Brief Glossary to Muslim-Speak

If you've ever read Islamic writings aimed at a Western audience, you may notice that they will often throw around buzzwords and concepts to ingratiate themselves with Western audiences and ideas, such as "freedom," "liberation of women," "democracy," and so on. The problem is, these words are very often used in a way that most Westerners wouldn't recognize! Hence, here is my brief glossary to some of the more well-known terms and what they actually mean:

Freedom of religion, religious tolerance in Islam -- Means that Jews and Christians will not be forced to convert to Islam, and that's pretty much all. Under shari'ah, the "People of the Book" have very few rights as compared with Muslims, a condition known as dhimmitude (can't be too public with said practice of their religion, lest they offend the Muslims with their blasphemous kafir ways). It also means that Jews and Christians were allowed to live under their own laws to some extent (they were allowed to drink wine, for example, unlike Muslims), but shari'ah could not be breached openly. It basically means that people are to live under the law of their own religion, but this in turn is based on a concept of the populace as being primarily composed of religious groups, not autonomous individuals with individual rights.

You will notice that those of other religions, such as Hindus and Buddhists, are generally not mentioned in accounts of Islam's "tolerance". This is because, according to three schools of Sunni thought (except the Hanafi) the "pagans" were to be allowed the choice between Islam or death (unless they could somehow fight off the Muslim invaders.) But there were just too many Hindus in India to kill, so a more "tolerant" view of simply treating them as dhimmis instead took root, though they were subject to indignities such as having their temples demolished and mosques put on their sites, or slaughtered en masse by figures of fun like the Mughal ruler Aurangezeb (seen by Hindus as a bloodthirsty fanatic, by Muslims as a great hero of Islam). With the coming of Islam, Buddhism, a pacifist religion, was essentially wiped out in lands under Muslim domination in Central Asia (remember the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan which were destroyed by the Taliban, a fitting metaphor for what happened to Buddhism under Islam), and the Islamic conquest of India was the direct cause for the disappearance of Buddhism there. Zoroastrianism almost disappeared in Iran, leaving behind only small groups of followers in Iran and India. (I always kind of felt bad about the near-disappearance of Zoroastrianism, considering how much other religions shamelessly stole from it). It must be admitted that Christianity, in the Roman/Byzantine Empire, had already made most of the indigenous religions of the Middle East extinct (or almost) by the time of Islam, thus ironically paving the way for future acceptance of Islam and its rather similar mythology, stories, and beliefs, making it that much easier to convert when the time came, but Islam wiped out whatever was left (including finishing off Manichaeism, once a major world religion), as well as most of Middle Eastern Christianity and all of North African Christianity.

Women's liberation through Islam, women's rights in Islam -- This means that Muslim women have the same religious obligations to pray, fast, give zakat, submit to Allah's will and increase in knowledge of Islam as men, and will also be rewarded on the Day of Judgment. Aside from that, though, what is generally meant is that women have a "different role" than men and should be protected from the outside world, making it easier for them to live their true, natural roles of wife and mother. Women may also work, but generally it is the man who is supposed to really interact with the outside world by being the breadwinner. Islamic law "honors" women by making allowances for women's "emotional nature" and "softness." The oft-trumpeted rights of women in Islam are often compared with women's status before Islam or in the past, so that the "superiority" of Islam can be demonstrated, but are hardly ever compared with those of today in the West (next to which they would look rather shabby.)

Freedom -- According to many Muslims, true freedom is achieved by submitting oneself to the will of Allah. It also means, according to Islamists like the extremely influential Syyed Qutub, being "free" from "man-made" governments and laws, being "free" to live under the law of Allah. Islamists also often couch their demands for an Islamic state as being a demand for the "freedom" to truly practice their religion--regardless of how many rights are ignored or repealed in the process.

Democracy -- This often means that the populace should be "free" to elect Islamist parties (even though this would inevitably lead to the end of any kind of real democracy--one person, one vote, one time), as, after all, that's what they want!--or at least, so it is said. It may also be applied to the Islamic concept of "shura," mutual consultation, but this typically meant that the elites or powerful would choose the next ruler (as in the history of the first four caliphs, supposedly elected by "mutual consultation," but it was hardly what we would call an election--often more like mutual infighting than consultation!). It certainly doesn't mean that the people may make their own laws (by representatives or through voting on particular laws), it just means that the best one for the job of leader is the one who implements Shari'ah best, and if he fails in this duty, he may be overthrown and rebelled against. It may also mean the "right" of the people to either vote for one of two or several candidates who all support the same things (Iran) or to vote for the ruler/dictator in question.

Logic, logical reasoning, rational -- Islamic texts often talk about how important it is to be "rational" and use "logic," but this generally is taken to mean that Islam is so self-evidently true to the writer that they could not concieve how anyone could not see it as the truth--look at all the proofs in the Qur'an, it must be the truth! In any case, it derives directly from the acceptance of Islamic doctrine about how the Qur'an is the direct word of Allah (and if you used your Allah-given sense of reason, you would see how eminently reasonable this truth is!) and the sunnah (example) of Muhammad is the model for behavior. Any reasoning that does not accept these a priori assumptions isn't going to get much traction among said Muslims, especially not a "rational discussion" about whether it is reasonable to accept the Qur'an as the very word of Allah, or about the existence of God, or the historicity of the early Islamic history.

Justice -- When used in the context of "Muslims fighting for justice," or "Justice must be done," this means the addressing of any and all Muslim grievances against any other group, whether it's about Spain being reconquered by the Christians, the formation of the state of Israel, the indignity and humiliation of being under Western domination, poverty, the importation of Western ideas and products, whatever. All must be resolved to the satisfaction of the Muslims for "justice" to be rendered. On the other hand, it never includes wrongs committed by Muslims, which are never even acknowledged. For example, European colonization of Muslim lands for between 30 and 150 years was a horrible atrocity, which, with the horrible practice of Europeans shoving down Muslims' throats Western ideas and culture, are the direct cause of all current problems in the Middle East, while the Muslim conquerers are lauded as great heroes, fighting to bring the truth to all nations, and Muslim empires, which lasted for hundreds of years and largely wiped out previous civilizations, are praised as bringing advanced civilization and knowledge to backward, pagan peoples who so desperately needed the Light of Islam to be brought to them to bring them out of their darkness.

Bigotry, racism -- Refers to hatred or dislike of Muslims and Islam, or even criticism of Islam or Muslims. Does NOT refer to wretchedly hateful screeds against Jews, or "Death to America!" rhetoric, which, if acknowledged, are excused as "understandable" considering what the Jews/Zionists/Americans/Westerners have done to Muslims.

Islam as uniquely "non-racist" -- It is often claimed that Islam is somehow uniquely non-racist, often by black Americans who have converted to what some of them see as their true religion, the one their ancestors followed. While it is true that all races and colors of people are Muslim (though this is also true of other religions as well), it is also true that there are enormous chasms separating one nationality of Muslims from another--Arabs vs. Pakistanis, Arabs vs. Persians, Turks vs. Arabs, Africans vs. Arabs, Arabs vs. Arabs, and so on. Also, it is to be noted that Arab slave traders were active selling African slaves for well over 1,000 years, having an enormous effect on the slave trade, and slavery was not banned in many Muslim countries until well into the 20th century. Also, there is a tension in Islam between the belief that "all Muslims are equal and one is only better than another by reason of piety" and the special place given to Arabs, what with the praying in the direction of Mecca, Arabic the language of the Qur'an and of prayer, the adoption of Arab culture by non-Arabs, the adoption of spurious Arab genealogies by non-Arabs. Many Arabs think of themselves as something of a chosen people, the ones sent to bring the light of Allah to the nations. And then there is the fact that places that were not Arab before the conquests, such as Egypt, North Africa, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and so on, eventually totally melted into Arab culture, adopting the Arabic language and culture, and even seeing themselves as Arabs (preferably descended from the Arab conquerers, not the indigenous people). What to make of this?

Peace -- The peace (salaam) of living under Islam, submitting oneself to Allah's will (all of which contain the same Arabic root, SLM). Also can mean the "peace" that presumably will ensue when either 1) everybody accepts Islam, or 2) Islam rules the whole world, rendering the entire earth a "dar as-salaam" (house of peace), with no "dar al-harb" (house of war) left, and everyone living under Islamic law.

Understanding -- Christians, Jews and those of other religions come to understand Islam and its teachings. Westerners learn to see things through Arab and/or Muslim eyes. Does NOT usually mean Muslim understanding of Christianity, Judaism or the West. (cf. the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University headed by John Esposito, which is entirely devoted to making Christians see the Muslim point of view, not of getting Muslims to see the Christian point of view.)

Interesting how the simple change in meaning totally changes the whole meaning of an article or book. Be on the lookout for this, and make sure that these terms get concretely defined before any kind of discussion or debate, lest you end up wound up in mass confusion and misunderstanding.

Hijab and Niqab (Headscarf and Face Veil)

This really deserves its own heading, since it's such a contentious issue.

According to all Islamic scholars I have ever read, hijab (covering the hair) is required (though there are plenty of people who argue that the Qur'an doesn't require it, such as Queen Rania of Jordan, but they're usually not Islamic scholars!). It isn't just covering the hair, though, it also includes wearing clothes that conceal your body (long-sleeved shirts and either long pants or long skirts, and they should be baggy, so the outlines of your form are not obvious). Niqab (the face veil) is more contentious. Generally it is held to be optional, not required, though there are some scholars (mostly rather conservative) who say it is required. But it is supposed to be a sign of piety in women, and niqabis (women wearing the niqab) should never be made fun of, since they are displaying their submission to Allah by covering themselves.

In the past, generally before the modernization of the Arab world, the niqab was almost universal among city women in the Arab world, so I guess we've already come a long way. Fatima Mernissi's Dreams of Trespass describes how the middle-class women of Fez, Morocco, generally wore it even as late as the 1940s, before it was shunted aside by modernist and reformist currents. Huda Sharaawi, an Egyptian feminist who wrote of her youth closeted in a harem in Harem Years, caused an immense stir in Egypt in 1923 by publicly taking off her veil, and many early Muslim feminists wrote firey poems against the veil. Country women had more freedom, as they had to work in the fields and could not do so very easily with a piece of cloth hanging in their face, and poor women everywhere were in the same situation, also having to work. Seclusion and veiling of women was a sign to the world that the man of the house had enough money to keep his women idle and indoors, so it was most common among the urban rich and middle classes.

Today the niqab is much rarer, found mostly in places like Saudi Arabia (and Afghanistan under the Taliban, where women had to wear the burkah). Hijab (the headscarf) is more widespread, found almost everywhere in the Muslim world, but it is true that many women don't cover their hair at all. In the US, supposedly a majority of Muslim women and girls don't wear it at all. I know many girls who take it off as soon as they leave the mosque. Many show regret, saying that they "should" wear it, but don't. On the other end of the spectrum are the niqabis, the "women in black", faces covered (like al-Muhajabah and my niqabi friend). In between are plenty of women wearing a headscarf and jellaba (a coat-like garment that extends most of the way down the legs) or abaya (very baggy dresslike covering) or long skirt. This is what most of the women who go to the mosque regularly look like (though I can't know for sure what they're wearing ouside!).

Niqab definitely--and deeply--affects how you are seen, and how people communicate with you--or not. I once conducted an experiment about the differing effects of wearing and not wearing niqab (though it didn't start out that way--I just wanted to see what it was like to wear it.) At one picnic celebrating Eid-al-Adha, I wore a black abaya, black scarf and a niqab, and yes, I did look like a walking black shroud; at another a few days later I wore the same thing but without the niqab. At the first, everybody left me alone and nobody spoke to me, except for one person I knew, who said "Salaam" to me. I guess nobody recognized me. At the second: what a difference! Many people said "Salaam!" to me and would stop and talk to me. I noted that there were a grand total of four niqabis at each picnic (not including me the first time), apparently all related, and they stayed completely within their family circle without talking to anybody else. Everybody else (several hundred women) had a simple head scarf, and were happily talking away with other women. (Full disclosure: although I got kind of a thrill out of trying out the niqab, it wasn't much fun, as it blocked most of my peripheral vision, made it hard to breathe and it was really hard to eat anything!)

Many people complain that they feel upset when talking to a niqabi, as she is basically a walking pile of black with two eyes sticking out (and there are veils that you can use to hide your eyes, as well! You can just barely see out of the fabric!). She doesn't seem to have a personality because you can't see her face. It's incredible how much you can infer from a person's face, how many emotions they show. All that is missing with the niqabi, who instead looks like a completely undifferentiated mass of black (usually, though it might be other colors). Niqabis say that people feel threatened because they don't understand Islam and are discriminatory, but the matter is simpler than that--you can't connect with a piece of cloth or a shroud. You really have no clue who you might be encountering, hence the problem with veiled IDs being used by, shall we say, unsavory characters (how do you know it's not a terrorist underneath that cloth?). Also, niqabis (in the US, anyway) tend to be the most hard-core Islamists, especially the converts! They may not show it when you're talking with them, in fact they may be very nice, sweet people, but they tend to favor stuff like the imposition of Shari'ah law, with all its attendant unsavory aspects (stoning, blasphemy laws, death to apostates, etc.)

Although niqab is the most obvious covering, hijab is also a heated issue. According to many Muslimahs, (this article, The Fear of Hijab, is typical) it allows them to be judged for their minds, not their bodies, and in actuality it demonstrates respect to Muslim women by not making them sex objects and is a source of liberation. (Though I have to say it sure doesn't feel very liberating wearing a headscarf in boiling hot summer weather, along with long sleeves and pant legs!) However, it is also something of a political statement, especially where it has become the topic of fierce debate or banning (Turkey and France, for example). It is claimed to be a great way to do da'wah, calling (proselytizing) to Islam, since it is a symbol of Islam. It may even be seen as a "rebuke" to secular society (see "When I Covered My Head, I Opened My Mind," by our favorite American neo-Islamist, Shariffa Carlo.)

I have to admit that I myself am embarrassed to wear the headscarf, so I usually don't wear it when I am outside the mosque or with non-Muslims, but when I am, I am ashamed of not wearing it, so I tug it on whenever I am near the mosque or other Muslims--I always have it handy. It's a pretty bad situation, though actually not that uncommon (note the aforesaid girls who take off the scarf whenever leaving the mosque, but only when nobody is looking!) I might wear it more in the future, insha'Allah (if Allah wills), we'll have to see what happens.

Here's some links and pictures of niqabis and hijabis:

http://www.muhajabah.com/niqab-index.htm (many links about whether the niqab is required--fard--or not, but they all agree that women should cover their heads!)

http://www.themodernreligion.com/w_main.htm#hijab (a lot of articles about hijab)

http://www.islamfortoday.com/gallery3.htm#Hijab (hijab pictures)

http://www.islamfortoday.com/women.htm#Hijab (lots of articles about hijab, as well as about Muslim women on the rest of the page)

Al-Hannah Islamic Clothing (an online store)

Jelbab.com (another online store)

Why Islam?

I've been getting many emails from readers of this blog (thank you all, by the way!) and one recurring theme is, Why did you convert to Islam/why do you remain a Muslim, given all the stuff you report about how poorly Islam treats women. Well, I'm going to try a little psychoanalysis of myself here to try to answer this question (sorry if it gets too self-absorbed).

Sometimes I think it's my interest in the Middle East, both ancient and modern, taken a little too far. I've always been interested in the ancient history of the region (the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, even the ancient Israelites and Canaanites). I remember thinking at the time that although these ancient civilizations created a lot, the whole area just went downhill after they were taken over by the Greeks/Romans, consigning those provinces to pretty much provincial backwaters instead of their own nations, and of course after the Arabs came it was all over. Now my view is more nuanced, but it's still true that nowhere in the region has produced the same kinds of culture for many centuries. The cities that once ruled the world are now dusty ruins, and their replacements aren't anywhere near the same level, even though they have vastly more people. The bizarre thing is, though, that although the ME is considered to be pretty backward, everyday life is probably better for most of the population than it was under the great empires, because of advances in medicine and technology. Back in the glory days of any of the empires, Egyptian, Babylonian, even Arab, the life expectancy was atrociously low, almost everyone was illiterate, the people were basically slaves, especially the peasant farmers, and so on. As for totalitarian governments, well...in truth, I would say that the rulers of the ME have always been rather unsavory characters. Unfortunately, the aforesaid technology and communications allow them to have a greater reach and cause more damage, so I guess it's kind of a wash. Anyway...

I also wished to feel connected in some way with a long history. As for myself, I come from a rather mixed bag of ancestries (a "mutt") and my family, nuclear or extended, never seemed to care much about family history, so I really don't know anything about it. I come from a family that moved around a lot, so I never got attatched to any one place, and US history is far too short for my tastes! I like the idea of belonging to an ancient history and tradition, hence my interest in Judaism, which has one of the longest. It is true that Catholicism, which I grew up in (kind of) has a 2,000-year history as well, but the churches I went to were totally American, without the accroutements you might see in, for example, 1000-year-old cathedrals in Europe, which really brings home the ancient tradition! I guess I was looking for some kind of tradition to belong to.

As well, when I began reading about the fantastic mosques and buildings in Islam-dom (for lack of a better term), I liked the idea that they could belong to me also, in a distant way, if I were Muslim myself. Islam, as I've written before, isn't just a "mere" religion based entirely on beliefs about God the way Christianity is--it is also a nation, a people, a polity (the Ummah, the Islamic Nation composed of all Muslims on earth), and its history is not just known but often felt by other Muslims living hundreds of years after the events and thousands of miles away (witness the glorification of Andalusia in Spain by modern-day Pakistanis, Malaysians, Arabs, and others)--unfortunately this sense of history also can lead to never-ending feelings of humiliation and desire for vengeance, as well as a refusal to let go of the past (there are Muslims who think they should take back Spain, not to mention Israel.).

All these are also present in Judaism, but in the end I became more interested in Islam and it has to be said that the conversion process of Islam was apparently developed to make conversion as easy as possible--all one has to do is profess the Shahada, the Profession of Faith, in front of two witnesses (usually; the number may vary), which proclaims "Ashhadu an la illaha il Allah, ashhadu anna Muhammad ar-Rasul Allah" (I testify that there is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah). There is no required period of study as there typically is in Judaism and Christianity (I remember that adult converts to Catholicism had to go through a program that involved study of the creed and traditions of the religion for a year before being baptized, and I've read about similar practices with Jewish converts). This means, of course, that one may not know anything about Islam before converting (though plenty of born Muslims don't know anything either!)

As for Islamic law: This point puzzles even me, because I generally hate arbitrary rules and completely resent their trying to tell me how to live. It's even more baffling considering the following rules that go against my values:

One of the rules of Islam is that dogs are najjas (unclean), and along with pigs are the most despised animals. If a dog licks you, or you touch it when it is wet, you're supposed to wash the spot seven times, once with dirt (or soap, according to Maliki law; I found this out after research on the topic). Well, I love dogs and don't understand how anybody could hate them like that. I justified it to myself by saying that it was just some ignorant superstition that made its way into Islam. In any case, I ignored the rule, which says that you can keep a dog only if it's to perform some useful function such as herding or guarding, and in any case should be kept outside (I had a small black poodle that slept on my bed, who unfortunately became sick and died. Maybe Allah was punishing me. Maybe not.)

Another issue is music, said by some to be forbidden, but this is a controversial issue among Muslims and generally it's mostly the hard-line Wahhabis who really follow the opinion that music is haram (forbidden), unless it consists only of the human voice and drum (hence the popularity of nasheeds, songs in honor of Allah or the Prophet, sung invariably by men, as women's voices are too "seductive," and accompanied only by hand drums). The very presence of musical traditions throughout the Islamic lands makes me unable to take it seriously (Umm Kultum of Egypt, rai from Algeria, Arabic and Iranian pop music, and so on). Besides, I love music, and the only way you'll take away my CDs is when you pry them from my cold dead fingers!

But in both these cases, I couldn't, and still can't, figure out why on Earth any God would prohibit something that makes so many people happy and which are quite harmless. Why would God make dogs and music, only to forbid them?

I guess I also suffered from the classical symptoms that put someone in danger of joining a cult--isolation, low self-esteem, wanting to join something and feel accepted, as well as youth and wanting to do something different.

But it is true that Muslims are very warm towards other Muslims, and do very much to make a new Muslim feel welcome and "part of the group." One girl a little older than me, another convert, who wore a black abaya and niqab (face veil) and who worked in the mosque school as a teacher, took me out to buy new clothes, paying for them herself! And yes, she drove with the niqab on. She was very nice, and told me that it was OK for me to follow Islam as much as I felt I could at the moment--mostly regarding clothing. Another converted Muslim girl came with us, who didn't wear a headscarf, and said the same thing--you could start wearing the scarf when you felt ready, when your faith improved enough to accept it as Allah's will for you and you want to show your submission to His law and your love for His commands. (Something like that.) Interestingly, the niqabi-clad woman was the opposite of what you might think--she was very outspoken, not shy at all, and sometimes argued with the imam of the mosque in a voice you could hear clear on the other side of the building! She had agreed to marry a man after spending an hour talking to him (though it must be admitted that this marriage didn't last, quickly followed by another one, this time to a Saudi, after which she moved to another state). She would listen only to nasheeds (especially those by Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens), which her son sang along with (she had been married before she became Muslim). She reminds me a great deal of al-Muhajabah (aka veiled4allah). I have to say, she was one of the most interesting personages I have ever met, even if I disagreed with her in many respects (she hated Israelis and thought even showing any part of the arm was haram)!

Another girl I met, another convert, was very kind and we became friends. She had converted several months before me but wasn't even sure how to pray, so I taught her. I had these little cards on which I had the Arabic written down, as well as the steps (first you stand, then bend over, then stand again, then postrate to the ground, sit up, then postrate again, and that is one rak'ah--one unit of prayer. Each daily prayer is made up of either two, three, or four ra'kat, depending on which one it is--morning (fajr) prayer is two, noon (duhur) is four, afternoon ('asr) is four, sunset (maghrib) is three, and night ('isha) is four.) We got to know each other quite well, and I would sometimes mention some of my uneasiness with some of the Islamic teachings, but in a veiled, roundabout way. Unfortunately she eventually married a Lebanese man she'd known for a little while and left town.

Gosh, these stories all end in some kind of marriage--I guess I'm in deep trouble, since I take a very dim view of marrying someone the imam thinks is right for you (yikes!), spending maybe a few weeks getting to know them (although divorce is rather easy and quite common). That was the case with both girls (or should I say young women) above, and with others that I have met, some of whom have married men they've known for only a few days. I should mention that to marry, a woman needs a wali, or guardian, to give her away in marriage. Only Muslim men may be guardians of Muslim women, so female converts, who usually have no Muslim relatives, usually end up having the imam of the mosque be their wali. Not only does the guardian give her away, he often does his best to try to find a suitable man or else at least make sure that the man in question is suitable, so the imams at American mosques do a lot of match-making! Marriage is the preferred state among Muslims, and a grown woman without a husband is rather rare. Also, it is to be noted that only Muslim men may marry Muslim women, though Muslim men can marry Christian or Jewish women. The reason given is that the husband is the head of the household and the children will follow his religion, so it is incumbent that the male be Muslim (very different from the Jewish rule that a child with a Jewish mother is Jewish). There are more women converts than men, oddly enough, so finding a suitable husband for an American convert can be difficult (even with the ones who become hard-core niqabis), though many of those converts converted because they married a Muslim. Marriage really integrates the convert into the Muslim community, and incidentally makes it that much harder to leave, since if she did, the marriage would likely be dissolved and she would lose her children to the Muslim husband, since according to Shari'ah Muslim children must be under the custody of a Muslim.

I guess there is also the appeal that a belief system based in utter certainty has in uncertain times, though I, with my endless skepticism, never really got into it. One could call the Muslim mentality almost medieval, in its total integration of religion in all facets of life and its conception of the universe a stark battle between good/Allah/Islam/Muslims and evil/enemies of Islam/the kuffar/the Devil, and Allah himself controlling all aspects of the universe. This hasn't been an integral part of Western thought since medieval times, and certainly isn't very popular today, except in some forms of fundamentalist Christianity, and even there it's leavened with quite a bit of Enlightenment values of democracy, freedom, and separation of church and state. In Islam, you can get it whole and undiluted. Islamic websites constantly insist that in Islam, there is no division between religion and the rest of life (though whether that's a good thing is something else again, depending on your attitudes). Mankind should live under the commands of Allah, submitting themselves in all matters to His will, as spelled out in Shari'ah (even cutting nails and which hand to eat with--the right--is covered). There isn't the slightest shred of doubt expressed or indeed even allowed, else one may be declared an "apostate" from Islam and liable to be killed (though, thank Allah, not usually in the US!). Atheism is unthinkable, as I found out when telling my story to many Muslims, who would gasp when they learned that I had been an atheist.

I guess I stay because I feel obliged, but also because I like feeling part of the community, that I could pray at Mecca, and that I would lose friends. Besides, I actually like and find peace in the prayer rituals and the chanting of Qur'an. I guess I'll have to see what happens in the future.

Randomized Thoughts about Islam, Feminism, Women's Rights, Abortion in Islamic Countries and in Islamic Law, and so on

This blog entry is likely to be pretty scattershot, as I am just pouring out my conflicted thoughts (but isn't that what I always do anyway?), so bear with me.

In my own experience, I've noticed that whereas before converting to Islam and before 9/11 I didn't really think very much about the rights of women. I had never felt discriminated against in the least (I am now 26) or thought that there was anything I couldn't do because I was a woman. I didn't much care for groups such as NOW, which seemed fixated on rather trivial stuff. More importantly, their concept of feminism seemed to be geared primarily to the needs and desires of college-educated professional women, often ignoring concerns of women from other groups such as women working at K-Mart, stay-at-home moms, less educated women, and so forth, which I thought was unfair. Then of course there was the idiocy coming from college campuses, in some of the women's studies programs, with women professors ranting against the "patriarchal society" that gave them a cushy gig teaching it, and against men in general. But that wasn't really very interesting to me--what upset me was the rather intolerant nature of many such professors when confronted with conflicting views.

After I converted to Islam and began reading about the terrible oppression, misogyny and discrimination prevalent in so much of the Muslim world (as well as elsewhere), I became quite hardened and the treatment of women became a much bigger issue with me, now that I saw what it was like not to have the rights I have in the West today, and which, as a Muslim woman, I actually do not have under shari'ah. For example, I am supposed to have the permission of a male guardian to travel a long distance, considered to be about 50 miles or longer, and according to some opinions, I would need to actually be accompanied by a male relative or guardian. I do not have the right to pray with men or to pray, fast, or even touch the Qur'an during my period. I need a male guardian to give me away in marriage (though according to the Hanafi school a widowed or divorced woman may give herself away to her husband). If I were married, I would need the permission of my husband to leave the house. I also need his permission to fast, because Muslim fasting involves no eating, no drinking, and no sex, and it is up to him whether he wants to be deprived of the last item during daylight hours! (The Ramadan fast, because it is required of all Muslims, does not require permission, since after all neither man nor wife is supposed to have sex during the day!) I would also have to be available for sex at any time my husband wanted it, or else my maintenance (food, clothing, shelter) could be withheld. The husband is supposed to support his wife, but the trade-off is that, now that he's paying for everything, the wife is to obey him in all matters "not contrary to Islam." I don't have the right to wear what I want in Islam; I am supposed to have my hair covered and wear baggy clothes with long sleeves, even during the boiling heat of the summer. There's more, but on with the blog...

I still have problems with many of the groups referred to as "feminist" in America, though for somewhat different reasons. There is still the class/occupation problem (poorer, less-educated women are less likely to get involved and thus get their needs really addressed). There are still the inanities about "patriarchal" systems of knowledge like science and the difficulties with dissent from some of the more rigid upholders of feminist orthodoxy, but all of that has paled into insignificance before my new biggest problem with some people who call themselves "feminist"--the cultural relativism, saying that we in Western society cannot judge how other cultures treat their women, since they are all equally valid.

Suffice it to say that any feminist worthy of the name cannot hold this view without totally undercutting her/his own position--feminism, at least as I've always learned it, is based on the fact that all women--no matter where they are, who they are or what culture they live in--have certain unalienable rights that must be respected, regardless of culture. It is ultimately derived from the idea that all humans have universal rights, not just culture-specific ones, by virtue of being human. You can say they are given by God or that they are simply the natural right of any human, but the point is that they must be honored and cannot be taken away. A "cultural-relativist feminist" would soon run up against a brick wall. How could such a feminist even argue against the Christian fundamentalists that are a favorite target--after all, it's their culture for women to stay at home and take care of the kids, and what right do you have to criticize it? How could they criticize the misogynist rules in Shari'ah, since "it's their culture and religion," or sati (the burning of widows on the dead husband's funeral pyre) in former times in India, or sex slavery in assorted parts of the world, or anything, really. In fine, I refuse to dignify a moral/cultural relativist of this nature with the term "feminist."

One version of this relativism is to claim that women in Western societies are just as oppressed as those in hell-holes like Saudi Arabia and Iran, since, after all, Western women are "objectified" as sex objects, are sometimes discriminated against at work (the "glass ceiling"), are forced to shuffle the demands of motherhood and work, sometimes have to deal with domestic violence and sexual harrassment, are not necessarily free to live their lives as they would like. Isn't all that just as bad as having one's clitoris cut off with a dirty piece of glass (Somalia), or forbidden to drive (Saudi Arabia), or forbidden to travel without permission from a male relative (Saudi again), or beaten by your husband who tells you it is his right as a Muslim husband to "discipline" you (and the women agreeing that women who get beaten up probably deserved it), or stoned for bearing a child out of wedlock (Nigeria), or because you were raped and cannot find four male Muslim witnesses to prove it (Pakistan), or forced to wear the veil, or not being allowed to work at all, or ...? The point is, it is infantile to make these kinds of comparisons--it seems to me more a way of grabbing attention for oneself and one's problems by whining that they are just as bad as anyone else's--like a child complaining about the splinter in her hand to draw away attention from her sister with a broken arm. Yes, there are still plenty of problems facing women in Western nations, but complaining that women have it no better in the West than under Islam is a bad joke.

Excursus on Abortion Rights and the Muslim World

This is a topic in itself. What I can't understand is the fact that although abortion is banned or difficult to get in almost all Muslim countries, feminists, liberals and Democrats aren't up in arms about this, even defending Muslim culture, especially considering the fact that it is such a high priority in American feminist organizations (even to the point where feminism in America today seems to equate almost solely to abortion rights).

Statistics:
Here's a chart comparing abortion laws around the world, and here are the UN statistics for 1999, and here is another chart about abortion laws.

As you can see from these sources, in most Muslim countries, the right is seriously restricted, the exceptions mostly being the result of Western colonization or influence, such as those Central European nations under former Soviet rule, or Turkey (which is officially secular) or Tunisia (the same). Tunisia is an interesting case. The government has been very secular and liberal, making Tunisia the only Arab state to outlaw polygamy and allow abortion for any reason in the first trimester, without the permission of a spouse. In countries such as Egypt, Iran, Yemen and most of Muslim Africa, it is only permitted to save the life of the mother. Pakistan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia also permit it on grounds of physical health. Jordan, Iraq and Algeria also allow it for mental health reasons. In addition, the permission of the husband is often required. Needless to say, I doubt anyone who claims to support abortion rights would find these acceptable restrictions!

Of course, there are plenty of illegal abortions in all parts of the Muslim world, such as the recent claim that 80,000 illegal abortions took place in Iran each year (the article for this expired, but here is a UNFPA report about it--it is under IRAN: Authorities in Iran Arrest Two Abortion Practitioners.)

Islamic law is mixed as to the permissibility of abortion. Many scholars say that it is forbidden completely (such as Imam Malik ibn Anas and al-Ghazali), as it is against the Qur'anic injunction not to kill one's children ("Kill not your children for fear of want; We provide sustenance for them and for you, for verily killing them is a great sin," Qur'an 17:31). Others say that it may be permissible depending on the reason and the length of gestation. Traditional law holds that the fetus "becomes a fetus lump" and becomes formed at about 40 days after conception and the soul is "breathed into" the fetus at about day 120. Before 40 days, abortion may be permitted for certain reasons, between 40 and 120 days it is allowed only for very restricted reasons, and after 120 days it is a grave sin akin to murder, only allowed to save the mother's life. However, it is generally held that abortions at any stage are reprehensible and should not be done unless the mother's life or health is at stake, not because of poverty or because there are too many children or because the mother does not feel ready. (Here is a good summary of this view from a Muslim Q&A site.) Note that the Western arguments about the right of the woman to control her body don't even enter into the argument; according to Islam, the human body is a trust given to us by Allah, and we are not free to do anything we wish with them.

It is also to be noted that Islam is very pro-natalist, desiring many children and seeing women primarily as wives and mothers, as this hadith shows:

Abu Dawud, Book 11, Number 2045:

Narrated Ma'qil ibn Yasar:

A man came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: I have found a woman of rank and beauty, but she does not give birth to children. Should I marry her? He said: No. He came again to him, but he prohibited him. He came to him third time, and he (the Prophet) said: Marry women who are loving and very prolific, for I shall outnumber the peoples by you.

End of Excursus on Abortion Rights in the Muslim World

The point of that whole excursus is that defending Shari'ah and Islamic culture, or saying that we can't judge them, means that liberals/Democrats/supporters of abortion rights who adopt the cultural relativist line are completely selling out what is supposed to be one of their most cherished values. If it's OK for Muslims to restrict abortion because it's their culture and religion, why isn't it OK for Christians to do so (to take one example)? It makes the doomsday scenarios about how Christian fundamentalists will ban abortion and force all women to take urine tests to prove they aren't pregnant seem like a ghastly joke, when the same people worried about Christian fundamentalists because of what they might do to abortion rights will defend the practice of Islamic law and culture that is equally as restrictive of abortion. The sole reason I can think of for this is that the Muslims aren't (yet) a big enough group to push for the banning of abortion in Western societies--in other words, that this whole matter doesn't directly affect the aforesaid people, so they can display their "enlightened tolerance" of Islam because it doesn't affect them in the least--the women living under Islam aren't really real people with the same rights as Western women, just a theoretical construct. Well, I've noticed that Muslims in America are certainly more likely than not to adopt the "pro-life" view and some even are active in the movement, so take that as you will.

In Islam, the woman's body is definitely not her own, to do with as she pleases. There is no concept of "my body, my choice" (unless it is imported from the West). If Western women should have the right to do what they like with their own body, why should women of other cultures be denied this right if their culture does not allow it? Why should culture trump everything else? If it does, then what right did early feminists have to demand equal rights in Victorian society? After all, Victorian society had its own mores and taboos, and shouldn't those have been respected? Victorian moralists, like Islamic ones, insisted and still insist that their rules honor and protect women--if one is taken seriously, why not the other?

In the end, the cultural relativism argument is basically a return to tribalism, where everybody is permanently locked into their own group and forbidden to wander outside it. It is profoundly constricting and fatalistic--you are born into a group and are condemned to stay there forever. In contrast, Western liberal democracy, feminism and human rights are predicated on the rights of the individual, which trump group concerns. They cannot be conditional on whether the person belongs to a particular group. Individual and group rights come into conflict here. Leaders of Islamic groups wanting Muslim personal law for their minority are basically arguing that the right of the group to impose Islamic sacred law on Muslims should override the individual rights each Muslim has as a citizen of the country in question, such as the UK or US. In other words, the rights of citizens would be contingent on whether they belonged to a certain group or not, in this case whether they were Muslims. This is obviously not an acceptable situation for a country that believes in equal rights under the law and whose entire existence is premised on the idea that every citizen has the same rights (as under the US Constitution). This is why the question of Islamic law in the West and elsewhere is so thorny and dangerous. In India, where Muslims live under their own law, there are enormous difficulties, where Hindu women, for example, get more alimony in divorce cases than their Muslim counterparts, who may be left with almost nothing. Imagine that Muslim men in the US had the right to divorce their wives and leave them with no alimony, as Islamic law says. Imagine Muslim men being allowed to marry four wives. Imagine that Muslim courts could order that adulterers be stoned. Would this be a triumph for women's rights, or for human rights? I think not.

And the biggest problem of all is, how would one decide whether a person should be judged by Muslim law or by secular law? Who would decide? In majority Muslim countries that have partially or completely adopted Shari'ah, it is sometimes claimed that it will only apply to Muslims. Unfortunately, the mask soon comes off and it turns out that the group advocating Shari'ah really wants it to be the only law of the state and apply to everyone (as with PAS, the fundamentalist party, in Malaysia). And how about Muslims who don't want to live under Islamic law?

My experiences with Islam and Islamic law have certainly given me a new insight into the rights of women--now I tend to be quite ferocious about the subject whereas before I didn't really give it much thought. I do not accept the claims by many Muslim writers that Islam is far more liberating and gives women more rights than Western society does. If you've been paying attention to the laws about women in Islam I've been incorporating into my posts, you'll see that the situation is really pretty dreadful. Muslims claim that Islam "grants" women many rights (notice the "grants" part; the liberal democratic view is that these rights are intrinsic to the individual, not granted, and cannot be taken away). For example:

Islam grants women the right to inherit property, while before Islam they often could not. Whoop-de-doo. The woman's share of inheritance is half that of a man's, and that is defended by saying that since the man supports the woman, he needs the money. Sorry, not good enough--according to Western law today, anyone may leave anything he or she likes to anyone else, man or woman. Islamic law dictates certain percentages to be given to family members, meaning that one is not free to distribute one's estate as one would like. The widow may only end up with an eighth or a sixteenth of her husband's estate, and if she was one of several wives, even less.

Islam grants women the right to own property, while in the West they often did not have that right. Well, now they certainly do, and exploit it to the full! And why is it that the rights given to women under Islamic law are so often compared with the status of women before Islam, 1400 years ago, or that of women in the West centuries ago, instead of the situation today? (That was a rhetorical question; of course the answer is that that is the only way it looks good!)

Islam lets women keep their property and maiden names after marriage. And? Women in the West can do that, too. The taking of the husband's last name is no longer required. Also, I suspect that the matter of the last name has a lot to do with the differing concepts of family: in the West, the nuclear family is paramount, so it would make sense for everyone in the immediate family to have the same family name, while in Islam, the extended family has tended to be more important, so the clan or family the woman belonged to was more important to her identity than the family she married into. But this is just a hunch.

Islam allows women the right to divorce. Well...let's just say that the reality is less rosy. In Shari'ah, the man has the right to divorce for any reason. He is only supposed to give the woman a "present." A very common practice today is "deferred dowry," where the man gives his wife half the dowry (bride money) at marriage, with the other half being "deferred" in case of divorce or death. Presumably, given the often sizeable quantity of money this involves, this will prevent the husband from divorcing his wife in a fit of anger or for some ridiculous reason, and it will leave the wife with at least some money. Alimony is not generally a part of Islamic law. After the divorce, the wife is to be supported by her husband for the time of her iddat, about three months, to make sure that she is not pregnant, and after that she can marry again. If she is pregnant, she is to be supported until she gives birth, and the husband is supposed to support his child and pay for the mother to suckle him/her, but he is well within his rights to give the child to someone else to suckle: "And if ye find yourselves in difficulties, let another woman suckle (the child) on the (father's) behalf," according to the Qur'an (65:6). If the wife wants a divorce, for an acceptable reason (here's a listing of acceptable reasons from an Islam Q&A site, and another), and the husband agrees, she has to give back her dowry, which in effect deprives her of the use of it, if she has to keep it available in case she wants a divorce. If he doesn't agree, there's trouble! They can go to an Islamic court and the wife can try to get the judge to either dissolve the marriage or order the husband to divorce her, but often this can be hard to acquire. She may be told she must return to her husband if the judge feels she can't prove that she should have a divorce. When hearing the inevitable claim that divorce rates in Islamic countries are so much lower than those in the West (which is debatable), keep in mind the differing availability of divorce for women, who actually are the ones to instigate divorce in the majority of cases in the US. Many Muslim women in the West want Western divorces, because they get more and are likely to get custody of their children. According to many scholars, Islamic law provides for the mother to have custody if the child is a minor, that is, seven for a boy and nine for a girl, and after that the child can stay with whomever he/she wishes. The father is supposed to support the child (though not necessarily the mother). However, if the mother remarries, the father gets the children, even if he remarries. Supposedly the mother will not be able to give her children enough attention since she now has a new husband to attend to.

The problem with a lot of these essays about the rights of women in Islam is how vague they are! (Long list of said essays here.) They will talk about how Islam "liberates," "honors" and "protects" women and sees them as equal to men, but not give specific examples (i.e. will I be able to do what I want or travel when I want?). It often seems that these words are given a meaning completely different from the one most people associate with it! The equality of men and women basically just means that men and women both have the duty to be good Muslims and learn as much as possible about the religion, and both will be rewarded in the afterlife. BUT...men and women were created differently and have different roles, and Islam simply accepts this reality. Men are the maintainers, and women the wives and mothers, and those are their roles, and Islam is wonderful for recognizing this reality (though I think it's a complete and utter crock...I am rather unnurturing and have no desire to have children, or to serve and obey a husband--that sounds like pure hell to me). Often it will simply be claimed that the low status of women is simply a product of culture--though if Islam is supposed to cover all aspects of a person's life, how does one separate the true Islam from the custom?

Anyway, that's enough for now...