Give women a greater voice, says Muslim feminist scholar
“As we enter the 21st century, Muslim women have developed into a critical mass and are exercising their voice about their lived realities in new ways.” So said Professor Amina Wadud in a public lecture on 18 February at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute. The lecture, entitled "Muslim Women and Gender Justice: Methods, Motivation and Means", was sponsored by the US Consulate in Melbourne.
An Islamic “ordination” debate
The American Muslim activist was visiting from her base at Virginia Commonwealth University in the US. She has long been a controversial figure among Muslims, leading a campaign that gets to the root of the gender debate within Islam about women being religious leaders, rather than merely participants. While most Islamic legal scholars, both Sunni and Shi’a, allow a woman to lead prayers to women-only congregations, the leading of mixed-gender prayers is reserved for male imams.
In 2005 Wadud led mixed-gender Muslim prayers in New York in a building owned by the Episcopal Church of New York; this resulted from her group having been refused a venue in several mosques and after an alternative venue, an art gallery, received a bomb threat. In October 2008, Wadud again led mixed-gender Muslim prayers at Wolfson College in Oxford, and has done so at many other venues in recent years.
Wadud was at pains in her lecture to emphasise that her critique was not directed at the Islamic faith per se, but rather at the way some Muslims put it into practice. “Islam is the ideal; Muslims are the real,” she insisted. “That we fall short of the ideal is a function of reality. It is part of being human.”
New thinking
Her view was one of optimism. “No longer are Muslim women the subject of the definitions of what it means to be Muslim women that have been projected upon them by both Muslim men and by non-Muslims,” she said, emphasising a new creativity preoccupying many Muslim women who “are asking different kinds of questions about what it means to be human, and about how we think, or hermeneutics.”
She lamented that there is no record until the end of the 20th century of how women understood the Qur’an. “The field of Qur’anic commentating has been totally dominated by male authors, with male perspectives and for a male target audience until recently,” she declared. Professor Wadud argued passionately for the importance to Islam of giving a greater voice to women, saying “When we listen to women’s perspectives, we add to the human comprehension of what the Qur’an means.”
Debates among Muslim women
Professor Wadud considered diverse perspectives among Muslim women on gender issues. Some she clearly rejected: “Islamist [fundamentalist] women consider that if we just implant Sharia Law, all will be well. But this approach merely entrenches patriarchy.” She was also critical of secular Muslim women such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the Canadian Irshad Manji who “accept the notion that there is no equality in Islam, so they reject their faith.”
She also referred to “Islamophobic women, who believe that either you have Islam or human rights, democracy, equality, so you have to choose. But what if you want both”, she asked. Similarly liberal modernists, whom she described as “can’t-we-all-get-along kinds of people”, clearly did not impress her.
In contrast, she endorsed those whom she termed Islamic feminists. “They differ by degree, method, and objective,” she explained. “All aspects of what Islam means are subject to analysis by this group.” Islamic feminists base their approach upon Qur’anic cosmology, which “affirms the duality of male and female, a duality which means equality but not same-ness.” She was quick to add that this notion exists in other religious traditions as well, citing the teaching of St Augustine as well as the Chinese philosophical concept of Ying-Yang.
Professor Wadud has received strong support for her Muslim women’s advocacy work over the years from a number of Muslim women’s groups, especially in Western countries, as well as some leading Muslim male supporters of women’s rights.
An edited version of this article first appeared in "The Melbourne Anglican", May 2010, p5
An Islamic “ordination” debate
The American Muslim activist was visiting from her base at Virginia Commonwealth University in the US. She has long been a controversial figure among Muslims, leading a campaign that gets to the root of the gender debate within Islam about women being religious leaders, rather than merely participants. While most Islamic legal scholars, both Sunni and Shi’a, allow a woman to lead prayers to women-only congregations, the leading of mixed-gender prayers is reserved for male imams.
In 2005 Wadud led mixed-gender Muslim prayers in New York in a building owned by the Episcopal Church of New York; this resulted from her group having been refused a venue in several mosques and after an alternative venue, an art gallery, received a bomb threat. In October 2008, Wadud again led mixed-gender Muslim prayers at Wolfson College in Oxford, and has done so at many other venues in recent years.
Wadud was at pains in her lecture to emphasise that her critique was not directed at the Islamic faith per se, but rather at the way some Muslims put it into practice. “Islam is the ideal; Muslims are the real,” she insisted. “That we fall short of the ideal is a function of reality. It is part of being human.”
New thinking
Her view was one of optimism. “No longer are Muslim women the subject of the definitions of what it means to be Muslim women that have been projected upon them by both Muslim men and by non-Muslims,” she said, emphasising a new creativity preoccupying many Muslim women who “are asking different kinds of questions about what it means to be human, and about how we think, or hermeneutics.”
She lamented that there is no record until the end of the 20th century of how women understood the Qur’an. “The field of Qur’anic commentating has been totally dominated by male authors, with male perspectives and for a male target audience until recently,” she declared. Professor Wadud argued passionately for the importance to Islam of giving a greater voice to women, saying “When we listen to women’s perspectives, we add to the human comprehension of what the Qur’an means.”
Debates among Muslim women
Professor Wadud considered diverse perspectives among Muslim women on gender issues. Some she clearly rejected: “Islamist [fundamentalist] women consider that if we just implant Sharia Law, all will be well. But this approach merely entrenches patriarchy.” She was also critical of secular Muslim women such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the Canadian Irshad Manji who “accept the notion that there is no equality in Islam, so they reject their faith.”
She also referred to “Islamophobic women, who believe that either you have Islam or human rights, democracy, equality, so you have to choose. But what if you want both”, she asked. Similarly liberal modernists, whom she described as “can’t-we-all-get-along kinds of people”, clearly did not impress her.
In contrast, she endorsed those whom she termed Islamic feminists. “They differ by degree, method, and objective,” she explained. “All aspects of what Islam means are subject to analysis by this group.” Islamic feminists base their approach upon Qur’anic cosmology, which “affirms the duality of male and female, a duality which means equality but not same-ness.” She was quick to add that this notion exists in other religious traditions as well, citing the teaching of St Augustine as well as the Chinese philosophical concept of Ying-Yang.
Professor Wadud has received strong support for her Muslim women’s advocacy work over the years from a number of Muslim women’s groups, especially in Western countries, as well as some leading Muslim male supporters of women’s rights.
An edited version of this article first appeared in "The Melbourne Anglican", May 2010, p5