The Creator addresses women as being on an equal footing with men,
their status as beings and believers
is the same as
men’s and the requirements of worship are absolutely identical.
When it comes to religion, it may well be over the women’s issue that
tensions, contradictions, and concerns are most frequent and complex. This
involves human relationships, deep-seated representation, and relationship
logic that, beyond scriptural sources themselves, have to do with age-old
cultural and social heritages that remain deeply ingrained and highly
sensitive. Speaking about women in any human group means interfering with the
groundwork of social structures, of cultural symbolisms, of gender roles, of
the position of the family unit, and of authority and power relationships.
It also means speaking about human beings, their freedom, their autonomy,
and their individual, spiritual, and social aspirations. Discourse about women
reveals collective mind-sets, confidence and fear, the protective strength of
what is said and the unsaid, and the deep-rooted foundations of social
structures and their role. This is no simple matter: complex, interdependent
issues are involved, and focusing on one dimension rather than another can
sometimes lead to excess and distortion in both criticisms and claims. Yet
debate is necessary.
In recent years, debate in the West, and subsequently in Muslim-majority
countries, has focused on the more visible aspects of the “status of women in
Islam.” This is indeed an essential issue, but reducing it to a passionate, oversimplified
debate about a list of “problem practices” has led to evading the heart of the
matter. The issue of “Muslim women” is being bandied about today as if it
characterised the irreconcilable relationship between Islam and the West, the
opposition between a universe of submission and another holding the promise of
freedom, with, of course, the leitmotiv of the contrast between patriarchal
traditions and western modernity said to be an increasingly feminine viewpoint.
Then the list of discriminations related to dress, polygamy, violence,
inheritance, and other issues. is repeated again and again. Aside from the fact
that the substance of the claims presented here is open to debate (while of
course, the nature of the discriminations Muslim women may face today must not
be understated), it seems imperative to broaden the scope of the debate and
return to the sources and fundamentals of representations and discourses.
Many Muslim women and men have already started this essential work on the
contents of scriptural sources: how they should be read and interpreted, and
how they relate to surrounding cultures and social structures. Such studies
must be carried out, although two main pitfalls must be avoided. On the one
hand, one must beware of focusing too much on some sensitive issues having to
do with text interpretation while neglecting a more comprehensive approach that
would link texts, the social environment, and the logics that in this latter
case legitimise specific readings and sometimes result in inducing false
religious truisms. On the other hand, one must avoid thinking about this
process of critical reconsideration only in terms of the West, no matter
whether the latter is praised or rejected.
Clearly, the internal debate in the light of scriptural sources must be
thought through and started from within, and it cannot simply and naturally
identify with, or be assimilated with, categories introduced by women and
feminists in western societies. It would, however, be wrong and inconsistent to
reject the reflections produced by the long and intense debates and
confrontations in modern societies about the issue of womanhood, of women’s
autonomy, their sexuality, their roles (in the family, in society, or
economically and politically), as well as logics of power and processes of
alienation. Starting from a divine Revelation, some questions are bound to be
highly specific and must be tackled as such, but one should also study all
possible interactions between early interpreters, their cultural environment,
and social structures.
The feminine equation includes several factors and requires that certain
standpoints be taken from the beginning, even before starting to discuss the
nature of the research and proposed solutions. Regarding the issue of women, I
think it will not be enough to rely on a few bold legal opinions — opening the
way to new prospects — to further the cause of women in any fundamental way. In
this field, seeking justice, ending discriminations, and promoting reform
require us, as a priority, to reassess the framework and methodology that have
been determined in order to understand and remain faithful to scriptural
sources through history and in different sociocultural environments. Later in
the process, this implies integrating the latter into the reflection and
understanding of male-female relations and the distribution of roles and power.
This also means carrying such reflection to its logical extent by giving
thorough consideration to the alienation situations in which women, instead of
being subjects, become the objects of men’s or society’s representations. This
includes studying the perverted logics through which some demands have
backfired and caused women to move from one form of alienation to another. Many
women, among them feminists, have dealt with those developments and sometimes
those paradoxes, and their reflections should be read and studied. They shed
light on possibly converging views about sociopolitical and cultural issues and
emphasise essential differences as related to oneself, to the being, to others,
and consequently to freedom.
Initially, Quranic verses used only the masculine plural form to refer to
the women and men in the new faith community. For years, “believers” (Al
Mu’minun), and “the truthful” (As Sadiqun), either referred specifically to men
or to the men and women who constituted the Prophet’s (PBUH) first Companions.
Once, a woman (or several, according to the different traditions) asked the
Prophet (PBUH) why women were not explicitly mentioned in the revealed message.
The Book — which, while revealing a universal message, also included responses
to the questions asked by the men around the Prophet (PBUH) — was later to
mention women and men distinctly.
This evolution of the message is part of divine pedagogy in the process of
revelation carried out over 23 years: the faithful are thus led to evolve in
their understanding of things and critically reconsider some of their cultural
or social practices. The status of women, who were sometimes killed at birth
because of the shame they might bring, was to be reformed in stages, as verses
were revealed. It thus appeared more and more clearly that the Quran’s message
and the Prophet’s (PBUH) attitude were apt to free women from the cultural
shackles of Arab tribes and clans and from the practices of the time. The
Creator addresses women as being on an equal footing with men, their status as
beings and believers is the same as men’s and the requirements of worship are
absolutely identical. They are partners on the spiritual path, in which support
and protection are needed: “They are your garments as you are their garments.”
“Love and mercy [kindness]” are the heart’s resources that make life together
possible: love to combine qualities, mercy to overlook failings and weaknesses.
Exile from Makkah to Madinah also played a major part in the evolution of
mindsets among Muslims: women in Madinah were more evident, more involved,
bolder and more assertive, and they surprised the Prophet’s (PBUH) Makkahan
wife, the learned Aisha, who said: “Blessed be (what excellent women were) the
Ansar women, whom modesty did not prevent from seeking instruction [in
religious affairs]”. The Madinah period helped sort out religious principles
from Makkahan Arab customs and bring about changes in women’s status: the
reform movement was thus started and accompanied by the Revelations, by social
experiments, and, of course, by the Prophet’s (PBUH) attitude as the example
the Companions were to follow.
The different verses were therefore to be read and interpreted in the light
of that movement, and early readings and interpretations of revealed texts were
to be viewed in the ideal mirror of the Prophet’s (PBUH) behaviour.
Accordingly, highly original interpretations regarding women, their status, and
their rights appeared very early on. The inner reform movement was perceived,
understood, and commented on from the first centuries, during which the Text
sciences were established, but it remains true that early readers were mainly
men who read the Revelation through the double prism of their gender and of the
culture in which they necessarily lived.
The Companions and early ulema could not but read the text in the light of
their own situation, viewpoint, and context. While the Book spoke about women,
their being and their heart, fuqaha’ (experts in Islamic law) set out to
determine their duties and their rights according to the various functions
society imparted them. Women were therefore “daughters”, “sisters”, “wives” or
“mothers”; the legal and religious discourse about women was built on those
categories. It is indeed difficult for a man, and what is more a jurist, to
approach the issue of women primarily as beings in their integrity and autonomy
— whatever the internal process initiated by the different revelations or
historical experiences, such an approach inevitably orients and restricts the
reading and interpretation of texts. Their concern was to impart a function to
women, to draw up a list of rights and duties. A closer reading of the texts,
however, shows that the purpose of the inner evolution just mentioned,
revisiting women’s status step by step, is in fact to bring the believing
conscience to perceive women through their being, beyond their different social
functions. This inductive movement towards the primacy of being naturally
involves an effect on the issue of social status; this, however, implies
allowing full scope to the interpretation process and accepting all its
consequences.
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