leila ahmed's islam

Leila Ahmed is one of my favourite feminists and authors. I initially discovered her when I became interested in women and Islam, and decided that I wanted to do my MA on that topic. She's written one of the most definitive books on the subject called "Women and Gender in Islam". I borrowed her autobiography from a friend recently ("A Border Passage") and absolutely loved what she wrote on Islam (excerpts are in italics):

Now, after a lifetime of meeting and talking with Muslims from all over the world, I find that this Islam is one of the common varieties of the religion. It is the Islam not only of women but of ordinary folk generally, as opposed to the Islam of sheikhs, ayatollahs, mullahs, and clerics. It is an Islam that may or may not place emphasis on ritual and formal religious practice but that certainly pays little or no attention to the utterances and exhortations of sheikhs or any sort of official figures. Islam as a broad ethos and ethical code and as a way of understanding and reflecting on the meaning of one's life and of human life more generally.

I completely agree with seeing Islam as not only about the ritual and formal practice (praying, fasting etc) but also about the spirit and broad message, which most Muslims these days seem to be ignoring. If you're a judgmental, malicious person, will praying 5 times a day completely make up for that?

Ahmed goes on to distinguish between aural and oral Islam, and textual Islam, saying that textual Islam has been developed by a minority of men who over the centuries have come to wield enormous power. This type of Islam is men's Islam, according to her.

The Islam that developed in this textual heritage is very like the medieval Latinate textual heritage of Christianity. It is as abstruse and obscure and as dominated by medieval and exclusively male views of the world as are those Latin texts. Imagine believing that those medieval Christian texts represent today the only true and acceptable interpretation of Christianity. But that is exactly what the sheikhs and ayatollahs propound and this is where things stand now in much of the Muslim world: most of the classic Islamic texts that still determine Muslim law in out day date from medieval times.

Aurally what remains when you listen to the Qur'an over a life-time are its most recurring themes, ideas, words, and permeating spirit: mercy, justice, peace, compassion, humanity, fairness, kindness, truthfulness, charity. And yet it is exactly those recurring themes and this permeating spirit that are for the most part left out of the medieval texts or smothered and buried under a welter of obscure "learning". One would scarcely believe, reading and hearing the laws these texts have yielded, particularly when it comes to women, that the words "justice", "fairness", "compassion", "truth" ever even occur in the Qur'an.

Again, this goes back to the point of the spirit of Islam, which tends to get ignored. The Qur'an is a very positive text, and yet centuries of male misinterpretation has left Islam with a very negative image. Personally, this negative image of Islam is what made me think twice about becoming an active Muslim. It was only when I read the Qur'an and some other texts that I realized how badly Islam has been projected by Muslims themselves.

Leila Ahmed goes on,

I am sure then, that my foremother's lack of respect for the authority of sheikhs was not coincidental. Generations of astute, thoughtful women, listening to the Qur'an, understood perfectly well its essential themes and its faith. And looking around them, they understood perfectly well, too, what a travesty man had made of it.

Women in Islam have, it can be said, even more rights than men. Why then do most sheikhs and Muslims in general treat (or at least see) women as second-class citizens? Why marriage laws that put the minimum age at 9? Why are outdated practices that need to be changed still widespread? Why are honour killings and female circumcision still attributed to Islam? We cannot deny that women in Muslim countries tend to have less rights than non-Muslim countries. However, this is not due to ISLAM. It is due to centuries of misinterpretation and centuries of misrule across the Arab and Islamic world.

To finish off, a quote from the lovely Rumi:

If a day won't come
when the monuments of institutionalized religion are in ruin
...then, my beloved,
then we are really in trouble.

back!

So I haven't posted for a while because my laptop crashed last week and I finally managed to get it fixed (here in Cairo multiply all times given to you by 2). So when the technician at Tradeline told me he'd fix the laptop in 2 hours, it took 5. I ended up losing a lot of my work, which I know need to do again. It was so mind-numbingly boring the first time, don't know how I'm going to get through it this time.
Anyway. I hope this is the end of a bad luck spree I've been having. Everything seems to be going wrong and it's really getting annoying. I did some soul searching to see if this was karma for something I've done recently but I can't figure out what for.

I just finished reading 2 amazing books I recommend: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, and Border Passage (autobiography by Leila Ahmed, one of my favourite feminist writers). I will be posting more about her soon as she's said some things about Islam that have really influenced me.

palestine

Since the disastrous war on Gaza at the end of last year, I've been thinking a lot about the Palestinian situation, which is surely one of the most controversial political issues of our time. I can barely read any books/articles on the topic because they are just too painful: the bias towards Israel is pretty widespread (except in the Arab world) and I feel it's pointless to read "analyses" that don't really take the Palestinians into account (we don't even call it Palestine anymore, it's supposedly the "West Bank" and "Gaza", although in a few decades those will probably be gone too).

I guess what really confuses me is people who don't think the Palestinians have a right to be angry. Yes, the lands belonged to the Jews a long time ago, but in the 1950s, they belonged to the Palestinians (although at the time the British had colonized them). So what gave England the right to cut the country in half and give it to the Zionists? (It is important to note that the Zionists were not really that religious; they wanted Israel for political and historical reasons; NOT for religious reasons, or a "return-to-the-holy-land").

Fine. So the Palestinians lost half their country. No one in the Arab world was willing to accept that in the 50s, but in the 70s and 80s, they realized Israel was there to stay. Then the settlements began. The best land, the best water, the best everything went to these Israelis who decided they HAD to live in the Palestinian territories. The Green Line was forgotten, and the Palestinians ignored. Roadblocks, checkpoints, identity cards multiplied. Arrests, torture etc intensified. Palestinian resistance was stepped up. All for a few hundred Jewish families who decided the Israeli half wasn't good enough: they wanted ALL of Palestine.

Of course, the Palestinians haven't been angels, but it is important to look at their resistance in the context of the miserable existence they lead: they are OCCUPIED, they are second-class citizens in their OWN COUNTRY; they have to pass checkpoints to get to hospitals, to work, to school. Yes, they throw rocks. But Israel responds with state-of-the art bombs supplied by America. Yes, there are suicide-bombings. But they feel they have no other way of resisting this terible status-quo.

APARTHEID ANYONE? Can someone please tell me the difference between South Africa under Apartheid, and Palestine/Israel today? There is none.

Another thing I don't understand is the unwavering support Israel has from Americans and the American gov't. Yes, the Israeli/Jewish lobby is powerful, but powerful enough to convince millions of Americans that Palestinians do not deserve any part of Palestine? It's sickening to see the portrayal of the Palestine/Israel conflict on most American news channels/shows/newspapers. Where is all this bias from?
Then again, it was the American government that stood by the Apartheid government almost until the end.

Not that we Arabs are innocent in all of this either. Arab countries and Arabs have done almost nothing to help the Palestinian cause. It has been used as an excuse for many things, but since the 1980s it is as if the Arabs have just given up on Palestine.

I highly recommend the book "The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", by two Harvard professors. They got attacked relentlessly by many Americans, but the book is brilliant.