Theorizing the Politics of 'lslamic Feminism'

Shahrzad Mojab

Feminism, as the western, liberal idea and politics of gender equality, reached ‚lslamic societies' (1) in the late nineteenth century. From the very beginning, the debate was centred on the compatibillty of the idea of women's emancipation with the principles of Islam.

The first woman to offer a detailed reinterpretation of the texts in favour of women's rights was probably Nazira Zain al-Din, born in Lebanon in 1905. Her first book was an indictment of patriarchal oppression, which she declared to be against the principles of Islam. She said: 'The veil is an insult to men and women'. When the book was published in 1928 men of religion incited demonstrations against the book and threatened the owners of book shops who carried it.

The conflict over women's rights involved, however, more than discursive engagements among contending interpreters of the scriptures. During the first half of the twentieth century, Islamic societies were changing both internally and externally through the impact of colonialism, modernism, nationalism and socialism. Upper- and middle-class urban women, long confined to the private domain of the household, were demanding participation in public life. Some rural women, too, had been drawn into the anticolonial struggles and land reform movements. Thus, women constituted a new social force, and their demand for rights, if granted and exercised, would have required a redistribution of power both in private and public spheres. A women's movement emerged during the Constitutional Revolution of Iran (1906-11).

Social forces - nationalists, Islamists and communists - could not envision the assumption of power without an agenda for the mobilization and organization of women. Equally interested in the control of the nascent feminist movements was the institution of the state. Some of the newly established ‚nation-States' such as Turkey and Iran appropriated the feminist movements by dissolving independent organizations and their press, and granting women certain rights. The colonial powers, which ruled over many new countries created in the wake of World War I, were equally interested in checking the feminist movements.

Today - early debates continue
Today, women's movements and feminist theories are very diverse. Contemporary scholars such as Leila Ahmed, Aziza al-Hibri, Riffat Hassan and Fatima Mernissi have produced refined research, and initiated new efforts to reconcile feminism with Islam.

Among the most significant developments in late twentieth century was the coming to power of a new theocratic state, the Islamic Republic if Iran, which has impacted the direction of the struggle for women's rights. The Islamic state declared the existing gender relations un-Islamic and western. The Islamization of gender relations was extensive, but met strong resistance from the very beginning. By the mid 1990s, the Islamic regime was experiencing a serious crisis; it had failed to control women, workers, dissident nationalities, students, the print media, artists and secular intellectuals. Women's spontaneous resistance was widespread.
The crisis of the Islamic state have invited diverse responses from the ruling factions of the government, non-state actors and feminists. I will examine here the academic feminist response, which is sharply divided.

'Islamic feminism' - lobbying for legal reform
A group of feminists, mostly secular academics living in the West, has in recent years used the term ‚Islamic feminism' to refer to Islamic alternatives to western feminisms. They treat Islam as the only authentic, indigenous road to gender equality and justice. The term is used more specifically to refer to the activism of a relatively small number of Iranian women who seek the amelioration of the Islamized gender relations, mainly through lobbying for legal reform within the framework of the Islamic Republic. However, these Muslim acitvists themselves do not use the term.

Some supporters of 'Islamic ferninism' equate it with liberation theology in the West. Other academics and feminist activists reject the compatibility thesis and argue that 'Islamic feminism' is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. If by feminism is meant easing patriarchal pressures on women, making patriarchy less appalling, 'Islamic feminism' is certainly a feminist trend. But if feminism is a movement to abolish patriarchy, to contribute towards a society in which individuals can fashion their lives free from economic, political, social, and cultural constraints, then 'lslamic feminism' proves considerably inadequate.

The experience of the Islamic Republic has shown, as a matter of fact, that Islamic theocracy reinforces the traditional patriarchal systern. Thus ‚Islamic feminism' justifies unequal gender relations.

Academic ferninists who authorize 'Islamic feminism' tend to treat Islam, though not other religions, as the engine of history, the builder of identity, and a constant presence in history, which is permanently inscribed in the mind and body of every Muslim. While treating Islam as the agent of history is problematic, the main problem is the underlying assumptions of academic feminists about patriarchy, the women's movement and feminism. They underestimate patriarchy and the role of consciousness, i.e. feminismn, in the struggle against patriarchy. I will elaborate my critique focussing on the reform of the legal system.

Legal reform as a contested arena
The Islamic state's first open conflict with the people of the country occurred when Khomeini, in early March 1979, invited female employees of the Government to observe the veil, called for the suspension of the Family Protection Law of the previous regime and ordered the dismissal of women judges. Secular women and men reacted immediately by, among other things, demonstrations on the occasion of 8 March, International Women's Day. This event proved that Islamization in Iran would by no means be an easy task. For one thing, Iranian society had, since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11, undergone considerable transformation. Women constituted a vital political force, now organized into numerous leftist, socialist, nationalist and Islamic organizations. This was a sharp contrast with Afghanistan of the 1990s where religious leaders found it expedient to Islamize gender relations by decree and sheer use of force only. The Iranian state felt constrained by a vibrant public sphere. It consisted of numerous sites of debate and dissent including newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, leaflets, cassette tapes, xerox literature, street debates, wall newspapers, etc. Another limitation was the legal legacy of the huge state machinery. Under these conditions, law was an indispensable tool for implementing Islamic gender policies.

The criticism of the juridico-legal structure resumed in the 1990s. The extremely disabling legislation together with the violence of the coercive forces against women in public spaces was resented even by some pro-government women. Since the opposition had been eliminated or silenced, the expression of dissidence over the legal system was limited primarily to those who accepted the Islamic regime.

Two laws received considerable criticism in the media: the first - the discriminatory nature of custody laws - was changed as protests forced the Government to respond; so the Islamic Assembly passed, in 1988 a reform, withouth addressing the fundamental problem - the denial of mother's rights - and did not change the law in any significant way.

The second reform concerned the right of women to judge. In less than a month after coming to power and without waiting for Legislation, the Islamic Republic dismissed all women judges. Once more pressure from outside and inside the country in 1995 forced the government to pass a single article, which allowed the hiring of women at the rank of judiciary, albeit without the power of judging.

The Islamic ferninist perspective
The stories of legal reform may be interpreted in different ways: in a Islamic feminsit perspective and from a critical feminist position.

Accepting the juridico-legal framework of the Islamic state, legal experts or academics are optimistic about prospects for women's rights in Iran. They believe that a reinterpretation of Islam, together with lobbying, will eventually pave the way for granting women equal rights with men. Some of the women's journals such as Farzaneh and Zanan act as lobbying organs. They demonstrate inconsistencies in the law, and argue that the present legal system conflicts with Islam's 'affectionate spirit' and its respect for women.

Another way of convincing the clerics and the legislative establishment about the equality of women and men is to argue that laws which discriminate on the basis of gender are not rooted in the Islam but rather in tradition and history. As such, they can readily be changed. These critics uncover the misogynist or, in their cautious words, male-biased nature of the law, but do not question its religious roots. Instead, they deny the religious, Islamic, sources of the Legislation.

The two cases of reforming the law do not challenge the exercise of male power. Even if 'feminist' interpretations of religious texts and traditions are allowed to play a role in the reform process, their incorporation into the law would entail a political process, i.e. one of conflicts and compromises on the redistribution and exercise of gender power. Since the laws were guided by an overtly religious patriarchal agenda, their reform would require either the radical revision or discarding of its theological bases.

Feminists do not reject reform, which is a means of democratization of gender and social relations. The Iranlan 'Islamic feminist' agenda for reform is, however, patriarchal. Its boundaries are drawn by a state, which is not willing to move in the direction of democratization of gender relation, a process which depends on the separation of law and religion as well as state and religion.

A critical feminist perspective
Islamic feminists insist on the specificity or, even, uniqueness of the Muslim woman and her status in society. They argue that Islam treats women with dignity and respects and grants them equal rights. However, the regime of rights in general and women's rights in particular are products of the democratization struggles in western societies. The question of rights is inseparable from citizenship, the democratic state and civil society.

Islamic ferninists and their cultural relativist supporters demand equality in law much in the same way that liberalism has advocated formal equality. Like their liberal counterparts, they institute a separation between law and the exercise of political power. They look at law as a neutral Instrument which can serve diverse interests equally. This is a 'legal positivism', which understands law as an 'autonomous, selfcontained system' uninvolved in the production of power relations. However, several trends of critical legal thought argue that law, far from being a neutral means, legitimates, maintains, and serves the distribution and retention of power in society. Feminist legal theorists view rights analysis and‚ liberal legalism' as patriarchal forms which may serve to mask patriarchal bias in law.

Some critics not only question the value of rights theory but also the value of law itself as a means for achieving gains for women. They argue that law is fundamentally patriarchal, and articulating women's struggles in legal terms would inevitably reinforce patriarchy. Even when social movements win rights victories, it is the state that reinterprets their radical social goals in terms of rights; thus, by locating social power in the state rather than the people, the struggle for rights eventually leads to passivity, reinforces alienation and powerlessness and co-opts them into maintaining the status quo.

Compared with the feminist struggles of the West, the project of Islamic feminists is extremely limited in both theory and practice. Unlike western liberalism, which has succeeded in instituting an extensive regime of rights guaranteeing legal equality, 'lslamic feminism' is not even ambitious enough to demand universal formal equality. This feminism has not, for instance, challenged the extremely oppressive laws by which the Muslim and non-Muslim women are not treated equally, the latter being punished more brutally.

Whether in Iran or in the ‚secularist' regimes, the separation of religion and politics continues to be a requirement for radical legal reform. In the case of Iran, such separation would entail not a reform but the dismantling of the Islamic state, which was consciously built on the unity of religion and state.

Which side are you on?
While many academic feminists continue to celebrate the birth of Islamic feminism, its uniqueness and authenticity, the widespread resistance of Iranians has questioned not only its system of gender apartheid but also the very foundations of the theocratic regime. By the late 1990s, as well Islamic intellectuals and leaders who themselves had played a role in the construction of this theocracy questioned the claim that the Islamic Republic represents Allah on earth. University students, pro-reform print media, dissident activists and some clergymen have argued in favour of the separation of state and religion.

While the reformists in and outside the Government failed to displace the conservatives, the economic and political crisis of the country continued to fan the flames of dissent. Workers and salaried people have suffered most from economic hardships, and women, students and youth are subjected to social and cultural pressures that they no longer tolerate. Although gender apartheld is still official policy, women have gone on the offensive, and refuse strictly to follow Islamic dress codes.

That the legitimacy of Iranian theocracy has been questioned and women's resistance against gender apartheid is continuing, amounts to a serious crisis of the Islamic state. Western and Iranian feminists who have worked hard to construct 'Muslim woman idientities' and 'Islamic feminisms' lag behind developments in the gender conflict in Iran. While Islamic theocracy in Iran is falling apart, they continue to essentialize the women of Islamic countries into religious beings.

Islamic theocracy and Islamic feminism in Iran have reached a dead-end. But there is another, even more serious, dead-end in feminist theory. Since the launching of women's studies programmes in the 1970s, academic feminism has made great strides in both theory and in methodology. Equally significant is the success of women's movements in many western countries to force the male-centred state into granting legal equality between the two genders.

We know, however, that legal equality does not lead to equality in the extra-legal world (for instance gender inequalities based on class, religion, race or nationality). In fact, the latter seriously constraints whatever may be gained from the former. Here lies, I believe, the crisis of feminist theory. In the West, liberal feminism has realized its centuries-Iong project of legal reform. What is next?

The various turns in social and feminist theory that are pre-fixed `post-' ‚ do not move beyond the claims of liberal feminism. No doubt, focusing on identity, culture, language, discourse, desire and body, these theoretical positions have made enormous contributions to our understanding of patriarchy. Politically, however, they lag behind liberal feminism: as liberal feminism generally advocates legal eqality and a regime of rights as universal conditions of gender; `post-feminism' denies the universality of rights such as equal pay, equal opportunity, child care and birth control. In this theorization, the women of the world are fragmented into religions, ethnicities, tribes, cultures, nations and traditions, which determine the agenda of women's and feminist movements. The political ramifications of this cultural relativism are clear.

The cultural relativist fragmentation of women into religious entities and the particularization of women's demands according to the interests of religious patriarchy have helped the formation of alliances between the Holy See and Islamic states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. By 1998, only eleven of the twenty-two members of the League of Arab States had ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Againt Women (CEDAW), and the rest had approved it with reservations. In all reservations Islam was the obstacle to the elimination of one or another form of discrimination.

The particularization of women, patriarchy and oppression in postmodernist feminist theory is also in conflict with the internationalization of women's and feminist movements. The globalization of capitalist economy has increased class and gender conflicts throughout the world, especially in developing countries. Violence against women is rampant throughout the Islamic world. 'Which side are you on?' is the question all feminists and feminist theories have to address.

(1) I use, reluctantly, the terms 'Islamic society', 'Islamic country' or 'Muslim woman'. lt would be inappropriate to characterize individuals, societies, cultures or countries by their religion or, rather, the dominant religion practised.

Shahrzad Mojab teaches at the Department of Adult Education, Community Development and Counselling Psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada.

The article is a short version of an article published in Feminist Review No 69, winter 2001.
http://www.feminist-review.com

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