26/04/2014
Women in Islam: Muslim Women
The issue of women in Islam is highly
controversial. Any materials on this subject,
whether in print or online, should be used with
caution because of the lack of objectivity. While
it is generally agreed that the rights granted to
women in the Qur'an and by the prophet
Muhammad were a vast improvement in
comparison to the situation of women in Arabia
prior to the advent of Islam, after the Prophet's
death the condition of women in Islam began to
decline and revert back to pre-Islamic norms. Yet
just as the women's movement in the West
began to pick up steam in the twentieth century,
the same thing occured, although to a lesser
extent, in the Muslim world at this time.
Feminists in the Muslim world in the twentieth
century (until the 1980's) were generally upper
class women whose feminism was modeled after
feminists in the West. But just as modern socio-
political models in the Muslim world after the
colonial period began, in the 20th century, to
shift from Western models of society and
government to "Islamic" models, feminism in the
Muslim world began to take on Islamic forms
rather than aping the Western feminist form. This
has been true not merely for Muslim women but
for women throughout the entire third world.
Having thrown off the schackles of colonial
imperialism, women of the third world are
increasingly growing resistant to the cultural
imperialism marketed by the West, even in the
form of feminism. Hence, third world women, like
women of color in the West, are realizing that
while they have certain things in common with
the struggle of Euro-American feminists, what is
best for Euro-American women is not necessarily
going to be best for them. Consequently Muslim
women have been developing a distinctly
"Islamic" feminism, just as women of color in the
West have been developing "womanism" in
contrast to feminism, which primarily was shaped
by the concerns of upper-class Euro-American
women. One example of the differences between
Western feminism and Islamic feminism concerns
the issue of "veiling." The hijab (often translated
as "veil") is the form of scarf or hair covering
commonly worn by Muslim women. It has always
been seen by the Western feminist as oppressive
and as a symbol of a Muslim woman's
subservience to men. As a result, it often comes
as a surprise to Western feminists that the veil
has become increasingly common in the Muslim
world and is often worn proudly by college girls
as a symbol of an Islamic identity, freeing them
symbolically from neo-colonial Western cultural
imperialism and domination.
