STORIES Male Authority in LIVESMuslim WOMEN’S Contexts A publication by Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family STORIES Male Authority in LIVESMuslim WOMEN’S Contexts Women’s Stories, Women’s Lives: Male Authority in Muslim Contexts © Musawah, 2016 Published in Malaysia by: Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.musawah.org Cover design and layout: The views expressed in this publication are those of Musawah and do not necessarily represent the views of any of the participating organizations or funders, including UN Women, the United Nations or any of its affiliated organizations. Any part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means to meet local needs, without permission from Musawah, provided that there is no intention of gaining material profits and that all copies, reproductions, adaptations and translations through mechanical, electrical or electronic means acknowledge Musawah as the source. A copy of any reproduction, adaptation or translation should be sent to Musawah at the address listed on its website. Participants in the Global Life Stories Project These are the women and men who participated in the project, with the names of the institutions that supported the teams in parentheses. All resource persons’ names have been changed to protect their identities. MUSAWAH Pilot Supporters Resource Persons SECRETARIAT Sri Wiyanti Naeema Project Coordinator Deni Rodendo Ganjar Samina Mulki Al-Sharmani Ninuk Pambudi Safia Lailatul Fitri Amina Knowledge Building Lila Working Group BANGLADESH Kulsum Ziba Mir-Hosseini Country Team Noreen Mulki Al-Sharmani (BRAC University) Jana Rumminger Samia Huq EGYPT Sarah Marsso Sohela Naznin Country Team Moushumi Khan (Women and Writing Team Maheen Sultan Memory Forum) Sarah Marsso Sahida Khondaker Maissan Hassan Jana Rumminger Hoda Elsadda Resource Persons Diana Abdelfattah PILOT PROJECT Rafia Omaima Abou-Bakr Indonesia Pilot Team Ranu (Alimat) Ruba Resource Persons Kamala Chandrakirana Sultana Amina Nur Rofiah Nadia Nani Zulminarni CANADA Sara Tati Krisnawati Country Team Dini Anitasari Sabaniah (Canadian Council of Muslim Women) Eman Ahmed Nabeela Sheikh Alia Hogben Sahar Zaidi GAMBIA Maria Johanita NIGERIA Country Team Ratu Dian Hatifah Country Team (GAMCOTRAP) Zaitun Abdullah (Musawah Nigeria, Isa Isatou Touray Wali Empowerment Amie Bojang-Sissoho Resource Persons Initiative, Center for Mary Small Sinta Women and Adolescent Sarjo Camara Nisrina Empowerment) Binta Bah Nurul Maryam Tauhida Ibrahim Isatou Jeng Murti Amina Hanga Asih Mariam Marwa-Abdu Supporters Amalia Asma’u Joda Omar Dibba Nawa Kaddy Touray Nadira Supporters Baai Jaabang Shafira Safinatu Dauda Mani Imam Baba Leigh Habsatu Dahiru Abubacarr Senghore IRAN Amina S. Koki Muhamad Sanuwo Country Team Fatima A. Ibrahim Sabarr Janneh Hoda Mobasseri Aliyu Alhassan Boubacarr Touray Zubainatu Yahaya Resource Persons Ruqayya Tijjani Ibrahim Resource Persons Elham Danjuma Natoma Zahra Fama Nasibah Resource Persons Maimuna Salamatu Penda MALAYSIA Safiya Anta Country Team Hauwa Balarabe Sally (Sisters in Islam) Rashida Adu Rusaslina Idrus Murja Kumba Suri Kempe Zainab Yama Azrine Razak Mariam Wan Zumusni Mustapha UNITED KINGDOM Binta Country Team Kaddy Resource Persons (Muslim Women’s Hawa Nadia Network UK) Mimi Mussurut Zia INDONESIA Mawar Country Team Wati Resource Persons (Alimat) Lola Rafeeqa Aida Milasari Nijat Dini Anitasari Sabaniah Sumera Nur Rofiah Shadiya Athiyatul Ulya Iffatul Umniati Lita Anggraini Table of Contents Preface 7 Acknowledgements 13 Introduction 17 On the Ground: Data, Trends and Stories by Country 27 Bangladesh 28 Women’s Economic Roles Male Guardianship and Anxieties about Gender Roles Women Speak…Ranu’s Life Story Canada 40 Identity Politics Legal Pluralism Spousal Roles and Sexual Relations within Marriage Women Speak…Naeema’s Life Story Egypt 53 Male Authority and Negotiation of Gender Roles Context and Pathways to Empowerment Women Speak…Nadia’s Life Story Gambia 62 Women’s Navigation of Gender Inequalities Women’s Struggle for Access and Rights in the Public Sphere Women Speak…Natoma’s Life Story Indonesia 77 Realities of Spousal Roles Women’s Self-Knowledge and Relationship to Religious Tradition Women Speak…Sinta’s Life Story Iran 91 Difficult Access to Divorce Male Authority and Women’s Autonomy Women Speak… Elham’s Life Story Malaysia 102 Realities of Spousal Roles Multidimensional Impacts of Polygamous Marriages Women Speak…Mimi’s Life Story Nigeria 114 Child Marriage Domestic Violence Women Speak…Rashida’s Life Story United Kingdom 123 Navigating Gender Roles in Minority Communities Transnational Arranged Marriages and Migration Women Speak…Nijat’s Life Story Women’s Experiences: A Transnational Overview 135 The Workings of Qiwamah and Wilayah within Family Laws 138 Child Marriage Economic Roles: Who Provides? Polygamy Domestic Violence and Sexual Relations within Marriage Divorce and Post-divorce Rights Custody and Guardianship of Children after Divorce Cross-Cutting Trends 168 Pathways to Equality 177 Conclusion: Building Egalitarian Marriages 183 Annex 1: Demographic Information 187 Annex 2: Glossary of Key Terms 193 Annex 3: Tools from the Countries 196 Annex 4: On the Ground: Data, Trends and Stories by Country - References 202 Preface Musawah is a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. Launched in 2009, it seeks to link scholarship with activism, bring fresh perspectives on Islamic teachings and contribute constructively to the reform of Muslim family laws and practices. The Global Life Stories Project is a central element in Musawah’s ongoing and multifaceted research programmes aimed at producing new egalitarian knowledge from within Muslim legal tradition. Democratizing the Production of Religious Knowledge In Musawah (‘Equality’ in Arabic), we draw on the latest Muslim reformist thought and feminist scholarship in Islam, and ground our claim to equality and our arguments for reform simultaneously in Islamic and human rights frameworks. We recognize two blind spots in approaches to gender issues in Islam and human rights. On the one hand, many scholars of Islam are unaware of the importance of gender as a category of thought and analysis. On the other hand, many feminists and human rights advocates have little knowledge or appreciation of religious categories of thought and religion-based laws, considering them The quest for gender equality in Muslim contexts involves reclaiming the egalitarian ethos of Islam’s sacred texts and creating a public voice for it. Women’s Stories, Women’s Lives: Male Authority in Muslim Contexts as antithetical to the feminist project. We believe these blind spots need to be addressed and that approaches from Islamic studies, feminism and human rights perspectives, far from mutually opposed, can be mutually reinforcing, particularly in mounting an effective campaign against gender discrimination. The quest for gender equality in Muslim contexts involves reclaiming the egalitarian ethos of Islam’s sacred texts and creating a public voice for it. We also recognize the political difficulties that we inevitably encounter: defenders of entrenched interests will not easily engage with proponents of arguments that they perceive as threatening beliefs and practices fundamental to their own tradition and indeed their interests and raison d’être. But for a feminist project to bring sustainable and meaningful change, it must develop arguments and strategies that can effectively break the tenacious bond between patriarchy and despotic politics that sustains unjust laws and structures, whether they come in a religious or a secular guise. In this sense, Musawah is part of a larger struggle for the democratization of the production of knowledge in Islam and for the authority to interpret its sacred texts. The Musawah Framework for Action We have developed a holistic Framework for Action that integrates Islamic teachings, universal human rights principles, national constitutional guarantees of equality and the lived realities of women and men. We take a critical feminist perspective, but most importantly we work within the tradition of Islamic legal thought and we invoke two of its main distinctions. The first, which underlies the emergence of the various schools of Islamic law and within them a multiplicity of positions and opinions, is between Shari‘ah and fiqh. Shari‘ah (‘the way’) in Muslim belief is God’s will as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. Fiqh (‘understanding’) is Islamic jurisprudence, the process and the methodology for discerning the Shari‘ah and extracting legal rulings (ahkam) from the sacred sources of Islam: the Qur’an and the Sunnah (the practices of the Prophet as contained in ahadith, Traditions). Like any other system of jurisprudence, fiqh is human, temporal and local. The second distinction is between the two main categories of legal rulings: ‘ibadat (ritual/spiritual acts) and mu‘amalat (social/contractual acts). Rulings in the first category, ‘ibadat, regulate relations between God and the believer. Here jurists contend that there is limited scope for rationalization, explanation and change, since such rulings pertain to the spiritual realm and divine mysteries. This is not the case with mu‘amalat, which regulate relations among humans 8 Preface and remain open to rational considerations and social forces, and to which most rulings concerning women and gender relations belong. These distinctions give us the language