Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (31 page)

Islam is perceived and experienced as a dynamic way of life consisting of praxis and ideology. In order for it to bear positively on the life of African- American Muslim women, the history and experiences of these women must become a part of the articulation and implementation of Islam in the American context. Reforms in the conceptualization and development of
shari‘ah
must dynamically incorporate their experiences. Those experiences denote a sustained effort at survival and familial well-being, despite the

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number of structural disadvantages resulting from racism, gender, and class hegemonies. The roles played by African-American single, female heads of household have contributed to sustaining social well-being and moral development. Those roles must be integrated into actual codes and policies that support the integrity of the woman and recognize that the adaptability and flexibility she has demonstrated are beneficial to what can be con- figured as Islam today. I not only call for de juro or legal Islamic reforms, but also for a de facto cultural climate of mutual support and care toward these women in families. I do not define family only on the basis of a patri- archal matrix, but rather as a collective of human beings striving for survival and well-being no matter what the social context.

Within the framework of intra-Islamic diversity in Islamic thought, I point to juxtaposition between experience and authority. Experiences are ways of unfolding in thought and being. Hajar was a representation of the inadequacy of patriarchal worldviews within the context of religious law and personal status in Islam. She shed light on an ethical aberration that provides a theoretical refutation for the adequacy of historical Islamic law, which failed to take her experience into consideration. It creates a kind of legal invisibility. Although the experiences of women really do occur, they are deviant within a legal construction that is premised upon the patriarchal extended or nuclear family.

An underlying premise in the notion of family as conceived of in histor- ical
shari‘ah
is that the conjugal relations that are formed within marriage are those of subjugation. The woman is subject to the man, who is variously conceived as being a degree above her, the maintainer and provider, the lord and master over her affairs. These descriptions are taken as inevitable, natural, or based on divine sources. Elsewhere I have deconstructed each of these presumptions and considered at some detail how erroneous interpre-

tations are associated with the Qur’an.
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Suffice it to say here, when a

presumption already exists, finding what looks like textual support or evidence is no difficult matter. In this regard, I reiterate my belief that the Qur’an is universal in intent, but not in its contextual epistemology. Its intent is commensurate with various lifestyles evolving within human communities so long as the level of moral excellence in the people follows it. Furthermore, social arrangements specified in the Qur’an merely indicate
some
of the possibilities considered appropriate to Islam. Other possibilities exist, and are necessary, good, and appropriate. Most importantly, the Qur’an can be read with egalitarian social, political, economic, as well as domestic arrangements in mind.

A New Hajar Paradigm
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Much of progressive Muslim discourse has explicitly challenged hege- monies in social, political, and economic areas, while leaving the family fettered to outmoded models. While some of the foremost thinkers in our time are adamant about the necessity of constructing democratic reforms in all areas of government, “How can there be successful democracy in public life if there is an authoritarian model in the private life?”
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Since family is a social construction of gender relations, we can construct those families based on the highest ideals that we have as a civil society. We can also develop an infrastructure that helps to sustain those ideals.

To make a case for
more
egalitarian families in the context of Islam and Muslims, I mean when compared to the norm in all Muslim contexts that I am aware of through study or living experience. No Muslim culture that I have ever visited or read about constructs their families around notions of equality. Neither do non-Muslim cultures either, despite various small experiments. Since the moral guidelines for our lives as Muslims must be prefaced upon the Qur’an and the
sunnah
, no matter how variously under- stood, some would not consider non-Muslim models of interest in this development.

Yet in discourse with even the more progressive thinkers, too much equality is seen to violate the “nature” of family. Presumably, family is func- tionally hierarchical and must be restrained by patriarchy.

Patriarchy defines not just women as the “other” but also subjugated peoples and races as the “other” to be dominated. It defines women, moreover, not just as the other of men, but also as subordinated to men in power insofar as it conceives of society as analogous to the patriarchal household, which was sustained by slave labor.
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Such progressive discussions about political equality perpetuate a double standard. Equality can only be conceived of in unequivocal terms when applied to the
natural
participants of the public domain, presumably male. Of course men perceive of themselves as equal, with the same rights, responsibilities, and even capabilities as other men. If they differ for reasons of race, class, national origin, ethnicity, and the like, these are
not
essential characteristics for which they consider themselves in any way other than equal to other men.

But the othering of women from men reduces the possibility that women are seen as the equals of men, even if what differs is no more essential than the tremendous variants that separate otherwise still deemed equal men. “Men and women are not simply considered different from one another, as

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we speak of people differing in eye color, movie tastes or preferences for ice cream. In every domain of life, men are considered the normal human being, and women are ‘ab-normal,’ deficient because they are different from men.”
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Women
are
different from men. How can we be the same? I whole-

heartedly support the idea of women’s difference from men. I am grateful for the inspiration I have attained from my very experiences of being a woman. I do not find much in the self-aggrandizing literature of men throughout history that parallels the most important aspects of my experi- ences.

I do not adhere to a definition of equal that requires some feigned sameness in order to be applied. Sameness is extremely illusive and difficult to achieve. Sameness cannot be sustained with regard to any two people for more than an instant in the course of a single day – let alone in the course of a whole lifetime. While I support unequivocally the notion of distinctions between women and men, and believe that those distinctions are worth cel- ebrating – especially for women, who have been compared to and contrasted with men for too much of our life in civilization – I am likewise unequivocal about the notion of egalitarian family.

All family members are equal as human beings. The
worth
of each member is essentially the same as any other. This basic equality is true irrespective of how families are constructed – on the pre-industrial extended model which includes members other than the primary conjugal pair, on the nuclear family model with the primary conjugal pair isolated from other members except for the occasional visits, or on the basis of the various blended family combinations now more plentiful in modern societies. Equality does not require anything and yet each person deserves it because he or she is a human being, created by Allah and given the gift of life with the divine spirit blown within. It means that the worth of every human being – no matter what the circumstances, capabilities, opportunities, motivations, or class, race, and ethnic origins – is equal to that of every other human being. All human beings are potentially servants and agents of Allah.

However, at the level of function, moral agency, productivity, and responsibility, the disparity that occurs in the context of any collective of people and which obviously occurs in the context of family, however conceived, cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, functional disparity is not a precondition for, exception to, or exclusion from essential equality. The handicapped and mentally retarded member of a human family is equal to the primary wage earner, who is equal to the primary care-taker.

A New Hajar Paradigm
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However, some family members contribute more than others to the well-being and mainstay of the very life of the family, albeit in different and yet indispensable ways. Do these contributions make them more equal than others? Does this give them authority over others, such that the others must become subservient to them? No. This is where the term ‘egalitarian’ shows its adaptability over the use of the term ‘equal.’ Where equal is applied to the essential characteristic of being human, equity is applied to functional disparity, incongruence, or inconsistency. Egalitarian is the means by which both the inherent equality of human beings and the equity of responsibility toward other members in the family are reconciled.

Equity is applied to the values attributed to certain types of deeds or actions. The Qur’an describes how recompense should be given in accord- ance with what one performs. However, recognizing a disparity of deeds and actions for the survival and well-being of the family in the post-industrial era associates greater worth with greater earnings. How can a pop star who gyrates on stage, or a movie actor performing on the screen, be deemed more worthy than a woman in India whose husband and primary wage earner was killed or injured, and who must now carry bricks on her head for pennies a day to provide food and shelter for her entire family?

Systems of

evaluation that determine worth according to paper or

digital money, or according to what men do, operate on the same distorted scale. One basic flaw in these human worth evaluative scales, which have proven especially arbitrary and yet resilient, is that they require women to contribute in a manner just like men, or to be wealthy in order to merit worth. Hence the effect of global economies, constructed hand in hand with patriarchal privileges, especially victimizes women in families who must continue to fulfill the tasks of primary care-taker and housewife, while being expected to compete against men (who are excused from domestic responsibilities) in measuring their worth in the wage-earning “public”arena, since her family’s survival depends on her additional income.

While the single husbandless mother who stays at home is chastised for depleting public sources of welfare and social service funds, social service departments viciously attack the single working mother for
not
being at home with the children. It is a double bind that cannot be resolved unless we closely examine how we perceive family and motherhood, and how we determine equality and human worth.

An Islamic resolution to this faulty system of evaluation has already been presented in the Qur’anic scale of evaluation: “Whoever does good, whether male or female and is a believer” shall be rewarded (40:40). Here

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“good” is not defined, but within the larger context of the Qur’anic world- view and the goal of Islamic ethics, good helps in the development of the person toward
taqwa
and surrender to Allah. That becomes the ultimate basis for valuable consideration. It leads to greater flexibility in measuring the worth of fulfilling whatever tasks are necessary for family continuity instead of stigmatizing those tasks performed in the domestic sphere. On such a scale, we can rethink the value of the Indian woman carrying bricks relative to the gyrating performer – no matter how many people pay exorbitant ticket prices to see the performance. Although she is not
more
human than the performer, the essence and redemption of such an articu- lation of Islamic value systems acknowledge her contributions as greater in value toward the evolution of an Islamic social and moral order. Such an acknowledgment is not possible through patriarchal materialist systems of evaluation.

In the context of Muslim cultures, men at home with children, for whatever reason, are never taken as primary care-takers or nurturers. Generally this is on a short-term or “assistant” basis, and implies that being care-taker or fulfilling these roles is unworthy. Yet the single female head of household is measured both on the scale of her care-taking role and her role in competition within the male-dominant public wage-earning sphere, but
never
measured as the contributor of both, and consequently on the Qur’anic scale of good deeds is actually more valuable than anyone privi- leged to focus on either one or the other for achieving their best in either role. Only an egalitarian notion of family can remove the stigma granted to the domestic responsibility and construct systems to assure equitable measurement of fulfilling that responsibility by leveling the playing field for men and women as principal contributors in both the domestic and the public wage-earning spheres. The place to learn about the necessity of balancing these contributions is in the examples of our modern-day Hajars, the women who have had to do both, while having a role in one sphere makes a role in the other sphere invisible or impossible – despite its dual contribution and fulfillment of necessity.

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5

“As Muslims we know the word ‘Islam’ is the most important part of how we understand who we are. A Muslim or Muslimah is one who surrenders him/herself to Allah. We often translate this word as ‘one who submits’; however, the concept is proactive, spiritually ripe and dynamic, and might be better translated as ‘engaged surrender.’

“Engaged surrender involves an active consciousness in participation in our social lives, family lives, community lives, economic lives, and political lives, by the heart which is always open to the will of Allah, and which always gives precedent to Allah’s will. The concept we have been inclined towards – submission – sometimes gives the idea that there is no will. But the one who willfully submits to the will of Allah is engaged in surrender.