1 ISLAM and the CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSE on COLLECTIVE IDENTITY 1. This Ironical Situation, Imbued with Contradictions, Has Furthe
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Notes 1 ISLAM AND THE CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSE ON COLLECTIVE IDENTITY 1. This ironical situation, imbued with contradictions, has further margin alized Muslim communities across the United Kingdom. For instance, the British Sikhs of Punjabi ethnic stock are a separate ethnic/racial category whereas the Punjabi Muslims belonging to the same Punjabi ethnicity are not a separate category. Efforts at providing umbrella legislation to decry all sorts of discrimination have not been successful despite the sympathetic concern of prominent bodies like the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) and some solitary parliamen tary voices. Based on a personal interview with the Chairman of CRE in London, March 1996. 2. For instance, see Aziz al-Azmeh, /slams and Modernities, London, 1994. However, such a view, though apparently quite powerful and very 'dangerous' from an orthodox Muslim viewpoint, still remains unsub stantiated. It may be the agenda for a rigorous intellectual dialogue in the twenty-first century, but still appears to be too generalist. No single community, however minuscule it may be, like the Parsis or the Jews, could be characterized as a monolithic entity, so that expecting Islam to build an all-pervasive and uniformed identity is itself an unrealistic reading of Islamic history. 3. For many Western authors and certain Muslim scholars like Maulana Maududi, Islam and the West are poles apart. Half-baked ideas about Islamic specificity in recent decades are either rooted in ignorance or are contrived to suit a narrow agenda for Islamization. Several other Muslim thinkers see a basic coherence in the two traditions without any justification for mutual negation. Similarly, Islam and democracy or the empowerment of various sections of Muslim society including women and minorities do not pose any conflict in redefining Islam. 4. See Javaid Saeed, Islam and Modernization, Westport, 1994; John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? New York, 1993; and M. Youssef Choueiri, Islamic Fundamentalism, London, 1990. 5. For a pertinent perspective, see Albert Hourani, Islam in European Thought, Cambridge, 1993 (reprint); and Michael Gilesenan, Recognizing Islam, London, 1982. 6. Montgomery Watt, The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe, Edinburgh, 1994; also Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, Oxford, 1993; and Maxime Rodinson, Europe and the Mystique of Islam, London, 1988. 7. Gerhard Endress, An Introduction to Islam, trans. by Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh, 1994. 8. Mervyn Hiskett, The Course of Islam in Africa, Edinburgh, 1994. 263 264 Notes 9. Richard Bulliet, Islam: the View from the Edge, New York, 1994. 10. In a postmodern sense, the teleological definition of terms like 'West' or 'Western' pose conceptual problems. While, at present, Muslims are an integral part of Western traditions, Western cultural artefacts have themselves been appropriated by non-Western societies. Like Islam, both Christianity and Judaism have roots in the Near East and, in a historical sense, are by no means 'Western' religions. 11. See Asghar Ali Engineer, The Islamic State, New Delhi, 1994; also, Ishtiaq Ahmed, The Concept of an Islamic State, London, 1987. 12. Engineer, op. cit., p. 137. 13. Ibid., p. 201. 14. Khalid b. Sayeed, Western Dominance and Political Islam: Challenge and Response, Albany, 1995. 15. Ibid., p.19. 16. Ibid., p. 168. 17. For such a critique, see John Ware, 'Put to the Sword: How Saudi Judges Mete Medieval Justice', The Sunday Times, 31 March 1996; also, 'Death of a Princess', Panorama, BBC1, 1 April1996. 18. For more on this, see Deniz Kandiyoti (ed.), Women, Islam and the State, London, 1991. Some recent and quite significant studies, while dealing with the modern phase, prefer to be country-specific, given the vast and diversified areas of the discipline. For instance, see Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, New Haven, 1992. 19. The institutionalization of traditions such as purdah or similar latter day attitudes in Muslim societies, largely canonized on the basis of diversified Quranic injunctions, has resulted in their perpetuation. 'Probably because of the religious associations it took on, it has been harder to discard veiling in Muslim countries than it has been to get rid of it or parallel customs in non-Muslim countries .... What is special about Islam in regard to women is the degree to which matters relating to women's status have either been legislated by the Quran, which believing Muslims regard as the literal word of God as revealed to the Prophet, or by subsequent legislation derived from interpretation of the Quran and the traditional sayings of the Prophet. Thus, innovators in this, as in many other matters, have to deal not merely with some customary belief that may be relatively easily replaced by another, once the newer one becomes more functional, but with the heart of religion, which is the holy law or sharia.' ('Introduction', Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie (eds), Women in the Muslim World, Cambridge, Mass., 1978, p. 25.) 20. For instance, attitudinal changes among rural women who henceforth began imitating the urban petit bourgeoisie (bazaari) in donning the veil for status purposes, while earlier, only women from upper Muslim classes (ashra'af) would observe purdah. Also, some of the urban compatriots of these rural women began to face more segregation and isolation in the towns as their menfolk pursued a busy sedentary life and kept their wives in the domestic sphere largely because of their rural origins. 21. In many former colonies, early feminism demanding better educational Notes 265 facilities and wider participation in the sociopolitical set-up embodied a strong strand in contemporary nationalist movements. See K. Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, London, 1988. 22. One may include the novels by Deputy Nazir Ahmad, satirical poems by Nazir Akbarabadi, or posthumous writings by the ulama from both the Brelvi and Deobandi schools upholding such views, where women's role is strictly domestic. An early religious education imparted by female teachers within the cha'ardiwari is recommended by such schools. In Pakistan, the Jama'at-i Islami, various sections of the Jamiat and individual scholars like Dr Israr Ahmed in their speeches and writ ings, have raised serious objections to co-education and female participation in public life, besides criticizing women professionals. Bahishti Zaiwar (Urdu) a comprehensive book on the role and duties of an Islamic woman by Maulana Ashraf Thanawi, has remained a best seller since its publication in 1926. Similarly, Maulana Maududi's Purdah (Urdu), a critique of feminism, has remained an influential work decrying the mores and norms of Western liberated women, since its publication several years ago. For more on Maududi's views of women, see his Purdah, Lahore, 1972. 23. The best example is Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan sociologist, who through a reinterpretation of the Quran, Hadith and early primary Arabic sources on Islamic thought and history has attempted to present a different picture of the status of women in early Islam. 'Ample histor ical evidence portrays women in the Prophet's Medina raising their heads from slavery and violence to claim their right to join, as equal participants, in the making of their Arab history. Women fled aristo cratic tribal Mecca by the thousands to enter Medina, the Prophet's city in the seventh century, because Islam promised equality and dignity for all, for men and women, masters and servants. Every woman who came to Medina when the Prophet was the political leader of Muslims could gain access to full citizenship, the status of sahabi, Companion of the Prophet. Muslims can take pride in their language that they have the feminine of that word, sahabiyat, women who enjoyed the right to enter into the councils of the Muslim umma, to speak freely to its Prophet leader, to dispute with the men, to fight for their happiness, and to be involved in the management of military and political affairs. The evidence is there in the works of religious history, in the biographical details of sahabiyat by the thousand who built Muslim society side by side with their male counterparts.' See Fatima Mernissi, Women and Islam: an Historical and Theological Enquiry, translated by Mary Jo Lakeland, Oxford, 1992, p. viii. 24. For instance, see F. A. Sabbah, Women in the Muslim Unconscious, New York, 1984. 25. Leila Ahmed brings out this point very convincingly. See Women and Gender in Islam, pp. 36-7. 26. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, New York, 1986, quoted in Women and Gender in Islam, p. 13. 27. Quoted in ibid., p. 29. The Aristotelian views were widely and readily 266 Notes accepted by the peoples in the Near East and West. 28. Mernissi goes to great lengths in deciphering the origin of commonly held but 'false' traditions such as the following: 'Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity'. See Women and Islam, pp. 3 and 49-61. 29. Fazlur Rahman, Islam, London, 1966, p. 5. 30. For an inside view, see Tehmina Durrani, My Feudal Lord, Lahore, 1991; and Jean P. Sasson, Princess, London, 1993. 31. She writes powerfully in her treatise on a representative system constructed within the Islamic ethos. See her Islam and Democracy, London, 1993. 32. For a pertinent work, see Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, Cambridge, 1990. 33. Its publication in London in 1988 resulted in massive demonstrations in the United Kingdom, South Africa and South Asia. It remains banned all over the Muslim world and the author has been in hiding since 1989 when the late Imam Khomeini of Iran issued a death verdict (fatwa) on him for committing blasphemy. The existing blasphemy laws in Britain do not cover an insinuation against Islam or Prophet Muhammad. 34. In fact, his publishers had been warned by Khushwant Singh, the distinguished Indian writer and editorial adviser to Penguin Books India, who had forewarned about the controversial nature of the novel: 'I read the manuscript very carefully and was positive it would cause lot of trouble.' He had found a number of: 'derogatory references to the Prophet and the Qur'an.