Words: 1475
Furthermore, “religious persecution and conflicts between believers and nonbelievers; between different churches in multi- religious societies; between domination, protected, or preferred religions and religious minorities; and concerning newly established elisions, are all a common phenomenon” (Learner 906-907). Although this indeed is an exceedingly broad topic, my main focus will be on the dilemmas that exist among women in Islamic societies, what positive aspects were attributed in defending women by Gandhi and how opinions of secularity seems irresistible when comparing this society with anything else in human history.
The confluence of religion, nationalism, ethnicity and tribalism in global politics has both threatened the existence and stability of nations, states and governments, leading some to warn of the clash of civilizations. Religious nationalisms demonstrate the variety of ways in which religion has been used to reinforce national identities, to mobile popular support and even to Justify actions that have led to ethnic cleansing. John Esposito writes, “The discrediting and dethronement of secular paradigms has been particularly vivid in the Islamic world.
The use of Islam by Muslim governments and opposition movements alike reaffirm the presence and power of Islam in Muslim societies” (3). It challenges and threatens, the more secular patterns of development and nation building in many Muslim states. In considering the mutual infiltration of religion and secularism, this disturbed relationship, often takes the seemingly normative shape of polemics between secular modernity and Islam. Women for decades have been discriminated against, belittled, oppressed, and considered non- existent.
It is argued by Shared Major, “that Islam treats women with dignity, respect and grants them equal rights. However, the regime of rights in general and women’s rights in particular are products of the demagnification struggles in western societies” (137). Muslim women live in a variety of societies and communities where isolation, customs and traditions are affected or inspired by interpretations of the Curran. Even the minds of women are conditioned in such a manner that they have accepted their subordinate status within the patriarchal system without much resistance.
In addition, Muslim women’s lives and the choices they face are influenced as much by patriarchal social arrangements as they are by religious so as to ensure peace and harmony within the family and society. The issue becomes even more complex when we include the status of women within Muslim minority roofs, or within states where Shari’s law (moral code and religious law of Islam) is superseded by secular law. Secular legislation may often be avoided by Shari ‘a as well as customary law.
Together with cultural, social, economic and political factors, this can perpetuate a patriarchal system in which women hold disadvantaged legal and social status relative to men. The growing awareness among women in regard to their low position in the male-dominated society at different levels motivated them to fight for their rights. The interest in the promotion of women’s rights stresses the deed to build bridges between secular and Islamic feminism. Secularist need to critically reexamine their views of Islam and seriously reconsider the public role of religion as a force of empowerment and liberation.
In an attempt to redefine secularism, “Islamic secularism will express itself as a moral ethos and can become a vehicle for social change by inspiring social movements for peace and social Justice or the liberation of women” (Zeta and Abdullah 2004:46). Secular feminists dismiss the role of religion in women’s liberation. Secular feminists fight male domination, trudge for the “empowerment” of women over men, view religion as an obstacle to women’s rights and concentrate on women’s superior nature as well as on women’s participation in state institutions as channels of “empowerment” (Zeta quitted in El- Gharry 1994:26).
Muslim women activism is crucial in unpacking stereotypes of women in Muslim societies by focusing on how Muslim women perceive their status, rights and identities. Their activism promises a more inclusive, diverse, civic, and voluntary civil society that rejects the false essentialist, defines and authentic identity, and maximizes women’s participation and engagement. Muslim women’s outcry for equal rights surprisingly received support from an unlikely source of the opposite gender that was well known as Mohammad Karachi Gandhi.
Sandhog’s ideas about women and their role in public life were a departure from those of the 18th century reformers. He saw women as a potential force in the struggle to build a new social order. He consciously attempted to articulate the connections between private and public life in order to bring women into the struggle. While insisting that a woman’s real sphere of activity was the home, he was instrumental in creating notations which could help women break the shackles of domesticity.
For an overall understanding of Sandhog’s views on women, it is necessary to take into account his views on sex and man-woman relationships. These views are rooted in his personal experiences in early youth. When married, any form of sexual contact with his wife came to embody a threat to higher loyalties. He could never forgive himself for indulging in sexual intimacy with his wife (who was pregnant at the time) while his father was dying. Then his unborn child died, which confirmed for him the latent mischief in the sexual nature of man.
Sexuality became a fatal danger which perhaps was the cause to the vow of abstinence that he had to give to his mother. Gandhi felt that celibacy was a higher form of life, but understood that it was not meant for all. Through this profound faith, he believed that his sexual lust was a thing of the past and saw women who were close to him only as sisters and daughters united in a common faith. Gandhi saw the home as the main sphere of activity of most women, extension of the domestic role of selfless service. One of the most lasting contributions of Gandhi to the women’s cause was that he gave it moral legitimacy.
He helped create a tradition and a social-political atmosphere in which even today; hardly anyone will publicly stand up and explicitly oppose women’s fundamental rights or will deny them participation in politics. The moral legitimacy was so great that Gandhi created for the cause of women that women’s entry into politics as equal partners came without much overt resistance and opposition. Despite great concern for women’s rights, Gandhi did not encourage the woman to organize as a political force in their own right around their own issues.
They were to seek their liberation by Irving the national cause, in the tradition of altruistic social workers. As a result women acquired political power within the Congress. Sandhog’s action in bringing women dignity in social life, in breaking down some of the prejudices against their participation in social and political life, in promoting an atmosphere of sympathetic awareness of their issues, goes far beyond his own views and pronouncements of a woman’s role and place in society.
My aim here was not to explain a general question such as whether Islam is oppressive to women or not. Instead, I tried to riffle analyze the complex entanglements of Muslim women’s oppression and exploitation and how they bravely and imaginatively struggle to free themselves from the different sources of oppression that limit their possibilities in the process of socio-economic and political developments. The experiences vary according to their class, religious and tenth-linguistic group, urban or rural background, and age and family relationships.
In short, the lived experiences of Muslim women in their daily conformation and engagement with the state, patriarchy, secularism, Islam, and other social, economic and political structures demonstrates their struggle. Women’s status in the Middle East and the Muslim world today has transformed throughout the twentieth, and in the twenty-first century. This transformation has undergone tremendous amounts of positive and negative scrutiny. Although I truly believe and maintain hopefulness that the final outcome will be in favor of Muslim women, I have no conclusions to offer, no solutions to suggest.
I will end simply by recalling the following words of the wise Gandhi: “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self- sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman? ” (Mahatma and Attenuator’s 11).