Projecting Retrograde Fatwas: Reinforcing Stereotypes
One such fatwa, which was in
the lime light recently (May 2010) related to women working outside, there
income being haram (immoral) and it being obligatory on them to wear burqa. All
major commentators wrote on this, all papers carried banner headlines on this
and the chat show anchors had a gala time mediating between warring guests on
their interpretation of this retrograde fatwa. To begin with one must point out
that this fatwa was issued in response to a question, “Can Muslim women in India
do Government or private jobs? Shall their salary be Halal or Haram or
Prohibited?” Answer published on April 4th, 2010 simply put it as: “It is
unlawful for Muslim women to do job in government or private institutions where
men and women work together and women have to talk with [to] men frankly and
without veil.”
Interestingly
this fatwa got very sensational headlines, picking on one or the other aspect of
the opinion of the Mufti. The headlines ran like, “Women’s earning haram”, “It
is illegal to work for women to support the family, “Fatwa against working
women”, Fatwa to Working women, don’t talk to male colleagues” etc. There are
two important points here. One is that this fatwa which shows the height of
conservatism was flashed powerfully and second the headlines picked up the part
of the whole and sensationalized it further. The outcome of media projection was
uniform, it reinforced the stereotypes about Muslims. The associated points
about fatwas did not get prominent projection. -- Ram
Puniyani
By Ram
Puniyani
The Islamic seminaries issue
fatwas by the dozen, day in and day out. It is only on few occasions that these
get media publicity, and the quantum of media publicity is also not uniform.
Some fatwas are really projected very much hogging all the lime light ; some
others are hidden on the back pages in small column centimeters while few others
never taken note of. Which are these one’s where media interest and curiosity is
maximum? This is the question which media pundits can introspect and debate but
few observations are in order.
One such fatwa, which was in the
lime light recently (May 2010) related to women working outside, there income
being haram (immoral) and it being obligatory on them to wear burqa. All major
commentators wrote on this, all papers carried banner headlines on this and the
chat show anchors had a gala time mediating between warring guests on their
interpretation of this retrograde fatwa. To begin with one must point out that
this fatwa was issued in response to a question, “Can Muslim women in India do
Government or private jobs? Shall their salary be Halal or Haram or Prohibited?”
Answer published on April 4th, 2010 simply put it as: “It is unlawful for Muslim
women to do job in government or private institutions where men and women work
together and women have to talk with [to] men frankly and without
veil.”
Interestingly this fatwa got
very sensational headlines, picking on one or the other aspect of the opinion of
the Mufti. The headlines ran like, “Women’s earning haram”, “It is illegal to
work for women to support the family, “Fatwa against working women”, Fatwa to
Working women, don’t talk to male colleagues” etc. There are two important
points here. One is that this fatwa which shows the height of conservatism was
flashed powerfully and second the headlines picked up the part of the whole and
sensationalized it further. The outcome of media projection was uniform, it
reinforced the stereotypes about Muslims. The associated points about fatwas did
not get prominent projection.
True, these opinions should have
no place whatsoever in the present times, but there is more to these projections
than meets the eye. Some fatwas get heavy projection, while some other but more
important ones’ do not get enough coverage. This can be said more so because of
the recent observation about undermining of another fatwa. That fatwa was issued
by two congregations of thousands of Maulanas. In these congregations which were
historic in more ways than one, the fatwa was issued against violence, against
terrorism in the name of Islam. Needless to say this fatwa was historic as it
aimed to nail down the popular misconception, carefully grafted by the US
administration, US media and local communal forces that Islam is the religion of
violence, Muslims are violent community and all terrorists are Muslims. This
misconception prevails even at a time when the terrorists of the ilk of Sadhvi
Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Assemanand and those related to Santan Sanstha etc.
have been under the heavy cloud of suspicion and some of them are now behind the
bar also.
As such fatwa is an opinion by a
mufti, given in response to the question sought by laity, on the same issue
there can be different fatwas, they are not biding on the seeker of fatwa. As
such the community is largely divided about following the fatwa’s. While some
stick to these opinions, hook line and sinker, others ignore them as ravings of
some outdated old maulanas, cut off from the modern society. Javed Akhtar, the
renowned multifaceted writer came out strongly against this fatwa. More
interestingly he pointed out that these fatwas are not taken seriously by the
community at large. Overall he is just partly right, as there still are some
elements in the community, who prefer to be guided by these Muftis, irrespective
of the fact that there is no formal hierarchy in Islam. Akhtar is partly
undermining the fact that many retrograde elements amongst Muslim community make
these fatwas as a crutch to implement their anti-women and other regressive
attitudes.
The broader point is how come
such a serious fatwa, one related to terrorism, which has a big impact on the
totality of social perception was not given as much importance as it deserves?
One recalls that there were many a fatwa’s which did affect the lives of people,
like the one against Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen. One concedes that the
fatwa’s need to be looked at in the particular context and highlighted
accordingly. Today the scenario is a bit different. The media is looking for
sensation; it is flowing with the stream, and is not much concerned about
fathoming deep to unravel the truth. Unfortunately once news is flashed in a
powerful way, its counters the next day get buried in the din of hysteria,
popular opinion created by the headline the previous day.
Currently whatever reinforces
the prevalent stereotypes against Muslims are a hot favorite with large section
of media. Since the global superpower had decided to pursue its goals of control
of oil wealth, it did create “consent” for its lust of oil by popularizing the
image of Islam which was totally conservative. It deliberately promoted those
tendencies within Muslim World, which talked of insane interpretations of the
words Jihad and Kafir. After 9/11 the matters became worse off when the word
‘Islamic terrorism’ was propped up by US media and was lapped up by the global
media in general. One also recalls that US media also dragged Islam in the
murkier world of politics when US stooge, Raza Shah Pehlvi, was overthrown in a
revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini captured power. The political phenomenon was
given religious veneer.
While media partly has also played a positive
role in social transformation, standing with the deprived, occasionally, broadly
its role has been supplementary to the role of the rulers, the global and
national ones’. Nationally it has mostly gone with the perception devised and
popularized by communal forces. These popular perceptions are the base of ruling
politics and the vehicle of the political actions of dominant sections of
society. While ignoring these Muftis, we do need a proper mechanism of media,
communication and cultural mechanism of progressive values to propagate the
voice of weaker sections of society.
Today while this fatwa got a
particular projection in the media, the case of espionage by Madhuri Gupta was
underplayed, while any real or alleged terrorist with a Muslim name is a
permanent front page news, the involvement, allegations against the likes of
Swami Assemanand are bypassed on the ground that this is a conspiracy of a
particular government or political party. Even today when the media focuses a
lot on these irrelevant retrograde fatwa’s, lot of poor Muslims suffer due to
physical insecurity and lack of social opportunities, which is not given
adequate attention by media. Lot of anti Dalit atrocities is going on but they
hardly find prominent place in the media.
From within the Muslim community more voices
are coming up against these fatwas and there is need that that more voices,
including those of women should be projected against such retrograde fatwas.
While the majority of the people of the country must realize that the fatwas do
not represent a homogenous community waiting to lap them up. It is obligatory on
the part of media to give equal projection of those Muslims who are opposed to
the cult of such fatwas. These fatwas do come from the section of Muslim
community/Muftis, most of who are fairly insulated from the vagaries of the
World, and are becoming more important due to the insecurity into which Muslim
community has been pushed all around. And media has to answer as to why fatwas
like the one against violence and terrorism were grossly
underplayed?
9:35 PM
Sultan Shahin
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