From the time of birth, a Muslim woman’s place in Islamic society already has a shadow cast over it. Instead of the joyous cry that boys receive of “Allah Abkar”1 when they are born, a baby girl is welcomed into the world with a hushed Qurannic prayer. Although Islam venomously denies its role in the suppression of women, a survey of Islamic countries reveals that women are denied their humanity. The status of women in Islamic countries is undeniably inferior to men. Over the last twenty years, progress has been made in many countries which has helped elevate the roles which Muslim women play in their societies.
Although progress has been made in certain countries, there still exist those Islamic countries where being born female guarantees a lack of rights, liberty, and happiness. This paper will explore the question, “What forces are limiting the Muslim woman’s equivocal participation in Islamic society? ” Islam’s followers are approximated at 1. 2 billion, which makes it a runner up only to Christianity that has about 2 million adherents. Women constitute about half of that population.
However, it is important to note that this paper examines the treatment of women in the strongholds of the Islamic domain. These populations include the Arab countries of Saudi Arabi, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, Israel, Oman, and Lebanon. Muslim women of the African countries of Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia are also weighed in this analysis. In addition to these better known Islamic countries, the paper also observes the societal treatment of women in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Bangladesh.
About 90% of all Muslim women live in these stated countries. 2 There are many seemingly simple traditions that make it evident that the position that women hold in society is inferior to men. An example of this is in Bangladeshi society, where women are not allowed to speak the name of their husbands directly, because it is viewed as immodest and disrespectful. 3 In addition to this tradition that has been adopted from Hinduism, women in Bangladesh are rarely referred to by their first name, but are instead addressed as men’s wives, brother’s sisters, or father’s daughters.
It is obvious from this simple fact that women are not viewed as individuals aside from To supplement these simple practices of suppression, there are also sacred concepts and beliefs that exist in Islamic countries that display misogyny. Fatima Banning mixing of sexes and advocating the separation of men and women as the measure to alleviate all political crises is far from being a novelty in Muslim political history. It is a tradition, even a state tradition.
Opposition forces claim past practice as the basis for treating women with contempt. A Muslim Sovereign in a crisis, facing hunger riots or popular revolt, immediately has recourse to the traditional practice of destroying the stores of wine and placing a ban on women leaving their homes, and especially on their using the same transportation as men, reducing them to the state of mmobility in capitals like Cairo and Baghdad which are traversed by great rivers…. Wine and women – here we have the Gordian knot6 of the crisis.
Tathir, the ritual purification of the social body, requires the destruction of the first and the This practice of seeing the women as the root of all problems is not something of the past or something of the present. It is pervasive across the centuries to the years that Islam first originated. Mernissi gives us an examples of this: Al-Hakim, the Fatimid caliph who ordered his mathematician to regulate the waters of he Nile, turned to the other, more realizable, measures to calm the masses when the waters continued to fall and the failure of the crops provoked enormous inflation.
In the year 405 of the Hejira he decided to act, ordering Egyptian women to be shut in. In that year al-Hakim forbade women to leave their houses at all; he forbade them to go to the public baths and put an end to the manufacture of shoes for women. many opposed his The caliph al-Muqtadi, the twenty eighth ruler of the Abbasid dynasty, exiled women singers and women of ill fame from the city. Their houses were sold and they themselves sent into exile…. Sailors were forbidden to transport men and women Today the view is just as pervasive as it was in the past.
One leader of the 1992 Algerian Fundamentalist movement named Shaykh ‘Abbas Madani said in a speech that wine and women were at the bottom of his country’s problems: Our religion enjoins us to take counsel. The Prophet, may health be his, said: “Religion is counsel”…. So we have tried in all circumstances to consult with our brothers, to work together for the well-being of this community and this country…. We have seen moral calamities that have no connection with religion or with the traditions of the Algerian.
Consumption of wine has become legal; mixing of the sexes in schools, lycees, and universities has led to the proliferation of bastards. Depravity has spread, and we see that women no longer cover themselves but display their bodies with makeup and naked for all to see both indoors and outdoors. Where then is the dignity of the Algerian man after his honor has been publicly flouted? 10 Many other complex ideas and customs exist that all undermine the equivocal participation of women in Islamic societies. The attitudes that exist towards marriage in Islamic countries contribute to the suppression of women.
From the time that a baby girl s born into Islamic society, the parents begin to arrange her marriage. They go about it with the same way that someone would negotiate a business transaction. Many marriages are purely practical and are arranged with the intention to improve social ties between families or to relieve financial stress. Muslim girls are married at a frighteningly young age, which denies them the opportunity to experience life before they are tied to the responsibilities of raising a family and caring for the elderly of her husband’s family.
In Bangladesh, nearly seventy percent of the females are married by the time they turn eventeen. 11 In Israel, legal marriages are allowed to occur as young as age fourteen. 12 Many marriage rules exist in Islamic countries that also deny women basic rights. One harsh rule is that no women is allowed to marry without the permission of her father regardless of what age she might be. The first is that Islam expects all Muslims to marry. Additionally, Islam expects all women to marry Muslim men. Women are not allowed to marry non-Muslims, but men allowed to and they do.
This double standard is allowable because in the Islamic faith, the religion is passed to the child from the father. These rules present all types of problems. Many of the women who decide not to marry experience guilt, anger, and shame because they are told that they are living a life of sin. Depression is also caused because many times women are alienated from their greater families if they choose not to marry or if they marry a non-Muslim. The Islamic society attaches a stigma to unmarried women, and in many fundamentalist countries the women who do not abide by the marriage laws risk being killed from unforgiving persons.
Because polygamous marriages are permitted by the Qur’an, many women are treated unequally. Presently, men are allowed to have as many as four wives as long as they have permission from their first wife to take another. The Qur’an says that men should only take additional wives if he can treat them equally, but inevitably their is no fairness behind polygamous marriages. There exists no financial burdens for a man with multiple wives. Because women are required to hand over all of their earnings to their husbands, many men simply take additional wives because of the incentive to increase their income.
Unfair handling of money is one of the many offenses that occurs in polygamous marriages. Men do not hesitate to take money from one family and spend it on the family of a more favorable wife, nor do they think twice about getting rid of a wife when they are tired of her. Sociologist Katherine Rozario says that, “Most people treat their wives as a pair of shoes, taking a second or a third paid at their sweet will and turning them out of their houses any time they want. 13 Despite the ill treatment that women are subjected to in polygamous marriages, they believe that they are better off in a polygamous marriage than opposed to not being married. No matter how corrupt the marriage may be, marriage s seen as a protective force that allows women a certain status in society. Nurjahan, who is married to a 24 year old man who has been married seventeen times says that, “The fact is that as long as I have a husband, no man will dare take advantage of me.
At least I am safe. 14 Although Islam claims that polygamous marriages are rare and that they advocate monogamous marriages, there is an upward trend in the number of polygamous marriages in Bangladesh as well as other countries: The 1974 census pegged the number of polygamous marriages in Bangladesh at 140,000. The figure rose by six times in 1981, shooting up to 1. million in 1991. Demographers believe the numbers are probably much higher. 15 Divorce laws also deny women basic liberties. Many countries do not allow women to initiate divorce proceedings, and if they do, they are rarely granted.
The systems in place, rarely provide fair divorce hearings in favor of the women. Because of the alienation that a women would incur from divorcing her husband, many women would never dream of asking for a divorce. On the contrary, men are granted divorces easily and at will. Even when there exists no grounds for divorce, men are able to work the system in order to get a divorce. Women rarely choose to fight court decisions or ask for Sexual impropriety or a failure to comply with the expectations surrounding marriage and divorce may lead to murder in many Islamic countries.
These brutal murders committed by family members have become known as “honor killings. ” Honor killing has its roots in the crude Arabic expression “a man’s honor lies between the legs of a woman. ” For Arab women, virginity before marriage and fidelity afterward are considered musts. Men are expected to control their female relatives. If a woman strays, it is widely thought, the dignity of the men can be restored only by killing er…. The slightest sniff of a scandal can be a death warrant… “Once the story is out in the community, ” says Asma Khader, a lawyer and feminist, “they have to kill.
Forbidden sex isn’t always the issue. Marrying or divorcing against family wishes can Men that have committed murders such as these feel very proud about the fact, and unfortunately many countries do not condone or try to adequately prevent such killings. In Jordan, the state tries to prevent these murders by locking up the women who might be at risk until the family has signed a document that says they will not harm the omen. Despite these agreements, many women are killed after they have been released, and men serve relatively short terms in prison for the murders.
Because of the Arab logic that exists behind honor killings, virginity testing is dangerous for Muslim women to undergo. In Islamic societies women are forced to undergo virginity tests. This has led to depression and suicide attempts among Muslim women. The practice of forced virginity testing is a basic denial of rights, liberty, and happiness. It is a violation of the body and the individual. Doctors consider virginity esting to be inaccurate, which causes many women who have been subject to testing to be wrongly accused and punished.
Regardless of the accuracy, virginity testing is resulting in suicide attempts and widespread depression in the women that are forced to undergo Hi’jab18 is a fundamental code of conduct that Muslim women are expected to follow. Seen through western eyes, hi’jab is an oppressive element forced on women that directly denies women liberty. Hi’jab originates from the Arabic word “hajaba” which literally translates as curtain. Hi’jab means to hide from view or to conceal. Today the ord is figuratively used to refer to the way Muslim women veil themselves.
The reason why women choose to veil themselves is because the Qu’ran tells them to: O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters and the believing women to draw their outer garments around them (when they go out or are among men). That is better in order that they may be known (to be Muslims) and not annoyed… 19 And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; and that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what must ordinarily appear thereof; that they should draw their veils around their bosoms and not isplay their beauty except to their husbands… 0 Islam requires modesty for women.
What is subject to interpretation is exactly how much modesty. Depending on the area, some dress codes require more modesty than others. In less strict Islamic areas, women are required to cover themselves from their head to toe, only excluding their face and hands. In more fundamentalist areas like Oman, Bedouin woman must cover every area of their body including their face and hands. They have to wear a special mask that has verses from the Qur’an tucked away inside of it, as well as a protective necklace called a hirz.
Women who fail to comply with covering their body as specified by the region, may invite upon themselves brutal beatings. The debate over “how much modesty” stems from the fact that Mohammed, required his wives to cover their face, but he did not directly ask other women to. It is known as dictated by the Hadith21 what is the minimum requirement for women is: Ayesha reported that Asmaa the daughter of Abu Bakr came to the Messenger of Allah while wearing thin clothing. He approached her and said: ‘O Asmaa!
When a girl reaches the menstrual age, it is not proper that anything should remain exposed except his and this. He pointed to the face and hands. 22 Hi’jab stipulates other specifics for a woman’s choice and adornment of clothing. Clothes must be worn loosely enough so that the shape of the body is not decipherable. Similarly, the thickness of cloth must not reveal the color of a woman’s skin. Clothing should be selected to wear on the basis that it is not attractive to men. With this in mind, women are not allowed to wear bright or flashy colors or clothes of that type of material.
Women are not allowed to dress like men, or non-Muslims. Lastly, women should not choose to wear clothing that invites sympathy. When the rules are taken in summary, they all have the same underlying theme: women should do nothing to advertise her sexuality, or tempt men to break from their appropriate roles. Islam claims that it requires the specified dress code because it protects women. Protectiveness is attained because women who cover their bodies can be evaluated by men based on their skills and intelligence and not on their looks.
Mary Ali explains the protectiveness that women feel when she quotes an Iranian school girl: We want to stop men from treating us like sex objects, as they have always done. We ant them to ignore our appearance and to be attentive to our personalities and mind. We want them to take us seriously and treat us as equals and not just chase us around for Ali then echoes that she feels the dress has similar liberating effects for women: A Muslim women who covers her head is making a statement about her identity.
Anyone who sees her will know that she is a Muslim and has a good moral character. Many Muslim women who cover are filled with dignity and self esteem; they are pleased to be identified as a Muslim woman, she does not want her sexuality to enter into interactions with men in the smallest degree. A woman who covers herself is concealing her sexuality but allowing her femininity to be brought out. 24 An increasingly large number of women are beginning to see the rules of dress depicted by hi’jab as a way to express their Islamic feminism.
In Turkey, women are opposing Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s25 ban on the head scarf. Ataturk was influential in convincing the government to ban the scarf starting in 1989, because he saw it as a ” a symbol against women’s rights. ” Ironically, Turkish women are fighting to uplift this ban. Philip G. Smucker says that, “Turkish women remain determined to cover their heads, which they ncreasingly view as an act of self-assertion and female empowerment. “26
Despite this rise in the view of the dress code as liberating, Ataturk’s view is just as strong: … omen see Islamism as still representing–at heart–a form of Islam repressive to women and buttressed by the patriarchy that they want to dispel. They feel that the Islamist insistence that equality is based on essential differences between men and women is simply a ploy to keep women under the dominance of males. For the most part, these women are not enthusiastic about Islamic dress… 27 Although Muslim women are divided on their view of the dress code that hi’jab alls for them to follow, they are united in the fact that they see the Western woman’s’ style of dress as demeaning.
They have been brainwashed into believing that “Western Central to such contemporary ideology is a general rejection of the West and Western “freedoms,” especially those in which women’s bodies have been revealed and “commodified. ” This they see as one important ingredient in the general moral and ethical disintegration of Western societies. Western women are portrayed as having been used and misled. Deprived of pride and dignity, they are objects of sexual exploitation rather than liberation.