ISLAM AND POLITICS

Scholars' Concern on Women in Islam

Recent negative stereotypes of Muslim women in the media have impelled Muslim intellectuals to examine the discourse of the status and rights of women in the Islamic world and explore indigenous models of emancipation for the masses in general and women in particular. Misconceptions that Muslim women are slaves to their husbands, beaten by their husbands, oppressed objects, deprived and suppressed, have encouraged feminist writers who are concerned with women in Islam to examine the status and rights of those women.

Common Issues

The specific issues commonly exercising scholarly feminists, which can lead to the misconceptions about women in Islam, may be listed under the following heads:

Gender equality including women's rights, status and creation. These issues lead to several negative assumptions about women in Islam. It is assumed by many Western commentators that Muslim women have been considered inferior to men; women cannot match the power and competence of man; man must possess and dominate women as Adam was created first. It is often claimed, moreover, that the legal instructions mentioned in the Quran and Hadith discriminate against women.

The issue of marriage and polygamy. These issues can lead to the assumption that Muslim women have been given no independent rights to enter a marital relationship of their own accord as their mental capacity is inferior to that of a man. Furthermore, when the question of Islam and marriage is approached, the first image conjure up in the mind of non-Muslims, is often that Islam is a religion which encourages the sexual indulgence of the male members of the society and the subjugation of its females through this patrimonial system. It is claimed that Islam has introduced and encouraged the practise of polygamy --which is therefore portrayed as a characteristic of Islam.

The veil (hijab). The most immediate and obvious means of separating and excluding Muslim women from the public sphere has been the veil. It is claimed that Muslim women are instructed to cover their bodies from head to toe with the exception of the face and hands, and barred from performing certain social activities and functions.

Scholars' Concern

These misconceptions have become a main concern of the scholarly feminist. Thus, they try to analyze and answer such misconceptions by writing and publishing their books.

For example, Jawad (The Rights of Women in Islam: An Authentic Approach, 1998) says that her book aims primarily to investigate some of the issues currently affecting the situation of Muslim women and to develop the proper understanding of the position of women from Islamic perspective.

Engineer (The Rights of Women in Islam, 1992) points out that his book is attempt to set out women's rights in Islam in the true Quranic spirit, for there has been much deviation from this spirit in practice.

Mernissi (Women and Islam: A Historical and Theological Enquiry, 1991) furthermore says that after writing her book she had come to understand that 'if women's rights are problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Quran nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interest of male elites'.

This argument is also strengthened by Wadud (Quran and Women: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective, 1999) who says that the purpose of her book is to make a rereading of the Quran from within the female experience and without stereotypes which have been the framework for many of the male interpretations.

Hope, those books mentioned above could give other insights for the readers on the status of women in Islam and can help to reduce stereotype of Muslim women.

posted by Alin at 4:46 PM