Aisyah ponders new gender awareness in Islam

Aisyah ponders new gender awareness in Islam

By Devi M. Asmarani

JAKARTA (JP): Aisyah Hamid Baidlowi is a prime example of a
modern Muslim woman succeeding in her worldly ambitions, yet
never straying from her Islamic roots.

She currently is a Golkar Party legislator in the House of
Representatives, but a significant portion of her career was
spent within the religious milieu. For five years ending last
month she was the head of the Muslimat Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the
woman's body of the country's largest Muslim organization.

Soft-spoken yet filled with spirit, the mother of five and the
grandmother of seven speaks of how one of the world's great
religions gained such a bad reputation in regard to the treatment
of women because of the infiltration of patriarchal cultures.

Aisyah is certainly well versed in Islam. Born on June 6,
1940, in Jombang, East Java, the second of six children, she
hails from one of the country's most influential Muslim families.
Her grandfather, Hasyim Ashari, founded NU, and her father, Wahid
Hasyim, was minister of religious affairs in 1945. Aisyah's older
brother is President Abdurrahman Wahid.

But Aisyah does not take credit for her success. She insists
that it was the power of her mother that made her what she is.

"My mother is the great one, not me," she says modestly. "My
mother encouraged her children to broaden their horizons. We were
given books all the time. Everything was books, and we became
used to reading."

Her mother also fostered democracy among the children from a
very early age by encouraging them to express their opinions.

"Every dinner, we'd have heated debates. And we were also
given the freedom to bring our friends home. It was my mother's
philosophy to treat every guest the best she could."

The memories of their beloved mother serve as the tie that
binds in a family where political aspirations run in different,
and sometimes conflicting, directions. Abdurrahman is the founder
of the National Awakening Party (PKB) while another brother,
Salahuddin Wahid, is a member of the United Believers' Awakening
Party.

When The Jakarta Post interviewed Aisyah last week, she was
tending her husband, who had just suffered a heart attack, at
Harapan Kita Hospital. In between talking to the doctor and
looking after her husband, she shared her views on the new gender
awareness in Islamic teaching in the country. The following is an
excerpt of the interview:

Question: Recently there have been increased efforts in
Indonesia to introduce a new teaching of Islam that is more
gender sensitive. Is this a new thing, and why should there be a
reinterpretation of Islamic teachings on women?

Answer: In countries that are based on Islam, this has been
done. In Indonesia it's a relatively new thing, but it started
around the late 1980s or early 1990s. We observe that Muslim
women are marginalized. But it is not caused by religious
teachings, rather by the influence of local cultures.

Q: In what sense do religious teachings encourage a situation
where women are marginalized?

A: Women are excluded from decision making by the husband, but
she has to bear the implications of the decisions. Now we hear
more and more of domestic violence, which 10 years ago was hardly
heard of because it was considered taboo and shameful for the
women.

But there have been changes in values. Marriages in Muslim
families are no longer determined by the parents. These changes
have been taking place mostly because the level of education has
improved for the women. The women's horizons are broader, and
they are no longer bound by cultural taboos. With higher levels
of education, they are breaking cultural barriers.

Q: So is there a loosening of religious values in educated women
here?

A: They still hold on to Islamic values, even if they have
adopted a modern mind-set. Many women in Jakarta still wear
headscarves and go to religious gatherings. It is from partaking
in religious activities that they realize some things have to be
reexamined.

Q: The new interpretations of women in Islam seem radical
compared to what we were brought up to think. Do you believe
there is a limit to interpreting religious teachings?

A: Yes, there is. Koranic verses that are absolute and universal
must be accepted. For example, if a woman is left by her late
husband, she must go through iddah (a waiting period) before she
can remarry. This, to me, cannot be bargained, because the
purpose is to see whether the woman is carrying the baby of her
late or former husband. Some people have different
interpretations of what should happen during this time. Some do
not allow a woman to leave her house at all, even to go to the
front yard. But other than this extreme interpretation, a woman
still has the chance to have a normal life with her family. She
can still go out to shop, see a doctor or go to a movie if she
needs recreation during the mourning period.

Q: Does this new school of thought face any challenges or
objections from the Islamic community?

A: Yes. Almost all religions are patriarchal in nature. The
teachings of the religion and the holy scripture were mostly
interpreted by men, so many things are still discriminative
against women. One Koranic verse, for example, cites that a man
has a higher position than a woman. This should be seen in the
context of a family. The man cited here is sociological in
nature, meaning he is the one earning the money, and not
biological, as has been interpreted.

Q: So interpretations of religious teachings should be contextual
in nature?

A: Yes. Other Muslim women are also working to reinterpret
Islamic teachings, including Ibu Sinta Nuriyah (President
Abdurrahman's wife). Currently she is reviewing the "yellow book"
(the standard guidebook of religious edicts). This book
stipulates that women must fully obey men in their roles as wife
and daughter. The book specifically discusses the wife's
obligations to her husband, but it does not tell her about her
rights as a woman. So this is what is being revised.

Q: What are some of the examples of the teachings that are being
revised in this book?

A: Sometimes we treat the words kodrat (biological
characteristics) and obligations as the same thing, when they are
two different things. Kodrat are those characteristics particular
to women, like menstruation, pregnancy and breast feeding. Our
society and religious experts have depicted obligation as the
woman's kodrat. Another example, one hadith says that if a wife
refuses her husband's request to have sex she will be condemned
by 40 angels until the next day. There is no exception here, even
if the wife is sick or very tired, for example. It is very
discriminative. The woman is expected to abide by her
obligations, but is not entitled to her rights.

Q: It is ironic that Islam was born as the religion of liberation
and yet it acquired a tainted reputation in the eyes of the world
as a religion that oppresses women. How did this happen?

A: It is local culture that plays the dominant role in the
interpretation of Islamic teachings. Much of Arabic culture,
which is patriarchal, influences the interpretation.

Q: And many modern Arab countries have a poor image regarding
their treatment of women.

A: It's all about culture, not the religion. Many people don't
know the essence of the religion, but claim to be authorities.

Is it possible that the Prophet Muhammad, who says the best
man is one who respects his wife and family, and the Prophet who,
in one verse, says to respect one's mother, would encourage men
to disrespect women?

Q: Do you think this kind of gender-sensitive awareness of
Islamic teachings is widespread or is this is still an exclusive
thing here?

A: I think this is mostly still exclusive, but we can already see
its impact on the public. In the cities, intellectuals have
contributed to and encouraged this movement. In the end of my
leadership of NU Muslimat, I held a forum in which kyais
(Muslim scholars) gathered to discuss societal problems related
to religion. Two months ago at a workshop on violence against
women and polygamy, I proposed to discuss these problems at the
Muslimat NU congress in a bigger forum involving more female
kyais, or what we call nyai. This resulted in recommendations for
the NU's executive body to discuss further.

The issues included female circumcision. In Indonesia this
isn't a problem because it only involves a small incision on the
infant's genital. But in Africa, it can be a problem because it
can actually damage the reproductive organ. Another issue was
nusyuz, or a wife's disobedience, especially regarding conjugal
rights, and whether a woman can be an Imam (leader of communal
prayer). The results of this congress were recommended to be
decreed as fatwa (a binding ruling in religious matters) by NU's
executive body. At the closing of the congress, we were really
touched by the positive response.

Q: How many of NU's members are women?

A: If we look at istiqosah (prayer for divine help) and religious
gatherings held by NU, the percentage of women is greater than
that of men. That is why we demand to be given more strategic
positions in the organization's executive body, because so far
the positions we have are in plenary sessions. We want more
strategic roles so we have more of a say. As one example, the NU
executives wanted all NU followers to become members of the
National Awakening Party. This was a big issue, and personally I
have always tried to keep NU Muslimat members neutral in
politics. But because we had no positions in the executive body
at the time, we weren't included in discussions of this issue. So
it isn't without reason that we demand to be given more of a
role. The fact is that the majority of NU members are women.