The phantasmagoria called Muslim women
The news this week is
thoroughly confusing. The famous Deobandi seminary has issued a fatwa declaring
women working for wages and salaries as haram. The noted Shia cleric, Maulana
Kalbe Jawad, endorsed that fatwa saying, “Women in Islam are not supposed to go
out and earn a living. It is the responsibility of the males in the family.”
Earlier I heard him say on television that women should not take part in
politics. Their function is to give birth to politicians! That sort of wisdom I
have always believed cuts across the Sunni-Shia divide. People waste a lot of
time distinguishing between them on doctrinal issues, and fail to see the
consensus among them on reactionary social values.
Deoband has
subsequently issued a statement that its ruling had been misunderstood and Kalbe
Jawad also said that he did not oppose women working if they worked separately
from men as in Iran. So, for a while the ambiguity these clerics have created
can conceal their real stances on women and women’s rights. The title of today’s
article should now make sense if it did not at the start. Who really are the
Muslim women — those who are confined within the four walls of the house, or
those who sit in parliament, or those who work alongside men and make an equal
contribution to society as thinking human beings? What is real and what is not?
-- Ishtiaq
Ahmed
By Ishtiaq Ahmed
May 18, 2010
Whenever outmoded religious laws
and practices stood in the way of progress, reformers started an internal
critique and ended up recommending that the secular state, respectful of
religion as a spiritual and moral code as well as of the human rights of
individuals, alone can serve as the basis of a pluralist
democracy
The past few days have been
filled with such dramatically contrasting news about the fortunes of Muslim
women that one can call them a phantasmagoria. A phantasmagoria is a changing
scene made up of many elements in which the changes that take place make it
impossible to know what is real and what merely an illusion or a
deception.
A couple of months ago,
President Asif Ali Zardari signed the Protection Against Harassment of Women at
the Workplace Bill 2010, aimed at providing a safe working environment. The
ceremony held in the President’s House was attended by a large number of women
activists, parliamentarians and members of civil society. He reiterated the
government’s commitment to ensuring equal rights for men and women in accordance
with the Constitution. Some people would find President Zardari’s solemn words,
“We have to create a Pakistan where the coming generations, my daughters, can be
proud of the fact that they live as equals” a bit amusing but as we say, ‘dair
aye par drust aye’ (better now than never).
The Act is indeed a very
progressive piece of legislation. I believe Sherry Rehman was also one of those
who initiated the bill though she was not present at the ceremony when the
president signed the bill into law. Its various authors are claiming that it is
the most advanced legislation anywhere in South Asia. If that be true, I am
going to make my colleagues at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore
take notice of one area in which Pakistan is ahead of other South Asian
societies in a positive way.
However, the effect of the good
news was somewhat dampened when I read that a committee of the upper house of
parliament, the Senate, has banned the play ‘Burqavaganza’ of the very
accomplished Madeeha Gauhar of Ajoka. The play is a critique of the obscurantist
burqa lobby. I hope that the National Assembly overrules the reactionary ban
imposed by the Senate committee.
It is necessary that laws that
demean women are repealed as well. The so-called Law of Evidence remains on the
statutes of the Pakistani legal system. Then there are the so-called Hudood
Ordinances, which provide the basis for the oppression of both men and women.
These draconian laws were passed by a dictator who was privately very fond of
Indian films and some Indian film actors were treated as part of the family. Why
he imposed such laws, the more learned members of our elite tell me, was because
he had no other basis to justify his illegal military coup. That is interesting
indeed. Unlike Iqbal, who argued that in times of crisis Islam has saved
Muslims, I am convinced that now it is time to save Islam from the iron grip of
misogynists of one type or another.
The easiest and most honest way
to do this is to follow the example of the rest of the world. Whenever outmoded
religious laws and practices stood in the way of progress, reformers started an
internal critique and ended up recommending that the secular state, respectful
of religion as a spiritual and moral code as well as of the human rights of
individuals, alone can serve as the basis of a pluralist democracy. One day we
will also reach that conclusion because the evidence around us tells us that
Iqbal and the mullahs have had it all wrong. Ours is a culture still bound to
scholasticism — a philosophical school and method of reasoning in which
verification or testing of propositions is not admitted; rather the skill is to
weave fantastic tales in defence of this or that dogma.
Another very heartening news
these days has been the election of some Pakistani women to the British
parliament. One of them, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, elected on a Conservative Party
ticket, has been inducted into the cabinet of Prime Minister David Cameron. She
does so in her capacity as Chairperson of the Conservative Party. Baroness Warsi
originates from Gujjar Khan. Her father was a mill worker who by dint of hard
work and enterprise moved up and gave his daughter the education she needed to
attain the high office she has reached now.
Simultaneously, however, as if
as a bad joke, someone looted a jewellery shop in Manchester dressed up in a
burqa. The burqa can also be a veritable accessory to mischief. Years ago I saw
a Punjabi film. In one of the scenes, an overly pious burqa-clad individual
joins the company of the heroine and her friends. The burqa-clad person tries to
move as close as possible to the heroine, which rouses suspicion. Upon being
asked to remove the veil in purely female company, that person says in a very
horsy voice that her piety forbids her to show her face even to girls. That
makes everyone more suspicious. The girls remove the niqab only to find the late
Rangeela perched among them. I think the scene ends with Rangeela receiving a
lot of curses and shoes landing on his head.
But the news this week is also
thoroughly confusing. The famous Deobandi seminary has issued a fatwa declaring
women working for wages and salaries as haram. The noted Shia cleric, Maulana
Kalbe Jawad, endorsed that fatwa saying, “Women in Islam are not supposed to go
out and earn a living. It is the responsibility of the males in the family.”
Earlier I heard him say on television that women should not take part in
politics. Their function is to give birth to politicians! That sort of wisdom I
have always believed cuts across the Sunni-Shia divide. People waste a lot of
time distinguishing between them on doctrinal issues, and fail to see the
consensus among them on reactionary social values.
Deoband has subsequently issued
a statement that its ruling had been misunderstood and Kalbe Jawad also said
that he did not oppose women working if they worked separately from men as in
Iran. So, for a while the ambiguity these clerics have created can conceal their
real stances on women and women’s rights.
The title of today’s article
should now make sense if it did not at the start. Who really are the Muslim
women — those who are confined within the four walls of the house, or those who
sit in parliament, or those who work alongside men and make an equal
contribution to society as thinking human beings? What is real and what is
not?
Source:
http://mmabbasi.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/the-phantasmagoria-called-muslim-women/
Ishtiaq Ahmed is a Visiting
Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) and the South
Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. He is also
Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University. He has
published extensively on South Asian politics. At ISAS, he is currently working
on a book, Is Pakistan a Garrison State? He can be reached at
isasia@nus.edu.sg
9:42 PM
Sultan Shahin
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