Q: Would you describe yourself as a Muslim feminist? A feminist who is also a Muslim? An Islamic feminist?
A: I am a feminist. That is my foremost identity. But I am also a Muslim, and so I have no problems calling myself a 'Muslim feminist'.
I don't see any contradiction in being Muslim and feminist at the same time, because I have been brought up with an understanding of Islam that is just in matters related to women and gender relations. But I am opposed to term 'Islamic feminist' as 'Islamic' is too ideological. I prefer to call myself a 'Muslim feminist', because the term 'Muslim'signifies human agency. Because of political Islam, there is a tendency to believe that anything labeled 'Islamic' is the divine word of God, unmediated by human agency and interpretation, which is not the case, of course.
Islam does not speak on its own, without human intervention. So, at Sisters in Islam, we use the term 'Muslim' and by extension 'Muslim Family Law', rather than 'Islamic Family Law' to help Muslims better understand that the call for reform is not a call to change God's words, but, rather, to change Muslim understandings of God's message.
Q: Many Muslim feminists seek to articulate a gender-just understanding of Islam based on their reading of the Quran, without taking recourse to the corpus of Hadith and fiqh, possibly because the latter two sources contain rules that seem to greatly militate against gender justice. How do you relate to these sources?
A: To me, the Quran is the ultimate authority. Anything that contradicts it, including in the corpus of Hadith and fiqh, cannot be Islamic. Furthermore, I also believe that the Quran is open to multiple interpretations, as a result of human agency in seeking to understand the text. There is no final, authoritative human interpretation of the text. Thus, the history of Quranic exegesis is a story of a constant endeavour of Muslims seeking to understand the word of God, a wondrous exercise that can result in new meanings and perspectives evolving over time. It is absolutely perfect to derive a certain meaning from a verse of the Quran today, and another, deeper and different, five years later. There is nothing as a static, frozen interpretation of the text. Interpretations of the same text can vary due to temporal and spatial differences, differences in the class and educational background or the gender of the reader or the sort of experiences the reader has been through and which informs her when she reads the Quran. It is fallacious to claim that a certain understanding of the Quran represents the absolute or final, however knowledgeable a person might be. It is tantamount to the sin of shirk, because only God knows absolutely what He intends to say and mean.
Q: Muslim feminists are accused of undermining, if not defy, the authority of the ulema as authoritative spokesmen of Islam, and of allegedly serving as 'agents' of the West or the 'enemies of Islam'. Your response.
A: Without questioning the authority of the ulema, we say that if an interpretation of Islam violates the norms of justice, which are so integral to the Quran, and if this is then taken as a source of laws and public policies that are oppressive and discriminatory towards women, then we, as citizens of a democratic country, must speak out against this. We do not disagree with ulema who have a gender-just vision of Islam. But, sadly, such ulema are very few today. If Islam has to be taken to public sphere and laws have to be framed for the citizens, you cannot prevent people challenging your views and understanding of Islam. We are all on a voyage of discovery of the intent of God's word, and it will never be complete. We are arguing for recognition of this fact. We are arguing against the authoritarian tendency, sadly so marked among many conservative ulema and Islamist ideologues, to imagine that one's own understanding of God's word is absolute and binding on everyone else and that this must be a source of law and public policy. We only oppose the monopolistic, misogynist and unjust interpretations of Islam.
Q: Does this mean that you are opposed to the notion of the 'Islamic state', which is such a central pillar of the agenda of Islamist groups?
A: If Islam is to be a source of law and public policy-making, this has to come about as a result of democratic engagement, and cannot be imposed on the people, as the Islamists demand. The modern nation-state, with all its coercive powers, did not exist at the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh). For self-styled Islamist groups to seek to use the modern nation-state, with its massive coercive powers, to force people to lead a life that they see as consonant with Islam completely negates the Muslim heritage, which was characterized by a tolerance of diverse schools of jurisprudence and theology that themselves emerged from diverse understandings of Islam.
Q: Muslim 'progressives' like yourself seem to argue that the right to ijtihad must be democratized and should not be sole prerogative of the ulema. But, the ulema argue that those outside their circle do not have the right to engage in ijtihad as they lack the necessary scholarly credentials in the Islamic tradition. How do you view this conflict, which is really about competing visions of religious authority?
A: I am most happy to be silent about religion if Islam is just in the private sphere, between me and God. But we live in a country where Islam is a source of law and public policy. Unfortunately, those in religious authority who construct these laws do not recognize equality and justice. They seriously believe God made men superior to women and therefore men's authority over women is eternal and divine. Never mind the realities before their very eyes. This belief in the inherent superiority and the authority of all men over all women has led to laws and practices that continue to discriminate and oppress women. What I am questioning is the use of one's authority of the authoritative text for authoritarian purposes.
I, as one who has not gone through a traditional education in Islam and do not speak Arabic, still have the right to speak out, and seek to understand and interpret my religion, because the conservative, misogynist ulema have miserably failed to make Islam relevant to women in the 21st century, to human rights, social justice, democracy. It is because of our experience of injustice, discrimination, oppression justified in the name of Islam that we seek to claim our right to understand our religion in ways that makes sense to our realities.
As for the argument about the modernists' and feminists' scholarly credentials for Ijtihad, let me say that if you want to use Islam as a source of law and public policy, then every citizen has the right to question and speak out. Public law and policy must pass the test of public reason.
Q: What sort of work does newly formed outfit Musawah envisage for itself in the coming years?
A: Musawah was launched last February to a roaring welcome from Muslim women activists
and scholars from 50 countries. Over the next few years, we are focused on knowledge-building and movement building. We are about to start a research project on the Qur'anic concept of qawwamah or men's authority over women, which lies at the core of the unequal construction of gender rights in Islam. It is being misused to rationalize women's subjugation. The legal rights that emanate from this concept not only put women under male authority, they give men the right to terminate the marriage contract at will, to control their wives' movements, to polygamy, and to other inequalities in the family. Given the changing realities of women's lives today, the fact that women are also providers and protectors of their families, how can we re-understand and re-construct this concept so that equality and justice between genders and in the family are ensured? This is what we want to focus on.
Zainah Anwar can be contacted on zmha54@yahoo.co.uk, for more details about Sisters in Islam, see www.sistersinislam.org.my