Muslim Women in Spain and Latin America as Imports of a “Worse” Patriarchy

February 29, 2012 By eren

In the past few days, the Spanish media has been reporting on the case of a Moroccan woman in Spain who was bitten by her husband for refusing to wear hijab. The case of the unnamed woman has surprisingly made it to the media, where the other 36% of the domestic violence cases involving immigrants are never reported.

Muslim women in Ecuador. Via El Telegrafo.

The partner, who has been detained, taken into custody, and condemned to two years in prison has been reported to be somehow shameless in his attack in not denying the charges, and careless in that when police came to his house, he was looking after his 12-month-old son and acting “as if nothing had happened.”

In most articles, the nationality and religion of the attacker have been highlighted with bold letters and her refusal to wear hijab (which in some articles is defined as a head scarf, while in others is confused with the niqab) are also cited as source of controversy within the larger Spanish community.

Questions on how to save the victim from the patriarchal context where she comes from and how to make sure that the abusive partner is properly punished are sometimes ignored in other contexts, for instance where attackers belong to higher economic classes, are part of the “dominant” ethnic group and the mainstream religion.

While some efforts have been made to draw parallels between the victim of this attack and hundreds of other victims (Muslim and non-Muslim), domestic violence cases are rarely reported in Spanish papers. When they are (like in this instance), they seem to point at deeper issues, supposedly more “worrying” than domestic and gendered violence, like immigration example and the “import” of Islam to Spain.

At the same time as this issue was reported, the Ecuador’s El Telégrafo issued an article on the growing female Muslim population in Ecuador. This article describes the experiences of those Muslim converts who “surprisingly” have decided to wear hijabs and abayas, change their names and, oftentimes, leave behind Christian communities.

This article came due to the First Female Islamic Congress in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The congress aimed at looking at the situation of Muslim women in the area and to educate the community on Islamic issues. The conversion of women to Islam in Ecuador, and perhaps in many other countries in Latin America, is treated as a novelty, and much of the article comments on what these converts wear, eat, drink and do for fun. [Read more...]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Discussing LGBTQ Issues in Islam: Shifts, or More of the Same?

February 15, 2012 By eren

Media coverage of LGTBQ issues in Islam is largely influenced by the political contexts in which it is discussed. LGTBQ Muslims are often categorized and talked about in all sorts of weird ways (as this post demonstrates). In the media, this gets expressed in different ways. Sometimes, coverage focuses on the theological debates surrounding homosexuality. In some other instances, Western media discusses LGTBQ rights in Islam as if they were a novelty and an import from the “LGTBQ-friendly West” that must be supported (here) against the “stubborn” Muslim opinions (here). In others, coverage becomes even more politicized; for example, Jasbir Puar talks about “Pinkwashing” in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (using the LGTBQ community to make a political statement on the dangers of other society, often when the excuse of “for the women” has failed, and deflecting attention from other policy issues).

Yet, recently some coverage of a topic that has become more common in the media and that may be familiar for Muslims and non-Muslims in most societies: LGTBQ marriage. Earlier this week, mambaonline.com reported on a lesbian couple getting married through Muslim rites in South Africa. Sadia Kruger and Zukayna Leonard have been together for long time and they had a civil ceremony in South Africa five years ago. The couple now is planning to have a Muslim wedding, which is being supported by The Inner Circle, an organization that supports the Muslim LGTBQ community. Imam Muhsin Hendricks, one of the leading figures of The Inner Circle, will perform the ceremony.

The shift is somehow prominent in much of the Western media. In the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of discussion on LGTBQ rights in Muslim and non-Muslim countries and on Muslims activism for or against LGTBQ rights. Some of the headlines that dealt with these issues included a Gay News Network interview with Alyena Mohummadally on being queer and Muslim and an Economist article discussing homosexuality in Islam titled Straight but Narrow.  A BBC article from last year looked at British Muslims seeking the right to marry.

Reading the comments in any of the above articles can be an emotional roller coaster due to the variety of opinions and reactions that articles like this cause. We do not only get those who think that Islam, which is inherently patriarchal, can never support LGTBQ rights, but we also get those Muslims that write paragraphs justifying discrimination against LGBTQ Muslims. [Read more...]

Filed Under: News, Politics Tagged With: ,

On Female Scholars (But Not Feminism): Reviewing Al-Muhaddithat

February 1, 2012 By eren

I bought this book after reading a review in the New York Times. The review largely described Al-Muhaddithat as a women-focused yet Islamically-indigenous text that could lead to the rediscovery of women’s importance in Islam.  

Cover of Al-Muhaddithat. Image via Interface Publications.

The book is written by Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a Muslim scholar who puts emphasis on what he sees as a women’s role in Islam (what he considers an “appropriate” role) but does not advocate for “Westernized” customs like mixing between sexes. Nadwi, a Sunni scholar and specialist in the science of hadith, is often grouped with scholars like Yusuf Qaradawi and ‘Abdal-Fattah Abu Ghudda. He belongs to a more orthodox realm of Islam that adheres to traditional interpretations of the sacred texts.

This book is somehow a historical text but also a theological statement on his particular views. The book is rich in primarily Sunni historical sources, hadith and sunnah. However, unlike the works of scholars like Fatema Mernissi who use hadith, sunnah and historical critical approaches, especially in her book the Veil and the Male Elite, Nadwi does not necessarily set out to present a critical reading of the position of women in Islamic scholarship. Indeed, he reaches a different conclusion when it comes to analyzing the historical evidence.

The text goes through a number of topics concerning women’s ability (or inability) to perform scholarly roles in Islam, including issues of narration of hadiths, ability or inability to provide testimony, women’s role in Islamic education (studying and teaching), fiqh (jurisprudence), fatwas, etc. It is rich in a variety of hadiths narrated by women or about women, and it sometimes discusses differences of opinions (which for me show how Islam has always been diverse) in regards to women’s issues. Much of the sources used come from texts written and analyzed by male scholars, which, Nadwi explains, is due to the lack of information about women’s work. This, he says has to do with the concept of “hijab,” which has often kept women’s accomplishments in the private domain. To date, he told the New York Times, he has found about 8,000 female scholars, including female hadith narrators (such as the wives of the Prophet, for example) and female teachers of Islamic sciences, dating back to the earliest days of Islam. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books/Magazines Tagged With: , ,
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