The Distance of Allah from His Creatures
The last post about free will vs. predestination made me think of the differing distances between God and His creatures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This subject has been bothering me for a long time. I read the Bible and I feel as though God is close, wanting us to love Him; I read the Qur'an and feel that Allah is much more distant, wanting us to submit to Him. No wonder Sufi mysticism, with its emphasis on love of Allah and closeness, even unity, with Him, has been so widespread in the Islamic world.
Allah seems more distant in Islam than in Judaism and Christianity; there is more of an emphasis on His might and His power, His inapproachability, the fact that He has no need of His creation and says, "I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me." (51:56) Note the word serve, not love. In Islam one submits to Allah; in Judaism (repeated in Christianity) the Shema says, "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might," a concept totally lacking in Islamic prayers. Men and women are slaves of Allah in Islam; in Christianity they are children of God. Children are a source of love and worry for their parents; slaves exist merely to serve. Allah lets it be known in the Qur'an that if a people or nation rejects His message, He will simply wipe them out and put another people in their place who will serve Him better. Islam means submission; this does not leave much in the way of personal interaction. Allah orders, you obey. No debating or bargaining, like when Abraham got God down from fifty to ten righteous people to save Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. Moses speaks directly with God; Allah communicates with Muhammad via the angel Gabriel, since "it is not fitting for a man that Allah should speak to him except by inspiration, or from behind a veil, or by the sending of a messenger to reveal, with Allah's permission, what Allah wills: for He is Most High, Most Wise." (42:51)
The Qur'an mentions that Allah is closer to man than his jugular vein (50:16), and Allah is constantly referred to as the Most Merciful and All Forgiving, but I have to say that I don't feel much warmth in the relationship. Allah is usually angry with man for constantly disobeying Him and constantly mentions how those who disobey and disbelieve will burn in Hell (quite graphically, too.) The portrayal of Paradise is mostly a picture of earthly delights such as flowing rivers, green gardens, cool fountains, cushions, green garments, fruits, cold drinks, and even "houris whom no man nor jinn has touched," not a picture of blissful union with Allah. Of course, these descriptions can easily be taken as metaphorical, but it is interesting that Paradise is described in these terms. Not to mention the fact that they generally have in fact been taken quite literally! The promise of 72 virgins to martyrs killed in jihad is only the best known, but there also have been Muslim scholars claiming that a man will be given the sexual strength of a hundred men, or the claim that a man will find, each time he has sex with a houri he will find her a virgin, or that houris supposedly will have no periods and will never need to go to the bathroom. The point is, this doesn't seem like a very spiritual haven, to say the least, more like a heavenly Playboy Mansion (and what's in it for the girls anyway???).
The heavy emphasis on rewards and punishments in the Qur'an and on fearing Allah and what He will do to you if you don't repent and submit to His will doesn't leave much room for really loving Him. The legalistic nature of Islam and the intricacies, even the often anal nit-picking of shari'ah, only serve to strengthen this idea of Allah as demanding slave-master, quick to punish.
Hence the huge appeal of Sufism among Muslims, even some non-Muslims. Sufism may have grown out of Hindu or Christian mysticism. At least it was sufficiently exotic and suspect to be distrusted and sometimes even banned by the scholars of religion. Some Sufis became infamous for flouting the exoteric Law of Allah in favor of personal contact with the Divine, which of course cut into the ulama's job. Other Sufis insisted that it was necessary to follow the Law, but that was only the beginning of a journey to meet the Face of Allah. In any case, it was the personal experience of Him, the overpowering love for Him, that counted. This was necessary to bridge the gap between the believer and Allah the All-Powerful, Almighty, who was to be served by fastidious obedience to His law in all aspects of life.
There is just nothing similar to the writings of the Hebrew prophets of the Bible in Islamic literature, whether Qur'an, hadiths, or sirah (lives of Muhammad). These demonstrate a very close and affectionate relationship between Israel and its God, God the loving, often chastising parent who nevertheless mourned over His people and promised them redemption. There is nothing like Isaiah's, "When Israel was a child I loved him; out of Egypt I called my son," or "Come now, let us reason together," (which would suggest a level of closeness and intimacy with God that would never be permitted in Islam--Allah would never condescend to reason with His slaves). Instead Allah of the Qur'an simply literally blows away those who refuse His message and goes on to the next people.
I've already gone on much too long, but I wish there was some way to get more of that intimacy into the Qur'an and less legalism and threats. I guess in this I am influenced by Christianity, but I don't think it's too much to ask for.
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
Free Will vs. Predestination in Islam
This is a real problem in Islam, the subject of well over 1000 years' debate. Allah knows all and controls all, but holds each person responsible for his/her actions, belief or disbelief, and so on. So do people have free will or not?
According to the Qur'an, man is created by Allah to serve Him. No one finds the right path unless it is Allah's will, and no one swerves from that path except by His will. There are also statements about how, if it were Allah's will, he would have put all mankind on the right path. There is also the doctrine that every person's life is written out already, what he will do, when and where he will die, and it cannot be changed. All this suggests a rather deterministic viewpoint.
On the other hand, Allah makes it clear that He will punish those who disobey, as well as reward those who believe and do good deeds. This suggests that humans have the freedom to do so or not, because wouldn't it be unjust for Allah to punish creatures that had no choice in the matter? Wouldn't we end up with a grotesque image of Allah creating people for the purpose of burning them in hell, since it is up to Him whether or not someone will or will not obey His will.
The problem is more acute in Islam than in Judaism or Christianity. Islam emphasizes the total power of Allah over everything and everyone and his infinite superiority to man to an extent not usually seen in the other two religions. While Christianity, for example, emphasizes closeness to God by calling people "children of God," Islam typically refers to them as "slaves of Allah." Note the difference. A child can argue with, scream at, and try to reason with a parent, who feels very close to the child and is grieved at his/her wrongdoing. In the Bible, Abraham argues with God about the number of people needed to save Sodom and Gomorrah; the prophets talk of God's great love for His people Israel and how much it hurts Him to have to punish them; both Jesus and the prophets refer to God as a good shepherd who worries about his sheep and takes care of them. But a slave, by contrast, has only one duty: to obey and submit to the rule of his master. There is no question of love. So Allah emphasizes how He does not need any of his creatures, how He is free of all wants and worthy of all praise. If one people reject Allah's message, he simply destroys them and replaces them with another, and their traces are only left as a warning to others that they will be utterly destroyed as well if they do not submit to Allah's will.
This emphasis on Allah's greatness and man's utter insignificance suggests that humans are no more than Allah's playthings, to be discarded at will. Maybe even His automatons, doing only what He orders them to do. But even if they do have free will, it means little in the grand scheme of things (nothing of the Kaabalistic notion that God needs mankind to make the universe whole).
This question has never been definitively answered in Islamic theology, with some schools believing in free will (such as the Qadariyya and the Mu'tazila) and some not. Popular fatalism (sighing "It is the Will of Allah; to Him we belong and to Him shall we return" at any misfortune, and seeing any fortune as a pure gift from Allah which might be taken away at any time) suggests predestination, although that might stem more from the completely powerless status of most people in Islamic countries through the centuries. But on the other hand, the influence of Western ideas of free will, that men and women are autonomous beings who can control their own destinies, has had its effect, perhaps pushing the consensus more in the direction of the Free Will party.
In any case, philosophy does indeed have an effect on reality. If people believe that they are powerless to change their lives, that what happens to them is the will of God or Allah, that their destinies are already mapped out, they are more likely to simply passively accept it. If, on the other hand, they believe that they have free will and can change their destinies, they may be more likely to reject the way things are, to innovate and push the limits of the possible.
I have to say that, living in the US, home of perhaps the most expansive ideas of free will and "your destiny is in your hand to do with as you wish," the entire idea of predestination is completely foreign to me. I can only imagine what it must be to feel that your life has already been written out and the ink has dried. Perhaps one could take tragedies better, thinking, "The people killed in this awful accident were destined to do so and that's all there is to it," but, honestly, all my being rebels at the thought that, for example, the victims of September 11th were simply destined to die in the way that they did. Among many Muslims, wailing and mourning the dead or regretting the past are considered to amount to questioning Allah's will and should be avoided, in favor of a stoic acceptance and submission. I'm sorry, I just can't do that. It just seems so harsh, so against human nature. I can only think that maybe this is the attitude that was needed to survive in the harsh deserts of Arabia.
Well, enough of these somewhat depressing natterings.
This is a real problem in Islam, the subject of well over 1000 years' debate. Allah knows all and controls all, but holds each person responsible for his/her actions, belief or disbelief, and so on. So do people have free will or not?
According to the Qur'an, man is created by Allah to serve Him. No one finds the right path unless it is Allah's will, and no one swerves from that path except by His will. There are also statements about how, if it were Allah's will, he would have put all mankind on the right path. There is also the doctrine that every person's life is written out already, what he will do, when and where he will die, and it cannot be changed. All this suggests a rather deterministic viewpoint.
On the other hand, Allah makes it clear that He will punish those who disobey, as well as reward those who believe and do good deeds. This suggests that humans have the freedom to do so or not, because wouldn't it be unjust for Allah to punish creatures that had no choice in the matter? Wouldn't we end up with a grotesque image of Allah creating people for the purpose of burning them in hell, since it is up to Him whether or not someone will or will not obey His will.
The problem is more acute in Islam than in Judaism or Christianity. Islam emphasizes the total power of Allah over everything and everyone and his infinite superiority to man to an extent not usually seen in the other two religions. While Christianity, for example, emphasizes closeness to God by calling people "children of God," Islam typically refers to them as "slaves of Allah." Note the difference. A child can argue with, scream at, and try to reason with a parent, who feels very close to the child and is grieved at his/her wrongdoing. In the Bible, Abraham argues with God about the number of people needed to save Sodom and Gomorrah; the prophets talk of God's great love for His people Israel and how much it hurts Him to have to punish them; both Jesus and the prophets refer to God as a good shepherd who worries about his sheep and takes care of them. But a slave, by contrast, has only one duty: to obey and submit to the rule of his master. There is no question of love. So Allah emphasizes how He does not need any of his creatures, how He is free of all wants and worthy of all praise. If one people reject Allah's message, he simply destroys them and replaces them with another, and their traces are only left as a warning to others that they will be utterly destroyed as well if they do not submit to Allah's will.
This emphasis on Allah's greatness and man's utter insignificance suggests that humans are no more than Allah's playthings, to be discarded at will. Maybe even His automatons, doing only what He orders them to do. But even if they do have free will, it means little in the grand scheme of things (nothing of the Kaabalistic notion that God needs mankind to make the universe whole).
This question has never been definitively answered in Islamic theology, with some schools believing in free will (such as the Qadariyya and the Mu'tazila) and some not. Popular fatalism (sighing "It is the Will of Allah; to Him we belong and to Him shall we return" at any misfortune, and seeing any fortune as a pure gift from Allah which might be taken away at any time) suggests predestination, although that might stem more from the completely powerless status of most people in Islamic countries through the centuries. But on the other hand, the influence of Western ideas of free will, that men and women are autonomous beings who can control their own destinies, has had its effect, perhaps pushing the consensus more in the direction of the Free Will party.
In any case, philosophy does indeed have an effect on reality. If people believe that they are powerless to change their lives, that what happens to them is the will of God or Allah, that their destinies are already mapped out, they are more likely to simply passively accept it. If, on the other hand, they believe that they have free will and can change their destinies, they may be more likely to reject the way things are, to innovate and push the limits of the possible.
I have to say that, living in the US, home of perhaps the most expansive ideas of free will and "your destiny is in your hand to do with as you wish," the entire idea of predestination is completely foreign to me. I can only imagine what it must be to feel that your life has already been written out and the ink has dried. Perhaps one could take tragedies better, thinking, "The people killed in this awful accident were destined to do so and that's all there is to it," but, honestly, all my being rebels at the thought that, for example, the victims of September 11th were simply destined to die in the way that they did. Among many Muslims, wailing and mourning the dead or regretting the past are considered to amount to questioning Allah's will and should be avoided, in favor of a stoic acceptance and submission. I'm sorry, I just can't do that. It just seems so harsh, so against human nature. I can only think that maybe this is the attitude that was needed to survive in the harsh deserts of Arabia.
Well, enough of these somewhat depressing natterings.
Sunday, March 02, 2003
Muslim Feminism
The following are my scattered thoughts about Muslim feminism.
A "Muslim feminist" is not an oxymoron. There are Muslim women who feel very strongly about the position of women in Islam, and try to improve it. Women such as Fatima Mernissi, Leila Ahmed, Amina Wadud and others have been working at this subject for decades.
I use the term "Muslim feminist" to refer to Muslim women (and men) who work to improve women's rights in present-day Islam. I do not consider it to refer to women (and men) who insist that Islam, as it is today, is glorious liberation for women and who write poetry praising the veil (grotesque examples here). I am talking about those who recognize that there is a problem with women's rights in Islamic cultures, and even in Islam itself, at least as it is currently constituted.
Secularists also work to improve women's rights but usually see the problem as Islam itself, which must be separated from the state and its influence severely curtailed. Here I am thinking more of those who approach the problem of women's rights inside Islam itself, with all the difficulties and contradictions that entails.
Muslim feminists recognize the existence of misogynist practices, but also have faith that Islam is a religion of equality for men and women. The Qur'an speaks to the equality of all Muslims. Muhammad was a feminist who gave women rights they had never had before, and Islam was a liberating, revolutionary movement. Such is the theory. What has happened in the meantime and what should be done to rectify the situation are the problems Muslim feminism concerns itself with.
Protectiveness towards Islam
Many Muslim feminists (and other Muslims) feel very protective of their culture and religion and they get, to put it lightly, quite upset at people who point out its flaws. When people are confident in themselves, they are able to take criticism gracefully and accept or reject it on its own terms, while insecure people are apt to take it as a personal insult, no matter what the motive was (and the greater the insecurity, the worse it is taken). Similarly, Muslims often feel their culture and religion are threatened and so sometimes respond in a way that may seem to others to be out of line, such as shrieking that all criticism of Islam is "racist" or "hateful," and any intimation that their culture is perhaps not quite as good as it could be can provoke insults and name-calling. The area of women's rights is especially sensitive, since much attention has been called to it, so the reactions to criticism are especially severe. For an example, just go to Amazon.com and read the comments by Muslims about books exposing the not-so-great position of women under Islam (such as Price of Honor, Nine Parts of Desire, any books by Fatima Mernissi and by other feminists); the invective seems way out of line, with some insisting that everything that doesn't show Islam as perfect are "lies" and concluding with a screed about how Muhammad and Islam liberated women (and sometimes with a few shots at the West).
Muslims are so busy trying to defend their own against what they see as an attack that they don't often actually look at it and see what might be wrong with it. I hate to say it, but self-examination doesn't seem to be the greatest Arab/Muslim trait. More likely, the problems of the Muslim world will be blamed on "Western imperialism," "Orientalism," "racism," "bigotry," and on and on, which allows Muslims to feel like righteous victims, but also suggests that they are helpless puppets with no control over their own destinies.
This leads to some untenable positions. A Muslim woman might criticize Islam harshly to other Muslims, but when it comes to "outsiders," they are quick to defend it. Perhaps it will be claimed that this is a matter for Muslims alone, or that there is no problem, it's only those evil Westerners who say that there is a problem. Worst of all is when a Muslim feminist is reduced to defending the misogynist practices of the Islamic world ("The harem and veiling gave women the benefit of being left alone by men to create their own feminine world.").
Moral relativism
Moral relativism is also another trap. It is dangerous for a feminist to adopt moral relativism, especially one from a traditionalist culture, because it can and does undercut her position. The idea that culture trumps all, including universal human rights and women's rights, cannot be an idea that feminists can uphold without looking like utter hypocrites. Unfortunately, we have the spectacle of some "feminists" claiming that female genital mutilation is morally equivalent to Playboy centerfolds, or that American working women pressed for time are equally as unfree as women under the Taliban who were not allowed to work, be educated, or do much of anything but stay in their houses. Who are we to judge that forced marriages of 14-year-old girls to men three times their age is bad? (Though of course many Muslims have no trouble judging and denouncing Western women as whores. Moral relativism only goes one way.)
(begin rant)
This is by far the most maddening thing I have seen from some Western "feminists"--the ones that do not hold that all women should have certain basic rights that all societies are bound to honor, but that a woman's rights are based on what culture she had the fortune or misfortune to be born into. Isn't that a violation of everything feminists are supposed to stand for? What if Victorian-era feminists felt that their rights were limited by their culture, and that they had no business demanding more? Would a Western feminist feel as if she had sufficient rights under Islamic rule? Isn't this a form of discrimination, that a Muslim woman is entitled to fewer rights than a Western woman just because Islamic culture is so sacrosanct it can't be touched? And this attitude in fact does a disservice to real feminists in Muslim countries, undercutting their fight for equal rights for all women. In effect moral relativists are on the side of the fundamentalists against the modernizers, the net effect of their words suggesting to Muslim women that they should be happy with their lot, because their culture would be so much better off without Western "infestation" such as ideas about women's rights.
(/rant)
Muslim feminism and misogynist hadiths
Many Muslims, though, look at their societies and see that they do in fact have a problem. Forbidding women to drive, forcing them to wear the veil, treating them as the property of men, FGM, forced marriages, lack of education, and many, many other practices are difficult to ignore, and, a good Muslim might worry, give Islam a very bad image, not entirely undeserved. More importantly, they make the lives of Allah knows how many women miserable, which shouldn't be the case if Islam is supposed to preserve the rights of women. Something must change.
Muslim feminists often attribute misogynist practices to other cultures (non-Muslim, non-Arab) such as the Persians and Byzantines, saying that they were later accretions and distortions of the pure religion of equality given through Muhammad. But the problem with this is, if Islam is such a feminist religion, why did these practices (such as seclusion and veiling) become so widespread? Should not Muslims have recognized these as not Islamic, instead of making them practically universal? And the wives of Muhammad himself clearly followed both:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 282:
Narrated Safiya bint Shaiba:
'Aisha used to say: "When (the Verse): "They should draw their veils over their necks and bosoms," was revealed, (the ladies) cut their waist sheets at the edges and covered their faces with the cut pieces."
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 8, Number 395:
Narrated 'Umar (bin Al-Khattab):
My Lord agreed with me in three things:
[...]
...And as regards the (verse of) the veiling of the women, I said, 'O Allah's Apostle! I wish you ordered your wives to cover themselves from the men because good and bad ones talk to them.' So the verse of the veiling of the women was revealed.
[...]
Volume 6, Book 60, Number 318:
Narrated Aisha:
Sauda (the wife of the Prophet) went out to answer the call of nature after it was made obligatory (for all the Muslims ladies) to observe the veil. She was a fat huge lady, and everybody who knew her before could recognize her. So 'Umar bin Al-Khattab saw her and said, "O Sauda! By Allah, you cannot hide yourself from us, so think of a way by which you should not be recognized on going out. Sauda returned while Allah's Apostle was in my house taking his supper and a bone covered with meat was in his hand. She entered and said, "O Allah's Apostle! I went out to answer the call of nature and 'Umar said to me so-and-so." Then Allah inspired him (the Prophet) and when the state of inspiration was over and the bone was still in his hand as he had not put in down, he said (to Sauda), "You (women) have been allowed to go out for your needs."
(If women need special permission from Allah to go out for their needs or to go to the bathroom, what does that say about where women were normally supposed to be?)
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 165:
Narrated Salim's father:
The Prophet said, "If the wife of any one of you asks permission to go to the mosque, he should not forbid her."
(This hadith clearly implies that the wife needs to ask permission of the husband to go anywhere, and the husband can forbid her to go, unless it is to the mosque.)
This leads to another problem, the numerous misogynist hadiths about women attributed to Muhammad and his followers, such as the following:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 76, Number 456:
Narrated 'Imran bin Husain:
The Prophet said, "I looked into Paradise and found that the majority of its dwellers were the poor people, and I looked into the (Hell) Fire and found that the majority of its dwellers were women."
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 125:
Narrated 'Abdullah bin Abbas:
[...]
[Muhammad said,] "Then I saw the (Hell) Fire, and I have never before, seen such a horrible sight as that, and I saw that the majority of its dwellers were women." The people asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is the reason for that?" He replied, "Because of their ungratefulness." It was said, "Do they disbelieve in Allah (are they ungrateful to Allah)?" He replied, "They are not thankful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favors done to them. Even if you do good to one of them all your life, when she sees some harshness from you, she will say, "'I have never seen any good from you.'"
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 6, Number 301:
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:
Once Allah's Apostle went out to the Musalla (to offer the prayer) of 'Id-al-Adha or Al-Fitr prayer. Then he passed by the women and said, "O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women)." They asked, "Why is it so, O Allah's Apostle?" He replied, "You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you." The women asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?" He said, "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?" They replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?" The women replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her religion."
Some feminists claim that these hadiths have been falsely attributed to Muhammad and are fabrications. Unfortunately, that leads to another problem; how can one determine if a hadith has been fabricated or is authentic? The present-day books of hadith, such as Bukhari and Muslim, had their authenticity based on isnads, the chain of transmission from person to person back to Muhammad himself or to one of his companions. This required each person in the line to be trustworthy and pious. Some feminists will claim that these hadiths have a faulty isnad, but there are other hadiths with similar isnads--should they be rejected too? And if these hadiths should be rejected because they were fabricated to support misogynist views and falsely attributed to the Prophet, then it suggests that other hadiths were also fabricated concerning other subjects as well and also attributed falsely to Muhammad. How will one decide which are authentic and which are spurious?
Muhammad, the Qur'an, feminism and misogyny
The bottom line is that Muhammad is held to be the guarantor of equality for women, who would never do or say a misogynist thing. The Qur'an is held up and extolled for its insistence on the equality of Muslim men and Muslim women. Islam, we are told, was the first feminist religion and Muhammad the first feminist. It is only the un-Islamic accretions over time that have robbed Islam of its revolutionary feminist impact.
Needless to say, this argument falls apart if you look at it closely. Take the Qur'an. There are some verses on the equality of male and female believers, that both will have their reward in heaven. (These are most of the verses I could find; some other verses may be taken as extolling equality between male and female believers.)
(9:71) "The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity, and obey Allah and His Apostle. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise."
(9:72) "Allah has promised to Believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein, and beautiful mansions in gardens of everlasting bliss. But the greatest bliss is the good pleasure of Allah: that is the supreme felicity."
(33:35) "For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in God's praise, for them has God prepared forgiveness and great reward."
(48:5) "That He may admit the men and women who believe, to Gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell therein forever, and remove their ills from them; and that is, in the sight of Allah, the highest achievement."
(57:12) "One day you shall see the believing men and the believing women--how their Light runs forward before them and by their right hands: (their greeting will be): "Good News for you this Day! Gardens beneath which flow rivers, to
dwell therein forever! This is indeed the highest Achievement!"
(57:18) "For those who give in charity, men and women, and loan to Allah a beautiful loan, it shall be increased manifold (to their credit), and they shall have (besides) a liberal reward."
Even male and female hypocrites and unbelievers will be treated equally in the afterlife (i.e. they will all burn in hell):
(9:67) "The Hypocrites, men and women, (have an understanding) with each other: They enjoin evil, and forbid what is just, and are close with their hands. They have forgotten Allah; so He has forgotten them. Verily the Hypocrites are rebellious and perverse."
(9:68) "Allah has promised the Hypocrites, men and women, and the rejecters of Faith the fire of Hell; therein shall they dwell. Sufficient is it for them; for them is the curse of Allah, and an enduring punishment."
(48:6) "And that He may punish the Hypocrites, men and women, and the Polytheists men and women, who imagine an evil opinion of Allah. On them is a round of Evil: the Wrath of Allah is on them; He has cursed them and got Hell ready for them, and evil is it for a destination."
The problem is that this promise of equality is undercut by other verses that presuppose a different situation on earth,
Limiting women to half the inheritance of men:
(4:11) "Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females."
Two female witnesses in place of one male:
(2:282) "...Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as you choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her."
Women's menstrual periods are unclean (they cannot pray, fast or read the Qur'an according to Islam):
(2:222) "They ask thee concerning women's courses. Say: They are a hurt and a pollution. So keep away from women in their courses, and do not approach them until they are clean."
The commandment for women to cover themselves:
(24:31) "And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments."
(33:59) "O Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested."
The commandment for women to stay in their homes:
(33:33) "And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His Apostle. And Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, you members of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless.
(33:34) And recite what is rehearsed to you in your homes, of the Signs of Allah and His Wisdom: for Allah understands the finest mysteries and is well-acquainted (with them)."
(Note: although these verses are ostensibly directed towards the wives of Muhammad, they have typically been applied to all women.)
Polygamy,
(4:3) "Marry women of your choice, two or three or four."
Inequality:
(2:228) "And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable; but men have a degree (of advantage) over them."
And the most infamous of all,
(4:34) "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what God would have them guard. As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance). For Allah is Most High, great (above you all)."
(Note: the word "lightly" is a gloss; it is not in the original text.)
In addition, when discussing marriage and divorce, the text is always addressed to the men (as in "When you divorce women..." (65:1) and never to the woman, who is a third party. The text does not say what reasons the man has to have to divorce his wife, but the woman does not seem to have the same right. Although the dowry that the man gives the wife at marriage is hers to keep, except in cases of "open lewdness" (4:19) or "when both parties fear that they would be unable to keep the limits ordained by Allah. If you (judges) do indeed fear that they would be unable to keep the limits ordained by Allah, there is no blame on either of them if she give something for her freedom." (2:229) And so it is in shari'ah that when the wife wants a divorce and the man consents to divorce her, she is supposed to give back her dowry. Not very equal, especially since the woman may or may not have any other money than the dowry, since by Islamic law the man is supposed to support his wife. In fairness, the text does say "Live with them (your wives) on a footing of kindness and equity" (4:19) but after all of the above, what does that really mean?
Would you consider a document to be feminist if it included cutting remarks about women (43:18) "Is then one brought up among trinkets, and unable to give a clear account in a dispute (to be associated with Allah)?"--which clearly refers to women in context), as well as all the remarks above? Or would you consider it to be, shall we say, somewhat flawed in its depiction of feminism?
Dealing with misogyny in the Qur'an
Muslim feminists will say that these verses were only meant to apply to certain times, sometimes only to certain people, and do not hold today, or else that these verses are to be interpreted in a very different manner than their literal sense would indicate. But unfortunately 1300 years of tafsir (Qur'anic commentary) has indeed seen these verses in the literal sense. Also, it brings up once again the question of abrogation. Which verses are applicable to which people at which times? If the Qur'an is a document for all times and all places, how can one decide? Traditionally the matter was decided by looking at the hadiths and sira (accounts of the life of Muhammad) to find out the circumstances of each verse's revelation. But as we saw above, these have been called into question as well. In the end, the main problem is that the Qur'an is the very words of Allah Himself, dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, and so there is no way to get around the fact of these verses being divine, perfect, and without error. You cannot claim that, for example, Muhammad wrote in the Qur'an his own opinions which are not actually from Allah and which in any case no longer apply, the way you might with the Bible, in Paul's letters where he preaches submission of the woman to her husband in the early Christian community. No, every jot and tittle is from Allah Himself, and therefore must be dealt with somehow.
Anachronisms
But another enormous problem with this whole concept is the grossly anachronistic attribution of 20th and 21st century notions of feminist to a 7th century figure, Muhammad. Are we to believe that Muhammad felt and thought exactly the way modern-day feminists do? Too much of Muslim feminist writing feels like a desperate attempt to push Muhammad and the Qur'an into a feminist mold that doesn't suit either one of them, as if saying that Islam is feminist will make it so and magically clear away 1400 years of tradition from the minds of Muslims.
To be fair, everyone alive today cannot really break through their own time-limited mindset, but then why should that not have been true of Muhammad and the early Muslims? They were not gods, they could not look into the future 1400 years down the line. And even if they could, that does not mean that they would approve. But the idea that Islam does not change is deeply held, so it is important to see any "innovation" as dating back to the Prophet himself, as part of the "original" Islam, and that what one does not like is a later "addition" or "corruption."
Problems for feminism
Why is it so hard to criticize Muhammad and the Qur'an directly? Islam is not just a religion, it is an identity. To reject the religion, you also reject the identity, to a large extent. Many Muslim cultures would not exist without Islam, at least not in anything resembling their present forms. Not to mention the social ostracism and perhaps death threats, especially with fundamentalism resurgent.
All this leads to a rather depressing situation when it comes to Muslim feminism. Using Islamic sources often has the effect of playing right into the fundamentalists' hands, since they know everything about Qur'an, Hadith and Sunnah and can refute them easily. On the other hand, a secularist approach often alienates people, who fear that Islam is being attacked.
Conclusion: Some progress is being made
The more I read about Muslim feminism, the more I am convinced that ideology is a dead end. I think it is more important to change the facts on the ground than to directly change the ideology, which will come later. What does it matter if the Muslim fundamentalists proclaim their concern about women when women are under the complete control of the male members of their family? It is more important for the facts on the ground to change. Many Muslim girls and women do not wear the hijab at all. When asked, they will sometimes acknowledge that they "should" be doing it, but are too lazy or unwilling to do so. Perhaps if this continues, they will stop feeling guilty and will insist that they can wear it or not, depending on what they feel is right.
A hundred years ago, most Muslim women were secluded and veiled, illiterate and married off at an early age to men they had never met, often to be one of four wives. Today the situation has changed considerably. Most women (outside of Arabia) do not veil and in most Muslim countries are free to wear the headscarf or not, without getting beaten up by the mutawas. Many work, frequently out of necessity, but they are earning their own money. Illiteracy is still too high, but much better than it was. The harem has become the stuff of legend, not a real living institution. And, from my own experience and what I have read, few women will tolerate polygamy.
Perhaps things will change in the next hundred years, so that the present troubles of Muslim women will be seen as a past disgrace, instead of being common, ongoing and oft-defended.
The following are my scattered thoughts about Muslim feminism.
A "Muslim feminist" is not an oxymoron. There are Muslim women who feel very strongly about the position of women in Islam, and try to improve it. Women such as Fatima Mernissi, Leila Ahmed, Amina Wadud and others have been working at this subject for decades.
I use the term "Muslim feminist" to refer to Muslim women (and men) who work to improve women's rights in present-day Islam. I do not consider it to refer to women (and men) who insist that Islam, as it is today, is glorious liberation for women and who write poetry praising the veil (grotesque examples here). I am talking about those who recognize that there is a problem with women's rights in Islamic cultures, and even in Islam itself, at least as it is currently constituted.
Secularists also work to improve women's rights but usually see the problem as Islam itself, which must be separated from the state and its influence severely curtailed. Here I am thinking more of those who approach the problem of women's rights inside Islam itself, with all the difficulties and contradictions that entails.
Muslim feminists recognize the existence of misogynist practices, but also have faith that Islam is a religion of equality for men and women. The Qur'an speaks to the equality of all Muslims. Muhammad was a feminist who gave women rights they had never had before, and Islam was a liberating, revolutionary movement. Such is the theory. What has happened in the meantime and what should be done to rectify the situation are the problems Muslim feminism concerns itself with.
Protectiveness towards Islam
Many Muslim feminists (and other Muslims) feel very protective of their culture and religion and they get, to put it lightly, quite upset at people who point out its flaws. When people are confident in themselves, they are able to take criticism gracefully and accept or reject it on its own terms, while insecure people are apt to take it as a personal insult, no matter what the motive was (and the greater the insecurity, the worse it is taken). Similarly, Muslims often feel their culture and religion are threatened and so sometimes respond in a way that may seem to others to be out of line, such as shrieking that all criticism of Islam is "racist" or "hateful," and any intimation that their culture is perhaps not quite as good as it could be can provoke insults and name-calling. The area of women's rights is especially sensitive, since much attention has been called to it, so the reactions to criticism are especially severe. For an example, just go to Amazon.com and read the comments by Muslims about books exposing the not-so-great position of women under Islam (such as Price of Honor, Nine Parts of Desire, any books by Fatima Mernissi and by other feminists); the invective seems way out of line, with some insisting that everything that doesn't show Islam as perfect are "lies" and concluding with a screed about how Muhammad and Islam liberated women (and sometimes with a few shots at the West).
Muslims are so busy trying to defend their own against what they see as an attack that they don't often actually look at it and see what might be wrong with it. I hate to say it, but self-examination doesn't seem to be the greatest Arab/Muslim trait. More likely, the problems of the Muslim world will be blamed on "Western imperialism," "Orientalism," "racism," "bigotry," and on and on, which allows Muslims to feel like righteous victims, but also suggests that they are helpless puppets with no control over their own destinies.
This leads to some untenable positions. A Muslim woman might criticize Islam harshly to other Muslims, but when it comes to "outsiders," they are quick to defend it. Perhaps it will be claimed that this is a matter for Muslims alone, or that there is no problem, it's only those evil Westerners who say that there is a problem. Worst of all is when a Muslim feminist is reduced to defending the misogynist practices of the Islamic world ("The harem and veiling gave women the benefit of being left alone by men to create their own feminine world.").
Moral relativism
Moral relativism is also another trap. It is dangerous for a feminist to adopt moral relativism, especially one from a traditionalist culture, because it can and does undercut her position. The idea that culture trumps all, including universal human rights and women's rights, cannot be an idea that feminists can uphold without looking like utter hypocrites. Unfortunately, we have the spectacle of some "feminists" claiming that female genital mutilation is morally equivalent to Playboy centerfolds, or that American working women pressed for time are equally as unfree as women under the Taliban who were not allowed to work, be educated, or do much of anything but stay in their houses. Who are we to judge that forced marriages of 14-year-old girls to men three times their age is bad? (Though of course many Muslims have no trouble judging and denouncing Western women as whores. Moral relativism only goes one way.)
(begin rant)
This is by far the most maddening thing I have seen from some Western "feminists"--the ones that do not hold that all women should have certain basic rights that all societies are bound to honor, but that a woman's rights are based on what culture she had the fortune or misfortune to be born into. Isn't that a violation of everything feminists are supposed to stand for? What if Victorian-era feminists felt that their rights were limited by their culture, and that they had no business demanding more? Would a Western feminist feel as if she had sufficient rights under Islamic rule? Isn't this a form of discrimination, that a Muslim woman is entitled to fewer rights than a Western woman just because Islamic culture is so sacrosanct it can't be touched? And this attitude in fact does a disservice to real feminists in Muslim countries, undercutting their fight for equal rights for all women. In effect moral relativists are on the side of the fundamentalists against the modernizers, the net effect of their words suggesting to Muslim women that they should be happy with their lot, because their culture would be so much better off without Western "infestation" such as ideas about women's rights.
(/rant)
Muslim feminism and misogynist hadiths
Many Muslims, though, look at their societies and see that they do in fact have a problem. Forbidding women to drive, forcing them to wear the veil, treating them as the property of men, FGM, forced marriages, lack of education, and many, many other practices are difficult to ignore, and, a good Muslim might worry, give Islam a very bad image, not entirely undeserved. More importantly, they make the lives of Allah knows how many women miserable, which shouldn't be the case if Islam is supposed to preserve the rights of women. Something must change.
Muslim feminists often attribute misogynist practices to other cultures (non-Muslim, non-Arab) such as the Persians and Byzantines, saying that they were later accretions and distortions of the pure religion of equality given through Muhammad. But the problem with this is, if Islam is such a feminist religion, why did these practices (such as seclusion and veiling) become so widespread? Should not Muslims have recognized these as not Islamic, instead of making them practically universal? And the wives of Muhammad himself clearly followed both:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 282:
Narrated Safiya bint Shaiba:
'Aisha used to say: "When (the Verse): "They should draw their veils over their necks and bosoms," was revealed, (the ladies) cut their waist sheets at the edges and covered their faces with the cut pieces."
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 8, Number 395:
Narrated 'Umar (bin Al-Khattab):
My Lord agreed with me in three things:
[...]
...And as regards the (verse of) the veiling of the women, I said, 'O Allah's Apostle! I wish you ordered your wives to cover themselves from the men because good and bad ones talk to them.' So the verse of the veiling of the women was revealed.
[...]
Volume 6, Book 60, Number 318:
Narrated Aisha:
Sauda (the wife of the Prophet) went out to answer the call of nature after it was made obligatory (for all the Muslims ladies) to observe the veil. She was a fat huge lady, and everybody who knew her before could recognize her. So 'Umar bin Al-Khattab saw her and said, "O Sauda! By Allah, you cannot hide yourself from us, so think of a way by which you should not be recognized on going out. Sauda returned while Allah's Apostle was in my house taking his supper and a bone covered with meat was in his hand. She entered and said, "O Allah's Apostle! I went out to answer the call of nature and 'Umar said to me so-and-so." Then Allah inspired him (the Prophet) and when the state of inspiration was over and the bone was still in his hand as he had not put in down, he said (to Sauda), "You (women) have been allowed to go out for your needs."
(If women need special permission from Allah to go out for their needs or to go to the bathroom, what does that say about where women were normally supposed to be?)
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 165:
Narrated Salim's father:
The Prophet said, "If the wife of any one of you asks permission to go to the mosque, he should not forbid her."
(This hadith clearly implies that the wife needs to ask permission of the husband to go anywhere, and the husband can forbid her to go, unless it is to the mosque.)
This leads to another problem, the numerous misogynist hadiths about women attributed to Muhammad and his followers, such as the following:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 76, Number 456:
Narrated 'Imran bin Husain:
The Prophet said, "I looked into Paradise and found that the majority of its dwellers were the poor people, and I looked into the (Hell) Fire and found that the majority of its dwellers were women."
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 125:
Narrated 'Abdullah bin Abbas:
[...]
[Muhammad said,] "Then I saw the (Hell) Fire, and I have never before, seen such a horrible sight as that, and I saw that the majority of its dwellers were women." The people asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is the reason for that?" He replied, "Because of their ungratefulness." It was said, "Do they disbelieve in Allah (are they ungrateful to Allah)?" He replied, "They are not thankful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favors done to them. Even if you do good to one of them all your life, when she sees some harshness from you, she will say, "'I have never seen any good from you.'"
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 6, Number 301:
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:
Once Allah's Apostle went out to the Musalla (to offer the prayer) of 'Id-al-Adha or Al-Fitr prayer. Then he passed by the women and said, "O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women)." They asked, "Why is it so, O Allah's Apostle?" He replied, "You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you." The women asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?" He said, "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?" They replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?" The women replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her religion."
Some feminists claim that these hadiths have been falsely attributed to Muhammad and are fabrications. Unfortunately, that leads to another problem; how can one determine if a hadith has been fabricated or is authentic? The present-day books of hadith, such as Bukhari and Muslim, had their authenticity based on isnads, the chain of transmission from person to person back to Muhammad himself or to one of his companions. This required each person in the line to be trustworthy and pious. Some feminists will claim that these hadiths have a faulty isnad, but there are other hadiths with similar isnads--should they be rejected too? And if these hadiths should be rejected because they were fabricated to support misogynist views and falsely attributed to the Prophet, then it suggests that other hadiths were also fabricated concerning other subjects as well and also attributed falsely to Muhammad. How will one decide which are authentic and which are spurious?
Muhammad, the Qur'an, feminism and misogyny
The bottom line is that Muhammad is held to be the guarantor of equality for women, who would never do or say a misogynist thing. The Qur'an is held up and extolled for its insistence on the equality of Muslim men and Muslim women. Islam, we are told, was the first feminist religion and Muhammad the first feminist. It is only the un-Islamic accretions over time that have robbed Islam of its revolutionary feminist impact.
Needless to say, this argument falls apart if you look at it closely. Take the Qur'an. There are some verses on the equality of male and female believers, that both will have their reward in heaven. (These are most of the verses I could find; some other verses may be taken as extolling equality between male and female believers.)
(9:71) "The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity, and obey Allah and His Apostle. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise."
(9:72) "Allah has promised to Believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein, and beautiful mansions in gardens of everlasting bliss. But the greatest bliss is the good pleasure of Allah: that is the supreme felicity."
(33:35) "For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in God's praise, for them has God prepared forgiveness and great reward."
(48:5) "That He may admit the men and women who believe, to Gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell therein forever, and remove their ills from them; and that is, in the sight of Allah, the highest achievement."
(57:12) "One day you shall see the believing men and the believing women--how their Light runs forward before them and by their right hands: (their greeting will be): "Good News for you this Day! Gardens beneath which flow rivers, to
dwell therein forever! This is indeed the highest Achievement!"
(57:18) "For those who give in charity, men and women, and loan to Allah a beautiful loan, it shall be increased manifold (to their credit), and they shall have (besides) a liberal reward."
Even male and female hypocrites and unbelievers will be treated equally in the afterlife (i.e. they will all burn in hell):
(9:67) "The Hypocrites, men and women, (have an understanding) with each other: They enjoin evil, and forbid what is just, and are close with their hands. They have forgotten Allah; so He has forgotten them. Verily the Hypocrites are rebellious and perverse."
(9:68) "Allah has promised the Hypocrites, men and women, and the rejecters of Faith the fire of Hell; therein shall they dwell. Sufficient is it for them; for them is the curse of Allah, and an enduring punishment."
(48:6) "And that He may punish the Hypocrites, men and women, and the Polytheists men and women, who imagine an evil opinion of Allah. On them is a round of Evil: the Wrath of Allah is on them; He has cursed them and got Hell ready for them, and evil is it for a destination."
The problem is that this promise of equality is undercut by other verses that presuppose a different situation on earth,
Limiting women to half the inheritance of men:
(4:11) "Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females."
Two female witnesses in place of one male:
(2:282) "...Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as you choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her."
Women's menstrual periods are unclean (they cannot pray, fast or read the Qur'an according to Islam):
(2:222) "They ask thee concerning women's courses. Say: They are a hurt and a pollution. So keep away from women in their courses, and do not approach them until they are clean."
The commandment for women to cover themselves:
(24:31) "And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments."
(33:59) "O Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested."
The commandment for women to stay in their homes:
(33:33) "And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His Apostle. And Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, you members of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless.
(33:34) And recite what is rehearsed to you in your homes, of the Signs of Allah and His Wisdom: for Allah understands the finest mysteries and is well-acquainted (with them)."
(Note: although these verses are ostensibly directed towards the wives of Muhammad, they have typically been applied to all women.)
Polygamy,
(4:3) "Marry women of your choice, two or three or four."
Inequality:
(2:228) "And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable; but men have a degree (of advantage) over them."
And the most infamous of all,
(4:34) "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what God would have them guard. As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance). For Allah is Most High, great (above you all)."
(Note: the word "lightly" is a gloss; it is not in the original text.)
In addition, when discussing marriage and divorce, the text is always addressed to the men (as in "When you divorce women..." (65:1) and never to the woman, who is a third party. The text does not say what reasons the man has to have to divorce his wife, but the woman does not seem to have the same right. Although the dowry that the man gives the wife at marriage is hers to keep, except in cases of "open lewdness" (4:19) or "when both parties fear that they would be unable to keep the limits ordained by Allah. If you (judges) do indeed fear that they would be unable to keep the limits ordained by Allah, there is no blame on either of them if she give something for her freedom." (2:229) And so it is in shari'ah that when the wife wants a divorce and the man consents to divorce her, she is supposed to give back her dowry. Not very equal, especially since the woman may or may not have any other money than the dowry, since by Islamic law the man is supposed to support his wife. In fairness, the text does say "Live with them (your wives) on a footing of kindness and equity" (4:19) but after all of the above, what does that really mean?
Would you consider a document to be feminist if it included cutting remarks about women (43:18) "Is then one brought up among trinkets, and unable to give a clear account in a dispute (to be associated with Allah)?"--which clearly refers to women in context), as well as all the remarks above? Or would you consider it to be, shall we say, somewhat flawed in its depiction of feminism?
Dealing with misogyny in the Qur'an
Muslim feminists will say that these verses were only meant to apply to certain times, sometimes only to certain people, and do not hold today, or else that these verses are to be interpreted in a very different manner than their literal sense would indicate. But unfortunately 1300 years of tafsir (Qur'anic commentary) has indeed seen these verses in the literal sense. Also, it brings up once again the question of abrogation. Which verses are applicable to which people at which times? If the Qur'an is a document for all times and all places, how can one decide? Traditionally the matter was decided by looking at the hadiths and sira (accounts of the life of Muhammad) to find out the circumstances of each verse's revelation. But as we saw above, these have been called into question as well. In the end, the main problem is that the Qur'an is the very words of Allah Himself, dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, and so there is no way to get around the fact of these verses being divine, perfect, and without error. You cannot claim that, for example, Muhammad wrote in the Qur'an his own opinions which are not actually from Allah and which in any case no longer apply, the way you might with the Bible, in Paul's letters where he preaches submission of the woman to her husband in the early Christian community. No, every jot and tittle is from Allah Himself, and therefore must be dealt with somehow.
Anachronisms
But another enormous problem with this whole concept is the grossly anachronistic attribution of 20th and 21st century notions of feminist to a 7th century figure, Muhammad. Are we to believe that Muhammad felt and thought exactly the way modern-day feminists do? Too much of Muslim feminist writing feels like a desperate attempt to push Muhammad and the Qur'an into a feminist mold that doesn't suit either one of them, as if saying that Islam is feminist will make it so and magically clear away 1400 years of tradition from the minds of Muslims.
To be fair, everyone alive today cannot really break through their own time-limited mindset, but then why should that not have been true of Muhammad and the early Muslims? They were not gods, they could not look into the future 1400 years down the line. And even if they could, that does not mean that they would approve. But the idea that Islam does not change is deeply held, so it is important to see any "innovation" as dating back to the Prophet himself, as part of the "original" Islam, and that what one does not like is a later "addition" or "corruption."
Problems for feminism
Why is it so hard to criticize Muhammad and the Qur'an directly? Islam is not just a religion, it is an identity. To reject the religion, you also reject the identity, to a large extent. Many Muslim cultures would not exist without Islam, at least not in anything resembling their present forms. Not to mention the social ostracism and perhaps death threats, especially with fundamentalism resurgent.
All this leads to a rather depressing situation when it comes to Muslim feminism. Using Islamic sources often has the effect of playing right into the fundamentalists' hands, since they know everything about Qur'an, Hadith and Sunnah and can refute them easily. On the other hand, a secularist approach often alienates people, who fear that Islam is being attacked.
Conclusion: Some progress is being made
The more I read about Muslim feminism, the more I am convinced that ideology is a dead end. I think it is more important to change the facts on the ground than to directly change the ideology, which will come later. What does it matter if the Muslim fundamentalists proclaim their concern about women when women are under the complete control of the male members of their family? It is more important for the facts on the ground to change. Many Muslim girls and women do not wear the hijab at all. When asked, they will sometimes acknowledge that they "should" be doing it, but are too lazy or unwilling to do so. Perhaps if this continues, they will stop feeling guilty and will insist that they can wear it or not, depending on what they feel is right.
A hundred years ago, most Muslim women were secluded and veiled, illiterate and married off at an early age to men they had never met, often to be one of four wives. Today the situation has changed considerably. Most women (outside of Arabia) do not veil and in most Muslim countries are free to wear the headscarf or not, without getting beaten up by the mutawas. Many work, frequently out of necessity, but they are earning their own money. Illiteracy is still too high, but much better than it was. The harem has become the stuff of legend, not a real living institution. And, from my own experience and what I have read, few women will tolerate polygamy.
Perhaps things will change in the next hundred years, so that the present troubles of Muslim women will be seen as a past disgrace, instead of being common, ongoing and oft-defended.