Islam, gender and equal rights for women

Islam, gender and equal rights for women

Lily Zakiyah Munir, Director Center for Pesantren and Democracy Studies (CePDeS), Jombang, East Java, lilyzm@hotmail.com

In several conferences on women, the recommendations for promoting gender equality and women's rights almost always mention religion, particularly Islam, as a source of discrimination and oppression against women, as if Islam as a religion hindered the promotion of women's rights.

This world view may and may not be correct. It is correct if Islam is understood from the attitudes and behavior of many Muslims in Muslim societies which, like many societies in the world, are patriarchal. It is not correct if Islam is understood as a set of moral teachings and rituals revealed to bring blessings to the whole universe, including women.

Hence, the issue is Islam versus Muslims. These two phenomena are different, and there is apparently a wide gap between the two. However, one may argue that Islamic teachings may only be understood not from the discourse, but from the way of life adopted by Muslims. It is, therefore, important that we close the gap by educating the public in general and Muslims in particular about equality between women and men and of the rights guaranteed by Islam to women.

There are at least 30 verses in the Koran that support equality between women and men and that refer to women's rights in various aspects of life. Many of these women-friendly Koranic verses are further supported by the Hadith, traditionally attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, which illustrates the Prophet's conducive and empowering behavior toward women.

Among these teachings, to mention only a few, are:

The creation of human beings. Unlike prevalent dogma, which states that women were created from men's ribs or that women were created later than men, thereby indicating women's possible inferiority with regard to men, the Koran tells us that women and men were created from a single source/soul, nafs wahidah. There is no single verse indicating superiority of a certain gender over the other.

Equal rewards for good and bad deeds. A large number of verses explicitly guarantee equal rewards and punishment to women and men for their good and bad deeds. Islam does not believe in "inherited sins" or burdening one's sins on others. The cosmic drama of Adam and Eva, in which both committed a sin in paradise, ended with their being cast out. Both were considered sinful, both repented and God forgave both. There is no concept of women's temptation in the Koran. The temptation came from Satan, not from a woman.

Equal rights and obligation for women and men to pursue knowledge. The Koran clearly assigns both women and men to learn and seek knowledge. The Hadith is very clear about it.

Equal rights and obligation to engage in public activities. Both men and women, as God's vicegerents, are obliged to do good and prevent bad (amar ma'ruf nahi munkar).

If Islam has beautifully granted equality between women and men and has guaranteed a set of women's rights in various aspects of life, then why does women's status in Muslim societies remain low? Why are Muslim women viewed as secondary and have to abide by men's orders? If Islam teaches that both women and men are obliged to perform amar ma'ruf nahi munkar, then why is there segregation, under which women are saddled with domestic responsibilities while men dominate the public domain?

If Islam brings the spirit of freedom and justice and brings blessings to the whole universe, then why are women given a lot of restrictions that hamper their freedom and advancement? Why is justice more accessible to men than to women? There are lots more similar critical questions to raise if we reflect further on gender and women's issues from an Islamic perspective.

There are several reasons for the gap between Islamic teachings and their manifestation among Muslims.

First, such liberating and emancipating messages of the Koran are not easy to understand, let alone be internalized and practiced, particularly when one reads the Koran with an already gender-biased mind-set resulting from the patriarchal, ideological hegemony prevalent in our culture. An anthropological study of a Koranic verse on marital sexuality (Koran, al-Baqarah 187) shows that gender and sexual equality advocated by the verse does not capture the attention of many Muslim men and women, who have been shaped into stratified gender relations. Other studies reveal that patriarchal theological constructions have been widely socialized among Muslims.

Second, religious teachers and preachers, through religious learning forums (majlis ta'lim), electronic and printed media, hardly ever promote these women's rights. The major themes of religious education and teaching by ustadh and ustadha (male and female teachers) are mainly on the superiority of God and the "superiority" of men over women, sustaining the already subjugated position of women.

Little, if any, attention is given to liberating women and empowering them toward equality with men. This is true, not only with male, but even female teachers. A popular and influential woman preacher, who regularly appears on national television and printed media, preaches about women's obligation to be submissive to their husbands (regardless of what their husbands are like) as part of requirements to become devout muslimahs.

She advises women to be forbearing of their husbands' ill- conduct and mistreatment of them; nothing does she say about the right of women to be treated fairly and gently, as advocated by the Prophet Muhammad. If a woman preacher with such considerable influence has no empathy or passion for other women or sympathy for women's suffering, how can we expect her to bring enlightenment to Muslims in general about Islam's noble teachings of gender equality and equity?

Coinciding with the commemoration of the International Day of Human Rights, it is timely that Muslims take time to reflect on these realities. Have we done justice to women? Have we given women the rights they are entitled to and are guaranteed by the Koran? In patriarchal Muslim societies, the Koranic spirit of gender and sexual equality is inevitably challenged. The key to its realization lies in the success of educating Muslim men and women on the authentic meaning of the Koran and its mission to liberate women and oppressed groups.

Attempts to socialize women's rights and gender equality in Islam should be enhanced to reconstruct equitable Muslim societies idealized by the Koran. Much of the challenge lies in the hands of men, as they are the holders of power to reinterpret, reconstruct and socialize liberating and emancipating teachings of the Koran.