Reflections on the Status of Women of Islam

Reflections on the Status of Women of Islam | BaltimoreChronicle.com

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Reflections on the Status of Women of Islam
by Louise Sheldon

An article by Louise Sheldon on the (views about) women and islam.

Reflections on the Status of Women of Islam
by Louise Sheldon

Properly controlled within the structure of society, a Muslim woman’s energy is viewed in Islamic societies as a positive force that unifies the family.
Western understanding of Islamic customs is so limited that we frequently come to false conclusions and make erroneous interpretations of what we see on the surface. Living in a Muslim country, it took me many months, in fact years, to come to some understanding of Muslim ways.

How difficult it is for us to comprehend that in Islamic countries the woman’s domain is her home, that it is her space as opposed to public space, which according to tradition, is male space. Outside her home the woman covers herself by wearing a veil and is thus not subject to suggestive and vulgar remarks made by passing males. When walking our dog near the beach in Casablanca, I wore the most covering clothing that I possessed and would have been happy to wear a veil for the same reason.

Westerners see the veil as a form of oppression, but to traditional Muslim women, the veil is a form of pride –as seen today among young Islamic female students in France who oppose the French government by insisting on wearing a head scarf, which is a sign of belief in God or Islam; the government has banned the scarf. In Afghanistan, in areas that are independent of the Taliban, many women prefer to continue to wear the all-covering burka, which gives them privacy. Today they have that choice.

It is difficult for Westerners to comprehend that the seclusion of women in the home has long been considered as prestigious, that is, having to do with a husband’s or protector’s wealth. Harems, the consummate seclusion, were considered even more prestigious because of the enormous assets required of the husband. Because women in the harem were not allowed to leave the harem, they were served and waited on like queens. Traditionally, respectable women were never seen on the streets, unless accompanied by a chaperone to go to the hamman, the public bath, or to a saint’s tomb.

Girls stayed at home, and still do in many areas of Pakistan, for example, while the boys attend Koranic schools. But women in urban circles know that education is the way for them to move forward and they are determined to achieve it. In a recent study in Egypt, it was found that 28 percent of university professors are women, compared to 24 percent in the United States. In two Muslim countries, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, women have been heads of states, whereas none have in the US. In Muslim countries where feminism has found roots, the women’s movement is diametrically opposed to Islamic fundamentalism.
Moroccan sociologist and author Fatima Mernissi finds it ironic that early Muslim and European theories come to the same conclusion, that woman is destructive to the social order because–just by virtue of her existence–she provokes promiscuity.

Fatima Mernissi, herself born in a harem, is a well-known Moroccan sociologist who lectures at Harvard and Berkeley. I knew her in Morocco and I have written about her. Mernissi describes Islamic society in her well-known book, Beyond the Veil, in this way: “A woman is always trespassing in a male space because she is, by definition, a foe, a destructive element. A woman has no right to use male spaces. If she enters them, she is upsetting the male’s order and his peace of mind. She is actually committing an act of aggression against him merely by being present when she should not be;…(she) upsets Allah’s order by inciting men to commit zina (illicit behavior).”

“The Muslim woman is endowed with a fatal attraction which erodes the male’s will to resist her. He has no choice; he can only give in to her attraction. Imam Abu-al-Hasan Muslim, an established voice of Muslim tradition, refers to ‘the fascination, to the irresistible attraction God instilled in man’s soul [for woman]. The woman resembles Satan in his irresistible power over the individual.'” Such an idea seems to us to be utterly mad, but bear with me.

Fatima Mernissi finds it ironic that early Muslim and European theories come to the same conclusion, that woman is destructive to the social order. To solve the problem of promiscuity, in Western Christianity sexuality itself was attacked. “The individual was split into two antithetical selves: the spirit and the flesh;…The triumph of civilization implied the triumph of soul over flesh, of ego over id, of controlled over uncontrolled.” Thus, the puritanical woman is a controlled person.

Islam took a different path; it is the woman herself that is attacked, as personifying destruction, the center of uncontrollable energy. However, properly controlled within the structure of society, a woman’s energy is a positive force that unifies the family. To Muslims, personal achievement is not the result of lonely striving, but rather the result of a contented, harmonious union, male with female, within the social structure. Muslim women wield great power in the home, strongly influencing their children. For example, I remember an incident when the King of Jordan asked for a delay in making a decision because he needed to consult his mother.

I have quoted extensively from Fatima Mernissi because of the depth of her research into texts from early Arabic sources. Her writings help us to understand the very fundamental difference between the concepts of male and female as they have evolved separately over the centuries in the Arabo-Muslim world and our Christian world.

On Fridays, which is the holy day of the week for Muslims, you will see great numbers of men going to the mosque in any Muslim country. At a very early age boys are sent to medrassas, the school where they learn the Koran by heart. Within the mosque the crowds of worshippers are on their knees in neat rows falling forward until their heads touch the ground simultaneously; everyone wants to be at prayer on the holy day of Friday.

In another section of the mosque, separated by a wall, women will gather as the men do, but there will never be as many, for though the woman is very likely to be as devout as her husband, or sincerely more so, her domain is the home. She has much to attend to; Arab cuisine, especially in Morocco, is brought to a high level of perfection in the home. Furthermore, she usually has a sizeable number of children to care for, whom I found in every case to be well-brought-up and extremely polite to adults. In the most traditional nations, like Saudi Arabia, women have an average of eight to ten children. Every woman I knew was deeply faithful to Islam.

I was particularly struck by the fact that once a Muslim woman had met and talked with me, she was my friend. In fact, she would often surprise me with her openness, telling me things that I never expected to hear–intimate details of age, illness and family matters. Once an Algerian woman, whom I met in Heathrow airport near London, confided to me that she was traveling, not with her husband, but with her lover. On hearing these words I almost fainted. This was information that I didn’t want to have, for she could be killed by male family members for such a transgression. Yet she was so happy at that moment she felt compelled to share her news. The incident shows how men and women live in separate worlds, like two totally different segments of society. The Algerian woman knew instinctively that I would never betray her by revealing what she had told me.

In Rabat, the capital of Morocco, I wrote an evaluation of the condition of the Moroccan woman for a London magazine. Invited to an aristocratic Moroccan tea party, I brought a copy of the article to give to a businesswoman who had been helpful to me. I had outlined how, by Islamic law, Moroccan women have almost no rights at all, as we see them. Without her husband’s consent, a woman cannot travel, obtain a passport or go into business.The husband divorces her by proclaiming it and is allowed to keep the children. No court would grant a woman a one-sided divorce no matter what the circumstances. At the tea, a mischievous Moroccan friend spied the article and asked to read it aloud. “Oh, God,!” I thought. “Here comes trouble!” Indeed, there ensued a tremendous hue and cry between those who were appalled by what I had said and those who agreed. After everybody had discussed every aspect of the piece, they came to the conclusion that I was right on target.

They tend to delude themselves, because despite these restrictions, Moroccan women enjoy far more freedom than their sisters in most Arab countries. Being so close to Europe, urban Moroccans have absorbed European customs. Women wear Western dress, drive cars, own businesses; many women are doctors, lawyers and even judges, but in the end the Arab husband, father or brother is the lord and master. Interestingly, Moroccan women judges are considered more fair in their decisions and less corruptible than men.

Traditionally, Muslim parents have chosen the future husband or wife for a person when the child is very young. In some cases, particularly in rural areas, the custom persists at a later age. By accident, when knocking at the wrong gate, I met a woman who had been forced by her parents to marry a man much older than she at a time when she considered herself engaged to a young man. She was a bright person, who had been working in publishing, modern in her thinking, very interested in world affairs. However, her parents agreed, without consulting her, that she should marry the man three times her age who was her boss. Rachida was not only forced to marry a man she did not love, she was subject to an attempt to poison her by the man’s first wife. Before I met her, Rachida had lost all her hair; it was now regrown, but she was not permitted to leave her home. When I exploded in horror at her story, she smiled and explained to me that she would never dishonor her parents by running off with the young man she loved. That would have been utter selfishness. The lesson I learned from Rachida was her total and unbegrudging acceptance of her fate. Family comes before personal desire; she did not shame her family.

An area is which we need to tread carefully is family planning; such programs are resented in Islamic cultures as an intrusion in their family culture and a means of weakening their populations–despite the fact that in every Muslim country the population of the young and the unemployed grows by leaps and bounds every year.

We need to tread diplomatically in all areas, for there are many obstacles in the path of peace and understanding between Muslims and Christians. We need to remember that Muslim women, in particular, uphold principles that we can admire.

A fine example is Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian activist for peace and a former judge, who won the Nobel peace prize in December and is now traveling and lecturing throughout the United States. Says Ebadi, “Muslims need to learn the real Islam,” as outlined in the Koran, which stands for peace and tolerance throughout society and opposes repressive regimes. Reform and change, to which fundamentalists are opposed, are called for by Islamic women throughout the Muslim world.

Louise Sheldon, now of Baltimore, has traveled extensively and lived abroad for many years. She has written for such publications as ‘The Smithsonian Magazine’ and ‘Life’ Magazine. She has also published two books, “Casablanca Notebook: A Collection of Tales from Morocco” and “Wind in the Sahara,” a novel. For many years, she reviewed art and provided travel stories for The Baltimore Chronicle.
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This story was published on June 2, 2004.