Muslim Women in Britain

De-Mystifying the Muslimah

Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781138614642
• eBook ISBN: 9781136257407
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Perceptions of Muslim women in Western society have been shaped by historical and sociological conditions such as colonialism, patriarchy and Orientalism. In Muslim Women in Britain, Sariya Contractor seeks to reinstate the Muslimah as a storyteller who tells her own story.

An exploration of the lives of British Muslim women, this book examines issues of femininity, Britishness, inter-communal relations and social cohesion. Presenting the reader with incisive narratives of Muslim women on familiar topics such as the hijab, Muslim women in the media and feminist debate, particularly in a Western context, Sariya Contractor makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature on Islamic studies, social anthropology, feminist philosophy and social cohesion.

Presenting a complex and nuanced retelling of Muslim women's realities as explored through their own voices, stories and experiences; this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Islamic studies, Women's studies, Social Anthropology and Sociology seeking a fresh perspective on Muslim women in Britain.

Part I
Giving voice

This part of the book discusses the processes of giving voice and the gaps that these new voices will fill. It contextualises issues around the representation of Muslim women as evident in literature sources and will set up the philosophical frameworks that enable Muslim women to create their own narratives. Chapter 1 critically explores the contradictions, ironies, complexities and realities in popular narratives about Muslim women. This chapter presents a broad and at the same time more nuanced reading of the historical underpinnings of perceptions of Muslim women.

Chapter 2 explores methodologies to give voice. It discusses the dynamics of doing research with Muslim communities in environments charged with suspicion and political tension. Ethics, access, positionality and feedback to communities become core themes in such anthropological work where developing and maintaining a relationship of trust between researcher and ‘researched’ is essential for the project’s success. In this chapter I leave a trail of strategies, conceptual and analytic moves for researchers engaged in Muslim anthropologies, particularly in the West.

1
The historicity of modern stereotypes

The Muslim woman’s story is represented by many voices – the Muslim male scholar, the feminist, the colonial Orientalist, the media and by Muslim women themselves. Often the former voices do not fully grasp the Muslimah’s dual challenge of being both a woman and a Muslim. The question of the authority and authenticity of all of these voices is debatable – which of them have the ‘authority to be authentic’? These different voices, authentic or not, create an othering of Muslim women, with one stereotype often strengthening the imagery created by the other.

There is a plethora of literature about the Muslim woman – 200 years of Western scholarly and political writing about Muslim women and centuries of theological writing by Muslim scholars and writers, ever since Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) delivered the message of Islam in Arabia over 1,400 years ago. Here I explore what has been said about Muslim women; how and why it has been said and importantly what effect it has had on the lived realities of Muslim women who live in pluralist Britain. It is not physically possible within the confines of this book to explore fully all that has been written about Muslim women and so I delve into a selection that indicates the diversity of possible standpoints and views. I discuss this literature under six headings:

1. Male scholars: patriarchal perspectives
2. Male scholars: emancipatory standpoints
3. Muslim women
4. Orientalist commentaries
5. ‘Airport’ literature
6. Feminist texts.

Given the complexity of the area and the sensitivities involved, any ‘categorisation’ of voices has its limitations. For example, among Muslim male scholars there are voices from a wide spectrum – those that articulate interpretations of Islam that are oppressive towards women as well as male scholars who argue for rights and emancipation for women from an Islamic theological perspective. There is feminist literature that talks about the urgent need to liberate women from the shackles of their religion and there are other feminist writers who celebrate women’s choices and freedoms in choosing to practise their faith.

This ambiguity in my attempt to ‘classify’ dominant voices on Muslim women is a product of the heterogeneity within the Muslim Ummah and the different standpoints that are possible within Islamic thought. Literature about Muslim women is invariably underpinned by culture, socio-political environment (and tensions), historical associations and personal opinions (of authors, their societies and the women they write about) as part of the story that is being told to the reader. While acknowledging the limitations that come with labelling, my classification creates a framework within which I and the reader can navigate through the maze of interweaving and overlapping standpoints, themes and creative tensions that prevail in extant literature and explore their implications for the women whose stories they claim to tell.

Male scholars: patriarchal perspectives

Islamic bookshops usually have a section on Muslim women – books for and about them. A quick perusal of the shelves indicates that many authors are men, scholars of various denominational affiliations, pedigrees and skill levels (Abdul Qadir 2006; Siddiqi 2004; Ansari et al. 2003; Chaudhry 2003; Al-Hashimi 1996; Al-Musnad 1996; Khan 1995; Al-Utheimeen 1994; Engineer 1992; Maududi 1972). This dominance of male voices was always a slightly frustrating experience. Michèle Le Doeuff in The Sex of Knowing (1998) describes how women’s voices were displaced from mainstream discourses by dominant male voices, who gradually monopolised knowledge-formation processes and the subsequent dissemination of new knowledge, marginalising not just women’s voices but also their opinions. Is there a similar argument for the paucity of books on Muslim women written by Muslim women? Mohammad Akram Nadwi’s (2007) work about the women scholars of Islam (also Bewley 1999, 2004)¹ provides evidence of the position of public authority that female scholars enjoyed in Islamic societies of the past. So when and why did Muslim women leave the annals of scholarly pursuit? These are issues that need to be the subject of future research;² equally important is an exploration of the enduring influence of such literature on Muslim communities.

These books usually present information that is deemed useful and necessary for Muslim women to know and may include biographical accounts of prominent Muslim women, religious rulings and guidance pertinent to women and social reform. Some literature (Ansari et al. 2003; Abdul Qadir 2006) is similar to Bewley’s and Nadwi’s work in that it presents biographical accounts of prominent Muslim women who lived during Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) lifetime, including his wives, daughters, Sahabiya³ and other female personalities from Islamic history. While these books use the same tools – the lives of prominent Muslim women personalities – often their objectives in telling the reader these stories vary considerably. Some present the reader with commentaries on these women’s lives which clarify the emancipatory effect of Islam on the lives of women through history, during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh) and beyond. Such literature tells stories of women who had public roles and who were business women, scholars, teachers and even warriors. Other writers like Abdul Qadir (2006) handle the same biographical narratives very differently. Their narratives are underpinned by a notional suggestion to readers that women must lead a sheltered life. Such literature tends to ‘focus on the spiritual status of women’ rather than ‘their religious, literary and moral achievements’ (Ansari et al. 2003: 15).

The book Purdah⁴ and the Status of Woman by the Pakistani scholar Abul a’la Maududi (1972), similarly prescribes a limited and narrow role for Muslim women based on the author’s interpretations of foundational Islamic texts. Mawlana Maududi is a highly respected scholar and I have been, in the past, particularly impressed by his commentary on the Holy Quran. However, when I first read his work on the purdah I was disturbed by his suggestion that the role of Muslim women in society must revolve exclusively around their homes and domestic duties.

Although Maududi, like other writers, acknowledges the rights that Islam assures women, he concludes that there is little or no scope for them to enter public domains. Thus for Maududi the woman is honoured by Islam, she has been given rights and her interests have been safeguarded in the Islamic system better than in any other society. But he stops here and refuses to let her move out of what he calls ‘her own natural sphere’ – her home. Throughout the book he is very critical of the ‘material gains and sensual pleasures created by the fascinations of Western civilisation’ (p. 82) – a post-colonial othering of Western culture and values – and recommends a protected and sheltered life that women must lead. He argues that this protects women’s honour and respect as opposed to the ‘decadence’ that Western society heaps upon her in the name of liberalisation and rights. However, in his fervour to protect Muslim women, he has demoted their social position and thereby deprived them of rights that have been divinely ordained in the Quran and the Sunnah (prophetic tradition). Khan (1995) takes a stance similar to Maududi. While echoing the same sentiments, that a woman’s sphere is her home, he attempts to bring a slightly more liberal tone to his book. A woman positively influences outside events, but does so through the male members of her family. He says that although physically women remain within the domestic sphere, mentally they go with their husbands wherever life’s exigencies may take them. He concludes his book with a suggestion that despite his patriarchal stance on the social domain of women, he honours them:

It is regrettable that they do not stop to consider that, though they are the weaker sex, as a matter of biology they are the strength of the stronger sex. Therein lies the secret of women’s power.

(Wahiduddin Khan 1995: 246)

Both books (Khan 1995; Maududi 1972) in their criticisms of the West seem to further the same ‘myth of confrontation’ (Esposito 1992) propounded by Western critics of Islam, who declare a ‘clash of civilisations’ between Islam and the West (Huntington 1993).

To complete this section (on patriarchal Muslim male writers), I mention one last book – this time by a woman! What is significant about this book is that although the author is a woman and a scholar herself, she perpetuates these same patriarchal values that limit a woman to domestic roles only, and also implements them in her own life. She does not name herself and chooses to identify herself on the book cover only as the ‘Wife of Zarif Ahmed Thanvi’.⁵ Other than the fact that the author is a woman, the book follows the now familiar discourse of anti-West sentiment and the woman’s sphere being her home (Wife of Zarif Ahmed Thanvi 1999). I am not sure if this writer is significant – I only came across her work by chance – but her work presents an interesting case-study about the extent to which patriarchal interpretations of Islam have infiltrated the social fabric of some Muslim communities. These readings of the voices of Muslim men (and women), describing and articulating the needs and rights of Muslim women from a patriarchal perspective, are an indication of a deep philosophical gap that needs to be addressed about Muslim women’s roles in certain Muslim communities. Coming back to my concerns about authority and authenticity – by writing about Muslim women from a patriarchal perspective, the ‘Wife of Zarif Ahmed Thanvi’ promulgates her concurrence and compliance with them. By prescribing them to other women, and by acknowledging the patriarchal voices as authentic, she ascribes to herself and her husband a share of theological and communal authority.

Male scholars: emancipatory standpoints

These, however, are not the only ‘male’ voices writing about Muslim women. As I continued my reading, I realised that there are many emancipatory male voices within Muslim communities who through their writings revisit social constructs of women and their social roles. One voice that is relevant to the British context is Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, a British convert to Islam. In 1926, during a series of lectures, he recognised the need for Muslim communities to move beyond what he called ‘the Cultural Side of Islam’ (Pickthall 1926). He describes the rise of early Islamic societies as caused by a focus on developing works of art, science and literature in addition to theological learning, and argues that their subsequent decline was caused by excessive religious scholasticism. Madrasas⁶ and mosques ceased to be the universities that they originally were, the strict zenana⁷ system was introduced and ‘women in upper class of society, instead of playing the frank and noble part which she had played among earlier Muslims, became a tricksy and intriguing captive’ (p. 29). In the penultimate lecture entitled ‘The Relation of the Sexes’ he describes his life in India, where the woman was emphatically not⁸ given the rights that Islam assures her – a crime for which, he asserts, the Muslim community will have to face increasing social degradation.

Asghar Ali Engineer (1992) similarly argues for the need to depart from the traditional patriarchal understandings of Muslim women that are (differently) manifested in many Muslim societies. He calls for a shift from paradigms that are cultural to those that are Islamic. For him the Muslim community as a whole needs to disengage from what he perceives as the atavisms of patriarchal culture and understand religious texts through lenses that are free from the cultural baggage that many traditional interpretations carry. Islam as a Din⁹ does not deter Muslim women from achieving success in the public sphere.

More recently, as part of the Contextualising Islam in Britain project, Suleiman et al. (2009: 49) say that ‘it is not appropriate that verses from the Quran should be used to control and dominate women and deny them access to the public arena’. Like Engineer (1992) they suggest hermeneutics as part of the solution – understanding texts in modern contexts without giving too much weight to cultural traditions. Tariq Ramadan believes that the empowerment of Muslim women is crucial not just to the women themselves but also to socio-political dynamics within the Muslim community and its relationships in pluralist society (Ramadan 2001).

Clearly among male Muslim scholars there seem to be multiple voices and opinions – some more emancipatory than others. These voices present mutually antagonistic stances on the same theological issues. For example, where Maududi (1972) is a keen advocate and proponent of the purdah system, Pickthall, also a scholar, dismisses the purdah system as a cultural aberration, a crime against women and against the Islamic community as a whole (1926). Again the question of religious authority arises – is Maududi’s stance or Pickthall’s stance more theologically authoritative and hence more ‘authentic’? I will return to this contested subject later.

The Muslim woman’s voice

It is within these conflicting male understandings of women’s issues that women have had to negotiate their intellectual stances. So what have Muslim women been writing about themselves? Here again I found a variety of material available and a multiplicity of standpoints which did not always agree with each other. Muslim women seem to have reacted to the various societal contexts and pressures that have defined and directed their lives. There is an unmentioned but obvious interface between male and female writers. These female writers concur with some male writers (like Ramadan 2001; Engineer 1992, 2003; Pickthall 1926) who call for the need to interpret religion for itself or within ‘modern’ contexts rather than through lenses that are influenced by patriarchal culture. This may be understood as a process of negotiation of their scholarly authority, which they ultimately derive by concurring with men whose (emancipatory) opinions they prefer. This literature could also be a result of their independent perceptions of themselves as authentic voices for Muslim women because notionally they are ‘real Muslim women’.

Le Doeuff (1989) de...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introducing Muslim women's voices
• Giving voice
• Taking voice
• Hearing voice
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index