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Muslim Women Reformers in Africa: the Nigeria Case

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Muslim Women Reformers in Africa: the Nigeria Case Afrika Zamani, Nos 18 & 19, 2010–2011, pp. 133–150 © Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa & Association of African Historians, 2013 (ISSN 0850-3079) Muslim Women Reformers in Africa: The Nigeria Case Omobolaji Ololade Olarinmoye* Abstract Islamic reform is a process of examining and advocating changes in accepted practices and doctrines of Islam. Islamic reform in Nigeria has provided women with an opportunity to re-examine Islamic principles that discriminate against them and create a space within which women can pursue issues of empowerment on terms that are acceptable to the principles of Islam as stated in the Qur’an and free from the influence of traditions that are mostly ‘male friendly’. Résumé La réforme islamique est un processus d’examen et de plaidoyer visant à apporter des changements dans les pratiques acceptées et les doctrines de l’Islam. La réforme islamique au Nigéria offre aux femmes l’opportunité de réexaminer les principes islamiques discriminatoires à leur égard et de créer un espace au sein duquel elles pourront réfléchir sur les questions du renforcement de l’autonomie de la femme. Les termes doivent correspondre aux principes de l’Islam tels qu’énoncés dans le Coran et être libres de toute influence des traditions qui sont pour la plupart « favorables aux hommes ». * Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Email: [email protected] 8-Olarinmoye.pmd 133 30/09/2013, 15:28 134 Afrika Zamani, Nos 18 & 19, 2010–2011 Negotiating Identity: Women and Faith in Nigeria Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Muslim world has been in a continuous state of reform. The reform process has been multifaceted in nature involving all groups within the Islamic world, male and female, old and young, Sunni and Shi’a. The place of women within Islamic reform has drawn a lot of attention in recent times because they are generally seen, both within policy circles and the academia, as ‘objects of development’ requiring external intervention to achieve emancipation. Such a view of Muslim women flows from the dominant western view of Islamic reform as a movement that advocates a patriarchal and conservative worldview within which women are accorded no significant rights. The view of women as objects of development has taken on a greater importance, in the light of the recent spread of Islamic reform in Africa in the context of the prevailing under-development of most African states, and has had a significant influence on the nature of development aid to African states. There is therefore a need to understand the nature of women’s engagement with Islamic reform in Africa. What is the nature of women’s engagement with Islam generally? What is the nature of their engagement with the current wave of Islamic reform sweeping through most African states? How do Muslim women see themselves vis-à-vis their male counterparts in the Islamic reform movements? Are there Muslim women reformers? What is the influence of education and secular ideologies in the mode of organization and actions of women Muslim reformers in Africa? What are their goals? What have they achieved? Beyond clarifying the position of women in Islam in recent times, answers to these questions will help to close the gap in the current knowledge of African women’s history more so as the lack of clarity as to the role and nature of Muslim women’s engagement with Islamic reform in Africa can be traced to a much wider gap in the knowledge of women’s history in Africa. This article argues, using Nigeria as a case study, that there are different modes of female engagement with Islam and Islamic reform in Africa. Most draw upon the same core principles of Ijtihad but deploy different strategies to achieve their goals. They are however in agreement that Islam has a place for women and it is not as second-class members of their religion. The article is in five sections. Section one examines the concepts of Islamic reform and Muslim women’s reform. Guided by the theoretical explorations in section one, sections two and three cover the various forms of Muslim reformers and then critiques their guiding philosophies. Section four focuses on the dynamics and elements of Muslim women’s engagement with the Islamic reform project in Nigeria through explorations of the discourse of FOMWAN (Federation of Muslim Women Association of 8-Olarinmoye.pmd 134 30/09/2013, 15:28 Olarinmoye: Muslim Women Reformers in Africa – The Nigeria Case 135 Nigeria) and the BAOBAB project, while section five concludes that they have both succeeded in creating a space for Muslim women within the context of Islam and Islamic reform in Nigeria with such spaces going a long way to influence external development organizations’ engagement with Muslim women in Nigeria. Islamic Reform (Re-awakening) as Empowerment According to Bako (2004), reform is conceived as the … survival strategy adopted by religious and secular systems during their moribund and weak periods, when they are forced to undergo internal and external reconstitution in order to strengthen and consolidate their hold and retain relevance in a fast changing society. Islamic reform is an exercise in group empowerment that involves: retaining the fundamental belief system and practices of the religion concerned; discarding elements deemed unnecessary; borrowing from rival religions and manipulating their weaknesses; rejecting, fighting and withdrawal from dominant systems and undergoing internal renewal and invigoration through the revival of their golden age. For Islamic reformists, reform signifies a revival, a return to sources of Islam to regain a purified vision, long lost in the mire of worldly governments. They argue that reform, a return to the roots and recapturing of both the purity and the vitality of Islam as it was at inception, is necessary because Islam is a total and comprehensive way of life and religion is integral to politics, law, and society. They further argue that the failure of Muslim societies is due to their departure from the straight path of Islam and their following a western secular path, with its materialistic ideologies and values. Islamic reform is a continuous process and is basically a response to changes in the wider society of which the Islamic community is a part and to which the community feels it is necessary to address in order to ensure its survival as a distinct corporate group. The notion of reform is very much anchored in the processes of interpretation as it is in the domain of interpretation and adjustments that Islam is deemed to have become degraded. Thus notions of return are very much anchored in the processes of interpretation and adjustments. The rooting of reform in the domain of interpretation establishes the fundamentally political nature of the process of reform/empowerment. In other words, such anchoring has immediate consequences for power relations in Islamic societies as contenders to political power validate their claims for change in power configuration on ‘new interpretations, puritanical interpretations and adjustments, interpretations that wipe out the centuries of misdeed and hardships and open the way for the future’ (Afshar 1994). 8-Olarinmoye.pmd 135 30/09/2013, 15:28 136 Afrika Zamani, Nos 18 & 19, 2010–2011 Discourse of Muslim Women Reformers It is within the context of Islamic reform as discussed above that Muslim women reformers have operated in recent times. We use the term Muslim women reformers rather than Islamic feminism because Islamic feminism refers to just one of many groups of Muslim women seeking a better status for women within Islam. Muslim women reformers share a set of core values representing and articulating their role within Islam. The key element of such a discourse according to Afshar (1994) involves the ‘claiming of rights from within the framework of Islam’ as Islam displays several aspects that serve their purpose when it comes to articulating the meaning of women’s rights, gender inequality and social justice. For them, what western- style feminism has done is to make women into second-class citizens through an analysis of the female condition based on labour market analysis and the experiences of a minority of affluent middle-class women and the failure of western-style feminism to carve an appropriate, recognized and enumerated space for marriage and motherhood (Afshar 1994:17; Imam 1999). Muslim women reformers argue that Muslim women benefit from a return to the sources of Islam because Islamic dictum bestows complementarity on women as human beings, as partners to men and as mothers and daughters; Islam demands respect for women and offers them opportunities to be learned, educated and trained while at the same time providing an honoured space for them to become mothers, wives and home makers. Furthermore, unlike capitalism and much feminist discourse, Islam recognizes the importance of women’s life cycles as it gives them different roles and responsibilities at different times of their lives and at each and every stage they are honoured and respected for that which they do as seen through the lives of exemplary female role models such as Fatima, the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter and wife to Imam Ali, which clearly show the path that can be honourably followed at each stage. For Muslim women reformers the first feminist of Islam was the prophet Mohammed himself as it was during his prophethood that many reforms concerning the treatment and place of women were instituted. He abolished female infanticide, allowed women to possess and implement full control over their wealth, and guaranteed women the right to inherit property and keep their dowry while ensuring that strict limits were placed on polygamy (Arshad 2008). They thus advance claims that women constitute a special category constructed by Islam and .and.
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