Untitled - Dr Asghar Ali Engineer - Centre for Study of Society and Secularism

360 Pages·2017·8.06 MB·English

ISLAM, WOMEN
AND
GENDER JUSTICE
Asghar Ali Engineer
w
GYAN PUBLISHING HOUSE
NEW DELHI-110 002
Contents
Preface 7
Introduction 9
List of Contributors 21
Islam, Women and Gender Justice 23
AsgharAli Engineer
Should the Muslim Practice of Triple Divorce be 43
Banned: Pros and Cons
Imtiaz Ahmed
The Discourse Around Muslim Personal Law 63
Gitanjali Gangoli
Legal Rights of Maintenance and Guardianship of 99
Muslim Women
Justice Sarojini Saxena
Post-Divorce Problems and Social Support: 117
A Study of Muslim Divorced Women of Maharashtra
Munira Siganporia
Polygyny and Divorce in Muslim 129
Society-Controversy and Reality
Sekh Rahim Mondal
Mobilisation of Muslim Women for Gender Justice 143
Sabiha Hussein
Divorce and Remarriage Among Muslims of Mumbai 169
Neelofar Saeed Akhtar
Muslim Women and the Law 179
Khurram Shah Durrany
6 Islam, Women and Gender Justice
10. Women’s Presence in the Mosque: A Viewpoints 193
Diane D’Souza
11. Women and the Tablighi Jama'at 219
Yoginder S. Sikand
12. Gender and Reproductive Behaviour: A 239
Comparative Study of Two Religious Communities
in Delhi Slum
Sabiha Hussain
13. Relative Economic and Social Deprivation in India 257
Abusaleh Shariff
14. Economic Problems of Muslim, Women in India 277
Malika B. Mistry
15. Bandheriya of Jaipur: A Study of Muslim 303
Home Based Women Workers
Mandakini Pant
16. Vocational Training of Muslim Women in 315
Maharashtra to Solve Economic Problems
Ramla M. Baxamusa
17. Education Among Varanasi Muslims: A 333
Study in the Perspective of National
Integration
Muniza Rafiq Khand
18. The Problems of Muslim Women in 345
India with Special Focus on
Kashmiri Women
Hamida Naeem
Index 365
Preface
This book on Muslim women and their problems is a collection of
papers presented in a couple of seminars on Muslim women, their
rights and empowerment held in different places in India. One of the
seminars was of all India level and we are grateful for collaboration
of Minority Rights Group, London.
The problems of women in general and those of Muslim women
in particular are of great importance today. These problems are of
various natures -legal, religious, economic and educational. They
are doubly persecuted -by their own community and also greatly
suffer because of majority communalism, particularly because of
communal violence.
These seminars were held both to discuss these problems
and to bring awareness among the Muslim women. The Muslim
women in India are suffering because of lack of reform and codifica­
tion of Muslim personal law. Triple divorce in one sitting has become
the main form of divorce and polygamy also remains unregulated.
Many women suffer a great deal because of triple divorce and po­
lygamy.
Also, a large number of Muslim women belong to poor and
illiterate families. Majority of Muslims are poor in India and level of
literacy is quite low, particularly among women. Many Muslim women
toil throughout the day for a pittance. Divorcees and those, whose
near and dear ones have died or been killed in communal riots find
their living an ordeal indeed. These papers collected in this volume
discuss all these problems facing Muslim women. This volume will
8 Islam, Women and Gender Justice
Women but also among other activists and scholars.
I am extremely grateful to all those scholars who agreed to
participate in the seminar and contributed papers based on their
scholarly studies or filed work, I am also grateful to those who
helped me organise these seminars, particularly Seema Qazi who
worked hard for organising the All India Seminar in Mumbai in July
1999. I am also thankful to Irfan Engineer and Asad bin Saif for
their active help without which it would not have been possible to
organise the seminar. I also owe my thanks to the staff of Centre
for Study of Society and Secularism for all the help they readily
provided for making the seminar a reality.
15th November 2000 Asghar Ali Engineer
Introduction
Thewomen’squestion is acquiring evergreater importance throughout
the world. The women sufferdiscriminationwhichevercommunity or
country they belong to. Women in western countries also suffer
discrimination in the male dominated society though there may be
difference of degree. Women in Islamiccountries are perceived to be
suffering more compared to other countries. What is happening in
Afghanistan at the hands of Taliban has reinforced this perception.
The Taliban are treating women in most primitive way. It is hardly
Islamic. Yet they do it in the name of Islam.
The orthodox ‘ulama treat the question of women in Islam with
hypersensitivity. They are opposed to any kind of change in general
and on women’s question, in particular. They imitate quite mechanically
all the provisions in this respect formulated by the ‘ulama more than
fourteen hundred years ago. Any re-thinking on the issue is no less
than a sin. Also, the question of women has become an important
question of Islamic identity vis-a-vis the west as far as the Islamic
countries are concerned and also of Muslim minorities vis-a-vis the
majority communities in countries like India. Thus, any change in
Muslim personal law is opposed vigorously as a threat to Muslim
identity and an unwarranted interference in Islam. The agenda of
Islamic revolution in Iran included re-assertion of Islamic identity vis-
a-vis the west and it found expression in enforcing chadar (a head-
gear) for women.
The Islamic revival throughout Islamic world is compelling
women to take to veil. In many cases Muslim women are doing so
voluntarily. In Iran too many women who had taken to miniskirts during
10 Islam, Women and Gender Justice
X
the Shah’s period, discarded them and began to wear chadarof their
volition to escape the charge that they were opposing the Shah at the
instigation of the Soviet Union. Similarly in countries like Egypt the
women, particularly the university students have taken to veil to assert
their Islamic identity. In fact in an era, of MTV when the western pop
culture is being disseminated with all vengeance such a reaction
appears to be quite normal. In the west the woman bares as much as
she can whereas in the east she hides as much as she can. It is thus
more of reaction rather than coercion. Women in Islamic countries
assert ‘modesty’ to fight the western ‘vulgarity’. These are two
different cultures poles apart. Thus veil should not be seen as mere
subjugation of women. The Iranian women are quite assertive of their
rights despite wearing chadar. They are recruited in all government
offices, they are members of parliament, they hold political offices like
Masumeh who is vice president of Iran. Not only that the Iranian
women are fighting for equal status today and women’s movement in
Iran is quite strong, as strong as in any other non-Muslim country.
Thus veil is a cultural expression of modesty rather than any
oppressive measure.
In the modern era, education is spreading fast in all countries
including Muslim countries. Muslim women in almost all countries are
going to universities in ever larger numbers. These educated women
become far more aware of their rights than illiterate women. Thus,
there is hardly any country with a sizeable Muslim population, where
women are not seen asserting themselves. Even in a conservative
Sheikhdom like Kuwait, woman are demanding the right to vote and
the rightto hold political offices. There is a large number of women in
the universities in Kuwait. The woman spearheading the movement
for women's rights in Kuwait is the dean of the faculty of arts in the
Kuwait University. In Pakistan women have held the highest offices,
i.e. offices of Prime Minister and hold offices in various governmental
as well as non-governmental organisations. The same is the case in
Bangladesh, where the present head of government is a woman.
However, it does not mean there are no serious problems. It is
Introduction 11
a struggle all the way for women: struggle against orthodoxy, struggle
against certain oppressive cultural norms, which do not permit women
to enter certain fields, struggle against dowry and bride burning and
struggle against dishonour. As women assert their rights and struggle
to find a place of honour in the society, the society which is under
domination of men, reacts quite sharply and tries to put more
restrictions over them. This struggle will go on for a long time to come.
What is shocking is that women are being denied even their well-
defined Islamic rights.
It is important to note that Islam is the first religion in the world
which recognised woman as legal entity and gave her all the rights that
man enjoyed. Thus Islam has given women the right to enter into a
marital contract on her own conditions. Her father or any male
member of the family cannot give her away in marriage to any person
of his choice, without her consent. Her consent to marriage in
presence of two witnesses is a condition for the finalisation of
marriage. She can stipulate certain conditions which must be fulfilled
for the validity of marriage. Any violation of the stipulated conditions
could lead to the dissolution of marriage. What is most revolutionary
is that she can insist on what is known as talaq-i-tafwid, i.e., a
delegated right to divorce. According to this provision in the marriage
contract, she can insist on the delegated right to divorce her husband
on his behalf if he violates any of the conditions of the marriage
contract. It would be seen that even the most modern laws have no
such provisions forthe benefit of women.
Divorce is a recognised institution in Islam though it is not
encouraged. Both man and woman has right to divorce. The Holy
Qur’an has made a very fair provision for divorce. It stipulates
arbitration. The Qur’an says:
“And if you fear breach between the two, i.e., husband and wife,
appoint an arbiter from his people and an arbiter from her
people. If they both desire agreement, Allah will effect harmony
beweenthem." (4:35)
The very concept of arbitration is quite modern and this was
12 Islam, Women and Gender Justice
stipulated 1400 years ago by the holy Book of Islam. However, it is
highly regrettable thatsuch a fair provision of the Qur’an is ignored by
Muslims and they resort to triple divorce in one sitting which was part
of pre-lslamic customary law.
Unfortunately at least in India triple divorce has become the
most prevalent form of divorce among the Sunni Hanafi and Shafi
Muslims. In fact triple divorce is un- Qur’anic and is rejected even by
Hanbalis and Ahl-e-Hadith among the Sunni Muslims and all Shi’ah
sects as well. Triple divorce being unjust to women was not practised
during the Prophet’s (PBUH) time and also during the time of the first
Caliph Hazrat Abu Bakr (RA) and for two and half years during the
reign of second Caliph Hazrat Umar (RA). It was during the later part
of his reign that triple divorce in one sitting was enforced again on
account of its misuse by some Arabs. Triple divorce has never been
apart of Islamic teachings. Itwas, in fact, partofthe Arab customary
law. Even according to Shah Waliyullah, a great Islamic thinker with
a social vision of eighteenth century India, it is unfairto apply the Arab
customary lawto non-Arab people. Many Shari'ah provisions include
some aspects of the Arab customary law prevailing in the pre-lslamic
times. Abolition of triple divorce on which there is no unanimity among
Muslims will give great relief to Muslim women. Many men misuse it
eithertoharasstheirwivesortodivorcethemmostarbitrarily, leaving
them in lurch. Hundreds of women are suffering today because of its
validity. Fortunately it has been abolished in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Islam has also given a right to Muslim women to divorce which,
is known as Khula- Though this word has not been used in the holy
Qur’an, a woman, according to it, can buy her freedom from her
husband by giving fidyah, i.e., compensation. And this right is
absolute. Thus, the Qur’an says:
“Then if you fearthatthey cannot keep within the limits of Allah,
there is no blame on them for what she gives up to become free
thereby.” (2:229).
Commenting on this verse Maulana Muhammad Ali says,
“These words give the wife the right to claim a divorce. It is one of the