* Dr Mariam Al Rufay’ei (Academic)
**Sidra Naeem (Teacher)
*** Dr Amina Inloes (Academic and author)
Tuesday 20th September
Past and present gender issues have plagued societies and pushed for a clear human agenda on women, their rights, their social and political status and human values. Despite the glare of the Western agendas on women’s rights, the present financial crisis has laid bare the serious predicaments of women as they struggle to maintain the most basic standards of life. Women in Muslim majority countries also face similar predicaments, which are often attributed to religion and culture. Yet the enlightened have different perspectives on gender issues, drawing from their rich traditions and strong female presence in the battles of life from the dawn of Islam. It is timely to focus on the discourse on women’s rights as great personalities like Zainab bint Ali (AS) are remembered in these days.
Dr Mariam Al Rufay’ei : Lady Zainab (peace be upon her) has a great position among Muslims in general, and among Shiites in particular, as Western intellectuals admired her for the strength of her personality and the solidity of her position with her brother Hussein, peace be upon him, in Karbala.
On this occasion, I will try to shed light on the values that can contribute to build a conscious personality of contemporary women.
- Using dialogue as an approach to truth:
Lady Zainab, peace be upon her, relied on an authentic approach in the Holy Qur’an, which is dialogue in her dealings with the enemies of Hussain, peace be upon him, especially Ubayd Allah bin Ziyad and Yazid bin Muawiyah. This interaction was in the form of dialogue, not in the form of a sermon, as codified by some Islamic history books and hadith books.
She is the daughter of the Qur’an school, learned dialogue and mastered the power of its language. And if there is someone who does not need dialogue, then it is God, except that he stripped his prophets of the power of authority and the power of material wealth, so that there would be no oppression or deception, even with good intentions, so people would follow the religion out of fear or greed, and he left his prophets only the language of dialogue to show people the truth. ‘’And We did not send any messenger except in the language of his people, to make it clear to them’’
وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَا مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِهِۦ لِيُبَيِّنَ لَهُمْ ۖ (..(إبراهيم – 4)
The language of dialogue was distributed in the wording of say= قولmore than 1,700 times in the Holy Qur’an, that is, an average of three times per page, with a conjugation of more than 40.
The language of dialogue that revealed the freedom of the other to express his opinion against religion, so his opinion was immortalized in the immortality of the Qur’an, and his opinion was beautified as all the verses were beautified with the finest eloquence! Without practicing the Qur’an a rhetorical distortion or derogatory statement of the opponent.
The language of dialogue that was often based on the expression of the other by the relative noun: who, whom, so that the issue is centred on the idea and not on the person to avoid sensitivity in the diagnosis!
The language of dialogue that demonstrated the justice of the Qur’an ,with a fair mathematical calculation that divided the Qur’an into two halves, half for the rulings and half for dialogue!
With these fair rules of dialogue, Sayyeda Zainab, peace be upon her, overcame the enemies of Hussein, until she spoiled them the joy of victory by killing her brother. She explained that the real victory was for the martyrs, not the killers. She said:
“O Yazid, do you believe that you have succeeded in closing the sky and the
earth for us and that we have become your captives just because we have been
brought before you in a row and that you have secured control over us? Do you
believe that we have been afflicted with insult and dishonour by Allah and that
you have been given honour and respect by Him? You have become boastful of this
apparent victory that you have secured and you have started feeling jubilant and
proud over this prestige and honour. You think that you have achieved worldly
good, that your affairs have become stabilised and our rule has fallen into your
hands. Wait for a while. Do not be so joyful. Have you forgotten Allah said:
‘The unbelievers should not carry the impression that the time allowed to them
by us is good for them. Surely we give them time so that they may increase their
evil deeds, and eventually they will be given insulting chastisement’ [3:178].”
- Islam is a victim of extremism
Among the blessings of the dialogue that Sayyeda. Zainab (peace be upon her) had with Ubaid Allah bin Ziyad and Yazid bin Muawiyah, was that she revealed their religious identities, so Ibn Ziyad said: Praise be to God who exposed you, killed you, and belied your recent events!
But first Allah is not a killer, Second: God did not expose Islam as a lie, otherwise Hussein, peace be upon him, would not have said that I went out to seek reform in the nation of my grandfather.
From here it is proven that Ibn Ziyad was a hypocrite who never belonged to Islam, and like him Yazid bin Muawiyah when he said: Hashim played with the kingdom ..no news came and no revelation came down.
Accordingly, it is clear that Islam was and still is a victim of the hypocrites, and the victim of their extremism and terrorism. Karbala proved that Islam is a victim of extremism and not a religion of extremism.
- The testimony of women in Islam:
Sayyeda Zainab, peace be upon her, rendered a great service to Islamic history by mentioning the details of what happened in Karbala, a testimony from a strong woman who was not afraid of the Umayyad policy of concealing or falsifying these details, while many men retracted this testimony for fear.
Yes, the testimony of a woman is not always half the testimony of a man, a testimony of one woman replaces the testimony of many men, and the testimony of a woman overcomes the testimony of a man, as in the verse of Molaana:
And those who accuse their wives [of adultery] and have no witnesses except themselves – then the witness of one of them [shall be] four testimonies [swearing] by Allah that indeed, he is of the truthful. And the fifth [oath will be] that the curse of Allah be upon him if he should be among the liars.
But it will prevent punishment from her if she gives four testimonies [swearing] by Allah that indeed, he is of the liars. And the fifth [oath will be] that the wrath of Allah be upon her if he was of the truthful.
قال تعالى: ﴿ وَالَّذِينَ يَرْمُونَ أَزْوَاجَهُمْ وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُمْ شُهَدَاءُ إِلَّا أَنْفُسُهُمْ فَشَهَادَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ أَرْبَعُ شَهَادَاتٍ بِاللَّهِ إِنَّهُ لَمِنَ الصَّادِقِينَ * وَالْخَامِسَةُ أَنَّ لَعْنَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ إِنْ كَانَ مِنَ الْكَاذِبِينَ * وَيَدْرَأُ عَنْهَا الْعَذَابَ أَنْ تَشْهَدَ أَرْبَعَ شَهَادَاتٍ بِاللَّهِ إِنَّهُ لَمِنَ الْكَاذِبِينَ * وَالْخَامِسَةَ أَنَّ غَضَبَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهَا إِنْ كَانَ مِنَ الصَّادِقِينَ * وَلَوْلَا فَضْلُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَتُهُ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ تَوَّابٌ حَكِيمٌ ﴾ [النور: 6 – 10].
This Ayah offers a way out for husbands. If a husband has accused his wife but cannot come up with proof, he can swear the Li`an (the oath of condemnation) as Allah commanded. This means that he brings her before the Imam and states what he is accusing her of. The ruler then asks him to swear four times by Allah in front of four witnesses, And also the wife should do the similar shahada, and her testimony in this case will be the strongest. And here nobody can say that her testimony is half so she is in need of another women as witness to complete her testimony against the man!
This title may lead us to talk about an important matter, which is that Islam is always accused of exception and not of the general basic, for example, the issue of a woman’s testimony half of a man’s testimony was in the verse of debt only, and it was in the form of advice, not in the form of imposition, Muslims are asking for debt without testimony to ensure it, neither by men witnesses nor by women.
قال تعالى في سورة البقرة: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا تَدَايَنْتُمْ بِدَيْنٍ إِلَى أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى فَاكْتُبُوهُ وَلْيَكْتُبْ بَيْنَكُمْ كَاتِبٌ بِالْعَدْلِ وَلَا يَأْبَ كَاتِبٌ أَنْ يَكْتُبَ كَمَا عَلَّمَهُ اللَّهُ فَلْيَكْتُبْ وَلْيُمْلِلِ الَّذِي عَلَيْهِ الْحَقُّ وَلْيَتَّقِ اللَّهَ رَبَّهُ وَلَا يَبْخَسْ مِنْهُ شَيْئًا فَإِنْ كَانَ الَّذِي عَلَيْهِ الْحَقُّ سَفِيهًا أَوْ ضَعِيفًا أَوْ لَا يَسْتَطِيعُ أَنْ يُمِلَّ هُوَ فَلْيُمْلِلْ وَلِيُّهُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَاسْتَشْهِدُوا شَهِيدَيْنِ مِنْ رِجَالِكُمْ فَإِنْ لَمْ يَكُونَا رَجُلَيْنِ فَرَجُلٌ وَامْرَأَتَانِ مِمَّنْ تَرْضَوْنَ مِنَ الشُّهَدَاءِ أَنْ تَضِلَّ إِحْدَاهُمَا فَتُذَكِّرَ إِحْدَاهُمَا الْأُخْرَى وَلَا يَأْبَ الشُّهَدَاءُ إِذَا مَا دُعُوا وَلَا تَسْأَمُوا أَنْ تَكْتُبُوهُ صَغِيرًا أَوْ كَبِيرًا إِلَى أَجَلِهِ ذَلِكُمْ أَقْسَطُ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ وَأَقْوَمُ لِلشَّهَادَةِ وَأَدْنَى أَلَّا تَرْتَابُوا إِلَّا أَنْ تَكُونَ تِجَارَةً حَاضِرَةً تُدِيرُونَهَا بَيْنَكُمْ فَلَيْسَ عَلَيْكُمْ جُنَاحٌ أَلَّا تَكْتُبُوهَا وَأَشْهِدُوا إِذَا تَبَايَعْتُمْ وَلَا يُضَارَّ كَاتِبٌ وَلَا شَهِيدٌ وَإِنْ تَفْعَلُوا فَإِنَّهُ فُسُوقٌ بِكُمْ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَيُعَلِّمُكُمُ اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ ٢٨٢﴾
Also in the issue of inheritance, the woman inherits half of the man’s in 4 or 5 cases, but in more than 30 cases the woman inherits more than the man or the same, or she inherits and the man does not inherit anything.
The same issue about the accusation that the Qur’an is masculine when using pronoun, and the fact is that the basis of abbreviation is one of the foundations of language, is a rule discovered by the European linguist Otto Harry Jespersen in 1924.
Since the Arabic language in the Qur’anic discourse is an eloquent language, then it is based on the basis of abbreviation in the discourse, not on the preference of the male pronoun over the female.
God Almighty ended the aforementioned verse by saying: “.God has prepared for them forgiveness and a great reward.” He did not say: “For them and for them,” referring to the inclusiveness of the conscience of women also from the wise abbreviation in discourse. …except in exceptional cases in which a special provision is appointed for a man or a woman as requirements of femininity and masculinity.
Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so – for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward.
﴿ إِنَّ ٱلۡمُسۡلِمِينَ وَٱلۡمُسۡلِمَٰتِ وَٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ وَٱلۡمُؤۡمِنَٰتِ وَٱلۡقَٰنِتِينَ وَٱلۡقَٰنِتَٰتِ وَٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ وَٱلصَّٰدِقَٰتِ وَٱلصَّٰبِرِينَ وَٱلصَّٰبِرَٰتِ وَٱلۡخَٰشِعِينَ وَٱلۡخَٰشِعَٰتِ وَٱلۡمُتَصَدِّقِينَ وَٱلۡمُتَصَدِّقَٰتِ وَٱلصَّٰٓئِمِينَ وَٱلصَّٰٓئِمَٰتِ وَٱلۡحَٰفِظِينَ فُرُوجَهُمۡ وَٱلۡحَٰفِظَٰتِ وَٱلذَّٰكِرِينَ ٱللَّهَ كَثِيرٗا وَٱلذَّٰكِرَٰتِ أَعَدَّ ٱللَّهُ لَهُم مَّغۡفِرَةٗ وَأَجۡرًا عَظِيمٗا ﴾
[ الأحزاب: 35]Imagine if the entire Qur’an was in this form, it would be boring. The origin in Islam is the equality of rights and duties between the sexes, in addition to some few provisions that are specific to one without the other.
- The concept of beauty according to Sayyeda Zainab
Sayyeda Zainab (peace be upon her) said in response to Ibn Ziyad’s accursed question: How did you see God’s action towards your family?! She said: I only saw beautiful. Beauty according to Sayyeda Zainab, peace be upon her, is the beauty of principles and values, it is the beauty of self-awareness. Awareness of the importance of the intellect in the degree of its knowledge and culture. Not the beauty of cosmetic surgeries that impose on women the conditions of men in standards of beauty. Nor that beauty centred around her body rather than her intellect. Which made women to this day a victim of the sex trade!
Unfortunately, the concept of beauty today has become a painful concept for women This is shown in the book Beauty Myth (Quand la beauté fait mal) by Naomi Wolf
5.Unseen does not mean superstition:
Sayyeda Zainab has challenged Yazid bin Muawiyah by telling him what will happen next in the future, for example: “O Yazid, conspire against us all you want and make all the attempts you wish to erase our name. By Allah! You shall never eradicate our path and remembrance. Our revelation shall be everlasting.
So the unseen is always accused of being a superstition, but there is a big difference between them. To understand the superstition you have to break the intellect and disable it. But to understand the unseen that Allah mention in his book , you need to use your intellect strongly.
- Modernity and openness are conditions of Islamic identity:
Islam has urged the realization of the intellect, as the intellect is a word that is mentioned in the Qur’an in the verb form, and this is to emphasize its use, the intellect is the only instrument that the more a person uses in science, the greater his efficiency in development and renewal increased
Garaudy was a great modernist philosopher. He wrote a book before he converted to Islam with Char Birla and it is one of the most wonderful books. He was inspired by the inscriptions in mosques, half circles and circles, that they represent the belief in monotheism as Muslims believe. He also wrote books after his conversion to Islam: Grave diggers, the civilization that digs its grave for humanity, and Promises of Islam calling for interest in science as a condition for the rise of nations, because Islam does not suffer from a phobia of modernity as long as it is modernity that respects the honesty of science and human dignity and justice.
Also, Maurice Bucaille proved in his book: The Torah, the Bible, the Qur’an and Science, a study in the light of modern science.
Unfortunately, there are those who have exploited the word modernity in a wrong sense. Today, there are those who use the word universalisme in order to promote globalization, globalization that we thought was supposed to be the exchange of experiences and goods, but in fact it used the third world countries as a consumer, not as a producer with its own expertise and goods.
This is what the book The Global Trap referred to by Hans Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, the two economists, proved that in this world there is a 20 percent lives at the expense of the goods of the 80 percent. Which is what Noam Chomsky said before them. Islam is not against modernity, but it is against the misuse of modernity.
Mohamed Abed Al Jabri a great Moroccan philosopher said: “Globalization is one thing and Universalisme is another. Universalisme opens up to the world, to other cultures, preserving cultural difference and ideological difference. As for globalization, it is the negation of the other and the substitution of cultural penetration for ideological conflict.”
The right position is the dialogue of civilizations and respect for differences, and not the dissemination of the idea of a clash of civilizations, as promoted by Huntington, Fukuyama and Bernard Lewis.
As for openness, Islam does not reject positive openness, as God Almighty says: “O people, indeed We created you from a male and a female, and We made you into peoples and tribes that you may know one another”.49:13
There is an example of openness in the Holy Qur’an, in the use of 200 words out of 9 non-Arabic languages, such as Aramaic, Syriac, Greek,.. ecst
Muslim scholars wrote books on that such as:
المعرّب للجواليقي، والمهذّب في ما وقع في القرآن من المعرّب للسيوطي.
The position of Islam with modernity and openness is the position of acceptance with the condition of compatibility, not with the position of complete dissolution or the position of complete rejection.
Sidra Naeem I am sorry I can’t be with you face to face. I am a Sunni. I am also an alima and I also represent the queen in Britain. The king now. I have been given 15 minutes and there is only a little bit I can cover but there will also be a question and answer session.
Islam, modernity and gender issues. Women were oppressed and put down but this was before Islam came. (In the time Moses, Noah, Abraham and Jesus) Before Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) there were all sorts of bad things happening. Baby girls were buried alive, there was sexual slavery and nudity, women were traded and married off as part of business deals, they could not own property or inherit and they did not have a say in lawmaking. It was really bad.
But when Prophet Mohammed came women were actually given status and rights and they were actually liberated. Islam was actually the first religion which liberated women and gave them rights that they never had before. And the way in which these rights came about is very important. In other religions men gave women rights. In the West the rights became part of the law after women went through much hardship and had to struggle and partly due to the necessity of women working in factories during wars.
Just recently last century if you look at the suffragette movement or the feminist movement that had to change. But in Islam rights were given by God, by Allah through revelation 1400 years ago and these laws cannot be reversed even by parliament.
The first of these rights is education. No where in Islam does it say that a woman should not be educated. The first teaching that was revealed in the Quran was the word read and that was a command to all of mankind not just men. What happened was because a man’s main responsibility in Islam is to be the provider men took it upon themselves to be educated because they were the ones who would have to go out and work and financially provide for the women.
But it does not say anywhere that the women should be uneducated. In fact in the past both men and women were very highly educated. One example is that of the very first university Al Qarawiyyin in Fes, Morocco which was founded by woman Fatima Al Fihi in 859 AD. In the university, she taught herself science and so many other subjects. This is one of the role models that I looked at before I pursued by career as a teacher and a lecturer at university.
The next stage in a woman’s life is to earn. A lot of people say that a woman’s role is in the home I agree. First and foremost a woman’s role is to bring up children. Women have to breast feed their children, provide them with milk. We are kind. There are all kinds of reasons why we make very good mothers.
However this does not stop us from working as well. And even in the days of Prophet Mohammed his wife was a very successful business woman. He gave permission for women and men to help wounded soldiers on the battle field. Fatima, the Prophet’s youngest daughter helped on the battle field. So we have good role models who worked.
Muslim women have the right to earn and to keep their own money. Islam was the first religion to give women the right to property ownership and wealth. This does not change when she married. For the first time women were granted economic independence. So the money they bring into the marriage is theirs as well as the money they earn. And that is a very important privilege that women have in Islam because they are not the main providers.
Financially they do not need to spend on their family. So they can earn as much as they like and they can keep their own money. Islam says what is hers is hers and what is yours is hers. This also stops men marrying rich women which was exactly what was happening before Islam. So tell me again how Islam gives women no rights?
In the UK it was not until the 20th century after many years of struggle that married women were able to exercise separate rights over their earnings. Before that everything went automatically to their husbands, whatever they earned. So in Islam we actually had that right 1400 years ago.
The next issue I am going to cover is hijab. Did you know that hijab does not stop you doing anything. It does not oppress women whatsoever. I have been scuba diving. I am quite a sporty person. So what the hijab actually does is to give you more freedom because the hijab makes the statement that a Muslim woman is not available and not interested in any advances. So it facilitates interaction between men and women and makes it more safe.
I will mention the queen for a very good reason. One she has just passed away and I was her representative. I am still her representative and I will do all my duty. She was a very modest woman. So the job does not change the person. You can still be modern and you can dress modestly. Wearing a hijab does not change your identity. Being modern does not change your identity. Also speaking in public. The Prophet’s wife actually talked. She did public speaking. The hijab does not stop us from being educated and from being teachers.
And women are not stopped from going to the mosque. Aisha had a door in her house which actually led to the mosque. So the Prophet never stopped his wives from going to the mosque. It was a privilege to women that they may offer prayers in their own houses but the Quran says: “If your women ask for permission to go to the mosque allow them even at night.” They were able to offer prayers in their own homes because of the children because early in the morning a child needs to be breast fed and that cannot be done if they go running to the mosque.
This shows Islam’s appreciation of women and that she may be engaged in other duties. Islam also accommodates a woman’s physiological make up. Women can lead prayers Unfortunately men have taken control of mosques think that women can’t be there. They are not allowed to be here. The Chair of the Muslim Council of Britain is a woman and there are some mosques that have all female committees. The religion does not stop women from helping out in mosques through voluntary work and also having a full female committee.
These things are very personal to me and they are the things which guarantee modernity if you like. So Islam gave women rights 1400 years ago because before Islam came women were treated really badly. Women can inherit property, they have economic rights and political rights, educational rights and legal rights. They can inherit and own property. Privacy and chastity all come under the hijab.
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and most of this growth is because of women. The question is why do women embrace Islam if it oppresses them and does not allow them to be modern? What you are seeing is culture and not the faith. And if you think about it the problem is with the men and not with the religion. In this country the queen is head of the church but parliament is ruling. It was Islam which removed the bondage in which women were held since the beginning of history and gave them rights which were not given to women in England until manty centuries later.
Dr Amina Inloes: It is good to be here because this is a very sensitive and possibly inflammatory subject. I am going to put on my positive hat or my positive hijab and think of thoughtful and positive things to contribute to the discussion.
I would like to ruminate on- and this will be my positive contribution in sha Allah – is one of two things we can do to move beyond some of these many debates on questions regarding gender, women and Islam. We can all agree unless we are living under a rock that women and gender issues have probably been the largest flagship issues of Islam in the 20th and 21st century. They are issues that get a disproportional amount of discussion in the collective Muslim consciousness – the issues of hijab and homosexuality.
These are the two issues that will some how be given all the focus whereas when you look at all the other issues that are going on in the world they are at times not discussed at all. And I am not making any statements about hijab or homosexuality. I can walk down the street and I can find Muslims drunk and taking crack. I can go to countries and find any number of unjust political systems and unjust imprisonment.
I would say that these tend to be flagship issues and identity issues. We should consider why these issues are being made front for the major identity challenge that has been faced in the Muslim world. Even if you just want to take what women are wearing. There was a situation in a Muslim country very recently that some of us may be aware of.
Objectively many people would say this is not as much a big deal as mass torture or genocide. Why is it that women’s clothing becomes such a major issue to wage battles on issues such as Islam faces the West or resistance to various ideological systems and so forth.
I hope technology can help discussion a little bit because technology whether it is about some attitudes about women’s clothing or what women are “not allowed to do”. It tends to be women who suffer the most. We suffer the most because we are getting pressure from all sides. I do believe in the hijab obviously and I do believe that modesty is a central value of spirituality and part of human dignity. But when someone is loading a lot of other things onto that like I need to resist feminism or resist Westernisation or resist whatever through my hijab that starts to make my life a little bit more difficult. Acknowledging the other issues that are sometimes loaded onto these topics can help to diffuse them and look at them in a way that is more compassionate and more constructive rather than as a sort of knee jerk or judgemental or destructive response.
Dialogue was also mentioned. I think that this is something which is to some degree new within my lifetime. When I think back twenty years ago and what I understand of the time before hand I don’t think there was as much discussion about gender issues or women. It seems to me that there was a more one way transmission of things through sermons. These issues manifest through dialogue as they allow people to bring in their experiences and understand a variety of experiences and a variety of perspectives.
The things that have evolved throughout my lifetime is that the kinds of issues that come up when discussing women and Islam have changed – some of them not all of them. In terms of what I experience of what I am asked about on a regular basis I am surprised as to why that is still an issue versus things that are quite new. Some people have a very restrictive way of thinking. They ask me if I am allowed to go outside of the house all the way to a new way of thinking from this generation.
So we have a broader spectrum of issues. It is good to ask why this has not led to a change in all of the issues. Why are there still some questions that come up which in my opinion should not be coming up in this day and age.
I am bringing these things out at a risk of sounding terribly stereotypical. Dialogue is little bit more associated with women and sermons are a little bit more associated with men. Obviously we have sermons from Zeinab. But from a perspective of archetypes women are considered to be a bit more conversational, more listeners. This is a broad generalisation. That is not something has to be archetypically feminist something that has to be brought into the discussion too.
I don’t think we necessarily have to idolize modernity. One of the preoccupations of Muslims in the 21st century because this is something we are getting beyond has to be prove that Islam is modern and that Islam is compatible with modernity. Many useful things came about in the past century, various technologies and political systems but there were also a lot of things that didn’t work so well.
We are living in the era of the replacement of modernity. I need to be blunt. We are seeing the beginnings of the effects of climate change, the vast socio economic inequities and so on and so forth. Modernity has not saved the planet. Whatever the system of modernity was it is clearly not going to be able to persist 500 years or 1000 years from now because we are being forced by circumstances to change things.
So I think it is good to move beyond the question is Islam modern or trying to fit into that paradigm once the world around us is changing. I have to admit that something I was reflecting on during the funeral of the queen as much as people might celebrate techno political systems or democracy people’s hearts are still very attached to certain traditional things be it the tradition of monarchy or ancestral leadership or organised religion and so forth. This is what brought all the people to the final ceremonies for the queen. It wasn’t a more impersonal system.
I am not necessarily advocating a return to everything in the premodern manner. I am just saying that traditional does have a certain hold over people in the modern world and as a Muslim there are many things in our pre modern tradition that have a lot to contribute to how we handle social issues and gender issues today.
I am going to start departing from the views of some of the panellists. With respect to the concept of beauty there is in fact a lot of having a spiritual component to beauty in the pre modern tradition and even in our tradition. Not beauty in the sense of modification, commercialisation, capitalism, nose surgery and 500 outfits. This is destructive. It is both objectifying and it is destructive on many levels.
But there is a sense that spirituality also reflects in a sense of physical beauty and the natural world is beautiful. Fatima is described as being extremely beautiful. Where are you going to find a narration that says they are not handsome, they are not beautiful? The fact that they had this spiritual height is also reflected in their physical form without the nose jobs.
One of the ideas that gets talked about these days is that men are logical and women are emotional. But when you look at Biblical and Islamic history men were also emotional. They care, they have feelings. There are things in our tradition that I feel sometimes get lost in the present era trying to fit Islam or Islamic ideals into certain slots.
I am not necessarily saying that we have to revert to the past and have something to do with empire like the Ottoman Empire when some of the things that were done were wrong. But I am saying that not everything that happened in the last 150 years or so has been the ideal solution. And there are ideas that we can use to support humanity and find a new way. We do not necessarily need to fit everything into the paradigm of modernity especially if we are heading somewhere new as human beings. Take what is good from every era.
A few things that I think can be taken into consideration in some of these discussions to make them a bit more nuanced. I use one key word which I think is very important and that is compassion. I think that sometimes when we discuss these things compassion is lacking. There is a lot of compassion when a woman speaks about domestic abuse. A lot of people will be compassionate to that. Sometimes it is judgemental and there is a view that we are not going to discuss it because I know what’s right. People know what’s right because they know it is right and they are going to tell you its right. It is about opening up to it and understanding things on a deeper level and a more human.
As they say, what comes from the heart reaches the heart and this is one of those issues that touches all of us because it is part of the human condition. One of the more challenging aspects of the human condition. If the Lord created everyone with the same gender we would not have the complexity of the human experience that we have today. So I think that appreciating that would help to try to find compassionate solutions to some of the problems that we face.
* Dr Mariam Al Rufay’ei is an activist and thinker, originally from Morocco. She obtained her MSc and PhD in Islamic studies from the International University for Islamic Studies, London. She holds a BA degrees in Islamic studies and an MA in Comparative Jurisprudence. Mariam has attended and addressed several conferences and seminars mainly in UK. With her academic background Mariam enjoys serious discourse on religious matters
**Sidra Naeem has been a qualified teacher for over 20 years. She works as a chaplain for Anglia Ruskin University and also volunteers as a chaplain in the educational, health and retail sectors. Sidra has been volunteering actively in the community in Essex and London since 2003. She has initiated and facilitated mental health, interfaith and cultural diversity awareness events for various organisations. She is a representative of SACRE (Standing Advisory Council of Religious Education) and contributed to the religious education curriculum for educational establishments in Essex. She is Secretary of Essex Mind and Spirit, a voluntary organisation raising awareness of spiritual care in mental health recovery. She manages Women Together in Basildon. Sidra helps to feed homeless people in Havering through Hope4Havering and arranges annual “Feed the Homeless” events for the Chelmsford CHESS Nightshelter.
***Dr Amina Inloes is originally from the US and has a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter on Shi’a hadith. She is the program leader for the MA Islamic Studies program at the Islamic College in London and also the Managing Editor of the Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies. She is the author of Women in Shi’ism and she is also an experienced editor and has edited many scientific journals and books.
