Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (51 page)

258 inside the gender jihad

In the face of such massive problems, I felt utter despair. How can I despair, I thought? I have faith in Allah. When I encountered literature from

the world’s religious experts, I was profoundly affected by the writings of Paul Tillich.
4
“For in these days the foundations of the earth
do
shake. May we
not
turn our eyes away; may we not close our ears and our mouths!

But may we rather see, through the crumbling of the world, the rock of eternity and the salvation which has no end!” He cited the worldview of the prophets and holy men and women as expressions of the certainty of belonging “within the two spheres, the changeable
and
the unchange- able . . . Because, beyond the sphere of destruction, they saw the sphere of salvation; because in the doom of the temporal, they saw the manifestation

of the Eternal” (emphasis in the original).
5

I was indebted to these insights from a modern Christian thinker. I dove again into Islamic literature about the status of the soul. I was working from the conviction that I would find a more cogent and viable spiritual system that had been worked out in detail by great Islamic intellectuals and mystical geniuses. Yet finding the
link
between these mystical and intellectual musings was hopelessly insufficient for what I was experiencing as a daily reality.

The significance of Tillich’s work was simply that it expressed itself explicitly in response to the moral–spiritual dilemmas of modern circum- stances. I ran up against a scarcity of information in response to such dilemmas from modern Muslim thinkers. They were obsessed with the
réalité politique
(everything was power, authority, and control) through the medium of legal operations. I feel little hope for the future of Islam

when only articulated in terms of Muslims seizing

global control

from

the dominating superpower. Such an outcome, fantastic as it really is, would still leave a tremendous spiritual void.

I have little confidence that Muslims gaining more political power to control the world would really make a better life for all the oppressed and exploited people of the world. I see very little from our current political leaders that would give me such confidence. What little I do see is marginalized by those who are wielding the greatest power. One reason for my lack of confidence is simply that the agendas expressed by Muslim political and intellectual elites are primarily top-down operations. They seem more focused on the role of legalized authority to assert unilateral power and control over the will and status of the people at the bottom. This removal from the masses, in all their diversity, speaks little toward my hope of the common human well-being.

At the level of a mass movement, we surely need new voices and agendas.

Conclusion
259

When re-reading the inspirational words of past Muslim mystics, I encoun- tered beautiful discourses on the qualities of spiritual realization. Sadly, I found no social reality expressed as a component of that realization. Does this mean that a spiritually qualitative life is unconnected to social realities? I am reminded of Fazlur Rahman’s critique of the quietism in early Sufi movements, while “what Islam generally inculcated among its early fol- lowers, in varying degrees, was a grave sense of responsibility before the justice of God which raised their behaviour from the realm of worldliness and mechanical obedience to the law to a plan of moral activity.”
6
It cannot be that one is meant to feel connected to the Creator with no creature-to- creature interaction in activating that connection.

I see too few viable examples of spiritual motivation for social and political action, the actual
sunnah
of the Prophet, as also exemplified in the life and continued transformation in the transitions to Islam for Malcolm

X. Yet there is overwhelming consensus that Islam is
din
, a living reality on the basis of one’s connection to the Divine principles, not just a personal feeling of faith.

A New Future (Journal Continued)

A new impetus must be generated that applies the Islamic spiritual para- digms as forces of social movements. The consequences of this are a new world order that incorporates the meaningfulness of the lives of everyday citizens, be they Muslim or not. This impetus has few exemplaries visible among those who are projected as Muslim leaders most dedicated to Islam. This reflects that elitist
–
mass-level dichotomy. The elites are preoccupied with establishing ever more authoritative control over the masses
–
while neglecting the mass-level input. The masses act with a totally unviable sense of reality, including those who presume the spiritual worth of Islam is only in the mosque or
halqah
as they continue to act with a world in such bleak disarray. If the world itself is going to hell in a rowboat, the best we can do is focus on saving our own souls for a glorious afterlife. Again, I find this arrangement untenable. If Islam is not generated as a human-level concern and a mode of daily operations for the overall improvement of the quality of all aspects of life on the planet, then we will all go to hell in the same rowboat with the rest of the world. It’s as simple as that.

As an obedient servant of Allah (
‘abd
), the goal of the traditional ascetic mystic, one can attain the level of active participant and full agent (
khalifah
) only in coordinating worldly affairs. The formulation of a thought system

260 inside the gender jihad

meant to enhance the overall quality of everyday life for all of God’s creatures must become the immediate articulation for a long-term goal. It cannot and will not be done by taking refuge in the mosques as a spiritual buffer against a beleaguered world. I cannot adhere to or even believe that Islam was in- tended for such a dichotomy.

Whoever wishes to add their voices to this new agenda must learn to speak aloud and to generate literature that addresses this need for greater spiritual and political synthesis. Muslims must consciously move out of the

sanctuary of the mosque and onto the streets with the message

actually

revealed to and actualized by the Prophet. We surely will not do this simply by carrying the tag “Muslim” and seeking political domination. We need a detailed system of interactions on a citizen-to-citizen basis, with the citizens all members of the human race, who give allegiance only to those leaders who give meaningful help to coordinate authority in the name of the people.
7

However, when people are unaware and unmoved by the relationship of the Islamic worldview to the whole world, as it actually exists now, and are equally insufficient to take up the task of a new world order premised by the essence of the spiritual center with its resulting manifest ethical principles, then hope is lost.
Khilafah
is a personal/private and public duty for every Muslim. We must begin preparation for the comprehensive fulfillment of this duty. Citizens should no longer acquiesce to systems of

oppression, because

they will ultimately be held accountable for their

actions as well as their lack of actions. Political and intellectual elites will no longer be able to gain or keep power until and unless they are full embodi- ments of the basic principles of Islam as
din
, the living reality of a spiritually qualitative interaction in the name of absolute certainty of belief in the mercy and grace of Allah. (
end journal)

Reflections on the Journal

While rewriting my journal notes from over a decade ago, I am first struck by the simplicity and naivety of belief in such a possibility as inspired by my own vision of “Islam.” I am also still struck by the lingering thoughts of the imagination expressed concerning the long-term goal of activating the spiritual core at the level of policy and social affairs. I have admittedly continued to transition within Islam – as only the historical and cultural patterns of Muslims – and gained a more pluralistic perspective of Islam, focused on human relations to sacred ultimate principles. I filter the terms of my humanism through the stark reality of being a Muslim female while

Conclusion
261

gender remains excluded not only from its
fundamental
status as a category of thought, but also as a powerful example toward practicing care work for the sake of self and others as an example of one’s humanity in agency
with
the Ultimate, applying the divine principles. I am still hoping our examples, as women, will become representatives for achieving a new world order removed from the entrenched patterns and diverse forms of patriarchy.

CONCLUSION: THE FINAL REASON FOR FIGHTING THE GENDER JIHAD

Ultimately, I want to live and to share the experience of life with all who care to put down the weapons of
jihad
, and take up the tools of wholesome reconstruction. I have lived inside the gender
jihad
long enough to know that I had to take it up. It was my only means to survive. Now, I want to see and bring about the end of the necessity for
jihad
. The
only
reason I have been engaged in this
jihad
, the struggle for gender justice, is because that just- ice and full human dignity granted to us by Allah has been ignored or abused. The history of nearly exclusive male and androcentric Islamic interpretation and codification has not nearly recognized the importance of women’s contributions from their specific experience of being female and fully human with the intellectual capacity to contribute to a holistic under- standing of what it means to have a relationship with both the divine and other humans, while they have consistently shown the spiritual fortitude to live as Muslims despite lack of recognition. The spaces for women to dem-

strate both their self-identification as female and their full humanity

are

not reserved for only

those whom

elite

male

scholars

and

laypersons

have already manipulated in mind and body, but belong to all women who have endeavored to sustain their roles as women and Muslims despite silence, separation, violence, and invisibility. Still, too few women are recog- nized for their capacity to lead by example, not by asserting power over, but by representing power with, all others.

262 inside the gender jihad

Notes to the Introduction

1. Amina Wadud, “Preface,” in
   Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective
   (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. xi.
   

2. Dr. Aminah McCloud, professor and founder, director of the Islamic World Studies Program (2005) at DePaul University, made a very coherent argument against the overuse of the term “conversion.” It implies completely leaving one’s personal past, or severing oneself from that past, in order to enter something completely new and, by implication, unique or even at odds with one’s past. Her research provides clear evidence that when non-Muslim Americans enter Islam, as also demonstrated by other communities throughout the spread of Islam historically, they often do so as part of a
   continual
   process of spiritual, moral, and symbolic progress already in motion prior to acceptance of or conformity with Islamic particulars. She prefers the term “transition” to indicate not only particular aspects of one’s past as integral to their entry into Islam but also to indicate that once they enter, they neither exclude their past, nor are completed. I will use “transition” and “transformation” interchangeably to determine that Islam does not start or stop with the
   shahadah
   (declaration of faith).
   

3. Despite categorization of the Western feminist movement into stages – first wave, second wave, etc. – there is an internal critique if these stages are consistent with the work women have been doing for centuries to challenge male hegemony, privilege, and authority. I use “second-wave feminist movement” in the West, circa 1960, as one of the self-identifying terms of Western feminist thinkers, activists, and scholarship. The “first-wave feminist movement,” circa 1860, was, in part, the product of the women’s suffrage movement.
   

4. The etymological origin of the word oppression lies in the Latin for “press down” or “press against.” The root suggests that people who are oppressed suffer from some kind of restriction on their freedom. Not all restrictions on people’s freedom, however, are oppressive. People are not oppressed by simple natural phenomena, such as the gravita- tional forces. “Instead, oppression is the result of human agency, human imposed restrictions of people’s freedom. Not all humanly imposed limitations on people’s freedom are oppressive, however.
   Oppression must also be unjust
   ” (emphasis mine). Alison M.
   

   Jaggar,
   

   Feminist Politics and Human Nature
   (Totowa, NJ:
   

   Rowman & Littlefield,
   

   reprinted 1988), pp. 5
   –
   6.
   

5. The I.M.L.C. was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in May 2003. A fuller account of that event is given in chapter 7.
   

6. I include the full story of my choice to wear yet religiously disregard this head covering as a
   

   Notes
   263
   

   principle of Islam, despite its symbolic intensity and my own transformations in wearing it, in chapter 7.
   

7. As will be elaborated in chapter 1.
   

8. I am particularly indebted to Sharon Welch’s book,
   A Feminist Ethic
   

   (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), in reaching this conclusion.
   

   of Risk
   

9. The juxtaposition of a few male scholars against a reduction of “Muslim feminist” method-
   

   ologies is explicit in
   

   Ebrahim Moosa’s “The Debt and Burden of Critical Islam” , in
   

   Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism
   , ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003), pp. 111–127.
   

10. Detailed analysis between what is now seen as a Muslim feminist movement and preceding actions and articulations of Muslim women’s rights and their historical struggles against patriarchal silences and marginalizations shows the multiple complexities of these historical struggles and the most recent prevalence of Islamic theory as the fundamental basis for the struggle of women’s full humanity. See works by Margot Badran, Deniz Kandiyoti, Azza Karam, Afsenah Najmabadi, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, and Azizah al-Hibri, among others.
    

11. Khaled Abou El Fadl,
    Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
    

    (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001)
    .
    

12. Amina Wadud, “On Belonging as a Muslim Woman,” in
    My Soul is a Witness: African-American Women’s Spirituality
    , ed. Gloria Wade-Gayles (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp. 253–265.
    

13. I am indebted to Na‘eem Jeenah for helping me trace the origins of this phrase to Rashied Omar, who used it along with “economic
    jihad
    ” in the context of the post-apartheid rethinking agenda.A reference to Farid Esack,
    Qur’an Liberation and Pluralism: an Islamic
    

    Perspective of Interreligious
    

    Solidarity
    

    Against
    

    Oppression
    

    (Oxford,
    

    Oneworld
    

    Publications, 1997), pp. 239–248, was included.
    

14. Huston Smith in the
    Worlds of Faith
    documentary series with Bill Moyers is one simple source, but extensive discourse followed the September 11 event.