Reviving the Spirit Without Recognizing Half The Audience?

January 10, 2012 By Guest Contributor

Editor’s Note: As previous RIS-themed posts have noted (see our post from 2008, two posts from 2009, and two posts from the 2011 Convention), the lack of women scholars is a persistent problem at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit events.  Here, Sumaya, a guest contributor to MMW, outlines some of the reasons that this is problematic, and proposes possible speakers for future conferences.

So it’s been a couple weeks since the end of the 10th annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference. As a regular attendee who didn’t have the opportunity of attending this year, I would love to hear the experiences and insights of all MMW’s readers. I also recognize, before I go on further, the amazing feelings and inspiration from gatherings such as this and the wealth of knowledge shared by the intellectuals that come from all over the world to speak. With that said, it’s been, again, a disappointing year for female involvement as speakers, in a conference where women make up at least half the audience and half the volunteers (but usually more).

In previous years, suggestions and initiatives have been taken to get ideas of women speakers who would be a great fit for this conference and to see more females of equal intellectual ranking (or close to it) at this event which boasts audiences in the tens of thousands. It did not seem to change much, so here is one more attempt to compile a list. To be proactive rather than reactive to an all-too-often-seen scenario, I propose that the following speakers should at the very least be considered future conferences, and that female speakers should make up a much larger percentage of the panels. This is not to take away from many of the scholars that attend, and more realistically pull in the numbers for this event, but this conference began as a movement by the youth to educate and inspire the Muslim community while giving an outlet to scholars of different opinions and ways of thinking. It should continue in that trend, rather than giving in to this culture of rockstar scholars we seem to have adopted towards the end of the decade.

Now, before we hear anything about the questioning of the credibility of the following ladies, please address them with respect, and remember that among the male speakers who DO speak at the conferences, well, let’s just say their opinions have definitely offended some, and yet they still continue to speak. In Islam, there is a system of intellectual agreement to disagree, and that allows for various opinions and schools of thought to exist, and hopefully coexist. If a speaker who voices his opinion that Muslim sisters should not work* still gets invited year after year, I see no reason why the following have no place to voice theirs. Without further ado, here’s a list of suggestions to start things off (in no particular order), and more suggestions are more than welcome: [Read more...]

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RIS Knowledge Retreat, Gender, and Feminism

January 10, 2012 By Krista

Yesterday, we posted Sharrae’s analysis of gender issues at the 2011 Reviving the Islamic Spirit Convention.  Although I wasn’t able to attend the Convention, I did make it to the Knowledge Retreat, a six-day series of classes with several of the RIS scholars.  There is much to say about the Retreat, but one moment in particular deserved attention.  (Please read through the whole post, as the ending of this is the most important.)

Dr. Abdal Hakim Jackson. Image via Loonwatch.

On December 29, Dr. Abdal Hakim Jackson spoke about gender segregation, and how strict segregation is often justified as “erring on the side of caution” and “avoiding the harm” of men and women mixing freely.  He raised the issue that there are other kinds of harm that we should be thinking about too, giving an example of a young woman who felt ignored and dehumanised when the Muslim brothers in her community would barely look at her or talk to her, despite all the work she does in the community, and despite how comfortable the men seemed to be in talking to women who aren’t Muslim.  Dr. Jackson described the psychological impact that segregation can have on women, and argued that this is another kind of harm that needs to be taken into account in discussions about segregation within Muslim communities.

That part was great, and a really important challenge to the ways that discussions on segregation are normally framed.  What was disturbing at the time was that he didn’t seem able to make that point without first going into a long preamble about how he is not a feminist, and doesn’t support feminist discourses, because they are based on something other than following God and God’s Messenger.  The next day, when someone asked him to clarify his comments about gender segregation, he again began with the same disclaimer, distancing himself from feminism and feminists.

It won’t surprise anyone that I was bothered by this need to disavow feminism, both because it implied that the concerns would be less valid if voiced by someone who did identify as feminist, and because it erased the many feminists who do, in fact, centre God and Islam in our thinking.*

And then, on the final day of the Retreat, Dr. Jackson began by saying that he had an apology to make.  He described his earlier comments about feminism, and told us that he was wrong to make them, acknowledging that there are indeed Muslims who are feminists, and that it’s not fair to assume that all feminists are ignoring Islam.  He acknowledged the diversity within feminism, and was clear that to generalise and misrepresent feminism as he had done was a form of injustice, one for which he took responsibility and sincerely apologised.  It was a full-out, real, honest apology; not just an “I’m sorry you were offended” or even “I’m sorry to offended you,” but a genuine “I did this, and it was wrong, and I’m sorry.”  In fact, his remarks were welcome not only as a correction to his previous remarks about feminism, but as a model for how to acknowledge and apologise for things we’ve done wrong.  I really appreciated his comments, as did several people I talked to, and my respect for Dr. Jackson definitely increased.

I don’t know what it was that made him change his mind, but it’s possible that someone might have talked to him about his comments.  If that’s the case, much respect also goes out to whoever it was who took that risk to challenge one of the highly-respected RIS scholars, and who didn’t simply let it go or tune it out.

*Just to be clear, this isn’t at all meant to be a reference to our debates on Islam and feminism from a few weeks ago.  I think the arguments that Dr. Jackson was making were somewhat different from those being made in those debates.

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Reclaiming Inclusion of Sisters at RIS: Part Two

January 9, 2012 By sharrae

See Part One here.

Oh it did NOT just go there…

My blood began to rise during the lecture of Dr. Abdal Hakim Jackson within the session, “Changing the Present, Dreaming the Future.” Mid-way during his lecture, Dr. Jackson beseeched us sisters to “calm down for the next 30 seconds.” He then asked the audience what was common between Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Clinton and other politicians whose careers were compromised due to their extramarital relations. Dr. Jackson then proceeded to explain that if their spouses had presented them with the option of marrying a second wife, then perhaps the circumstances in which they found themselves would have been prevented. Although I believe that his intent was good, I personally take issue with his remarks.*

First, asking us to “calm down” was condescending, and carried along with it the assumption that women get too carried away when expressing their rights or discontent with the treatment they endure underneath men.  Second, why must women be blamed for their husbands’ inability to refrain from cheating? How many times must women be blamed for their husbands’ misdeeds? This perspective is extremely negligent to the nature of human sexuality and wrongfully places the victimization on the man.

Both men and women have physical needs; however, the needs of males are always most discussed, almost to the point that women’s needs are pushed to the margins, almost becoming like mythical ideas, like mermaids and unicorns. Women don’t have sexual desires!  They are just there to provide for the pleasure of men! This mentality is what leads to the objectification of women; it opens a window of opportunity for men to pawn off their wives and daughters to others to pay off debts incurred by something as trivial as cock-fighting (gambling), as was mentioned in Sr. Taylor’s lecture earlier on in the day. The truth is that we, as women, have physical desires just like our male counterparts; it’s about high time our brothers realize this, even though many scholars (and others) try to shy away from acknowledging this fact. Although this is often explained as a way to protect the dignity and modesty of their sisters in Islam, there needs to be a way to address her needs with dignity, instead of making her desires non-existent and unworthy of discussion.

A verbal slap to brothers

The highlight of the night was Dr. Tariq Ramadan’s declaration and urgent call to the men within our community to stop abusing the women in their lives and for Muslims to end racist thoughts and behaviours against each other.  Dr. Ramadan’s crucial acknowledgement of racism and sexism within the Muslim community reflects the intersections between different systems of oppression that divide us. Men had lined up along the walls in the sisters section, perhaps undergoing various feelings of unease, guilt or relief. Dr. Ramadan unapologetically schooled the brothers in the audience, noting that out of the 20,000 people at the conference, there are men, there at that moment, who abuse their wives and daughters. He tenaciously yelled, “It is not Islamic to do this. Just stop it!” I couldn’t help but take a peak at the men, trying to catch a glimpse of new revelations, or guilt on their faces.

Gendered violence is closer than you think…

To me, what is so beautiful about events like RIS is the sisterhood and brotherhood that is felt. The knowledge that you are surrounded by thousands of people who, like you, pray in various intervals of the day, fast for the same Creator, and love the same figures within our religion, result in the ingredients for easily opening up to others. One of the sisters that I was privileged to befriend felt comfortable enough within one day of knowing me to share her experience in an abusive marriage, which isolated her away from her family in Canada, as she was sheltered in the Middle East. This young woman’s strength was remarkable as she fought for herself and for her child. Oftentimes we are frustrated and angry at how the mainstream depicts us as a people and as a community, while forgetting that amongst ourselves there are many who are caged, beaten, harassed and misrepresented by the men we call our fathers, our brothers and friends.

* On that note, I do not intend to question the parts of our religion that has been decreed, such as polygamy that allows a man to marry up to four wives after consultation with his first wife. However, what I intended to convey was how the denial of female sexuality and oversimplification of marital relations is damaging to sisters.

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