a response to both Nomani/Arafa and their detractors

I’m writing the following while waiting for my flight, so expect typos, incoherence, etc. I’m happy to clarify things later on if necessary.

In what follows, I want to discuss some of the problems with Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa’s recent article as well as some problematic reactions and responses to it. Most basically, both Nomani/Arafa and their detractors are displaying and perpetuating a whole bunch of patriarchy in their attitudes towards Muslim women’s bodies and choices. One side says the hijab isn’t required so why wear it, being totally dismissive of the nuance in some women’s choice to wear it; another side says, “you don’t cover your head, you ‘so-called Muslim,’ and so you don’t get to have an opinion on the hijab! We wear it because this is our choice, because we want to respect our bodies, because we want to obey God’s command that we cover.” I think this response to Nomani/Arafa is deeply flawed (arrogant and patriarchal and righteous), as is this other response, coming mostly from men: “Uh… actually, the hijab is mandatory, and it is so per the consensus of the ulama for over 1400 years.” What happens here is that, while some hijabi women have told Nomani that she doesn’t get to opine on the hijab since she doesn’t cover her head herself, they totally ignore the fact that men are constantly talking about the hijab, in support of it, and those men do not wear a head-covering. Why do men get an opinion, then? (I know, I know – a lot of women have spoken critically of this, but I’m speaking of the men who have been talking about it in response to Nomani’s article and not a flinch from the hijabi women who don’t want non-hijabi women to speak.) Or is it that you can have an opinion so long as you say women are required to wear the hijab, because apparently, that’s the only legitimate face of solidarity?

So, I fully support problematizing popular claims–in general but especially when they pertain to women or have some sort of an impact on women’s lives, including the claim that the hijab is required or that its purpose is modesty and all (because early Muslim scholars’ opinions actually don’t see it this way – and remember that the hijab was not allowed to slave women while required of free women. That should make us pause for a second and wonder about modesty and piety, unless we decide that slave women don’t get to have access to the same level of piety and modesty that free women do); I also think that the claim that “we” wear the hijab to resist patriarchy, Islamophobia, capitalism, etc. is totally fair (so long as it’s not “we” but “I” or “some of us”), but then I’m tempted to ask … how do Muslim men show resistance to those same things? Note, then, the gendering of resistance. My point isn’t that resistance can look only certain ways; my point, instead, is that we need space to critique the different displays of resistance, of piety, of any and all things, really, when they carry serious implications—and one person’s telling us that “we wear the hijab to be modest” does have implications, as does the argument that “we wear the hijab to oppose imperialism.” But at the same time, I think that there’s an appropriate time and place for raising these discussions or probelmatizing popular ideas and practices.

Eid Mubarak!!! <3 My Eid was full of twirling!

Dear humanity, Eid mubarak! 🙂 May God accept all of your fasts and other good deeds from Ramadhan, and may we all get to see many, many more Ramadhans and Eids in our lifetimes, aameen. May the suffering and afflictions of all humans, Muslim or non, around the world come to an end, and may nothing but peace, joy, and love be destined for them and us all, aameen. ❤

The Link Between Authority and Knowledge – or: how knowledge is gendered

Nobody believes me when I say authority has everything to do with gender (well, okay, some people do believe me, especially the Muslim feminists – God bless you all!). I’ll write on this–i.e., on how knowledge is gendered, on how the production of knowledge is gendered because of who creates it–in more detail some other time, though I attempted to sketch out the problem with gendering authority in a guest post for The Fatal Feminist’s blog under the title Muslim Women and the Politics of Authority. Or: How to Determine a Woman’s Right to Speak on Islam. But for now just know this: We gender knowledge, we gender the main sources of our knowledge by interpreting them in a very narrowly gendered way (if you ask me, I insist that the sources of Islam aren’t the Qur’an/Sunnah but actually the consensus of the male ‘Ulama), and then we tell especially the feminists: “No, no, you got it all wrong. You don’t know your stuff. Your KNOWLEDGE of Islam is wrong,” denying that our (traditional, agreed-upon) “knowledge” of Islam is gendered to begin with, with women’s attempts to contribute it almost completely dismissed and seldom appreciated and accepted as “real” knowledge; the only time they’re accepted as “real,” “authentic” knowledge is when the women’s contribution/addition reiterates the same patriarchal nonsense the men teach and insist upon. Plenty of examples, but one of my favorites is as follows – watch what happens when a woman tries to interpret the Qur’an – hint: “it’s an interpretation that’s not its [the Qur’an’s] interpretation”! Or the position of a woman is “one of ignorance”! Ugh, patriarchy gives me a headache.

Guest Post: Feminist Ramadans, Feminist Jihads, and Unnecessary Feminist Sacrifices

Quoted from the article below. On the sacrifices of men and the expectations from women.

Beloved readers,

The following is a guest post by The Fatal Feminist, whom we have quoted on this blog before and who everyone should know because she has an amazing blog and she’s an amazing writer – God put even more barakah in her writing and her life, aameen. (She’s on a hiatus with blogging until August, but she needed to share the following.) I’ve learned so much from her ever since I discovered her blog, and she makes for a great companion at conferences and whatnot (and generally for a great friend)! Surely, you all recall my having had a blast last year’s AAR conference primarily because she was there with me ❤

In what follows, she discusses the details of the incident (or anecdote, rather) that inspired one of my recent blog posts, the one where I lamented our (Muslims’) selective allure towards justice and attempted to remind us all that, shockingly enough, much, if not all, of what women face in the mosques is injustice, and we need to strive to fix that.

I love the way TFF has written the piece below. It’s as if reading someone’s diary, and, despite the daunting subject, it’s very soothing to the ears. Also very entertaining at times because, as many feminists would know, humor is an important tool for pointing out things people refuse to hear otherwise. I’m still cracking up at her brother’s being identified now at his mosque as Menstrual Man (well, “Period Man,” but he prefers “Menstrual Man” instead).

Enjoy!

All of what follows is TFF’s work.

“Feminist Ramadans, Feminist Jihads, and Unnecessary Feminist Sacrifices”

“You used to force women to pray in the back, behind a wall? You mean like a time-out?” ―children 20 years from now, to the uncles who were on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of Islam

My favorite masjid is so severely sex-segregated that there isn’t merely a barrier for the women; there’s an entirely separate tiny afterthought of a room. But it’s my favorite because it is in the hills, where the stars are the brightest, next to sheds with horses in them (my mother once chastised me for feeding the horses before breaking my own fast during iftar time) and in the midst of wild plants, cats, deer, rabbits, and snakes—and, according to the claims of my brothers, jinn. It is a tangled, untamed place, and my heart always quakes at the glimmering city lights far away. On Ruby Avenue, my imagination is also wild, vibrant, and irrepressible. It was where I went to Quran classes as a child and studied under the imam, but because of the segregation, I rarely attend anymore, since I’m not fond of second-class citizen treatment; though aunties constantly demand to know why, the response from my mother is always that I’m busy with class and work, which they then proceed to make clear is an unacceptable excuse.

Thoughts on the 2014 CAIR Banquet in San Diego

Amusingly patriarchal things happened before, during, and after the CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) banquet in San Diego this past November. Generally speaking–and very, very generally speaking–I can only say that the Muslim community and Muslim leaders have a distressing amount of progress to make in terms of acknowledging women’s voices and concerns. And leadership!

You see, The Fatal Feminist (Nahida) and I decided that since we were already in San Diego anyway, we might as well attend the CAIR banquet that was taking place one of the days we were there. I’ll talk about the AAR experience in another blog post—that was AMAZING! Because hamdallah for Islamic feminism.