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COPYRIGHT AND CITATION CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS THESIS/ DISSERTATION o Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. o NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. o ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. How to cite this thesis Surname, Initial(s). (2012). Title of the thesis or dissertation (Doctoral Thesis / Master’s Dissertation). Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/102000/0002 (Accessed: 22 August 2017). VIEWS OF MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LEADERS ON VIOLENCE AGAINST MARRIED WOMEN by Muhammed Suleman Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree D LITT ET PHIL in the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg Supervisor: Prof Kammila Naidoo Co Supervisor: Prof Yousuf Dadoo October 2019 Acknowledgements In the Name of God, Most Gracious and Most Merciful. Conducting the doctoral thesis was the most challenging endeavour to date in my life, but also the most fruitful. I believe I have grown in leaps and bounds as a result of embarking on this journey. Getting to this point would not have being possible without the sincere support of important people in my life whom I would like to achnowledge. My supervisors, Prof Kammila Naidoo and Prof Yousuf Dadoo. It is hard for me to find words to justify the support both of you have provided me. Thank you for always being there to guide me during this process. I will be eternally grateful to both of you for the encouragement, patience and support you gave me. I sincerely hope I will do justice to the guidance you provided me in how I guide my students in future. Thank you for believing in me. To my parents, Anwar and Farida; thank you for being there and providing me with the emotional support during this rollercoster ride. Thank you for encouraging me when I encountered difficulties and providing me with the strength to overcome many challenges that I faced during this process. Without your support I would not have reached this stage in my career. It is your guidance that has kept me going. I would like to thank the HOD of the Department of Sociology, Prof Pragna Ragunanen for always being a piller of support and for constantly pushing me to complete my doctorate. My brothers Iqbal and Shiraz; thank you for taking my calls when I encountered difficulties, and for encouraging me. The financial assistance of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, in collaboration with the South African Humanities Deans Association towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NIHSS and SAHUDA. I would like to particularly thank Prof Grace Khunou who organised writing and supportive workshops which were useful for my development. Prof Shahana Rasool, thank you for assisting me with funding and guiding me in the intial stages of this research. iii Finally I would like to thank my participants for taking part in this process. I know you were busy. This topic was not easy to cover. Yet you availed the time to take part in this research. I wish all of you the best in all your endeavours. iv Abstract Muslim religious leaders are commonly accused of adopting a conservative interpretation of Islam that guides the way in which they counsel married women on their rights to divorce and how they should address violence in the marital context. They have also been viewed as favouring male- dominant positions, protecting abusive husbands and adopting a reconciliation-at-all-cost approach. Scholars generally argue that women lack representation because the religious bodies which deal with domestic violence are made up predominantly of men. Despite this, and various accusations levelled at religious leaders, their voices are largely absent in academic studies. This thesis sought to interrogate Muslim religious leaders’ views of why domestic violence occurs in the Muslim South African community, why Muslim married women might experience it, what the drivers are, and how the problem could be addressed. The integration of both feminist and family theories was relevant for this study because while patriarchy is important to assess, experience of structural issues as raised by some family theorists is equally crucial. Beyond these frameworks, the use of Bourdieu became important, particularly insofar as habitus and various intersecting fields could be illuminated. The intersecting fields in this study are Islam, family, patriarchy and the economy. These fields influence the amount of resources or capital women have at their disposal. When families place their status ahead of society and command women to respect their husbands unconditionally, they are undermining women’s rights to recourse and emancipation, thus promoting cultural dominance of one group over another. Methodologically, a qualitative research paradigm was chosen as it places emphasis on context and nuanced meanings. This paradigm allowed me to carefully explore the way in which religious leaders think about domestic violence and the rationale behind their approaches. In May 2017, I set out to conduct in-depth semistructured interviews within the Gauteng region, using purposive and snowball sampling. The insider-outsider phenomena which I was alerted to at the proposal stage of my doctorate, debilitated the fieldwork for a while as religious leaders showed a level of distrust towards me. Despite these difficulties, I managed to conduct in-depth interviews with 13 participants, which were analysed utilising thematic analyses. The findings show that religious leaders represent a complex grouping – there is tension in their narratives between ‘conservative thinking’ and ‘more progressive approaches’. While they do provide emotional and economic support and show a favourable attitude towards counselling, some of them are against the implementation of Muslim Personal Law which is ironic, given that they favour women using the protective structures of the state, such as the police. They revealed that they struggle with patriarchal practices, because while they were in favour of women religious leaders becoming v involved, they were against them having a say in awarding women a divorce via the judicial process. In certain senses, while they suggest that they want to eradicate structural, cultural and direct violence, their refusal to transcend their conservative pro-patriarchal thinking results in their engendering a problematic environment that might persist in fostering cultural and structural violence that sustains, rather than ends, violence against married women. vi Table of Contents Page number AFFIDAVIT ...................................................................................................................................... II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................ III ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... V TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................................................... VII CHAPTER ONE ADDRESSING A PAINFUL REALITY.......................................................................................... 1 1.1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH QUESTION .......................................... 1 1.3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY...................................................................................... 11 1.4. OVERVIEW OF STUDY .................................................................................................. 11 1.5. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER TWO AN EXPLORATION OF THE ROLE OF MUSLIM WOMEN IN THE MARITAL HOME 13 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 13 2.2 RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM .................................................................................. 16 2.2.1 Rights to education ................................................................................................ 17 2.2.2 Political rights ........................................................................................................ 22 2.2.3 Economic rights ..................................................................................................... 26 2.3 MARRIAGE IN ISLAM ................................................................................................... 28 2.4 EXPERIENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE................................................................ 37 2.5 DIVORCE IN ISLAM ....................................................................................................... 41 2.6 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 54 CHAPTER THREE UNDERSTANDING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A SELECTIVE FOCUS ON THEORY AND CONCEPTS ...........................................................................................................................