Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (34 page)

168 inside the gender jihad

and historical precedent of exclusive male leadership in the role of religious ritual is not a requirement. Although it has served as a convenience which later became legally inscribed, it was merely customary and should not be prescribed as a religious mandate. Women’s
tawhidic
humanity allows them to function in all roles for which they develop the prerequisite qualifi- cations.

Following the “Cape Town Main Road event,” discussions were rampant and feverish throughout South Africa. Indeed, some parties moved beyond discussion to violent protest. Eventually the discussions spread worldwide. Even as they reached the global level, I did not enter them. Various factions picked up on the news of the event and responded for or against it, sometimes with extreme intimidation. For example, members of

the
majlis-ashura

(consultative council)
15
at one of my local mosques

decided that,“if that’s what she thinks Islam is,” I should be dismissed from my university position as professor of Islamic Studies. No one from that mosque ever contacted me to discuss this matter, yet they collectively decided that they would attack the source of my livelihood as a single parent to four children. Of course they had no power over a secular university in U.S. academia,but the audacity with which they even considered themselves able to hold such authority hints at the entrenched nature of patriarchy in Muslim community life and the viciousness with which they will try to sustain it.

I was not only intimidated by the vehement reaction to this event, I was also unprepared to respond and
extremely
confused about whether my participation in the event reflected mere personal aspirations or larger aspirations for gender inclusiveness. The negative responses included personal slights and direct insults from total strangers. I could not differen-

tiate between whether they were offering their reflections as

arguments

against female ritual leadership or whether they were merely continuing the double standards about women’s agency in Islam and modernity. Guarding the details of my participation reflected both my intimidation and my confusion. Although personal narrative and its critical analysis are indis- pensable to historical recounts,
16
I maintained my silence perhaps far too

long.
17
I share the story here in order to link the personal specifically to the

broader, strategic concerns over gender justice in Islam.

Since this event has already been a part of public discussions, especially in the time immediately following its occurrence, what I propose here centers attention less on the dialectics of that discourse, with its exclusive focus on form, and enters into a gender discourse particularly to clarify

Public Ritual Leadership and Gender Inclusiveness
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how the “personal is political.” I construct significant and necessary ana- lysis that previous discussions overlooked in reducing certain aspects of this event by giving others an opportunity to pretend they can read my personal aspirations
18
or to address the coincidental. From its very orchestration, I was always a significant part of these events, personally, although completely excluded from the planning discussions. This lack of consult- ation reveals some ways the event fails as a completely successful challenge to gender hegemony in Islamic thought and practice, despite its good inten- tions. There is an important interface between the personal specifics and the public generalities. The strategic absence, utility, or tokenism of gender inclusiveness indicates how most progressive Islamic discourse still main- tains and supports male privilege and gender hegemony.
19

The year 1994 marked two important historical developments in South Africa: the end of a long and bloody struggle to eradicate apartheid; and the presence of Islam for three hundred years. Some South African Muslims envisioned a corollary between these two to such an extent as to make

explicit reconceptualization over notions of pluralism, equality, and libera- tion in South African Islam.
20
As a woman in Islam, an Islamic Studies academic, a learner–scholar, and an activist for women’s human dignity, I have struggled for gender inclusion and reform within the Islamic

framework. The South African endeavors to include gender in the discourse over social and political justice were especially exhilarating. There were moments during my visit in South Africa when I felt like I had actually found a place where a woman could be truly honored in the fullness of her

humanity.
21

Throughout most of my travels in South Africa, I found that specific aspects – being African-American, a convert (or one in transition), being

female, or being an Islamic academic –

strategically converged in the

public roles assigned to me in different configurations and degrees. Sometimes these intentions were overt on the part of the Islamic Da‘wah Movement, and I was told directly what to talk about or how to address particular audiences. In addressing a student audience at a Muslim private school, for example, I was directed to emphasize the potential of diligent study as it could lead to success, such as that which I had achieved through my studies. I had a Ph.D. That I dressed traditionally and wore
hijab
also created specific symbolic legitimacy.
22
Later the organizers of the Claremont Main Road mosque event told me that it was of particular significance that I would participate as a
non
-
South African. They intended to make a statement about gender inclusiveness, without exposing me

170 inside the gender jihad

individually to the anticipated backlash. While this intention was unsuc- cessful and I was bombarded for two years with negative feedback, it may partly explain why I was personally inconsequential in many significant ways to their planning. Ironically, who I am was meant to be coincidental. The results would have been different with a different female as the spot- light of their efforts. Organizers of various events where I was invited, whether consciously or unconsciously, randomly intended me directly to confront racism, gender hegemony, and patriarchy sometimes by
being who I am externally, and sometimes by symbolically erasing myself
. Yet these mixed intentions were never articulated to me for an opportunity to make critical analysis, especially with respect to their consequences, both poten- tial and real.

The invitation for actually addressing the Friday prayer, for example, was so subtle and non-specific; I never had any indication that there could be consequences for me. I have a distinct vision of standing between dinner tables during the banquet following the conclusion of the conference at

U.N.I.S.A. I was informally engaged in a conversation about some long- standing gender barriers. I do not remember all who were present during this discussion, except the
imam
of the mosque. Neither was I privy to the origins of the idea, which these discussants had thought out, including potential consequences and expectations. After my tacit approval, I was never again consulted about the full logistics of the plans, which were orchestrated with extensive details until forty-five minutes before the actual event. I confess that I accepted the generic idea of participating in chal- lenging gender inequities with full volition. I also admit to a gross ignorance about the full circumstances of South African Muslim gender discourses, let alone to the particular plans that the men who had invited me had discussed at length in order to orchestrate the event. Besides writing a book on alter- native gender-inclusive interpretation of the Qur’an and working with a women’s organization, I had never directly confronted neo-traditionalists, conservatives, or extremists.

After the conference in Pretoria, my lecture tour continued and all my attention was focused on the events to which I was invited. Likewise I was often privileged to little detail or potential consequences for some of these. They were almost all familiar forms of invitation: meet with various members of Muslim organizations and present formal, semiformal, specific, and generic lectures to various audiences who had extended invitations or were invited to hear me speak.

When it became clear later that several others, brothers especially, had

Public Ritual Leadership and Gender Inclusiveness
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consulted with each other and continued developing the details of the Claremont Main Street mosque event, I realized how important it was that I should have been either consulted on some of those details or, at least, informed. Each discussion they had must have focused on certain expecta- tions, whether directly discussed or indirectly implied. Not without great consequence was I excluded from this planning. Furthermore, had I been consulted the event might
never have taken place
. This is directly related to being a woman. After my tearful outburst in Durban, my menstrual cycle had begun. I was no longer participating in ritual prayer. The organizers did not know this. Yet it will have further consequences for those who thought it was inappropriate for a woman to be in the role of
khatibah
.
I expose it here as evidence that even the most “progressive” Muslim male cannot accommodate the relationship between biology, the politics of ritual, and the legal stipulations given historically. They also indicate that the portrayal of public leadership is still exclusively built on the male norm.

Since it is almost certain that this information might have had some consequences on the planning of this event, it exemplifies the need for direct and explicit conversation between men and woman whenever a woman’s participation is expected or taken for granted. The absence of this direct conversation is a major indication that the planners were thinking and acting like men in exclusion of women’s full humanity, while yet pretending to employ a woman as an agent of gender transformation. They were thinking
for
the woman, rendering her a mere object of their privileged agency. How can a woman be a full and equal human being when the

details of her public role

are orchestrated without consulting her? This

cannot deconstruct gender disparity. When she is secondary to discussions about her particular participation, her own agency is secondary.

From the very planning of this event, selective gender disparities were maintained. Since public announcements had already circulated which stated that I would deliver a pre-
khutbah
talk, why was I informed only forty-five minutes before the prayer? I had to use that small window of time to prepare my remarks for what was supposedly an extremely significant event. Although I was given information about the previous
khutbah
topic with the suggestion that I continue my comments along the same theme, informing me at the last minute also indicates that very little value was attributed to the content of my actual
khutbah
. This event was about form. The substance of what I would say was unimportant to how these men saw gender reconstruction. Despite this, the actual content of my brief presentation, as offered above, remains an authentic gender-inclusive public

172 inside the gender jihad

address and the most significant one I delivered throughout the two-week tour, and perhaps ever since. Before I analyze the contents I want to designate a few other places where I felt blatant disregard of my personal contributions to these plans for eradicating gender disparity. I will examine other ways that gender has been decentralized or marginalized even in this most
“
progressive
”
consideration of Islam and modernity, beyond this event.

THE TRANSGENDERED EMBRACE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN IN PUBLIC

After the U.N.I.S.A. conference, Farid Esack asked me if I embraced men. I was surprised that a Muslim male had asked me this question, although the answer was “yes, as a matter of fact I do.” Until then, I had only embraced women and non-Muslim males. There in a public setting, in the company of others, for one brief moment, I exchanged embraces with several of the non-
mahram
23
Muslim males. I felt I was actually accepted as another equal human being. This had a profound symbolic effect on me and sur- rounded my hopes that somehow it might really be possible to transcend gender disparity within Islam. Now it is much more commonplace for Muslim women and men to embrace.

Muslim cultures have a long history of social embraces. However, except within the
mahram
, an embrace generally follows a same-sex restriction. When two women embrace, it is often close and more sensual. When two men embrace, it is often in camaraderie and affection, but distinctively marked by bravado. Although the embrace is but a mere etiquette not necessarily conveying any depth of feeling, sometimes eye contact is followed with a smile and the embrace is heightened with enthusiasm or lingered over with compassion and grace.

My first impulse was to consider any embrace
across
the gender divide in Islam as radical. Yet, over time, experience has shown me how even this seemingly radical symbol reinscribes gender asymmetry. Many Muslim men who embrace a non-
mahram
Muslim woman embrace her like they embrace each other: like men. If I embrace them like I do other women, with the soft lingering touch, it is too sensual, therefore latent with sexual undertones. It crosses arbitrary gender boundaries. For me to embrace men and be embraced by them, it is not permissible for me to be
so much a woman
. Again, the male is normative and an embrace between a non-
mahram
woman and man requires both
to embrace like men
if they are to be “
human
” in this exchange and avoid implications of intimacy.

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