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.