# For Equal Rights, Muslim Women’s Meeting Turns to Islam (Malaysia) -NY Times



## Yrys (16 Feb 2009)

In Quest for Equal Rights, Muslim Women’s Meeting Turns to Islam’s Tenets, NY Times

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The religious order banning women from dressing 
like tomboys was bad enough. But the fatwa by this country’s leading clerics 
against yoga was the last straw.

“They have never even done yoga,” said Zainah Anwar, a founder of a Malaysian 
women’s rights group called Sisters in Islam. Ms. Anwar argues that the edict, 
issued late last year by the National Fatwa Council of Malaysia, is pure patriarchy. 
Islam, she says, is only a cover.

It was frustrations like those that drew several hundred Muslim women to a 
conference in this Muslim-majority country over the weekend. Their mission was to 
come up with ways to demand equal rights for women. And their tools, however 
unlikely, were the tenets of Islam itself.

“Secular feminism has fulfilled its historical role, but it has nothing more to give us,” 
said Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an Iranian anthropologist who has been helping to formulate 
some of the arguments. “The challenge we face now is theological.”

The advocates came from 47 countries to participate in the project, called Musawah, 
the Arabic word for equality. They spent the weekend brainstorming and learning the 
best Islamic arguments to take back to their own societies as defenses against clerics 
who insist that women’s lives are dictated by men’s strict interpretations of Islam.
“We are trying to develop a new language, offer it to the world and use it,” said Marwa 
Sharafeldin, an activist from Egypt.

Ms. Anwar, the main organizer, said her group was almost alone when she started it 
20 years ago, but now it is one of many. “It’s a movement whose time has come.”

The repression comes not from the Koran, the women argue, but from the human 
interpretation of it, in the form of Islamic law, which has ossified over the centuries 
while their globalized lives have galloped ahead. So they are going back to the original 
text, arguing that its emphasis on justice makes the case for equality.

“Feminist Islamic scholarship is trying to unearth the facts that were there,” Ms. 
Mir-Hosseini told a room of eager activists Sunday. “We can’t be afraid to look at legal 
tradition critically.” She referred to the work of Muslim intellectuals, like Nasr Abu Zayd 
of Egypt and Abdolkarim Soroush of Iran, reformers who argue that the Koran must be 
read in a historical context, and that laws derived from it can change with the times. 
Their ideas are controversial, and both are in exile in the West.

Ms. Mir-Hosseini argues that Muslim societies are trapped in a battle between two 
visions of Islam: one legalistic and absolutist that emphasizes the past; the other 
pluralistic and more inclined toward democracy. She said that in Iran reformers were 
gaining ground, but that President Bush’s antagonism toward the country ended up 
strengthening hard-liners there. “It’s really a struggle between two world views,” she said, 
adding that time was on the side of the women.

It was the rise of political Islam that brought the women together. As Malaysia’s progressive 
family laws began to be rolled back in the late 1980s, Ms. Anwar and several other women 
formed a Koran reading group. “There is an understanding that mullahs know best, that you 
cannot speak,” Ms. Anwar said. “Muslim women’s groups are coming out to challenge that 
authority.”

Some scholars argued that the effort sounded unrealistic and would have no impact, mainly 
because it appeared to ignore more than a thousand years of Islamic legal scholarship and 
practice. Religious authorities are the only ones with the power to interpret laws, and 
circumventing that well-entrenched system would require replacing it altogether.

“This kind of argument is being made at the margins of the Islamic world,” said Bernard 
Haykel, an expert on Islamic law at Princeton University. “It has shape and form, but no 
substantive content. There’s no real way of actually bringing about these changes.”

But others made the case that change, though incremental, was happening at the grass-roots 
level in a number of Muslim societies. Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign 
Relations, who attended the conference, argues that women’s movements are making progress, 
as girls’ education levels increase and the Western world is a click away on satellite television. 
Women are even taking positions in religious institutions, she said: a woman has headed the 
Shariah College at Qatar University.

“It’s a slow shift,” said Ms. Coleman, whose book on the topic, “Paradise Beneath Her Feet: 
Women and Reform in the Middle East,” is to be published by Random House in 2010. “It’s 
just beginning to come together as a movement.”

There have been some successes. In Morocco, sweeping changes of family law in favor of 
women went into effect in 2004. Critics argued that it was possible only because the country’s 
king approved it, but Moroccan activists said it never would have happened if they had not 
spent years lobbying and formulating legal arguments, some of them based on Islamic tenets.

That has had ripple effects. Elaheh Koolaee, a professor from the University of Tehran who 
formerly served in Iran’s Parliament, said that Iranian women had been watching the Moroccan 
example and that a Muslim success was an invaluable tool. “It’s important for us to show positive 
experiences from within Muslim societies that are not from the U.S. or Europe,” she said.

Ms. Mir-Hosseini said she believed that change was coming, and that it was just a matter of when.
“There’s so much tension and energy there now,” she said. “It will be a flood.”


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## Yrys (16 Feb 2009)

Starting at Home, Iran’s Women Fight for Rights, NY Times






Protesters last month outside the Palestinian Embassy in Tehran denounced the killing of 
women and children in Gaza.

TEHRAN — In a year of marriage, Razieh Qassemi, 19, says she was beaten repeatedly 
by her husband and his father. Her husband, she says, is addicted to methamphetamine 
and has threatened to marry another woman to “torture” her. Rather than endure the 
abuse, Ms. Qassemi took a step that might never have occurred to an earlier generation 
of Iranian women: she filed for divorce.

Women’s rights advocates say Iranian women are displaying a growing determination 
to achieve equal status in this conservative Muslim theocracy, where male supremacy is 
still enscribed in the legal code. One in five marriages now end in divorce, according to 
government data, a fourfold increase in the past 15 years.

And it is not just women from the wealthy, Westernized elites. The family court building 
in Vanak Square here is filled with women, like Ms. Qassemi, who are not privileged. 
Women from lower classes and even the religious are among those marching up and 
down the stairs to fight for divorces and custody of their children. Increasing educational 
levels and the information revolution have contributed to creating a generation of women 
determined to gain more control over their lives, rights advocates say.

Confronted with new cultural and legal restrictions after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, 
some young women turned to higher education as a way to get away from home, postpone 
marriage and earn social respect, advocates say. Religious women, who had refused to sit 
in classes with men, returned to universities after they were resegregated. Today, more 
than 60 percent of university students are women, compared with just over 30 percent in 
1982, even though classes are no longer segregated.

Even for those women for whom college is not an option, the Internet and satellite television 
have opened windows into the lives of women in the West. “Satellite has shown an alternative 
way of being,” said Syma Sayah, a feminist involved in social work in Tehran. “Women see 
that it is possible to be treated equally with men.”

Another sign of changing attitudes is the increasing popularity of books, movies and 
documentaries that explore sex discrimination, rights advocates say. “Women do not have a 
proper status in society,” said Mahnaz Mohammadi, a filmmaker. “Films are supposed to be a 
mirror of reality, and we make films to change the status quo.”

In a recent movie, “All Women Are Angels,” a comedy that was at the top of the box office for 
weeks, a judge rejects the divorce plea of a woman who walked out on her husband when she 
found him with another woman.

Even men are taking up women’s issues and are critical of traditional marriage arrangements. 
Mehrdad Oskouei, another filmmaker, has won more than a dozen international awards for 
“The Other Side of Burka,” a documentary about women on the impoverished and traditional 
southern island of Qeshm who are committing suicide in increasing numbers because they have 
no other way out of their marriages. “How can divorce help a woman in southern parts of the 
country when she has to return after divorce to her father’s home who will make her even more 
miserable than her husband?” said Fatimeh Sadeghi, a former political science professor fired 
for her writing on women’s rights.

Janet Afary, a professor of Middle East and women’s studies at Purdue University and the author 
of “Sexual Politics in Modern Iran,” says the country is moving inexorably toward a “sexual 
revolution.” “The laws have denied women many basic rights in marriage and divorce,” she 
wrote in the book. “But they have also contributed to numerous state initiatives promoting literacy, 
health and infrastructural improvements that benefited the urban and rural poor.”

To separate the sexes, the state built schools and universities expressly for women, and improved 
basic transportation, enabling poor women to travel more easily to big cities, where they were 
exposed to more modern ideas.

Ms. Afary says that mandatory premarital programs to teach about sex and birth control, instituted 
in 1993 to control population growth, helped women delay pregnancy and changed their views 
toward marriage. By the late 1990s, she says, young people were looking for psychological and 
social compatibility and mutual intimacy in marriage.

Despite the gains they have made, women still face extraordinary obstacles. Girls can legally be 
forced into marriage at the age of 13. Men have the right to divorce their wives whenever they 
wish, and are granted custody of any children over the age of 7. Men can ban their wives from 
working outside the home, and can engage in polygamy.

By law, women may inherit from their parents only half the shares of their brothers. Their court 
testimony is worth half that of a man. Although the state has taken steps to discourage stoning, 
it remains in the penal code as the punishment for women who commit adultery. A woman who 
refuses to cover her hair faces jail and up to 80 lashes.

Women also face fierce resistance when they organize to change the law. The Campaign for One 
Million Signatures was founded in 2005, inspired by a movement in Morocco that led to a 
loosening of misogynist laws. The idea was to collect one million signatures for a petition calling 
on authorities to give women more equal footing in the laws on marriage, divorce, adultery and 
polygamy.

But Iran’s government has come down hard on the group, charging many of its founders with 
trying to overthrow it; 47 members have been jailed so far, including 3 who were arrested late 
last month. Many still face charges, and six members are forbidden to leave the country. One 
member, Alieh Eghdamdoust, began a three-year jail sentence last month for participating in a 
women’s demonstration in 2006. The group’s Web site, www.we-change.org, has been blocked 
by the authorities 18 times.

“We feel we achieved a great deal even though we are faced with security charges,” said Sussan 
Tahmasebi, one of the founding members of the campaign, who is now forbidden to leave Iran. 
“No one is accusing us of talking against Islam. No one is afraid to talk about more rights for 
women anymore. This is a big achievement.”

Women’s advocates say that the differences between religious and secular women have 
narrowed and that both now chafe at the legal discrimination against women. Zahra Eshraghi, 
for example, the granddaughter of the revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, signed 
the One Million Signatures petition.

“Many of these religious women changed throughout the years,” said Ms. Sayah, the feminist in 
Tehran. “They became educated, they traveled abroad and attended conferences on women’s 
rights, and they learned.”

Because of the government’s campaign of suppression, the process of collecting signatures has 
slowed recently, and many women do not want to be seen in the presence of a campaigner, let 
alone sign a petition. Most feminist groups limit their canvassing now to the Internet. But while 
the million signatures campaign may have stalled, women have scored some notable successes. 
A group that calls itself Meydaan has earned international recognition for pressing the 
government to stop stonings.

The group’s reporting on executions by stoning in 2002 on its Web site, www.meydaan.net — 
including a video of the execution of a prostitute — embarrassed the government and led the 
head of the judiciary to issue a motion urging judges to refrain from ordering stonings. (The 
stonings have continued anyway, but at a lower rate, because only Parliament has the power 
to ban them.)


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## Colin Parkinson (17 Feb 2009)

My sadly deceased sister inlaw was a pivotal figure in the Malaysian Sisters in Islam. I miss her insight on the inner workings of current islamic thinking.


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## dapaterson (17 Feb 2009)

Colin P said:
			
		

> My sadly deceased sister inlaw was a pivotal figure in the Malaysian Sisters in Islam. I miss her insight on the inner workings of current islamic thinking.



One fundamental problem in the Western world is the perception of a monolithic Islam.  It is no more monolithic than Christiatnity, where we understand that a Lutheran, a Baptist, a Ukranian Orthodox and an Amish will all have distinct and different views.

Until we can speak knowledgably about the differences between Sunni, Shi'ia and Wahabbi * and understand those differences, there will be little progress in Western understanding.  


* Not a comprehensive list.


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## Colin Parkinson (17 Feb 2009)

Right now, the Turks have started a process to review the Hadiaths, these are SOP's attributed to the prophet as the ways and means to be a good Muslim. They are also the basis of much of the legal precedence used in Sharia law. The Turks are saying that the hadiths have been misinterpreted, outdated and some case are false. It's a clever tactic. Trying to change the Koran would be viewed as an "attack on the word of god" despite clear evidence that the Koran was written by committee. However Muhammad always maintained that he was merely a messenger and a flawed one at that, so by reviewing the hadiths, the Turks can start the reformation process without sparking another Islamic civil war. although it will piss off the radicals enough to want to kill someone.


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## wannabe SF member (17 Feb 2009)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> One fundamental problem in the Western world is the perception of a monolithic Islam.  It is no more monolithic than Christiatnity, where we understand that a Lutheran, a Baptist, a Ukranian Orthodox and an Amish will all have distinct and different views.
> 
> Until we can speak knowledgably about the differences between Sunni, Shi'ia and Wahabbi * and understand those differences, there will be little progress in Western understanding.
> 
> ...



Even seeing these subdivisons as unified is wrong since they don't have a leader or an administration structure like with the pope and catholics.


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## ModlrMike (18 Feb 2009)

Good point, Colin. A significant difference between Christianity and Islam is that Christianity had the Reformation and Age of Enlightenment. Some would argue that Islam has yet to reach these stages of development.


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