veiled4allah

advances for Muslim women

The International Herald Tribune reports on advances for women's rights in the Middle East:

Amid the images of death, destruction and mayhem in Iraq, some piece of good news from the Middle East has gone virtually unnoticed. Women's rights are progressing in many Middle Eastern countries, and numerous small but important victories have been won. Over the past several years, women in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Morocco, Bahrain and Qatar have won political and legal reforms unthinkable a decade ago. While some developments may appear minor to those who take these freedoms for granted, they are revolutionary in conservative Muslim societies. Take Saudi Arabia. In this intensely traditional country that enforces strict gender segregation in all aspects of public life, women were allowed to run, campaign and vote in elections for the board of the Jidda Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the first time last November... ...In neighboring Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, all tiny oil-rich Arab Gulf states, the ruling emirs extended voting rights to women over the past few years. Several women now hold high government offices. In Morocco, Islamists were forced to accept a reformed personal-status code, the Moudawana, which gives women more rights in marriage and divorce, as well as the appointment of 50 women preachers for mosques, schools, hospitals and prisons.

anything is better than this?

The Washington Post reports on why many Somali women have welcomed the new Islamist rulers:

An epidemic of sexual violence during 15 years of lawlessness in Somalia was among the factors that strengthened opposition to this city's notorious warlords, residents said. The Islamic militias who drove them out in months of recent fighting were embraced as keepers of public order, as a force strong enough and pious enough to keep Mogadishu's daughters safe. That helped the militias win the support of Mogadishu's increasingly influential women, who in recent years had joined the job market en masse to support their families in the midst of a collapsing economy. On streets throughout this ruined city, they sold vegetables, plastic jugs of gasoline and khat, a popular, addictive leaf chewed widely here. "Women were doing what men used to do here," said Shariff Osman, 45, dean of the faculty at Mogadishu University. "They were paying the bills." When fighting broke out in January, the airwaves suddenly were full of angry denunciations of the secular warlords and support for the Islamic militias fighting them. Most of the callers were women, said Somalis who monitored the political upheaval as it played out on radio talk shows.

This is the same reason that many Afghan women welcomed the Taliban at first (CBC News, AsiaWeek, NOW). Via P6.

what do Muslim women want?

The New York Times reports on a Gallup poll of Muslim women:

Muslim women do not think they are conditioned to accept second-class status or view themselves as oppressed, according to a survey released Tuesday by The Gallup Organization. According to the poll, conducted in 2005, a strong majority of Muslim women believe they should have the right to vote without influence, work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government. In more than 8,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in eight predominantly Muslim countries, the survey found that many women in the Muslim world did not see sex issues as a priority because other issues were more pressing. When asked what they resented most about their own societies, a majority of Muslim women polled said that a lack of unity among Muslim nations, violent extremism, and political and economic corruption were their main concerns. The hijab, or head scarf, and burqa, the garment covering face and body, seen by some Westerners as tools of oppression, were never mentioned in the women's answers to the open-ended questions, the poll analysts said.

What do Muslim women like about their own countries?

An overwhelming majority of the women polled in each country cited "attachment to moral and spiritual values" as the best aspect of their own societies. In Pakistan, 53 percent of the women polled said attachment to their religious beliefs was their country's most admirable trait. Similarly, in Egypt, 59 percent of the women surveyed cited love of their religion as the best aspect.

The question is: do we want to help Muslim women attain what they aspire to and help them with what they see as problems, or are we going to force our own ideas on them what they should have?

a very different choice

The Washington Post has an interesting article about conservative Saudi women. I expect a lot of peoples' outrage meters just hit maximum.

But the new atmosphere has alarmed conservative women who are suspicious of U.S. interference and warn that changes in their status could destroy the country's Islamic framework. Though no figures are available, conservative, religious women seem to constitute a sizable portion of the country's female population, belying notions that most Saudi women are unhappy with their lot and waiting to be liberated. On the contrary, the black veil and the prohibition against women driving are embraced by many women here as a form of protection and an integral part of their religion... ...Obaidi shows pride in her religion and resists foreign interference, she said, by maintaining her veil, or niqab . "Just because this is closed," she said, tugging at the black material that covered her face, "doesn't mean this is," pointing to her head. Samia Adham, a statistics professor seated beside her, also in a veil, added: "This is a choice. We choose to be ruled by Islam. We will make changes, but within our religion and in our own way."... ...Many Salafi women here, who follow the school of thought that calls for a return to Islam as practiced by the prophet Muhammad and the following two generations, shatter the stereotype of women in black niqab as meek and submissive. Often well educated, articulate and sometimes downright aggressive, they include award-winning scientists, writers and college professors. Khadija Badahdah, a university administrator who holds a doctorate in chemistry from the University of London and wears a veil, said she recently started to grant television interviews because women calling for change were dominating coverage on the airwaves and in newspapers and giving the wrong impression of Saudi women. "They are a minority but they appear to speak for all of us," she said, sitting in her comfortable home in Jiddah on a recent weekend. "This is the beginning of a cultural erosion, and if we don't fight it now, it will continue." The Salafi women have also used lectures and Internet and newspaper campaigns to combat what they view as negative developments. Though they appear to be fighting against women's rights, they say they are actually fighting for the rights granted to women in Islam. Humaydi, the lecturer, says she counsels women to educate themselves for at least half an hour a day about their rights under Islamic law. The problems faced by Saudi women, she said, are not because of Islam, which she calls a perfect religion that honors and values women. The fault lies in its improper implementation. "We were given rights by Islam 1,400 years ago that women in the West only got at the beginning of the 20th century," said Humaydi, a middle-aged college professor. "Muslim women can work, and inherit, and be financially independent."... ...At Jiddah's King Fahd Medical Research Center, a small Casio recorder played Koranic verses in the background as Faten Khorshid peered through a microscope, her niqab falling past her shoulders over her long white lab coat. Khorshid, who received a government grant for cancer research, says that her conservative views have not held her back and that the niqab makes it easier for doctors to concentrate on work instead of one another. "I don't want to be the equal of a man," she added. "In many ways, I am better than him."

If nothing else, this story is a reminder that freedom of choice means that some people will make choices that many may not agree with.

the women of Hamas

The Guardian has an interesting article about the new women MPs from Hamas and their concerns:

Ask Huda Naeem how she intends to use her influence as a newly elected MP for Hamas and she ticks off a list of wrongs done to women in the name of religion. Forced marriage, honour killings, low pay and girls being kept out of school are her priorities for change in the Palestinian parliament. That is when she is not preparing her 13-year-old son to die in the fight against Israel. "A lot of things need to change," she said. "Women in Gaza and the West Bank should be given complete rights. Some women and girls are made to marry someone they don't want to marry. This is not in our religion, it's our tradition. In our religion, a woman has a right to choose. "As a woman and an MP, there are areas I want to concentrate on but that does not mean we have forgotten our struggle for our homeland, and preparing our children to die when the homeland calls for it." Mrs Naeem, a 37-year-old social worker at the Islamic University in Gaza City and a mother of four, is one of six women elected to parliament on the Hamas ticket in the Islamist party's landslide victory last month. They will be sworn in when the new parliament opens today.

If they can achieve these goals, they will have done something worthwhile for ordinary Palestinian women, and I wish them luck in that endeavor. However, it should be kept in mind that this is still Hamas:

Then there is an issue unlike any other. The most controversial of the newly elected Hamas women is Miriam Farhat, known as the "Mother of Martyrs" after losing three sons fighting Israel. Her campaign video included a scene of her bidding a son goodbye before he died killing five people in a Jewish settlement. Mrs Farhat said later that she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice as "shaheeds" - Muslims who die in a holy war. Mrs Naeem, who named her youngest child after a Hamas leader assassinated by Israel, says there is nothing illegitimate about suicide bombers. "[The Israelis] bomb our neighbourhoods with high explosive. What kind of weapons do we have against F16s?" she asked. But would she encourage her own 16-year-old son to die killing Israelis? "Yes, as soon as his homeland calls for it. I am preparing him to be a shaheed," she said.

Earlier, Lenin's Tomb pointed to another woman allied with Hamas:

Janette Khuri, a 62-year-old Christian, became the first woman mayor of a major West Bank municipality when she was elected by a majority of her 15 fellow councillors. Khuri, a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), triumphed over the ruling Fatah faction's candidate Ghazi Hanania when the three Hamas members voted for her.

Lenin comments:

A secular Marxist woman of Christian background? Now, wouldn't you have expected her to be stuffed into a burqa and told to wash the dishes? A thought occurs: perhaps the first thing that Palestinian movements are concerned about, religious or otherwise, is obtaining their freedom from this brutal and suffocating occupation.

In unrelated news, another British newspaper, the Telegraph, profiles Afghanistan's only female warlord. My point in posting this? Just that people don't always fit neatly into the boxes we would like to put them into. Muslim women fully committed to Hamas's aims and tactics can still want to work to improve women's rights in their society. Christian Marxist women may choose to work with Hamas - and Hamas with them. Few groups or people are entirely evil. We can condemn where they go wrong (as I do) and also recognize when they do good things and encourage them to give up on the wrong and work to increase the right.

sisters are doing it for themselves

Asharq al-Awsat reports on Egypt's first hijabi Cabinet minister:

Egypt's cabinet reshuffle brought in only a handful new faces, but for the first time in the history of the country, they included a veiled woman. Aisha Abdul Hadi was appointed labour and immigration minister in the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif that was sworn in on Saturday... ...Abdul Hadi, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party, is a veteran trade unionist who began her career in 1959 as a representative for workers in state-owned pharmaceutical company. She rose through the ranks, becoming vice chairperson of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, a position she held until her appointment to the cabinet.

Wearing a scarf on your head doesn't mean you have to give up your career or your activism

more Muslim women mountain climbers

Following on the earlier story of the Muslim women who climbed Mt. Everest, here's a Palestinian woman mountain climber:

Well-known Palestinian female mountain climber, Suzanne Al-Houby, said on Sunday that she is to arrange a charity program for Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Al-Houby told WAFA, in a phone call, that she is arranging for climbing the Atlas Mountains through a program in Spring for solidarity with Palestinian children. Al Houby, who is originally from Yaffa, is proud to be the first Palestinian woman to climb Mt. Elbrus (5642m.), the highest point of Europe in August 1, 2005, Kilimanjaro (2002), the highest peak in Africa, Mont Blanc in France (2004), Everest Base Camp in Nepal (2003). She told WAFA that she tries to prove to the world that the Palestinian people is the people who loves life and refuses bloodshed. "Through out climbing, I send a message to the world that we are the Palestinians have the will to live in peace and looking for beautiful life and refuses killing and destruction," she told WAFA. Al-Houby, encourages the Arab women to involve in such sport as it proves that through patience you could success. Mt. Elbrus is the highest point of Europe. The Caucasus Main Range is considered to be a border between Europe to the North and Asia to the South in most (but not all) guidebooks and encyclopedias.

Kudos!

Muslim women at the top (of the world)

The Scotsman reports that two Muslim women have climbed Mt. Everest:

Two Iranians yesterday became the first Muslim women to conquer Mount Everest as the early season expedition took advantage of a rare weather window to reach the world's highest summit. Farkhondeh Sadegh, 36, a graphic designer, and Loleh Keshavarz, 26, a dentist, hoisted their country's tricoloured flag on the summit together with six Iranian men at 10:45am local time yesterday. "It's fantastic," Mohammad Hajabolfath, the editor of Iran Mountain Zone, a website for climbers, told The Scotsman. "It is a very big thing for women in Iran. Because of weather conditions, most climbers here expected to hear the Iranian team would be returning unsuccessfully." The 21-strong Iranian team, including seven women, arrived in Nepal in mid-March but their expedition, like many others on Everest, was hampered by treacherous weather. The window of opportunity for a final push had become ever narrower in recent days with the approach of the monsoon season. A huge avalanche earlier this month caused havoc for the team which had been forced lower down the mountain by snowstorms. "We opened the tent to see what had happened but a great deal of snow came into our tent," a gloomy dispatch sent to EverestNews.com recently said. "We are in base camp now and waiting for good weather to climb," the report ended. It is 30 years since Junko Tabai, a diminutive Japanese housewife who weighed just 7½ stone, became the first woman to scale Everest.

Way to go, sisters!

Pakistani women fighter pilots

In Saudi Arabia, women are getting their pilot's licenses. Now, Pakistan will soon have its first female fighter pilots:

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) academy has been all-male for more than 55 years - but now it is going through major change. Women are now allowed to enrol on its aerospace engineering and fighter pilot programmes and are doing rather well. To the great surprise of many men, some of the female recruits will soon start flying jet-engine planes... ...The head of the PAF academy, Air Vice Marshal Inam Ullah Khan, admits they had to take certain cultural sensitivities into account. But he says allowing women to enrol has been a good experience, and some of the female cadets have done better than expected. The academy maintains a degree of segregation between genders. Although women march should-to-shoulder with their male counterparts during early-morning parade, some parts of the training, particularly physical exercises, are carried out separately. "It's quite important that we maintain this level of segregation, mainly because we are a Muslim society," says squadron leader Shazia Ahmed. A psychologist by training, and in charge of the female cadets, she says "in some ways it also gives these girls the much required confidence before they take up the bigger challenges". But there is no compromise on standards - the women must achieve the same levels of performance as the men, or face being dropped from the programme. For the moment it seems the few who have joined the ranks are doing extremely well. And if that continues, when the current batch passes out in a year these cadets will become the first-ever women fighter pilots in Pakistan's history.

a model of activism for Muslim women

IslamOnline has an excellent article about the life of Aisha (also spelled 'A'ishah), one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad (sAas). The article is called "'A'ishah: A Paragon of Islamic Activism" and describes her active involvement in political and community affairs and her fame and prowess as a scholar, as well as her outspokenness and ever-questioning intellect. Not what many people think of as a "typical" Muslim woman, but certainly a role model worth emulating :)

As a student, she rose from an intelligent youth, with a critical and probing mind to a highly effective and successful teacher, scholar and jurist, who held firm and bold views in all of the vital areas of Islamic knowledge such as tafsir, hadith, fiqh, Islamic history, nuances of Arabic language, etc. One of her hallmarks was being courageous and forthright in expressing these views. 'A'ishah's assertiveness, confidence and outspokenness for standing up for what she believed to be true and right explodes the stereotype prevailing even among Muslims today of the "rightful" role for Muslim women - that of being a silent witness prevented by her femininity from participating in the real live of the community. Her unparalleled insight into the daily life of the messenger of Allah as well as the independence of her thought and character brought her life into sharp focus from other personalities of the time... ...'A'ishah was endowed with an extraordinary intelligence that very few had been endowed with. She was not merely a passive student in understanding and learning religion even from the best and noblest of teachers, the Prophet, peace be upon him. Her trademark was her critical, ever-inquisitive and probing mind. There are numerous examples of her further questioning the Prophet's answers. Once when he found out she had followed him in disguise on his trip to the graveyard to pray for the departed companions in the middle of night, the Prophet asked her, "Why did you do this? Did your Devil visit you?" 'A'ishah asked back, " Does every person have a devil following him or her around?" When he replied to the affirmative, she asked, "Are you included in this?" He answered, "Yes. I am included in this; but my Lord has helped me against him. Thanks to this he has become a Muslim (i..e he has surrendered and thus does not command anything but good!)" Another example of her questioning the Prophet minutely was when the Prophet said that following resurrection people will rise up from their graves as Allah had created them and 'A'ishah asked, "Then they will all be naked and they will see one another?" He replied, "The issues confronting them will be far too grave for them to be looking at each other."... ...Another example of the same critical understanding is her response to the so called report that "Three things that invalidate one's prayer are a dog, a donkey and a woman." When 'A'ishah heard this narration, she asked, "how dare you compare us women with dogs and donkeys when I myself did lie down to sleep and the Prophet having woken up from sleep would pray in front of me, and when it was time for him to prostrate he would push my legs gently to the side!" ... ...Thanks to her assertiveness, 'A'ishah always stood up to what she thought was unjust, unethical and false. When she heard that some individuals were finding faults with Abu Bakr after his death, she gathered them all and spoke to them about his achievements as everyone would readily recognize and then asked them plainly which one of his actions they were critical of. None of his detractors had anything to say. She also stood up to Caliphs such as Mu'awiyah and vocally criticized their policies which she though was unjust and therefore un-Islamic. Another example of her forthrightness is her answer to those who forbade women from visiting cemeteries. On her visit to Makkah, when she stopped by the grave of her brother, someone objected to her and asked how come she was visiting his grave when the Prophet had forbidden women to do so, she replied, "The Prophet had forbidden both men and women from visiting graves in the early years of Islam, and then he lifted that prohibition later." In other words, in her sound understanding the lifting of the ban was applicable to both men and women, for there is no evidence to suggest that it was only applicable to men. It was because of her strength of character that she made the Caliph implement the will of Safiyyah, the mother of the faithful, who had stipulated one third of her estate to her Jewish brother. When the Caliph thought it was against the dictum of the Prophet, peace be upon him, 'A'ishah rejected that and obliged him to fulfil the wishes of Safiyyah... ...'A'ishah serves as the best role model for women's activism in Islam for she never was held back from full participation in any aspect of Islamic life even after the death of the Prophet, peace be upon him. During his life she accompanied the Prophet even to the battle fields to perform essential duties... ...'A'ishah's life is especially remarkable when examined with the lenses of contemporary times. Surrounded by current examples of Muslim women around the world not permitted to fully actualize their God-given potentials, 'A'ishah's life in the 6th and 7th century is a beacon to the inherent justice in Islam. She was reared with authentic Islam from her earliest memories and yet she grew up to be a woman who was confident, assertive and an active participant and leader of her society.