Solidarity forever
Pamela Bone points out that ‘if Islam is to be reformed, and the world consequently made safer and happier for all, it is women who will do it…Western men didn’t see last century’s women’s liberation movement as in [their interest]. It had to be driven by women because the status quo advantaged men.’
The Koran seems fairly clear about women’s subordinate status, but then so is the Christian Bible. If Christian women have been able to argue, more or less successfully, that the misogynistic passages in the Bible are merely a reflection of the era in which they were written and have no relevance to today, there should be no reason Muslim women can’t do the same.
She also quotes Maryam Namazie.
“Debating the issue of women’s rights in an Islamic context is a prescription for inaction and passivity, in the face of the oppression of millions of women struggling and resisting in Britain, the Middle East and elsewhere. Anywhere they (Islamists) have power, to be a woman is a crime.” Namazie is of the Left…But in general, she notes, the Left, the traditional defender of human rights, is silent about the oppression of Muslim women. The reasons are that political Islam is seen as anti-imperialist, racism is these days much worse than sexism and minorities are automatically to be supported…Change must come from within, say the good liberals. Strangely, no one said that about South Africa’s apartheid system.
Interesting Pamela Bone should say that, because that’s exactly what Maryam said to me when she interviewed me briefly for her tv show. It was shortly after Ramin Jahanbegloo was let out of prison at the apparent price of giving a tv interview that said he’d been wrong to work for reform of Iran, and especially wrong to attend international conferences and the like. I was therefore worried at the time about the possibility that I could taint people inside places like Iran by the mere fact of my support. I blurted something angsty to that effect, and Maryam retorted, with some heat, that, indeed, ‘ no one said that about South Africa’s apartheid system.’ She said, I think (if I remember correctly), that the whole thing was a shut up device and reformers do indeed want international solidarity and support. So I resolved to cease worrying and do better next time.
‘The Koran seems fairly clear about women’s subordinate status, but then so is the Christian Bible. If Christian women have been able to argue, more or less successfully, that the misogynistic passages in the Bible are merely a reflection of the era in which they were written and have no relevance to today, there should be no reason Muslim women can’t do the same’.
There is one very good reason: central to Islamic teaching is the foundational myth that the Qur’an – which is said to contain timeless, divine, eternal truth – was dictated to Muhammad by Allah through the angel Gabriel. The Qur’an consequently stands outside history and culture. One cannot claim that an era influenced the Qur’an, because in Islam the Qur’an simply embodies divinely revealed truth. Despite the ‘Word of God’ claims regarding the Bible, it is a collection of documents from many different historical periods, and Christianity has never had anything similar to the narrative concerning the divine origin of the Qur’an.
Perhaps. But much of the most egregiously women-hating material is not in fact in the Qur’an proper as (allegedly) dictated to Muhammed, but is rather in the extensive commentaries – which do NOT have the same authoritative status, and which imams do in fact dispute quite vociferously. If I recall correctly (and I may not – this is not my area of expertise), even something so prevalant as strict veiling customs come from later commentaries, not from the Qur’an proper.
More importantly, I think, is that the tradition of rigid adherence to the absolute fixed word of a holy book is itself nothing more than a shallow, obviously self-serving political maneuver. Holy men always claim to have a direct line to the divine in one way or another, because that is the only basis for their power. Their power certainly doesn’t derive from any real benefit to society, as they are almost entirely parasitic. (The kind of holy men who claim that their holy book is perfect and incontrovertible in any detail at the same time as they are interpreting and selectively reading it according to their own prejudices and agendas are generally the most loathsome parasites.)
A five year old is capable of seeing through the flimsy circular reasoning of “This book says that every word in the book is true, so you have to believe it” variety. Insistence on the perfection of a given holy book is not primarily about faith at all: It is a political power grab, and a particularly obvious one at that. And it’s just as much subject to political opposition as any other power grab. Such political opposition is exactly what Bone is talking about in the passage you quote.
Remember, theology may often infuse politics – at least in benighted, backward, third world nations such as the U.S. – but politics ALWAYS infuses theology. Organized religion is a tool of social control – a political institution at heart, and subject to political pressure. I think Bone is right – only women can reform Islam, if it can be reformed at all.
“even something so prevalant as strict veiling customs come from later commentaries, not from the Qur’an proper.”
I think that’s right. (Not my area of expertise either; not that I have one.) I think there’s a Sura that says something like ‘let the woman pull her garments around her when she goes out’ – something vague enough to be endlessly debatable. There are plenty of sane people who say it just meant women should keep a grip on their cloaks when they go out and that was then anyway, and plenty of other people who say it meant the woman should be bandaged like a mummy and draped like a dinner table and shouldn’t go out anyway.
Irshad Manji is working hard to counter the whole business about the Qur’an standing outside history and culture – but it is needless to say uphill work. Good luck to her.
I link this to the earlier posting about the change of mind on FGM. I see this (ever the optimist) as hugely encouraging, because it shows that Islamist thinkers are as capable of adapting the “non-core” materials of their religion to modern realities as Christians have been over the centuries.
As I’ve pointed out before we have to remember that in terms of duration Islam is now about where Christianity was at the time of the Reformation, so it’s interesting to see similar processes beginning to manifest themselves.
Two thoughts:
ONE:
If the Hadiths are worse than the Koran …
But the Koran specifically states that “women are inferior to men & subject to their orders – if (your) women disobey you, deprive them of food, confine them and beat them until they submit.”
TWO:
Edmund said the Koran was “was dictated to Muhammad by Allah through the angel Gabriel.”
Actually, the deranged old pervert made it up as he went along, just like all the other drenged blackmailers who cinstitute religious leaders (with the possible exception of the Gautama)
‘Insistence on the perfection of a given holy book is not primarily about faith at all: It is a political power grab, and a particularly obvious one at that. And it’s just as much subject to political opposition as any other power grab. Such political opposition is exactly what Bone is talking about in the passage you quote’.
Yes and no. It’s a political power grab that requires faith from the followers (Muhammad’s success was based on his ability to convince his fellow countrymen that his book was divinely authored. Their faith supported his political project). It may seem obvious to people like us, but to millions of Muslims it clearly isn’t. I don’t really see how you can claim that this is one form of political power grab that can simply be opposed by other forms of politics. That would assume that Islam is *just* a political system. You can’t critique a religious belief system in purely secular terms, and treat that belief system in purely secular terms, when its followers clearly do not view it in that way. I mean, you can critique it, of course, but Muslims do not see Islam in the way you and I do. They actually *believe* in it.
‘Edmund said the Koran was “was dictated to Muhammad by Allah through the angel Gabriel.”
Actually, the deranged old pervert made it up as he went along, just like all the other drenged blackmailers who cinstitute religious leaders (with the possible exception of the Gautama)’.
I said that this was Islam’s ‘foundational myth’ and ‘one of the most important beliefs in Islam’. I didn’t say the Qur’an actually *was* dictated to Muhammad.
Either you’re reading me in a sloppy manner, or you’re deliberately twisting what I said.
I would also have to say that ‘deranged old pervert’ is a somewhat silly way to describe Muhammad. I have no love for the man and his teachings, but the essentials of Islamic teaching are certainly not ‘deranged’ (here I refer to social teaching, not Islam’s metaphysics), even if they are largely objectionable. And as for ‘pervert’, how so? And what *is* a pervert anyway?
‘Irshad Manji is working hard to counter the whole business about the Qur’an standing outside history and culture – but it is needless to say uphill work. Good luck to her’.
Ophelia, as you know, this is one area we will never agree on. Irshad Manji’s arguments are intellectually poor. The mere fact that she sees value in maintaining some form of Islam, even if it is a ‘liberalised’ version, shows a certain irrationality to her thinking.
No, I’m not misreading what you said, and I’m not reading it in a sloppy manner – please bear with me.
I’m aware that’s what the deluded followers believe, but … as I said, the deluded old child-rapist just made it up as he went along.
Islam’s social teachings?
About as acceptable today as the christian Bible’s.
Assuming, of course, that you can steel yourself to read all of it.
See, incidentally:
http://www.christonthecrapper.com/sacrilege/mbih/
And read right through it – all 12 screens (they’re quite small).
Edmund, I think you may be missing my point about theology and politics. The movements in question – the Christian women Bone cites and the Muslim women she’s talking about – are RELIGIOUS as well as political. They want to preserve their religion, and it is important to them. But they also want it stripped of politically repressive elements – and this too is a matter of faith: These women act from their conviction that their deity is not evil and repressive and full of hate, that Allah does not demand that men abuse women, but rather that men have twisted the word of Allah to say so. Your objection to what I’m saying is based on the notion that the religion and politics are separable, when my very point is that they are not.
To paraphrase Clausewitz, theology is politics by other means. Forget that, and no analysis of religious change can reflect reality. Look at the Protestant Reformation. Look at the past few decades of the American politico-religious landscape. Religion and politics are sometimes (but very rarely) separable for the individual believer, but as components of the body politic they are never truly separated.
Irshad Manji is in the same position as those who want a non-fundamentalist christianity – like the majority of those who really call themselves christian in this country.
She’s a sort of milquetoast-CofE muslim.
Unfortunately, as we now know, this sort of pathetic fence-sitting isn’t going to get you anywhere, the moment the fundies and semi-fundies come crawling out of the woodwork – in whichever culture/religion we are presently discussing.
Edmund, I’m not sure this is an area we will never agree on, because in a sense I already do agree with you. I agree with you on the epistemic aspect, but I also think that for instrumental reasons it makes a lot of sense to prefer liberalized and secularized Islam to the other kind, even if the first kind is epistemically a mess.