. Fatima is the revered mother figure of Shiite Islam, our lady of compassion, possessed of a rich emotional trove for us. Her daughter Zainab is the classic figure of high moral protest, the Muslim Antigone, shaking her fist at the corrupt caliph who killed her brother, her tomb a shrine of comfort for millions of the pious. Saints, queens, poets, scribes and scholars adorn the history of Muslim womanhood.
In modern times, Muslim women have been heads of state five times in Muslim-majority countries, elected democratically by popular vote (in Bangladesh twice and also in Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan). And I’m not saying that a woman president is necessarily a women’s president, but how many times has a woman been president of the United States?
Yet even all that gorgeous history pales when I open my closet door for the evening’s pick: teal georgette, pink-and-beige plaid, creamy fringed wool or ice-blue organza? God, why would anyone assume I would want to give up such beauty? I love being a Muslim woman. And I’m always looking for my next great polka-dot scarf.
Mohja Kahf is the author of the novel “The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf.”
No one’s disputing the freedom given to Muslim women in the Quran or in Islam when practices properly.
The problem comes with the women who are not so fortunate as you, who live in villages far removed from urban cities, who must succumb to cultural customs that are shrouded in Islamic Law.
Honor killings, arranged marriages and wife beatings are tolerated by these societies and defended by the Muslim clerics who run them. It is our duty as Muslims to end such acts, because they are done by Muslims and are displayed as Muslim custom.
It’s easy to say “Well, those are not real Muslims,” but that doesn’t make it go away.
It should be insulting and infuriating for Muslims to know such ridiculous acts are committed in the name of our religion. So Alhamdulilah you are a fortunate Muslim woman from a family who is tolerant and knowledgeable. The same cannot be said of many other Muslim women who we must fight for, and for which Islam is criticized for allowing to continue. Because let’s face it, if a Muslim country allows these things to happen, unpunished, the religion is blamed – even if only for neglect.
ojcomputer
October 7, 2008 at 5:51 am
I liked the author’s writing style, but the message has been heard once too many times. Why do Muslim women living in the West and wearing the hijab feel they need to continuously explain their dress choice to non-Muslim skeptics? Explaining the religion’s treatment of women itself is all fine, but what does that have to do with dress codes? Dress codes are but one small part of the religion. Such non-Muslims will just have to accept it as an individual’s right to express their freedom of being.
I did not understand what the author meant when she said her cousin chose “4 times” did the cousin marry and divorce 4 times?
Divorce is permitted in Islam as a practical means of making life easier for those who really need it. Reconciliation is favored, and the Quran has listed steps to facilliate that. But if all fails, then divorce is permitted. Divorce is considered the most hated permitted act a Muslim can do. So no Muslim embarks on it unless she or he has no other choice.
I regret to read the flippant manner in which this author treated the process of picking a spouse, marriage and divorce. Just because it was done then, does not make it right. Many Muslims get married, and divorce within weeks on basis of some frivolous complaint. This is not in the spirit of what the Quran (God’s literal words) has advocated – never mind what you learned in your history books about so and so.
Wordly Muslimah
October 7, 2008 at 5:39 pm
She needs to defend the freedom in choosing to wear her scarf because Western culture too often regards it as being forced upon and women. They see images of women wrapped in fabric and decide its physically and ideologically oppressive to women. People just don’t get the “individual’s right to express their freedom of being” aspect, we’re a culture of uninformed ethnocentric Americans.
Beth
May 11, 2009 at 2:13 pm
MOHJA KAHF, the author of this article, directly responds to comments on GOATMILK:
REGARDING COMMENT #1 BY “OJCOMPUTER”:
“Honor killings, arranged marriages and wife beatings are tolerated by these societies and defended by the Muslim clerics who run them. It is our duty as Muslims to end such acts, because they are done by Muslims and are displayed as Muslim custom.”
I already *said* I am aware of and work against those issues. “I’m still putting in my time struggling for a more woman-affirming interpretation of Islam and in criticizing Muslim misogyny.” Anybody reading the actual words in the article?
I get it. I’m not trying to hide those issues. May I nonetheless have one single moment to celebrate the good stuff? Apparently not, according to “ojcomputer.”
Wajahat Ali
October 7, 2008 at 10:46 pm
MOHJA KAHF responds to Comment # 2 by Worldly Muslimah:
“The problem comes with the women who are not so fortunate as you, who live in villages far removed from urban cities, who must succumb to cultural customs that are shrouded in Islamic Law.”
And what makes you think that I *haven’t* experienced many of those Muslim misogynies myself and am not affected by them in global Muslim discourse, wherever my location? I am sick of my experience as a Muslim being delegitimized because I live in the US.
Plus, I have lived in the Muslim world–in Saudi and Iraq as a teenaged girl, and was living in Saudi when I got married (kitab), and in the UAE (where we did nikah), and return regularly to Jordan. And do I not have tons of relatives in Syria and Egypt and Algeria? I’m in the loop of their lives.
Not to mention, Middle East and Islamic Studies is my field of expertise. I do not speak only from my life, even if I chose representative bits from my life to illustrate the points here in this personal essay format.
It is bogus to dismiss my experiences or my arguments simply because of where I live in this globally interconnected world.
I know the misogyny in the Muslim world—and I know the joys; they too are real. Not fair to portray one, harpingly, all the time, but not the other. I know the misogyny in America, too–and the joys. Both exist.
Compare their worsts to our worsts. And their bests to our bests (but you can’t beat Muslim women presidents FIVE TIMES, babe!). Not fair to compare our worst to their best.
Again, apparently there are people who are threatened if, for even ONE SECOND out of a lifetime of working on the hard stuff, we celebrate the joyous sides of being Muslim women.”
Wajahat Ali
October 7, 2008 at 10:48 pm
In response to Ms. Kahf’s response above:
“Again, apparently there are people who are threatened if, for even ONE SECOND out of a lifetime of working on the hard stuff, we celebrate the joyous sides of being Muslim women.”
What is even more sad is the fact that both of the comments were from Muslims! *sigh*
Sadia
October 8, 2008 at 12:46 am
@ Both the comments left by “ojcomputer” and “worldly muslimah” ….
I think both these comments are a classic example of what is wrong with people today … (notice i said people and NOT Muslims) … that people are quick to read and respond without absorbing what is actually written. The author is talking about ISLAM AND THE BENEFITS GIVEN TO WOMEN IN ISLAM … and the write-up is based on her own experience.
I don’t think that she is talking about what happens in the present day with many unfortunate Muslims all over the world. The whole article / write-up, is concerned with WHAT ISLAM ALLOWS / PROVIDES not WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY. That is a matter if interpretation. We all can agree that there are those of us who are lucky enough, simply by virtue of birth, to be a part of an educated family, and allowed to make our own choices. But that is NOT under debate.
Secondly … as far as the “flippant manner in which this author treated the process of picking a spouse, marriage and divorce” is concerned? If the write-up is based on her personal experience or of those close to her? It may not be flippant. I didn’t find it so. i saw it as people making a choice and realizing it was the wrong one. And their religion / faith gave them another choice to make … that concerning divorce. it shows the liberal essence of Islam … it shows yet again … how people have ‘free will’ … someone could chose to get a divorce and marry again or decide to stay in a marriage for all the wrong reasons and have an existence, NOT a life.
Lastly, why is it that we have to look at the negative side of things all the time? After reading the write-up … I for one felt proud to be a Muslim woman living in today’s world. I am free to make my own choices, while having the guidance and the teachings i need to make said choices. I only wish more women had the same luxury as I do. The fact that they may not is not because THEIR RELIGION does not allow it … it’s because THEIR LEADERS (religious / political whatever) do not allow it.
naheed ali
October 8, 2008 at 8:03 am
I think that the heights of spiritual life provided by Islam, or any other religion, deserve to be celebrated in the way MK does in this article. The metaphor of scarves is a beautiful illustration of the intersection of a bounty of appealing options and the space to exercise preferences.
But here is where I think the celebrations turn sickly sweet-
The author would have you believe that culture can explain the suffering of women in the Muslim world and that this suffering is inversely related to the extent to which Islamic law has been followed. Though I agree culture does not help either, in some cases, Islamic Law has condoned, indeed institutionalized, incredible suffering for women- and that is what makes the author’s celebration seem beautiful, but hollow.
As the story goes, Islam completely turned a page for women, both in terms of their legal rights and spiritual status vis a vis man. Their rights were based on a complementarity-schema and their spiritual status was that of essential equality. But this radical improvement did not apply to all women. It applied to free, Muslim women.
Since Islamic Law is your area of expertise, you know well that, as unpleasant as it is to think about, 1) Islam allows one human being to buy, sell, and trade another (slavery) and that 2) as his property, an owner of a slave is within his full Islamic rights to use his slaves for sexual gratification- what we would call rape. Rape of a free woman is prosecuted under “theft,” in Islam, but the Qur’an specifically makes the act described above, in particular, lawful. In addition to stating that is it lawful, the form in which it is stated, by referring to these slave women as their ‘possessions,’ makes doubly clear it is not to be considered “theft.” Though encouraged and I’m sure appreciated, permission or marriage are simply not legally required. (And its certainly not like one can say this area of life was ignored, rather the number of rules relating to sexual relations, marriage, divorce and slavery abound.)
It is undeniable that this terrible arrangement, which was rampant, appallingly, until the end of 19th century was one which did not, to put it mildly, have the interests of women who would be affected at heart. If you had been one of those women, how would you process your position in Islam?
Those women count at least as much as your myriad of choices. The question boils down to this: what are my myriad of social and economic rights worth if the very basic human rights of my sister are so brutally ignored?
If you agree, and it is clear as day, that Islamic Law allows this arrangement- that it regulated around these evils rather than abolishing them as a moral and spiritual abomination- then you have a serious problem on your hands if you want to say Islam would make the world a great place for women, if only it were followed correctly. Slavery and concubinage were a legally-enjoined reality for thousands upon thousands of women throughout nearly 1500 years of Middle Eastern history and was not abrogated by revelation, but by secular humanism. It’s your amnesia and your mythologizing of Islamic history that necessitate such sermons over and over again. Obviously people do not feel that Muslims demonstrate that they are willing to be honest about their tradition, and until that changes people will continue to point out what they perceive to be the painful reality that you go to great pains to elide.
Saba
October 8, 2008 at 9:33 pm
———————
MOHJA KAHF responds to “Saba”:
“The author would have you believe that culture can explain the suffering of women in the Muslim world and that this suffering is inversely related to the extent to which Islamic law has been followed.”
Uh, no, I didnt say that. I said, “I’m still putting in my time struggling for a more woman-affirming interpretation of Islam.”
People, do you read the actual article, or just see what you want in it?
Again, even if I’m elbow-deep in this kind of work criticizing the misogyny that afflicts us, am I never to be allowed one MINUTE of remembering that we do have good stuff?
Leila Ahmed says in Women & Gender in Islam that, with all the misogyny in Abbasid-era fiqh (which is when all the fiqh we have was formulated), it is to their credit that the male fuqaha of their era were at least not as misogynistic as, say, Aristotle, on the role of women in conception, or a lot of Church fathers on wifely subservience, and that they valued women’s contributions to hadith transmissions, and accepted receive thousands of hadith from and through the authority of women rawia without question. For example.
Here’s another example: a Reconstructionist rabbi friend assures me that Orthodox Jewish women have a real problem that Muslim women do not have: the Orthodox do not have a halakha-based acceptable means to divorce their husbands.
There is, by contrast, a shariah-recognized way to divorce without the husband’s consent, even if it is little used by Muslim women due to social pressures and not widely understood even by the relig iously trained. But it IS IMPORTANT that it still exists, in the Law. Lest you repeat that these legal advantages are only in the past, or only in ideal non-existent abstractions of Islamic law, I am –this very week–helping connect a Muslim woman with an imam who will enable her to perform that kind of divorce, from her recalcitrant and abusive soon-to-be ex, who is in the Arab world.
And there was more good stuff I listed that the Post had to cut for space!
Wajahat Ali
October 9, 2008 at 1:29 am
MOHJA KAHF continues:
“I’m well aware of the concubinage issue. I have neither amnesia nor mythmaking about it.
And not that this excuses it (I’m not out to excuse it): Are you aware that it existed in Judaic law, and not just in ancient (Biblical) times? And in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and all the early Near Eastern & South Asian civs. And was just as rampant in early Christianity, and later in Christian Europe? For example, Irish law in the 9th-10th c outlines what crimes a wife may be held accountable for toward a concubine her husband has just brought into the house. Charlemagne had concubines. It lasted quite a bit longer than many people realized, and was recognized by the law.
And why is the contrast always: the most economically advanced countries with Christian backgrounds–(and only in their very latest condition, with their best most metropolitan face forward, with amnesia about how hard they have had to struggle to pass anti-domestic violence legislation, and without the rural, back-country face that I see every day in my state) to represent Christianity– vs the worst abuses in Muslim world to represent Islam? Why not use Latin America to represent Christian practice (crimes of passion = their parallel to honor killings), or Syrian and Yemeni Jews (with their extremely conservative practice, and one which allows polygamy) to represent Judaism?
Why do we get put into these stockades alone? as if we’re unique in all the world and lagging behind all of creation in our Muslim forms of misogyny, we’re just as misogynistic as the next guy but their misogyny takes forms unique to their culture in their own parallel ways to ours (which doesn’t make it any better, but reduces the exceptionalism that’s always applied to us re gender oppression)?
We don’t take Judaism and Christianity and shove them up agains the wall and ask them first to prove they’re not hell for women before we can even have a conversation with them (ok maybe some feminists do). That sort of exceptionalism is reserved for Islam. And if you think that has nothing to do with Orientalism, and political agendas? and only has to do with our not being “honest?” Well. Hmmph. “
Wajahat Ali
October 9, 2008 at 3:34 am
i’m glad we can celebrate Islam insofar as it conforms to liberalism. of course, you have to leave unmentioned all the illiberal stuff in Islam (and there’s plenty) if you want to get anywhere with a liberal audience. oh well. how about a critique of liberalism now and then? that would be novel. in the meantime, save us the sermon on how liberal Islam really is.
talib
October 9, 2008 at 5:36 am
Good for Mohja Kahf! It is good that she appreciates the blessings of opportunity such as social class, education, and a decent husband that permit her experience of Islam to be so joyous.
Not all women have the opportunity, or even the freedom, to write and express themselves as Mohja Kahf has done here. For example, a North American woman I know blogged secretly about her forced polygamous marriage, her community’s collusion with her husband, and her struggles living in poverty. She was found out and paid the price at the hands of her husband. After all, he has rights over her as the breadwinner.
I sincerely believe that Mohja Kahf reminds us of the beauty of our ideals, so that maybe we might create opportunities for other Muslim women to enjoy them as well.
None of us should be satisfied until our neighbor is nourished as we ourselves have been nourished.
Sister
October 9, 2008 at 4:01 pm
MOHJA KAHF responds to “Talib”
“i’m glad we can celebrate Islam insofar as it conforms to liberalism.” – Talib.
MOHJA: Because liberals really like ritual prayer, ablution, wearing tenty jilbabs, and a rejection of teen dating. Oh yeah, I’m carving this right around their approval.
Wajahat Ali
October 9, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Jewish Law also has a rule about men needing to please women. I’m not sure the phrasing is as explicit as Ms. Kahf’s interpretation of the Quuran, but a man is expected to perform as often as his wife asks. (One assumes she will continue to ask if not satisfied, though in practice probably that isn’t as fully realized for many Orthodox women.) If it is important, to find out, I’ll find the source.
WRT the essay in general,
The fear is of the cessation of freedom, not of Islam itself.
Most of the American and European Muslim women I know are very happy to be as they are, and choose how to follow the laws of the Quuran. I have not been to any countries in the Middle East myself, so I cannot speak to how they feel about Islam, and wouldn’t presume. One wonders however if the European and American Muslims I know were to go to a place where they weren’t given the choice to be as they wish, how they would feel about practicing Islam.
I’ve been reading the comic by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, which is a recount of her life-story (with some fictionalization) growing up in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and how it changed Iran after that time. She seems very proud to be Muslim, but very fed up with the abuses of that culture. She talks about sneaking rock-music under her veil, and being yelled at by police-like old-ladies in the street for wearing a jeans jacket over her otherwise standard-issue clothing.
However, one fears that the Fundamentalist Christians would do as much or more damage! Take the book by Margaret Atwood, the Handmaid’s Tale. What-if they applied all the out-dated rules in Christianity instead of only the ones that they find disgusting (like gays!), well then we’d be in a pretty pickle in the US. What if women were classified and isolated and forced to perform only certain parts of their current roles in accordance with whether or not they were married, virgins, or of a certain social class?
littletess
October 9, 2008 at 6:23 pm
MOHJA KAHF responds to “Sister’ and her comments:
I thank you, “Sister.” But I have some comments anyway.
“Not all women have the opportunity, or even the freedom, to write and express themselves as Mohja Kahf has done here.”
But many do. And their experiences of Islam are just as legitimate. And their experiences do not get press.
Many, many Muslim women—and not just in the U.S., as any of my dozens of Arab-world cousins could tell you— experience humanizing levels of autonomy and choice, encouraging fathers, strong mothers, supportive husbands, social circles where they are respected and have the ability to act, and more importantly a core sense of well-being with God.
And yes, they must use their privilege (and thank God for privilege! thank God for elites, like Mary Wollstonecraft! or Angela Davis!) to work for the rights of not-so-privileged women. And we do. But when we do, our voices are used against us by Islamophobes and Orientalists to negate that any good in our faith tradition or our current faith community (worldwide) exists at all. This, I am tired of.
I will do the feminist work, Sister, AND I will celebrate the joys, especially in ways that upset the dominant narrative of both Muslim patriarchalism and Western (let me say it) imperialism. (Apparently I upset the patriarchal Muslim readers with my “ease of divorce” spiel, did you notice?) I will walk the double-edged blade of dual critique. I will not let up on one side in favor of the other.
This essay came about because an American woman, a retired professor at a Baptist college in the South, remarked to me, “I had no idea there were any joyful Muslim women.”
It came about because a Southern poet showed me a poem she was trying to write that assumed the voice of a “Muslim woman” in the most offensive Blackface minstrelsy manner, where the “Muslim woman” says to God “I know I am but a lowly worm in your sight.”
It came about because of my exposure to skin-crawling levels of bigotry against Muslims based on the clung-to belief that they, all of them, and their faith to its very core of God, despise women. Do you not ever encounter such levels of Islamophobia? Are we allowed not a minute to respond to it, before getting back to our critique of Muslim patriarchalism?
Have you folks who live in the metropolitan parts of this country lost all touch with how Americans in the interior have utterly no sense of the complex reality of Muslim women’s lives, and imagine our lives to be pieced together only from honor killing stories and stoning stories? I am handcuffed to a harem lattice being beaten daily, in their imagination. They are startled even to hear me speak out loud. They cannot imagine that my prayer can be a comfort to me. This, while Christianity and Judaism have nearly exactly the same levels of problems and the same faith structure as Islam—but people recognize the nuanced complexities of those faiths, the variety of adherents’ experiences, the possibility of joy within them.
FIVE PRESIDENTS, beat that, babe! Shouldn’t that, for a teeny tiny minute, produce some cognitive dissonance in how the Islamophobes imagine Muslim women’s realities as simple, one-level, Oppression? No one has taken me up on the FIVE PRESIDENTS deal. Bring it!
Wajahat Ali
October 9, 2008 at 8:48 pm
From MOHJA KAHF:
“Dear Sister,
Just wanted to clarify that i was sort of venting in your presence, taking one line from yr post as a platform from which to explain a bit about the genesis of the article to everyone present, rather than aiming all of that critique & explanation at specifically your comments–which I appreciated!”
Wajahat Ali
October 10, 2008 at 3:45 am
I figured as much, it’s okay. Offering a clarification proves the fineness of your character.
Sister
October 10, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Dear Mohja
while i appreciate your arguments, i would say the weakest point is the 5 presidents. Many of these presidents were elected more because they belonged to certain families or had enough wealth to buy there way into their position. I am referring specifically to Bangladesh and Pakistan. The fact that they were women was almost immaterial when it came to the corruption that led to their empowerment. Hillary Clinton could become president in america very easily if was powerful enough to dismantle democracy, control the media and kill off her opponents. Of course, she cant do that, but that is what some of these women did.
regards
aziz
aziz
October 10, 2008 at 4:38 pm
MOHJA responds to Aziz:
“The fact that they were women was almost immaterial when it came to the corruption…”
Hah! I was waiting for this one (this is fun). I never said they were GOOD presidents. Some of them were sucky, corrupt, presidents. Some of them were people who never would’ve come to power were it not for their powerful fathers…oh wait! are we talking about W. Bush or Benazir?
See, that nepotism/entitlement stuff doesnt happen only in Pakistan. It happens in America, too.
The point is, Benazir was never put out of the running because she was a woman.
Part of equal opportunity is: Powerseeking women get to be as much jerks and as ethically dubious as powerseeking men.
I think one of the antidotes to the “Muslim woman victim” story is to tell stories of Muslim women good bad AND ugly.”
Wajahat Ali
October 11, 2008 at 1:38 am
littletess- you stated “one wonders if the european and american muslim women i know were to go to a place where they weren’t given a choice to be how they wish, how they would feel about practicing Islam.”
Well, I am an American Muslim woman (I converted), and I’ve lived in the Middle East. While I don’t agree with many practices in some of these countries such as not allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia, forcing women to wear the veil in Iran, and of course honor killings in Jordan, I don’t understand why you think this would make me not want to be a Muslim. Do you think I would be unable to differentiate between certain individuals/governments interpretation of Islamic law and the core meaning of Islam?
Not all Western women are so dense and superficial as to only practice Islam because we like pretty scarves and we like how it may be used to uphold certain rights, we practice it because we believe in God and know that whatever injustices we face in this world by misguided individuals (Muslims and non-Muslims alike) will be removed in the next life, insha’Allah.
Aisha
November 10, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Thank you for a wonderful essay. You are a brilliant writer. I lived in qatar for many years and as a muslim woman, I can attest to the fact that the arab culture does indeed distort our religion. However, I am fluent in the Arabic language and I have read the Quran, so I can also attest to the fact that these distortions are in fact cultural, and not based on our religion. Thank you for giving me something to show my co-workers here in the states when they ask me why I am fasting ramadan/celebrating eid/ or don’t date. Jazaki Allah Khairan(May Allah bless you.)
Noor
December 11, 2008 at 4:14 am
Mohja Kahf. U are THE BOMB!! Thanx 4da beau open interpretation of women in Islam. Im tired of culture n tradition n basically, the male ego (political or social)covering up the beauty n logic of Islam. All the western media forms, (t.v, newspapers, novels) always leave a subtle message of ”its cuz they’re muslim they oppress women and blow s*** up and are so violent”…evrytime smthn happens, my friends, mostly non.muslim girls, blame it on islam… Its sickening, but its ppl lyk u who mek me c dat we have 2xplain 2thm the true essence of islam n learn 2differentiate from culture n religion n dat before we criticise, we gotta get our facts straight.. Keep up the good work.. And thank you very much..im gna tell my non.muslim friends and lost muslim ones too, to read ths article.. Assalamu.alaikum.. Allah reward u 4 ths.
I. Am. Muslim.
December 16, 2008 at 9:19 am
LAKH DI LANNATTTTTTTTT KANJRI HAN TO BOT BARRRI MUSLIMS KO BDNAME NI KRO WARNA GAND MAIN GANDI JI KO DALLLON GA KANJRIYA CHOOOOOOOOOOOT MRWA APNY BAAPOO JI AUR BAI JAAAAAAAAAN SAY
KANGAR
February 16, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I am alone.I want a muslim woman.I will go to meca,on14 march,what am i doing? Please help.I am from iran.
Amirreza
March 2, 2009 at 6:40 am
Any religion that allows a man to raise his hand in anger against his wife is no religion of mine.
I don’t care if it’s a ‘gentle’ slap with a toothbrush, or whatever weird reasons Muslims like to give. The simple fact is that NO man should be given ANY kind of permission to lay his hand on his wife when angry.
And since you’re talking about equal rights- how exactly is a Muslim woman suppposed to ‘punish’ HER disobedient husband?
Hannah
March 21, 2009 at 10:48 am
So what religion are you? Because the old testament (which is the Jewish bible and half of the Christian bible) is chalk-full of women beating.
Beth
May 11, 2009 at 2:15 pm
god… i hate muslims
danny_d
March 30, 2009 at 6:21 pm
So… Which Scarf did you pick?
Surfed in looking for info on a Mid/Near East’s woman’s right to own property (and wear pants!) in the middle ages. The first I can prove, the latter I’m working on!
I enjoyed the post very much, and it reminded me very much of a way I felt in a Religions class once where I learned that of the Three Big Sects of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, Muslim) for some reason the Middle Child seems to be the most female oppressive (and thus sexually rebellious, weird how that works out…)
Eh, but I’m only a young American woman, trying to comprehend the world’s views now and in history through a veil of inherited bias and commercialized opinions.
Still, I always liked a pale green (soft, not limey), goes well with either dark or light skin! Got one like that?
>^_^<
Janna
March 31, 2009 at 5:48 am
Mashallah, may Allah bless you, sister. I hope you are able to spread your knowledge to the ignorant people of the world, inshallah. Living in North America, I have experienced people’s ignorance about Islam first hand–from my own in-laws (my husband and I are reverts)! It is wonderful to be able to remind myself how happy I am as a Muslim woman. I would never go back. Alhamdulillah!
Amina Webb
May 23, 2009 at 2:07 am
Hi Mrs. Kahf,
I’ve been up all night because I couldn’t sleep and happened to stumble on your interesting article.
First, a little about me. I am 23 years old and immigrated to the U.S. when I was 3 from Burma. My parents raised me as a Baptist Christian but now consider myself an agnostic. So enough about me and let’s get to the debate shall we?
Let me start by saying I have never been to a Muslim country or read the Koran. Everything I know comes from either the Internet or what my Muslim friends tell me.
1. Gender equality – You say that in the case of a divorce, all minor children go to the mother. What’s so equal about that?
2. Female Heads of State/Government -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elected_or_appointed_female_heads_of_government
Although the U.S. is not on that list, it did recently elect a black president and whoa, I don’t see
These are what some would consider minor points but seems to me some facts that were “just” glossed over, leading me to believe maybe you’re not telling me the entire truth.
On a different note, I also like to challenge people from all beliefs on their beliefs. So if you don’t mind…
1. Why do you believe Islam is right in everything it teaches? Most people in the world probably follow or are inclined to follow the religion they grew up with.
My point on this matter is this: the majority of people believe what they believe because they’ve been taught ever since they were little. Everyone knows most kids will believe anything they’re told.
2. On conversion/proselytizing: You know what’s it’s like to live in Muslim majority countries. How free are the people to convert to any religion they want? How free are people of different religions to practice in Muslim majority countries?
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply Ms. Khaf.
Again, I have never researched Islam so please be gentle if I’m just plain ignorant. If I come across as hostile, that was not the intent. I just become very excited when I debate.
P.S.
I find it ironic that this article is written by a Muslim woman living in America.
Zeke
June 13, 2009 at 11:54 am