On a recent communal breaking of the fast event I witnessed several events that made me think about the real difficulties behind the changing of people’s behaviour in relation to gender justice in Islam.
Before I do the purpose of what I will write below is NOT meant to be an exercise in self-praise although it can come across as such. I am only too aware of my own shortcomings when it comes to gender justice issues in my own household. I am writing this to hopefully raise some awareness and levels of consciousness in Muslim men, including myself, in relation to just one instance of gender injustice.
Let me elaborate. Having arrived at the venue (a local musala ) with some time to spare I greeted and thanked the organiser of the event and asked him if any help was needed with setting up of the tables and the food. With a smile on his face he remarked that there were ‘many women’ around who can / are doing the job. Indeed apart form the man I spoke to (and another one who was setting up the speaker system and opening up toilets) it was indeed all women who were getting things ready while men were happily chatting away .
Few minutes later when it was time to break the fast I realised that ,upon breaking my fast , all the drinks and the dates were on the side of the musala where the men were.
While the men were breaking their fasts women were waiting in the other part of the musala. When I approached one of them that I knew and asked her to come over where the drinks were she was very reluctant like the rest of the other women. I pointed to her and others (including some men who were around) that it was indeed them who not only cooked the food but also prepared setting it all up. I also remarked that it was more just for them to have broken the fast first. Some of the women , younger ones in particular, acknowledged this reasoning, however, none of them were willing to break their fast with drinks and dates whilst men were still at it. However no men seemed to have noticed this despite the fact that the musala is rather small and that several women were also elderly and looked weak.
Don’t get me wrong this congregation that I know reasonably well is by no means conservative and very few of the women (or men for that matter) conform to traditional let also strict puritan norms and standards of behaviour in their ordinary lives.
The same applied later on with the food. While I was trying to protest by telling one of the women ( in the vicinity of other men) that I will not eat the food until at least one or few of the women had taken some first , one of the male leaders of the community who heard what I had said not only remained silent but without being given permission pushed in front of all of the other women who were lined up. The (self-appointed) prayer leader who was symbolically heavily ‘Muslim’ with the turban and all the other paraphiliacs ( whose qur’anic reading, knowledge of Islam, smoking habit as well as personality make him anything but an obvious choice for the function of the prayer leader that he so willingly assumed) was also oblivious to this injustice and insensivity towards women.
Based on anecdotal evidence I am sure that what I briefly described above has happened in many other mosques/musalas.
Why is it that so many Muslim men are so insensitive to gender justice to the extent of branding those few Muslim men and many women who are as agents of “western culture” ? Could this insensitivity in more extreme cases also explain the presence of misogynist thinking among some Muslim men and acts of abuse may that be in the context of marriage or parent- child relationship?
What good does the fasting during the month of Ramadan serve if we are not even sensitive (or choose to be insensitive) to the needs of our sisters in faith? Why do we easily fall for and unquestioningly accept facades and masquerades over essence and what really matters?
My personal goal and wish is to spend the rest of this fasting month improving my own sensitivity to the other gender. I hope you will too.
Adis Duderija has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Western Australia
Monday, August 16, 2010
Gender Justice Jihad in Ramadan by Adis Duderija
Monday, August 16, 2010
No comments
About Adis
Editors of MAJALLA.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Find articles by subject...
Art and Literature
Books
Calmness
Constitutions
Economics
Ethics
Hadith
History
Ibn Khaldun
Ideas
Islam
Islamic Law
MAJALLA
mecelle
mejelle
Muqaddima
Other
Papers
Philosophy
Politics
Presence
Quran
Religion and Culture
Religion and Politics
Salat (Prayer)
Serenity
Sharia
Shiism
SIME
Sunnism
Supplication
War and Peace
Women and gender studies
Worship
إبن خلدون
المقدمة
عربي
مقدمة ابن خلدون
AL-MAJALLA
AL-MAJALLA site is a community repository of digital content relevant to the Islamic civilization since the 7th century.
If interested in publishing with AL-MAJALLA, please read the instructions on Publishers' page.
Read this in your language
Search This Archive
Authors, Books, Subjects, and Topics
Art and Literature
Books
Calmness
Constitutions
Economics
Ethics
Hadith
History
Ibn Khaldun
Ideas
Islam
Islamic Law
MAJALLA
mecelle
mejelle
Muqaddima
Other
Papers
Philosophy
Politics
Presence
Quran
Religion and Culture
Religion and Politics
Salat (Prayer)
Serenity
Sharia
Shiism
SIME
Sunnism
Supplication
War and Peace
Women and gender studies
Worship
إبن خلدون
المقدمة
عربي
مقدمة ابن خلدون
Trending
-
by Dr. Mohammad Malkawi, Argosy University-Chicago Introduction Research papers on Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) have become recently more frequent. I...
-
Neerja Singh I am feeling confused and stupid, not normal states of mind for me. The world is making elaborate preparations to protect itsel...
-
Jihad in Modern Islamic Thought A Collection ...
-
by Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis The Dome of the Rock, the Taj Mahal, a Mina’i ware bowl, a silk carpet, a Qur‘an—all of these are exam...
-
The Prophet's Last Sermon and Madinah Charter ...
-
وأبعد من ذلك وأعرق في الوهم ما يتناقله المفسّرون في تفسير سورة «والفجر» في قوله تعالى أَلَمْ تَرَ كَيْفَ فَعَلَ رَبُّكَ بِعادٍ إِرَمَ ذاتِ...
-
Farabi's Tahsil al-Sa`adah (Arabic, PDF)
-
Sunday, February 4th, 2007 by Seyed Javad Although he is most known without Muslim World as a political leader who brought ...
-
by Roman Seide Can there be such a thing as Islamic human rights? Do the commandments set forth in the Koran have eternal validity, or can t...
-
Ibn Rushd's Risalat al-Nafs (Arabic, PDF)
Most visited this month
-
by Dr. Mohammad Malkawi, Argosy University-Chicago Introduction Research papers on Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) have become recently more frequent. I...
-
Jihad in Modern Islamic Thought A Collection ...
-
By Prof. Ali A. Mazrui Two territorial partitions of the Twentieth Century have profoundly affected the Muslim world. One was the partitio...
-
What Qualifies "Them" for the Death Sentence? By FATEMEH KESHAVARZ Discussing the rising U.S. exports of...
-
Farabi's Tahsil al-Sa`adah (Arabic, PDF)
-
Neerja Singh I am feeling confused and stupid, not normal states of mind for me. The world is making elaborate preparations to protect itsel...
-
by Adis Duderija (Paper presented at the World Parliament of Religions Conference, Melbourne,3-9 December 2009) ____________________________...
-
by Roman Seide Can there be such a thing as Islamic human rights? Do the commandments set forth in the Koran have eternal validity, or can t...
-
CONCEPTS OF THE SELF IN ISLAMIC TRADITION AND WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS by Hayati AYDIN*
-
Ibn Rushd's Risalat al-Nafs (Arabic, PDF)
No comments:
Write comments