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A Highly Liberating Document for Women
Reviewed by Maqbool Ahmed Siraj
By Nimat Hafiz Barazangi
Woman’s Identity and the Quran
Florida University Press
Pages 136
University Press of Florida
15 NW 15th Street, Gainesville, FL 32611, (352) 392-1351, (800) 226-3822, Fax: (352) 392-7302
Syrian-American author Nimat Hafiz Barzangi’s book Woman’s Identity and the Quran is an attempt to provide a totally new perspective to the debate on status of women in Islam. She has provided an altogether new interpretation to the Quranic identity of the Muslim women.
It is evident from the reading of the Quran that Allah has created, men as well as women, as vicegerent (khalifa) on the earth. Quran treats men and women as equal, though not identical beings, and differentiates between their rights and duties only in matters of biological role. But the Islamic literature is replete with a role of the women that is only complementary to male folk. Therefore, the women related to the Prophet (be it Khadija, Ayesha, Hafsa or Fatima, may Allah be pleased with them all), were idealised only as mother, sister or wives of the Prophet, not as leaders and autonomous personalities. But for the Quran, the gender related identification was only marginal, for instance reference to wives of the holy Prophet, as ummahathul mumineen, for the sake of prohibiting them from marrying after expiry of the Prophet.
Similarly, much of the social transformation carried out by the Prophet was obscured in second and third Hijri century when the foundation of critical thinking of Islam was being laid. No significant contribution was made by Muslim women to the corpus of Islamic literature during this period. For instance, several hadith have been narrated by women, but no single woman has been rated as a muhaddith. Similarly, to date, no single Quranic tafsir has been written by a woman.
Most Muslim scholars suffice to interpret the Quranic principles merely in terms of right to literacy and education, but shirk from explaining the Muslim women’s right to higher religious education (active participation in the ongoing reading and interpreting of the Qur’an) as the foundational means to becoming the spiritually and intellectually autonomous person mandated in the Quranic view of the individual, male or female as ‘Trustee of God’. Since no women could ascend the intellectual ladder, they were largely kept away from consultation (shoora) process and gradually public space got restricted for them. They were further marginalized, as mosques slammed their door shut on them.
In contrast to this, Western orientalists and media promoted the ‘veiled women of the Harem’ image of the Muslim women. This led to Islam being accused of patriarchy, and thereby in conflict with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The book argues that for women’s involvement in decision making i.e., participation in the interpretation of the Quran as well as in discussing the human rights documents, is critically needed in many Muslim communities and societies. It also pleads that self identification with the Quran offers a way to eliminate the secondary status of women because it is based on defining the issues from within. The identification with the Quran is a pre-requisite for defining the issues and rejects the efforts to transplant Western feminist model which ignores the spiritual and intellectual worldview of women who identify with the Quran.
It also raises the question as to why matters of social justice in modern Muslim societies focused only on women’s morality as represented in their attire, while matters of economic justice and class justice so often denied to them—for example inheritance, the right to property and their participation in policy making—were ignored?
All this essentially led to women being viewed only in their gender role rather than autonomous role which is so evident from the Quran. Modesty and morality were narrowly interpreted in terms of exclusion of women from public space and hijab, jilbab, satr, ghita, khumar became the tools of oppression rather than parameter-setting instruments in social intercourse so very essential in transformation of the society from a tribal mode to family mode. Perhaps this is the most significant contribution of this book inasmuch as it brings to broad relief the role of the holy Prophet in the paradigm shift.
The author has very assiduously interpreted as to how ‘reverencing the womb (surah Nisa), covering of the private parts (hifzul furuj) ‘covering the bosom’ (surah Ahzab) and ‘lowering of gaze’ (ghazz e basr) were meant to construct a family based on lineage, blood, marriage and even lactation as opposed to loyalties to tribe where women were handed down from fathers to sons. The set of commandments in surah Noor, Nisa, Ahzab and Talaq were intended to provide a bulwark to the new social structure and ethos where family will be well defined and financial responsibilities and share in inheritance—key elements in ensuring social and economic justice—will be clearly laid down. Severe punishment prescribed for accusing chaste women further elucidate as to why Quran took such a stern notice of the mala fide intention of people in making the status of widows and lineage of orphans suspect in order to deny them safe haven within the confines of the family and also inheritance.
Therefore, a woman who self identifies with the Quranic worldview finds that Islamic teachings regarding modesty are neither rigid nor intended to make her feel guilty of tempting the males, and neither is following these guidelines as a function of control, submission, segregation or restriction of action. These guidelines are rather for individual chastity and social protocol, with the aim of respecting the privacy and lineage.
The book is an excellent read and could be a highly liberating document for women in the Muslim world where petrified thought process has denied them empowerment.
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