Dana
2004-10-23 19:24:06 UTC
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/warraq_17_4.html
Islam's Shame
Lifting the Veil of Tears
by Ibn Warraq
Islam is deeply anti-woman. Islam is the fundamental cause of the repression
of Muslim women and remains the major obstacle to the evolution of their
position.[1] Islam has always considered women as creatures inferior in
every way: physically, intellectually, and morally. This negative vision is
divinely sanctioned in the Koran, corroborated by the hadiths, and
perpetuated by the commentaries of the theologians, the custodians of Muslim
dogma and ignorance.
Far better for these intellectuals to abandon the religious argument, to
reject these sacred texts, and have recourse to reason alone. They should
turn instead to human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(adopted on December 10, 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations
in Paris and ratified by most Muslim countries) at no point has recourse to
a religious argument. These rights are based on natural rights, which any
adult human being capable of choice has. They are rights that human beings
have simply because they are human beings. Human reason or rationality is
the ultimate arbiter of rights - human rights, the rights of women.
Unfortunately, in practice, in Muslim countries one cannot simply leave the
theologians with their narrow, bigoted world view to themselves. One cannot
ignore the ulama, those learned doctors of Muslim law who by their fatwas or
decisions in questions touching private or public matters of importance
regulate the life of the Muslim community. They still exercise considerable
powers of approving or forbidding certain actions. Why the continuing
influence of the mullas?
The Koran remains for all Muslims, not just "fundamentalists," the uncreated
word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places; its ideas are
absolutely true and beyond all criticism. To question it is to question the
very word of God, and hence blasphemous. A Muslim's duty is to believe it
and obey its divine commands.
Several other factors contribute to the continuing influence of the ulama.
Any religion that requires total obedience without thought is not likely to
produce people capable of critical thought, people capable of free and
independent thought. Such a situation is favorable to the development of a
powerful "clergy" and is clearly responsible for the intellectual, cultural,
and economic stagnation of several centuries. Illiteracy remains high in
Muslim countries. Historically, as there never was any separation of state
and religion, any criticism of one was seen as a criticism of the other.
Inevitably, when many Muslim countries won independence after the Second
World War, Islam was unfortunately linked with nationalism, which meant that
any criticism of Islam was seen as a betrayal of the newly independent
country - an unpatriotic act, an encouragement to colonialism and
imperialism. No Muslim country has developed a stable democracy; Muslims are
being subjected to every kind of repression possible. Under these conditions
healthy criticism of society is not possible, because critical thought and
liberty go together.
The above factors explain why Islam in general and the position of women in
particular are never criticized, discussed, or subjected to deep scientific
or skeptical analysis. All innovations are discouraged in Islam - every
problem is seen as a religious problem rather than a social or economic one.
Profoundly Anti-Woman
Islam took the legend of Adam and Eve [2] from the Old Testament and adapted
it in its own fashion. The creation of mankind from one person is mentioned
in the following suras:
4.1. 0 Mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord who created you from a
single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread
abroad a multiple of men and women.
39.6. He created you from one being, then from that (being) He made its
mate.
7.189. He it is who did create you from a single soul and therefrom did make
his mate that he might take rest in her.
From these slender sources Muslim theologians have concluded that man was
the original creation - womankind was created secondarily for the pleasure
and repose of man. The legend was further developed to reinforce the
supposed inferiority of women. Finally, the legend was given a sacred
character so that to criticize it was to criticize the very words of God,
which were immutable and absolute. Here is how Muhammad describes women in
general: "Be friendly to women for womankind was created from a rib, but the
bent part of the rib, high up, if you try to straighten it you will break
it; if you do nothing, she will continue to be bent."
God punishes Adam and Eve for disobeying his orders. But there is nothing in
the verses to show that it was Eve (as in the Old Testament) who led Adam
astray. And yet Muslim exegetists and jurists have created the myth of Eve
the temptress that has since become an integral part of Muslim tradition.
Muhammad himself is reputed to have said: "If it had not been for Eve, no
woman would have been unfaithful to her husband."
The Islamic tradition also attributes guile and deceit to women and draws
its support from the Koran. Modern Muslim commentators interpret certain
verses to show that guile, deceit, and treachery are intrinsic to a woman's
nature. Not only is she unwilling to change, she is by nature incapable of
changing - she has no choice.[3] In attacking the female deities of the
polytheists, the Koran takes the opportunity to malign the female sex
further.
4.1 17. They invoke in His stead only females; they pray to none else than
Satan, a rebel.
53.21-22. Are yours the males and His the females? That indeed were an
unfair division!
53.27. Lo! it is those who disbelieve in the Hereafter who name the angels
with the names of females.
Other verses from the Koran also seem of a misogynist tendency.
2.228. Women who are divorced shall wait, keeping themselves apart, three
(monthly) courses. And it is not lawful for them that they should conceal
that which Allah hath created in their wombs if they are believers in Allah
and the Last Day. And their husbands would do better to take them back in
that case if they desire a reconciliation. And they (women) have rights
similar to those (of men) over them in kindness, and men are a degree above
them. Allah is Mighty, Wise.
2.282. But if he who oweth the debt is of low understanding, or weak or
unable himself to dictate, then let the guardian of his interests dictate in
(terms of) equity. And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses.
And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye
approve as witnesses, so that if the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the
other will remember.
4.11. Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to
the male the equivalent of the portion of two females.
4.34. Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to
excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support
of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which
Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them
and banish them to beds apart; and scourge (beat) them. Then if they obey
you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.
Equally, in numerous hadiths on which are based the Islamic laws, we learn
of the woman's role - to stay at home, to be at the beck and call of man to
obey him (which is a religious duty), and to assure man a tranquil
existence. Here are some examples of these traditions:
The woman who dies and with whom the husband is satisfied will go to
paradise.
A wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it is on the
saddle of a camel.
Hellfire appeared to me in a dream and I noticed that it was above all
peopled with women who had been ungrateful. "Was it toward God that they
were ungrateful?" They had not shown any gratitude toward their husbands for
all they had received from them. Even when all your life you have showered a
woman with your largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you
with one day, saying, "You have never done anything for me."
If anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a woman, a horse.
Never will a people know success if they confide their affairs to a woman.
It will be appropriate to include two quotes from the famous and much
revered philosopher al-Ghazali (1058-1111), whom Professor Montgomery Watt
describes as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad. In his "The Revival Of The
Religious Sciences," Ghazali defines the woman's role: [4]
She should stay at home and get on with her spinning, she should not go out
often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her
neighbours and only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take
care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek
to satisfy him in everything; she must not cheat on him nor extort money
from him; she must not leave her house without his permission and if given
his permission she must leave surreptitiously. She should put on old clothes
and take deserted streets and alleys, avoid markets, and make sure that a
stranger does not hear her voice or recognize her; she must not speak to a
friend of her husband even in need. ... Her sole worry should be her virtue,
her home as well as her prayers and her fast. If a friend of her husband
calls when the latter is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him
in order to safeguard her and her husband's honour. She should accept what
her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment. ... She
should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any
moment.
Such are some of the sayings from the putative golden age of Islamic
feminism. It was claimed that it was the abandonment of the original
teachings of Islam that had led to the present decadence and backwardness of
Muslim societies. But there never was an Islamic utopia. To talk of a golden
age is only to conform and perpetuate the influence of the clergy, the
mullas, and their hateful creed that denies humanity to half the inhabitants
of this globe, and further retards all serious attempts to liberate Muslim
women.
What Rights?
The inequality between men and women [5] in matters of giving testimony or
evidence or being a witness is enshrined in the Koran: sura 2.282 (quoted
above).
How do Muslim apologists justify the above text? Muslim men and women
writers point to the putative psychological differences that exist between
men and women. The Koran (and hence God) in its sublime wisdom knew that
women are sensitive, emotional, sentimental, easily moved, and influenced by
their biological rhythm, lacking judgment. But above all they have a shaky
memory. In other words, women are psychologically inferior. Such are the
dubious arguments used by Muslim intellectuals - male and, astonishingly
enough, female intellectuals like Ahmad Jamal, Ms. Zahya Kaddoura, Ms. Ghada
al-Kharsa, and Ms. Madiha Khamis. As Ghassan Ascha points out, the absurdity
of their arguments are obvious.
By taking the testimony of two beings whose reasoning faculties are faulty
we do not obtain the testimony of one complete person with a perfectly
functioning rational faculty - such is Islamic arithmetic! By this logic, if
the testimony of two women is worth that of one man, then the testimony of
four women must be worth that of two men, in which case we can dispense with
the testimony of the men. But no! In Islam the rule is not to accept the
testimony of women alone in matters to which men theoretically have access.
It is said that the Prophet did not accept the testimony of women in matters
of marriage, divorce, and hudud. Hudud are the punishments set down by
Muhammad in the Koran and the hadith for (1) adultery - stoning to death;
(2) fornication - a hundred stripes; (3) false accusation of adultery
against a married person - eighty stripes; (4) apostasy - death; (5)
drinking wine - eighty stripes; (6) theft - the cutting off of the right
hand; (7) simple robbery on the highway - the loss of hands and feet;
robbery with murder - death, either by the sword or by crucifixion.
On adultery the Koran 24.4 says: "Those that defame honourable women and
cannot produce four witnesses shall be given eighty lashes." Of course,
Muslim jurists will only accept four male witnesses. These witnesses must
declare that they have "seen the parties in the very act of carnal
conjunction." Once an accusation of fornication and adultery has been made,
the accuser himself or herself risks punishment if he or she does not
furnish the necessary legal proofs. Witnesses are in the same situation. If
a man were to break into a woman's dormitory and rape half a dozen women, he
would risk nothing since there would be no male witnesses. Indeed the victim
of a rape would hesitate before going in front of the law, since she would
risk being condemned herself and have little chance of obtaining justice.
"If the woman's words were sufficient in such cases," explains Judge Zharoor
ul Haq of Pakistan, "then no man would be safe." This iniquitous situation
is truly revolting and yet for Muslim law it is a way of avoiding social
scandal concerning the all-important sexual taboo. Women found guilty of
fornication were literally immured, at first; as the Koran 4.15 says: "Shut
them up within their houses till death release them, or God make some way
for them." However this was later canceled and stoning substituted for
adultery and one hundred lashes for fornication. When a man is to be stoned
to death, he is taken to some barren place, where he is stoned first by the
witnesses, then the judge, and then the public. When a woman is stoned, a
hole to receive her is dug as deep as her waist - the Prophet himself seems
to have ordered such procedure. It is lawful for a man to kill his wife and
her lover if he catches them in the very act.
In the case where a man suspects his wife of adultery or denies the
legitimacy of the offspring, his testimony is worth that of four men. Sura
24.6: "If a man accuses his wife but has no witnesses except himself, he
shall swear four times by God that his charge is true, calling down upon
himself the curse of God if he is lying. But if his wife swears four times
by God that his charge is false and calls down His curse upon herself if it
be true, she shall receive no punishment." Appearances to the contrary, this
is not an example of Koranic justice or equality between the sexes. The
woman indeed escapes being stoned to death but she remains rejected and
loses her right to the dowry and her right to maintenance, whatever the
outcome of the trial. A woman does not have the right to charge her husband
in a similar manner. Finally, for a Muslim marriage to be valid there must
be a multiplicity of witnesses. For Muslim jurists, two men form a
multiplicity but not two or three or a thousand women.
In questions of heritage, the Koran tells us that male children should
inherit twice the portion of female children:
4.11-12. A male shall inherit twice as much as a female. If there be more
than two girls, they shall have two-thirds of the inheritance, but if there
be one only, she shall inherit the half. Parents shall inherit a sixth each,
if the deceased have a child; but if he leave no child and his parents be
his heirs, his mother shall have a third. If he have brothers, his mother
shall have a sixth after payment of any legacy he may have bequeathed or any
debt he may have owed.
To justify this inequality, Muslim authors lean heavily on the fact that a
woman receives a dowry and has the right to maintenance from her husband. It
is also true that according to Muslim law the mother is not at all obliged
to provide for her children, and if she does spend money on her children, it
is, to quote Bousquet, "recoverable by her from her husband if he is
returned to a better fortune as in the case of any other charitable person.
Therefore there is no point in the husband and wife sharing in the taking
charge of the household; this weighs upon the husband alone. There is no
longer any financial interest between them." [6]
This latter point referred to by Bousquet simply emphasizes the negative
aspects of a Muslim marriage - that is to say, the total absence of any idea
of "association" between "couples" as in Christianity. As to dowry, it is,
of course, simply a reconfirmation of the man's claims over the woman in
matters of sex and divorce. Furthermore, in reality the woman does not get
to use the dowry for herself. The custom is either to use the dowry to
furnish the house of the newly married couple or for the wife to offer it to
her father. According to the Malekites, the woman can be obliged by law to
use the dowry to furnish the house. Muslim law also gives the guardian the
right to cancel a marriage - even that of a woman of legal age - if he
thinks the dowry is not sufficient. Thus the dowry, instead of being a sign
of her independence, turns out once more to be a symbol of her servitude.
The woman has the right to maintenance but this simply emphasizes her total
dependence on her husband, with all its attendant sense of insecurity.
According to Muslim jurists, the husband is not obliged under Islamic law to
pay for her medical expenses in case of illness. Financial independence of
the woman would of course be the first step in the liberation of Muslim
women and thus it is not surprising that it is seen as a threat to male
dominance. Muslim women are now obliged to take equal responsibility for
looking after their parents. Article 158 of Syrian law states "The child -
male or female - having the necessary means is obliged to take
responsibility for his or her poor parents." The birth of a girl is still
seen as a catastrophe in Islamic societies. The system of inheritance just
adds to her misery and her dependence on the man. If she is an only child
she receives only half the legacy of her father; the other half goes to the
male members of the father's family. If there are two or more daughters,
they inherit two-thirds. This pushes fathers and mothers to prefer male
children to female so that they can leave the entirety of their effects or
possessions to their own descendants. "Yet when a new-born girl is announced
to one of them his countenance darkens and he is filled with gloom" (sura
43.15). The situation is even worse when a woman loses her husband - she
only receives a quarter of the legacy. If the deceased leaves more than one
wife, all the wives are still obliged to share among themselves a quarter or
one-eighth of the legacy.
Muslim jurists [7] are unanimous in their view that men are superior to
women in virtue of their reasoning abilities, their knowledge, and their
supervisory powers. And since it is the man who assumes financial
responsibility for the family, it is argued, it is natural that he should
have total power over the woman. These same jurists, of course, totally
neglect changing social conditions where a woman may contribute her salary
to the upkeep of her family - power over women remains a divine command and
"natural" or "in the nature of things." Muslim thinkers continue to confine
Muslim women to the house - to leave the house is against the will of God
and against the principles of Islam. Confined to their houses, women are
then reproached for not having any experience of the outside world!
According to theologians, [8] the husband has the right to administer
corporal punishment to his wife if she
Refuses to make herself beautiful for him;
Refuses to meet his sexual demands;
Leaves the house without permission or without any legitimate reason
recognized by law; or
Neglects her religious duties.
A hadith attributes the following saying to the Prophet: "Hang up your whip
where your wife can see it." There are a number of other hadiths that
contradict this one. In those, Muhammad explicitly forbids men to beat their
wives - in which case the Prophet himself is contradicting what the Koran,
enshrining divine law, permits.
Case Histories: The Women of Pakistan
In Pakistan in 1977, General Zia al-Haq took over in a military coup
declaring that the process of Islamization was not going fast enough. The
mullas had finally got someone who was prepared to listen to them.
Zia imposed martial law, total press censorship, and began creating a
theocratic state, believing that Pakistan ought to have "the spirit of
Islam." He banned women from athletic contests and even enforced the Muslim
fast during the month of Ramadan at gunpoint. He openly admitted that there
was a contradiction between Islam and democracy. Zia introduced Islamic laws
that discriminated against women. The most notorious of these laws were the
Zina and Hudud Ordinances that called for the Islamic punishments of the
amputation of hands for stealing and stoning to death for married people
found guilty of illicit sex. The term zina included adultery, fornication,
and rape, and even prostitution. Fornication was punished with a maximum of
a hundred lashes administered in public and ten years' imprisonment.
In practice, these laws protect rapists, for a woman who has been raped
often finds herself charged with adultery or fornication. To prove zina,
four Muslim adult males of good repute must be present to testify that
sexual penetration has taken place. Furthermore, in keeping with good
Islamic practice, these laws value the testimony of men over women. The
combined effect of these laws is that it is impossible for a woman to bring
a successful charge of rape against a man; instead, she herself, the victim,
finds herself charged with illicit sexual intercourse, while the rapist goes
free. If the rape results in a pregnancy, this is automatically taken as an
admission that adultery or fornication has taken place with the woman's
consent rather than that rape has occurred.
Here are some sample cases. [9]
In a town in the northern province of Punjab, a woman and her two daughters
were stripped naked, beaten, and gangraped in public, but the police
declined to pursue the case.
A thirteen-year-old girl was kidnapped and raped by a "family friend." When
her father brought a case against the rapist, it was the girl who was put in
prison and charged with zina, illegal sexual intercourse. The father managed
to secure the child's release by bribing the police. The traumatized child
was then severely beaten for disgracing the family honor.
A fifty-year-old widow, Ahmedi Begum, [10] decided to let some rooms in her
house in the city of Lahore to two young veiled women. As she was about to
show them the rooms, the police burst into the courtyard of the house and
arrested the two girls and Ahmedi Begum's nephew, who had simply been
standing there. Later that afternoon, Ahmedi Begum went to the police
station with her son-in-law to inquire about her nephew and the two girls.
The police told Ahmedi they were arresting her too. They confiscated her
jewelry and pushed her into another room. While she was waiting, the police
officers shoved the two girls, naked and bleeding, into the room and then
proceeded to rape them again in front of the widow. When Ahmedi covered her
eyes, the police forced her to watch by pulling her arms to her sides. After
suffering various sexual humiliations, Ahmedi herself was stripped and raped
by one officer after another. They dragged her outside where she was again
beaten. One of the officers forced a policeman's truncheon, covered with
chili paste, into her rectum, rupturing it. Ahmedi screamed in horrible
agony and fainted, only to wake up in prison, charged with zina. Her case
was taken up by a human rights lawyer. She was released on bail after three
months in prison, but was not acquitted until three years later. In the
meantime, her son-in-law divorced her daughter because of his shame.
Was this an isolated case? Unfortunately no. The Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan said in its annual report that one woman is raped every three hours
in Pakistan and one in two rape victims is a juvenile. According to Women's
Action Forum, a woman's rights organization, 72% of all women in police
custody in Pakistan are physically and sexually abused. Furthermore, 75% of
all women in jail are there under charges of zina. Many of these women
remain in jail awaiting trial for years.
In other words, the charge of zina is casually applied by any man who wants
to get rid of his wife, who is immediately arrested, and kept waiting in
prison, sometimes for years. Before the introduction of these laws the total
number of women in prison was 70; the present number is more than 3,000.
Most of these women have been charged under the Zina or Hudud Ordinances.
[11]
The Western press naively believed that the election of Benazir Bhutto as
Pakistan's prime minister in November 1988 would revolutionize women's role
not just in Pakistan, but in the entire Islamic world. Under Islamic law of
course, women cannot be head of an Islamic state, and Pakistan had become an
Islamic republic under the new constitution of 1956. Thus, Benazir Bhutto
had defied the mullas and won. But her government lasted a bare 20 months,
during which period Nawaz Sharif, who was the prime minister briefly in the
early 1990s, is said to have encouraged the mullas in their opposition to
having a woman as the head of an Islamic state. Benazir Bhutto's government
was dismissed on charges of corruption, and her husband imprisoned in 1990.
The lot of the Muslim woman was harsh before Benazir's election, and nothing
has changed. She has pandered to the religious lobby, the mullas, the very
people who insist that a woman cannot hold power in an Islamic state, and
has repeatedly postponed any positive action on the position of women.
Pakistan shows the same grim picture. Pakistan is one of only four countries
in the world where female life expectancy (51 years) is lower than the male
(52 years); the average female life expectancy for all poor countries is 61
years. A large number of Pakistani women die in pregnancy or childbirth, six
for every 1,000 live births. Despite the fact that contraception has never
been banned by orthodox Islam, under Zia the Islamic Ideology Council of
Pakistan declared family planning to be un-Islamic. Various mullas condemned
family planning as a Western conspiracy to emasculate Islam. As a result,
the average fertility rate per woman in Pakistan is 6.9. Pakistan is also
among the world's bottom ten countries for female attendance at primary
schools. Some people put female literacy in the rural areas as low as 2%
(Economist, March 5, 1994). As the Economist put it, "Some of the blame for
all this lies with the attempt of the late President Zia ul Haq to create an
Islamic republic. ... Zia turned the clock back. A 1984 law of his, for
instance, gives a woman's legal evidence half the weight of a man's"
(Economist, January 13, 1990).
Indeed a large part of the blame lies with the attitudes inculcated by
Islam, which has always seen woman as inferior to man. The birth of a baby
girl is the occasion for mourning. Hundreds of baby girls are abandoned
every year in the gutters and dust bins and on the pavements. An
organization working in Karachi to save these children has calculated that
more than five hundred children are abandoned a year in Karachi alone, and
that 99% of them are girls. [12]
Little did Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, realize how literally true his
words were when he said in a 1944 speech: [13] "No nation can rise to the
height of glory unless your women are side by side with you. We are victims
of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up
within the four walls of the houses as prisoners."
But we do not need to leave with a completely pessimistic picture. Pakistani
women have shown themselves to be very courageous, and more and more are
fighting for their rights with the help of equally brave organizations such
as Women's Action Forum (WAF) and War Against Rape. WAF was formed in 1981
as women came onto the streets to protest against the Hudud Ordinances, and
to demonstrate their solidarity with a couple who had recently been
sentenced to death by stoning for fornication. In 1983, women organized the
first demonstrations against martial law.
Notes
Ghassan Ascha, Du Statut Inferieur de la Femme en Islam (Paris: 1989) p. 11.
Ibid., pp. 23f.
Ibid., pp. 29f.
Ibid., p. 41.
Ascha, op. cit., pp. 63f.
G. H. Bousquet, L'Ethique sexuelle de L'Islam (Paris: 1966) vol. 1, p. 120.
Ascha, op. cit., p. 89.
Ibid., pp. 108.
Kurt Schork, "Pakistan's Women in Despair," Guardian Weekly, September 23,
1990.
Jan Goodwin, Price of Honor (Boston: 1994) p. 49-50.
Schork, op. cit.
Goodwin, op. cit., p. 64.
R. Ahmed, ed., Sayings of Quaid-i-Azam (Jinnah) (Karachi: 1986) p. 98.
Excerpted from Why I Am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq (Prometheus Books, 1995).
.
Islam's Shame
Lifting the Veil of Tears
by Ibn Warraq
Islam is deeply anti-woman. Islam is the fundamental cause of the repression
of Muslim women and remains the major obstacle to the evolution of their
position.[1] Islam has always considered women as creatures inferior in
every way: physically, intellectually, and morally. This negative vision is
divinely sanctioned in the Koran, corroborated by the hadiths, and
perpetuated by the commentaries of the theologians, the custodians of Muslim
dogma and ignorance.
Far better for these intellectuals to abandon the religious argument, to
reject these sacred texts, and have recourse to reason alone. They should
turn instead to human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(adopted on December 10, 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations
in Paris and ratified by most Muslim countries) at no point has recourse to
a religious argument. These rights are based on natural rights, which any
adult human being capable of choice has. They are rights that human beings
have simply because they are human beings. Human reason or rationality is
the ultimate arbiter of rights - human rights, the rights of women.
Unfortunately, in practice, in Muslim countries one cannot simply leave the
theologians with their narrow, bigoted world view to themselves. One cannot
ignore the ulama, those learned doctors of Muslim law who by their fatwas or
decisions in questions touching private or public matters of importance
regulate the life of the Muslim community. They still exercise considerable
powers of approving or forbidding certain actions. Why the continuing
influence of the mullas?
The Koran remains for all Muslims, not just "fundamentalists," the uncreated
word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places; its ideas are
absolutely true and beyond all criticism. To question it is to question the
very word of God, and hence blasphemous. A Muslim's duty is to believe it
and obey its divine commands.
Several other factors contribute to the continuing influence of the ulama.
Any religion that requires total obedience without thought is not likely to
produce people capable of critical thought, people capable of free and
independent thought. Such a situation is favorable to the development of a
powerful "clergy" and is clearly responsible for the intellectual, cultural,
and economic stagnation of several centuries. Illiteracy remains high in
Muslim countries. Historically, as there never was any separation of state
and religion, any criticism of one was seen as a criticism of the other.
Inevitably, when many Muslim countries won independence after the Second
World War, Islam was unfortunately linked with nationalism, which meant that
any criticism of Islam was seen as a betrayal of the newly independent
country - an unpatriotic act, an encouragement to colonialism and
imperialism. No Muslim country has developed a stable democracy; Muslims are
being subjected to every kind of repression possible. Under these conditions
healthy criticism of society is not possible, because critical thought and
liberty go together.
The above factors explain why Islam in general and the position of women in
particular are never criticized, discussed, or subjected to deep scientific
or skeptical analysis. All innovations are discouraged in Islam - every
problem is seen as a religious problem rather than a social or economic one.
Profoundly Anti-Woman
Islam took the legend of Adam and Eve [2] from the Old Testament and adapted
it in its own fashion. The creation of mankind from one person is mentioned
in the following suras:
4.1. 0 Mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord who created you from a
single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread
abroad a multiple of men and women.
39.6. He created you from one being, then from that (being) He made its
mate.
7.189. He it is who did create you from a single soul and therefrom did make
his mate that he might take rest in her.
From these slender sources Muslim theologians have concluded that man was
the original creation - womankind was created secondarily for the pleasure
and repose of man. The legend was further developed to reinforce the
supposed inferiority of women. Finally, the legend was given a sacred
character so that to criticize it was to criticize the very words of God,
which were immutable and absolute. Here is how Muhammad describes women in
general: "Be friendly to women for womankind was created from a rib, but the
bent part of the rib, high up, if you try to straighten it you will break
it; if you do nothing, she will continue to be bent."
God punishes Adam and Eve for disobeying his orders. But there is nothing in
the verses to show that it was Eve (as in the Old Testament) who led Adam
astray. And yet Muslim exegetists and jurists have created the myth of Eve
the temptress that has since become an integral part of Muslim tradition.
Muhammad himself is reputed to have said: "If it had not been for Eve, no
woman would have been unfaithful to her husband."
The Islamic tradition also attributes guile and deceit to women and draws
its support from the Koran. Modern Muslim commentators interpret certain
verses to show that guile, deceit, and treachery are intrinsic to a woman's
nature. Not only is she unwilling to change, she is by nature incapable of
changing - she has no choice.[3] In attacking the female deities of the
polytheists, the Koran takes the opportunity to malign the female sex
further.
4.1 17. They invoke in His stead only females; they pray to none else than
Satan, a rebel.
53.21-22. Are yours the males and His the females? That indeed were an
unfair division!
53.27. Lo! it is those who disbelieve in the Hereafter who name the angels
with the names of females.
Other verses from the Koran also seem of a misogynist tendency.
2.228. Women who are divorced shall wait, keeping themselves apart, three
(monthly) courses. And it is not lawful for them that they should conceal
that which Allah hath created in their wombs if they are believers in Allah
and the Last Day. And their husbands would do better to take them back in
that case if they desire a reconciliation. And they (women) have rights
similar to those (of men) over them in kindness, and men are a degree above
them. Allah is Mighty, Wise.
2.282. But if he who oweth the debt is of low understanding, or weak or
unable himself to dictate, then let the guardian of his interests dictate in
(terms of) equity. And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses.
And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye
approve as witnesses, so that if the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the
other will remember.
4.11. Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to
the male the equivalent of the portion of two females.
4.34. Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to
excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support
of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which
Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them
and banish them to beds apart; and scourge (beat) them. Then if they obey
you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.
Equally, in numerous hadiths on which are based the Islamic laws, we learn
of the woman's role - to stay at home, to be at the beck and call of man to
obey him (which is a religious duty), and to assure man a tranquil
existence. Here are some examples of these traditions:
The woman who dies and with whom the husband is satisfied will go to
paradise.
A wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it is on the
saddle of a camel.
Hellfire appeared to me in a dream and I noticed that it was above all
peopled with women who had been ungrateful. "Was it toward God that they
were ungrateful?" They had not shown any gratitude toward their husbands for
all they had received from them. Even when all your life you have showered a
woman with your largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you
with one day, saying, "You have never done anything for me."
If anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a woman, a horse.
Never will a people know success if they confide their affairs to a woman.
It will be appropriate to include two quotes from the famous and much
revered philosopher al-Ghazali (1058-1111), whom Professor Montgomery Watt
describes as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad. In his "The Revival Of The
Religious Sciences," Ghazali defines the woman's role: [4]
She should stay at home and get on with her spinning, she should not go out
often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her
neighbours and only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take
care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek
to satisfy him in everything; she must not cheat on him nor extort money
from him; she must not leave her house without his permission and if given
his permission she must leave surreptitiously. She should put on old clothes
and take deserted streets and alleys, avoid markets, and make sure that a
stranger does not hear her voice or recognize her; she must not speak to a
friend of her husband even in need. ... Her sole worry should be her virtue,
her home as well as her prayers and her fast. If a friend of her husband
calls when the latter is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him
in order to safeguard her and her husband's honour. She should accept what
her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment. ... She
should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any
moment.
Such are some of the sayings from the putative golden age of Islamic
feminism. It was claimed that it was the abandonment of the original
teachings of Islam that had led to the present decadence and backwardness of
Muslim societies. But there never was an Islamic utopia. To talk of a golden
age is only to conform and perpetuate the influence of the clergy, the
mullas, and their hateful creed that denies humanity to half the inhabitants
of this globe, and further retards all serious attempts to liberate Muslim
women.
What Rights?
The inequality between men and women [5] in matters of giving testimony or
evidence or being a witness is enshrined in the Koran: sura 2.282 (quoted
above).
How do Muslim apologists justify the above text? Muslim men and women
writers point to the putative psychological differences that exist between
men and women. The Koran (and hence God) in its sublime wisdom knew that
women are sensitive, emotional, sentimental, easily moved, and influenced by
their biological rhythm, lacking judgment. But above all they have a shaky
memory. In other words, women are psychologically inferior. Such are the
dubious arguments used by Muslim intellectuals - male and, astonishingly
enough, female intellectuals like Ahmad Jamal, Ms. Zahya Kaddoura, Ms. Ghada
al-Kharsa, and Ms. Madiha Khamis. As Ghassan Ascha points out, the absurdity
of their arguments are obvious.
By taking the testimony of two beings whose reasoning faculties are faulty
we do not obtain the testimony of one complete person with a perfectly
functioning rational faculty - such is Islamic arithmetic! By this logic, if
the testimony of two women is worth that of one man, then the testimony of
four women must be worth that of two men, in which case we can dispense with
the testimony of the men. But no! In Islam the rule is not to accept the
testimony of women alone in matters to which men theoretically have access.
It is said that the Prophet did not accept the testimony of women in matters
of marriage, divorce, and hudud. Hudud are the punishments set down by
Muhammad in the Koran and the hadith for (1) adultery - stoning to death;
(2) fornication - a hundred stripes; (3) false accusation of adultery
against a married person - eighty stripes; (4) apostasy - death; (5)
drinking wine - eighty stripes; (6) theft - the cutting off of the right
hand; (7) simple robbery on the highway - the loss of hands and feet;
robbery with murder - death, either by the sword or by crucifixion.
On adultery the Koran 24.4 says: "Those that defame honourable women and
cannot produce four witnesses shall be given eighty lashes." Of course,
Muslim jurists will only accept four male witnesses. These witnesses must
declare that they have "seen the parties in the very act of carnal
conjunction." Once an accusation of fornication and adultery has been made,
the accuser himself or herself risks punishment if he or she does not
furnish the necessary legal proofs. Witnesses are in the same situation. If
a man were to break into a woman's dormitory and rape half a dozen women, he
would risk nothing since there would be no male witnesses. Indeed the victim
of a rape would hesitate before going in front of the law, since she would
risk being condemned herself and have little chance of obtaining justice.
"If the woman's words were sufficient in such cases," explains Judge Zharoor
ul Haq of Pakistan, "then no man would be safe." This iniquitous situation
is truly revolting and yet for Muslim law it is a way of avoiding social
scandal concerning the all-important sexual taboo. Women found guilty of
fornication were literally immured, at first; as the Koran 4.15 says: "Shut
them up within their houses till death release them, or God make some way
for them." However this was later canceled and stoning substituted for
adultery and one hundred lashes for fornication. When a man is to be stoned
to death, he is taken to some barren place, where he is stoned first by the
witnesses, then the judge, and then the public. When a woman is stoned, a
hole to receive her is dug as deep as her waist - the Prophet himself seems
to have ordered such procedure. It is lawful for a man to kill his wife and
her lover if he catches them in the very act.
In the case where a man suspects his wife of adultery or denies the
legitimacy of the offspring, his testimony is worth that of four men. Sura
24.6: "If a man accuses his wife but has no witnesses except himself, he
shall swear four times by God that his charge is true, calling down upon
himself the curse of God if he is lying. But if his wife swears four times
by God that his charge is false and calls down His curse upon herself if it
be true, she shall receive no punishment." Appearances to the contrary, this
is not an example of Koranic justice or equality between the sexes. The
woman indeed escapes being stoned to death but she remains rejected and
loses her right to the dowry and her right to maintenance, whatever the
outcome of the trial. A woman does not have the right to charge her husband
in a similar manner. Finally, for a Muslim marriage to be valid there must
be a multiplicity of witnesses. For Muslim jurists, two men form a
multiplicity but not two or three or a thousand women.
In questions of heritage, the Koran tells us that male children should
inherit twice the portion of female children:
4.11-12. A male shall inherit twice as much as a female. If there be more
than two girls, they shall have two-thirds of the inheritance, but if there
be one only, she shall inherit the half. Parents shall inherit a sixth each,
if the deceased have a child; but if he leave no child and his parents be
his heirs, his mother shall have a third. If he have brothers, his mother
shall have a sixth after payment of any legacy he may have bequeathed or any
debt he may have owed.
To justify this inequality, Muslim authors lean heavily on the fact that a
woman receives a dowry and has the right to maintenance from her husband. It
is also true that according to Muslim law the mother is not at all obliged
to provide for her children, and if she does spend money on her children, it
is, to quote Bousquet, "recoverable by her from her husband if he is
returned to a better fortune as in the case of any other charitable person.
Therefore there is no point in the husband and wife sharing in the taking
charge of the household; this weighs upon the husband alone. There is no
longer any financial interest between them." [6]
This latter point referred to by Bousquet simply emphasizes the negative
aspects of a Muslim marriage - that is to say, the total absence of any idea
of "association" between "couples" as in Christianity. As to dowry, it is,
of course, simply a reconfirmation of the man's claims over the woman in
matters of sex and divorce. Furthermore, in reality the woman does not get
to use the dowry for herself. The custom is either to use the dowry to
furnish the house of the newly married couple or for the wife to offer it to
her father. According to the Malekites, the woman can be obliged by law to
use the dowry to furnish the house. Muslim law also gives the guardian the
right to cancel a marriage - even that of a woman of legal age - if he
thinks the dowry is not sufficient. Thus the dowry, instead of being a sign
of her independence, turns out once more to be a symbol of her servitude.
The woman has the right to maintenance but this simply emphasizes her total
dependence on her husband, with all its attendant sense of insecurity.
According to Muslim jurists, the husband is not obliged under Islamic law to
pay for her medical expenses in case of illness. Financial independence of
the woman would of course be the first step in the liberation of Muslim
women and thus it is not surprising that it is seen as a threat to male
dominance. Muslim women are now obliged to take equal responsibility for
looking after their parents. Article 158 of Syrian law states "The child -
male or female - having the necessary means is obliged to take
responsibility for his or her poor parents." The birth of a girl is still
seen as a catastrophe in Islamic societies. The system of inheritance just
adds to her misery and her dependence on the man. If she is an only child
she receives only half the legacy of her father; the other half goes to the
male members of the father's family. If there are two or more daughters,
they inherit two-thirds. This pushes fathers and mothers to prefer male
children to female so that they can leave the entirety of their effects or
possessions to their own descendants. "Yet when a new-born girl is announced
to one of them his countenance darkens and he is filled with gloom" (sura
43.15). The situation is even worse when a woman loses her husband - she
only receives a quarter of the legacy. If the deceased leaves more than one
wife, all the wives are still obliged to share among themselves a quarter or
one-eighth of the legacy.
Muslim jurists [7] are unanimous in their view that men are superior to
women in virtue of their reasoning abilities, their knowledge, and their
supervisory powers. And since it is the man who assumes financial
responsibility for the family, it is argued, it is natural that he should
have total power over the woman. These same jurists, of course, totally
neglect changing social conditions where a woman may contribute her salary
to the upkeep of her family - power over women remains a divine command and
"natural" or "in the nature of things." Muslim thinkers continue to confine
Muslim women to the house - to leave the house is against the will of God
and against the principles of Islam. Confined to their houses, women are
then reproached for not having any experience of the outside world!
According to theologians, [8] the husband has the right to administer
corporal punishment to his wife if she
Refuses to make herself beautiful for him;
Refuses to meet his sexual demands;
Leaves the house without permission or without any legitimate reason
recognized by law; or
Neglects her religious duties.
A hadith attributes the following saying to the Prophet: "Hang up your whip
where your wife can see it." There are a number of other hadiths that
contradict this one. In those, Muhammad explicitly forbids men to beat their
wives - in which case the Prophet himself is contradicting what the Koran,
enshrining divine law, permits.
Case Histories: The Women of Pakistan
In Pakistan in 1977, General Zia al-Haq took over in a military coup
declaring that the process of Islamization was not going fast enough. The
mullas had finally got someone who was prepared to listen to them.
Zia imposed martial law, total press censorship, and began creating a
theocratic state, believing that Pakistan ought to have "the spirit of
Islam." He banned women from athletic contests and even enforced the Muslim
fast during the month of Ramadan at gunpoint. He openly admitted that there
was a contradiction between Islam and democracy. Zia introduced Islamic laws
that discriminated against women. The most notorious of these laws were the
Zina and Hudud Ordinances that called for the Islamic punishments of the
amputation of hands for stealing and stoning to death for married people
found guilty of illicit sex. The term zina included adultery, fornication,
and rape, and even prostitution. Fornication was punished with a maximum of
a hundred lashes administered in public and ten years' imprisonment.
In practice, these laws protect rapists, for a woman who has been raped
often finds herself charged with adultery or fornication. To prove zina,
four Muslim adult males of good repute must be present to testify that
sexual penetration has taken place. Furthermore, in keeping with good
Islamic practice, these laws value the testimony of men over women. The
combined effect of these laws is that it is impossible for a woman to bring
a successful charge of rape against a man; instead, she herself, the victim,
finds herself charged with illicit sexual intercourse, while the rapist goes
free. If the rape results in a pregnancy, this is automatically taken as an
admission that adultery or fornication has taken place with the woman's
consent rather than that rape has occurred.
Here are some sample cases. [9]
In a town in the northern province of Punjab, a woman and her two daughters
were stripped naked, beaten, and gangraped in public, but the police
declined to pursue the case.
A thirteen-year-old girl was kidnapped and raped by a "family friend." When
her father brought a case against the rapist, it was the girl who was put in
prison and charged with zina, illegal sexual intercourse. The father managed
to secure the child's release by bribing the police. The traumatized child
was then severely beaten for disgracing the family honor.
A fifty-year-old widow, Ahmedi Begum, [10] decided to let some rooms in her
house in the city of Lahore to two young veiled women. As she was about to
show them the rooms, the police burst into the courtyard of the house and
arrested the two girls and Ahmedi Begum's nephew, who had simply been
standing there. Later that afternoon, Ahmedi Begum went to the police
station with her son-in-law to inquire about her nephew and the two girls.
The police told Ahmedi they were arresting her too. They confiscated her
jewelry and pushed her into another room. While she was waiting, the police
officers shoved the two girls, naked and bleeding, into the room and then
proceeded to rape them again in front of the widow. When Ahmedi covered her
eyes, the police forced her to watch by pulling her arms to her sides. After
suffering various sexual humiliations, Ahmedi herself was stripped and raped
by one officer after another. They dragged her outside where she was again
beaten. One of the officers forced a policeman's truncheon, covered with
chili paste, into her rectum, rupturing it. Ahmedi screamed in horrible
agony and fainted, only to wake up in prison, charged with zina. Her case
was taken up by a human rights lawyer. She was released on bail after three
months in prison, but was not acquitted until three years later. In the
meantime, her son-in-law divorced her daughter because of his shame.
Was this an isolated case? Unfortunately no. The Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan said in its annual report that one woman is raped every three hours
in Pakistan and one in two rape victims is a juvenile. According to Women's
Action Forum, a woman's rights organization, 72% of all women in police
custody in Pakistan are physically and sexually abused. Furthermore, 75% of
all women in jail are there under charges of zina. Many of these women
remain in jail awaiting trial for years.
In other words, the charge of zina is casually applied by any man who wants
to get rid of his wife, who is immediately arrested, and kept waiting in
prison, sometimes for years. Before the introduction of these laws the total
number of women in prison was 70; the present number is more than 3,000.
Most of these women have been charged under the Zina or Hudud Ordinances.
[11]
The Western press naively believed that the election of Benazir Bhutto as
Pakistan's prime minister in November 1988 would revolutionize women's role
not just in Pakistan, but in the entire Islamic world. Under Islamic law of
course, women cannot be head of an Islamic state, and Pakistan had become an
Islamic republic under the new constitution of 1956. Thus, Benazir Bhutto
had defied the mullas and won. But her government lasted a bare 20 months,
during which period Nawaz Sharif, who was the prime minister briefly in the
early 1990s, is said to have encouraged the mullas in their opposition to
having a woman as the head of an Islamic state. Benazir Bhutto's government
was dismissed on charges of corruption, and her husband imprisoned in 1990.
The lot of the Muslim woman was harsh before Benazir's election, and nothing
has changed. She has pandered to the religious lobby, the mullas, the very
people who insist that a woman cannot hold power in an Islamic state, and
has repeatedly postponed any positive action on the position of women.
Pakistan shows the same grim picture. Pakistan is one of only four countries
in the world where female life expectancy (51 years) is lower than the male
(52 years); the average female life expectancy for all poor countries is 61
years. A large number of Pakistani women die in pregnancy or childbirth, six
for every 1,000 live births. Despite the fact that contraception has never
been banned by orthodox Islam, under Zia the Islamic Ideology Council of
Pakistan declared family planning to be un-Islamic. Various mullas condemned
family planning as a Western conspiracy to emasculate Islam. As a result,
the average fertility rate per woman in Pakistan is 6.9. Pakistan is also
among the world's bottom ten countries for female attendance at primary
schools. Some people put female literacy in the rural areas as low as 2%
(Economist, March 5, 1994). As the Economist put it, "Some of the blame for
all this lies with the attempt of the late President Zia ul Haq to create an
Islamic republic. ... Zia turned the clock back. A 1984 law of his, for
instance, gives a woman's legal evidence half the weight of a man's"
(Economist, January 13, 1990).
Indeed a large part of the blame lies with the attitudes inculcated by
Islam, which has always seen woman as inferior to man. The birth of a baby
girl is the occasion for mourning. Hundreds of baby girls are abandoned
every year in the gutters and dust bins and on the pavements. An
organization working in Karachi to save these children has calculated that
more than five hundred children are abandoned a year in Karachi alone, and
that 99% of them are girls. [12]
Little did Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, realize how literally true his
words were when he said in a 1944 speech: [13] "No nation can rise to the
height of glory unless your women are side by side with you. We are victims
of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up
within the four walls of the houses as prisoners."
But we do not need to leave with a completely pessimistic picture. Pakistani
women have shown themselves to be very courageous, and more and more are
fighting for their rights with the help of equally brave organizations such
as Women's Action Forum (WAF) and War Against Rape. WAF was formed in 1981
as women came onto the streets to protest against the Hudud Ordinances, and
to demonstrate their solidarity with a couple who had recently been
sentenced to death by stoning for fornication. In 1983, women organized the
first demonstrations against martial law.
Notes
Ghassan Ascha, Du Statut Inferieur de la Femme en Islam (Paris: 1989) p. 11.
Ibid., pp. 23f.
Ibid., pp. 29f.
Ibid., p. 41.
Ascha, op. cit., pp. 63f.
G. H. Bousquet, L'Ethique sexuelle de L'Islam (Paris: 1966) vol. 1, p. 120.
Ascha, op. cit., p. 89.
Ibid., pp. 108.
Kurt Schork, "Pakistan's Women in Despair," Guardian Weekly, September 23,
1990.
Jan Goodwin, Price of Honor (Boston: 1994) p. 49-50.
Schork, op. cit.
Goodwin, op. cit., p. 64.
R. Ahmed, ed., Sayings of Quaid-i-Azam (Jinnah) (Karachi: 1986) p. 98.
Excerpted from Why I Am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq (Prometheus Books, 1995).
.