Self-Determination and Women’s Rights in Muslim Societies PDF
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BRANDEIS SERIES ON GENDER, CULTURE, RELIGION, AND LAW SERIES EDITORS: LISA FISHBAYN JOFFE AND SYLVIA NEIL This series focuses on the conflict between women’s claims to gender equality and legal norms justified in terms of religious and cultural traditions. It seeks work that develops new theoretical tools for conceptualizing feminist projects for transforming the interpretation and justification of religious law, examines the interaction or application of civil law or remedies to gender issues in a religious context, and engages in analysis of conflicts over gender and culture/religion in a particular religious legal tradition, cultural community, or nation. Created under the auspices of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute in conjunction with its Project on Gender, Culture, Religion, and the Law, this series emphasizes cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship concerning Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and other religious traditions. For a complete list of books that are available in the series, visit www.upne.com Chitra Raghavan and James P. Levine, editors, Self-Determination and Women’s Rights in Muslim Societies Janet Bennion, Polygamy in Primetime: Media, Gender, and Politics in Mormon Fundamentalism Ronit Irshai, Fertility and Jewish Law: Feminist Perspectives on Orthodox Responsa Literature Jan Feldman, Citizenship, Faith, and Feminism: Jewish and Muslim Women Reclaim Their Rights Self-Determination and Women’s Rights in Muslim Societies EDITED BY CHITRA RAGHAVAN AND JAMES P. LEVINE BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY PRESS WALTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS Brandeis University Press An imprint of University Press of New England www.upne.com © 2012 Brandeis University All rights reserved For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book, contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit www.upne.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Self-determination and women’s rights in Muslim societies / edited by Chitra Raghavan and James P. Levine. p. cm.—(Brandeis series on gender, culture, religion, and law) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-61168-279-3 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61168-280-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61168-281-6 (ebook) 1. Women—Legal status, laws, etc.—Islamic countries. 2. Women’s rights—Islamic countries. 3. Women’s rights—Religious aspects—Islam. 4. Equality before the law—Islamic countries. I. Raghavan, Chitra. II. Levine, James P. K644.S45 2012 323.3'4091767—dc23 2012010139 CONTENTS Foreword Introduction: Gender Equality, Change, and the Quest for Social Justice for Women in Muslim Societies, by Chitra Raghavan and James P. Levine Part 1: Politics of Change 1. The Politics of Abortion Policy in the Heterogeneous “Muslim World,” by Anissa Hélie 2. Promoting a Violence against Women Law in Morocco: Legislative Advocacy by Grassroots-level NGOS, by Saida Kouzzi with Stephanie Willman Bordat 3. No Way Out: The Dual Subordination of Muslim Women in Indian Legal Culture, by Aziza Ahmed Part 2: Law and Culture 4. Reconsidering Talaq: Marriage, Divorce, and Sharia Reform in the Republic of Maldives, by Anthony Marcus 5. Female Circumcision in Southeast Asia since the Coming of Islam, by William G. Clarence- Smith 6. The Moudawana and Rural Marital Relationships: Reformed or Resolute? by Katja Zvan Elliott 7. Negotiating Female Genital Cutting (Sunat) in Southern Thailand, by Claudia Merli Part 3: The Law in Action 8. The Marriage Contract in the Maghreb: Challenges and Opportunities for Women’s Rights, by Stephanie Willman Bordat with Saida Kouzzi 9. Unsatisfactory Aspects of Women’s Rights to Property in Uganda and Proposals for Reform, by Anthony Luyirika Kafumbe Part 4: Feminist Identities 10. Triangulating Reform in Family Law: The State, Religion, and Women’s Rights in Comparative Perspective, by Yüksel Sezgin 11. Contemporary Iranian Feminisms: Definitions, Narratives, and Identity, by Roja Fazaeli Epilogue Glossary Contributors Index FOREWORD When John Jay College of Criminal Justice was founded in 1964 as a liberal arts college for police officers, it would have been virtually unimaginable that the college would be sponsoring an edited volume on the topics of self-determination and women’s rights in Muslim societies. Seen from this perspective, the existence of this book, artfully edited by James P. Levine, John Jay College’s former dean of research, and Chitra Raghavan, a member of our Psychology Department, is a testament both to the maturation of the idea of criminal justice education and the expanded reach of scholarly inquiry on the questions of justice. In this sense, this book reflects the enduring power of the promise inherent in John Jay’s mission of “educating for justice.” Yet given recent events, a broader perspective seems relevant. Today, as we are riveted by the forces of rebellion in the Middle East and northern Africa and inspired by the role of women fighting for democracy, it is equally unimaginable that these topics would be considered anything but central to an understanding of our modern era. The world is facing new challenges that had not emerged on the research agenda a half-century ago. Although the role of women in our society is a topic of timeless importance, the valiant struggles for self- determination in the modern era and the complex struggle for gender equality in the Muslim world combine to give scholarly treatments of women’s rights in Muslim societies a vibrant immediacy. Likewise, although the relationship between different religious institutions and the ideals of a pluralistic society is a topic that has occupied scholarly and public attention for centuries, the modern challenge posed by the emergence of vibrant Muslim communities in Western democracies has acquired an urgency that calls for objective reflection and academic analysis. I know I speak for the editors and authors of this volume when I express the hope that this book will contribute to a deeper understanding of these crosscurrents in our global village. As president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, I am particularly proud that this volume reflects the scholarly contributions of the college’s Ninth Biennial International Conference, held in Marrakesh, Morocco, in June 2010. This conference was designed and sponsored in close collaboration with our Moroccan partners, the Advisory Council on Human Rights, the Hassan II University in Casablanca, and Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakesh. The conference brought together scholars from twenty-nine countries to address the theme of “Societies in Transition: Balancing Security, Social Justice, and Tradition.” The presentations at this multidisciplinary conference covered a remarkable array of topics, ranging from the reform of policing in Nepal to female suicide bombers and the international criminal record exchange. From this rich collection of presentations, we invited several presenters to transform their work into the chapters represented in this thematic volume. When we first approached our leading partner — Ahmed Herzenni at the Advisory Council on Human Rights — we realized we had a common goal: that our conference would make lasting and substantive contributions to the research literature on the issues embodied in the conference theme. I trust that this book represents a fulfillment of that aspiration. As John Jay College approaches its fiftieth anniversary, the topics addressed in this volume resonate with the modern educational activities of the institution. We have recently created a gender studies major and a human rights minor. In 2008 we hosted a research conference on femicide that was attended by 450 people. Our students have traveled to Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America for faculty-led study-abroad programs. Our faculty members are engaged in research activities in Muslim countries, on topics ranging from women police officers in Bahrain to Sharia reform in the Republic of Maldives. Last year, inspired in part by our experience in Morocco, we created a collegewide series of lectures, artistic presentations, and student activities titled “Mosques, Veils and Madrasses: Muslims and Institutions of Justice in Pluralistic Societies.” So, knowing that this volume will also have ongoing relevance to the education of our students and the research of our faculty, I wish to express my thanks, on behalf of our college, for the scholarly contributions represented in this exemplary book. Jeremy Travis PRESIDENT, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK CHITRA RAGHAVAN AND JAMES P. LEVINE Introduction GENDER EQUALITY, CHANGE, AND THE QUEST FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR WOMEN IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES The struggle for gender equality is neither new nor confined to Muslim societies. Non-Muslim women have endured long histories of very particularized oppression justified by both religious and secular male-driven laws (for example, Mir-Hosseini and Hamzić 2010). Nonetheless, for a complex set of social, political, and economic reasons, Muslim states have among the weakest human rights records, including those pertaining to gender equality (Baderin 2007; Moustafa 2011). While Islam is neither the cause of nor the solution to Muslim women’s gender inequality (Chase 2007), religion has been increasingly recognized as a key element of human identity (Moustafa 2011; Gates and Steane 2009) rather than a completely separate and private sphere of ideology or faith. Religion cannot be ignored, sidestepped, or minimized in the quest for change. Furthermore, in virtually all Muslim societies and Muslim states, family structures and personal status codes crucial to attaining gender equality are influenced by Islamic codes to some degree (Baderin 2007). Thus, any attempt to change women’s rights in these key areas must engage with Muslim cultural contexts and Islamic discourse (Modizardeh 2006). Finally, because Islamic discourse has always historically privileged social justice and has been traditionally used as a call for action (Waardenberg 1985), such discourses can help provide a familiar and trusted platform from which to orient improvement in women’s rights. The twelve essays in this volume present the struggles to end oppression against women from multidisciplinary perspectives in Muslim contexts spanning the globe. While there are excellent books that cover comparative approaches to Muslim law from a jurisprudence standpoint or from the view of a single culture (for example, Welchman 2007; Esposito and DeLong-Bas 2004), this is the first volume to consider the topic from diverse methodologies in a wide range of countries. We present studies that move beyond narrow conceptions of Muslim societies within the Arab world to include Muslim majority and minority countries in Asia and North Africa, such as India, Thailand, the Maldives, and Uganda. Scholars are drawn from both the humanities and the social sciences — from anthropology, law, political science, history, and psychology. The use of ethnographic methodology drawn from these disciplines in several essays is especially noteworthy. Ethnographic method — which relies on original field data and interviews — has been slow to enter the discourse on Islam and women’s rights, in part because of methodological differences across disciplines, and in part because of difficulty of access to grass-roots women’s voices. By using original field data on issues pertaining to marriage, divorce, property rights, and women’s sexuality, authors in this volume explore how the debates around rights discourse, local cultures, and varying interpretations of Islamic legal traditions are lived and challenged every day. Ethnographic data brings readers closer to the lived world of women in Muslim societies and allows readers to understand the changes women desire, how change happens, what obstacles confront women, and how they challenge them. This focus on local realities can illuminate surprising disjunctions between politico- legal reforms on the one hand and daily life on the other hand: diverse opinions at the local level help explain why politico-legal reforms can have limited effect, how supposedly feminist legislation can backfire (especially when the voices of women are not included in drafting the reforms), and how popular Western assumptions about the slow pace of change in Muslim societies are faulty. This collection is also unique in that it brings larger theoretical frameworks of change crucial to development in all types of societies to bear on specific Muslim contexts. This is an especially important contribution to the literature on this topic, as it serves to correct two interconnected Western prejudices. First, since 9/11, Western media and politicians have primarily depicted Islam to be a dangerous and backward religion. These negative depictions have sometimes served Western political ends. Lila Abu-Lughod (2002) describes how Laura Bush, during her radio address on November 17, 2001, rejoiced that the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan had freed Muslim women from hateful Taliban oppression, thus justifying the invasion and occupation. In 2008, Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam member of the Dutch Parliament, produced a short video called Fitna that depicted Islam as a religion that inherently oppresses and continues to oppress women, a message that Muslim women denounced almost immediately (Vis, van Zoonen, and Mihelj 2011). Popular literature, too, validates “Islamofascism” (Gurel 2009): Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s controversial novels, such as The Infidel and Caged Virgin, are tales of Islamic oppression as told by a courageous Muslim woman who has suffered from it. Works such as these reinforce the stereotype of Islam as retrograde, oppressive, and an enemy of women’s rights (Mayer 2007). These and dozens, if not hundreds, of other attacks against Islam render the religion in the form of caricatures. They promote the false belief that Muslim states are so different from Western ones that the former are impervious to academic analysis and interpretation. This denies the impressive scholarly output of the twentieth century on the history of change and development across Islamic societies. More specifically, it erases the complex, vivid, and everchanging relationship between Islam and feminism. Instead of a rich, dialogic debate that
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