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My cousin visiting from
France tells me an interesting incident. While studying for her Masters in International Business
at Ecole Nationale Des Ponts et Shaussees in Paris last year, the
professor in her Organizational Management class got an advance profile of all students. First day in class he calls her name and
asks her to stand up and recite Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Although she thought it strangely irrelevant to the MBA class, she had studied
physics so she
answered the question promptly
and correctly. She tells me
there was pin drop silence while the professor’s jaw dropped and he
blurted out “but according to your profile you aren’t supposed to
answer that question!” The
profile outlined Amber as a 25 year old Pakistani, Muslim girl who,
according to his
preconceived notion, obviously wasn’t supposed to be
knowledgeable about science. “Of
course” says Amber with glee, “the professor apologized and the
class looked at me with new
respect after that – specially the guys”.
Muslims
and especially Muslim women are fighting the image war at every level.
Earlier in March this year, while the world was celebrating
International Women’s Day, I was battling a series of questions from a
journalist about how I could profess to be Muslim and a feminist! To her
this was contradictory and in order to answer her query satisfactorily,
I had to go through practically the entire history of Islam and
explain a simple fact that many people forget – even when they study Islam:
Islam
was sent as a system of social justice and to free women from female
infanticide, slavery, oppression and bondage. I also explained that, to
me, feminism is about equal rights. In theory Islam gives women the basic rights to live, work,
marry, vote, have freedom and justice based on the Qur'an. How these rights are being practiced today in culturally
male-dominated societies, is something the entire community must face
and address.
Muslims in North America
are addressing the issue of negative stereotyping at various levels.
A recent ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) conference
in Toronto discussed strategies and the able guest speaker talked about
“educating the public about the faith”. This is an important step in helping the host community
understand the issues faced by this fast growing group of Muslims who
are now the second I
don’t know if there was a keynote female speaker at the ISNA
conference, but there were no quotes from any women. At a time when there are major issues facing Muslim women, they
should be invited to be in the forefront of any discussion regarding the
community at large. For
centuries Muslim women have disadvantaged themselves by allowing others
to define their rights and responsibilities, and interpret
the Qur'an through male-centric cultural lens. But visionary scholars say that every generation of Muslims has
the right to interpret the foundational principles of Islam to solve
their own problems.
Through a non-Muslim lens,
Muslim women are constantly judged by the yardstick of how the Taleban
treat Afghan women, or how the Saudis oppress their women and don’t
allow them to drive. These
inhuman actions have no basis in Islam. In actual fact Islam is nowhere on the mind of these men when
they force their
patriarchal and oppressive rules on the women. It’s not about faith – it’s about power. Unfortunately for
our image, the community doesn’t always practice what it preaches, so
theory remains far
removed from the practices which in some cases, are questionable.
Recently at a lecture in
Toronto, well known Islamic scholar Dr.Sachedina spoke
about family rights and mentioned something that came as news even to my
somewhat liberated mind. He explained that in a family dispute, the
woman’s decision overrules the man's (provided she is not pursuing a non-Islamic
cause). It
made sense when he further
explained that any person who de-humanizes another or digresses from
justice and humanity – is not a person of faith. This lecture, attended by many non-Muslims was another
small step in the direction of removing stereotypes and
pre-conceived images.
We
still have a long way to go. The
Muslim community worldwide needs to practice more of what the faith
preaches – and harshly criticize those regimes or individuals who
stifle human rights and undermine human dignity. It will only be through example, especially in their treatment of
women, that they will reach the end of this long journey to liberate our
image.
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