Naufil Shahrukh talks to Asma Barlas on her feminist interpretations of Islam,
with special reference to the post-9/11 world.
Published in ABC, The Nation, Pakistan, February 2005.
What is moderate Islam?
I do not like labeling Islam (as moderate or extremist or feminist) because not
only does it make the religion sound contradictory and schizophrenic, but it also
obscures our own role in interpreting it. To me, it makes more sense to speak of
moderate or extremist or liberal interpretations of Islam and of moderate or
extremist or liberal Muslims. This is also why I don’t like the label “political
Islam.” The truth is that Muslims use Islam for political purposes and that is a
rather different thing. Here I should also mention the quick and dirty habit in
the U.S. of speaking of Islam as if it were a person: Islam does this and Islam
does that, Islam has locked itself inside a prison, and so on. It’s utterly sloppy
and incoherent and no one would think of speaking in the same way about
Christianity or Judaism, for instance.
What are Washington’s objectives in particular and the West’s in general when
they want Muslims around the world to embrace moderate Islam?
The objectives are to neutralize any political resistance to the U.S. The way the
Bush administration has framed the issue one would think that if only “Islam”
became moderate, all the problems in the world would disappear. The truth, of
course, is that U.S. foreign policies are partly responsible for the political and
economic inequalities and inequities that lead people (and not just Muslims) to
oppose them. One cannot reduce all opposition to terrorism but it is becoming
increasingly customary in the U.S. and the West to cast even legitimate political
resistance to repression as terroristic.
Can Islam and secularism co-exist?
If by secularism you mean a government that does not enforce religious practice
through coercion, that respects human rights and guarantees civil and political
liberties to its citizens, and that is democratic and accountable to the people, why
not? What is there in “Islam” that says that governments must manage the
religious practice of individual Muslims, or be authoritarian, or undemocratic?
I know that many Muslims understand the Qur’anic injunction to enjoin the right
and to forbid the wrong as a license for the state to manage the religious life of
its citizens, but even the Prophet was forbidden to do that. His mission, as the
Qur’an makes clear, was to proclaim God’s message, not to enforce obedience to
it; hence the Qur’anic emphasis on avoiding excesses and compulsion in religion.
This impulse to cast politics in terms of the religious management of people’s
lives and to cast Islam in terms of a denial of political and human rights, has
nothing to do with the teachings of our scripture. It has to do with certain
Muslim anxieties and, if I may say so, social pathologies.
Is there a moderate secularism?
Secularism also has its fundamentalists who are no less dogmatic about their
beliefs than religious fanatics. However, what I find more disturbing is the ease
with which liberal and secular states that are based in tolerance, human rights,
democracy and liberty—states like the U.S., for instance—are able to engage in
repressive, antidemocratic, and authoritarian practices abroad without too much
opposition from their citizens. This is partly because we almost never talk about
the violence done in the name of secular values because of our tendency to
associate violence only with religion, and, post 9/11 almost exclusively with
Islam.
Is Washington’s drive to enforce moderate Islam legitimate?
I have already suggested the problems with framing the issue in this way. But,
so long as we are talking about moderation, the Bush administration could also
benefit from some moderation.
Do you think the West is qualified to define what is Islam better than the
Muslim world itself?
There are Muslims in the West who are as qualified to define Islam as anyone in
the “Muslim world” is (I put the phrase in quotes because it seems to imply that
the Muslim world is a cognitive unity that exists separately from planet earth!)
However, I suspect what you’re asking is if nonMuslims in the West should be
the ones to define Islam and I would say only those who practice a religion are
best placed to define it. But this does not mean that one cannot benefit from a
dialogue with people who have alternative understandings of the world.
Can Muslims in the West live in accordance to their religious beliefs?
It is hazardous to speak on behalf of all Muslims in the West but I would say that,
for the most part, yes. This does not mean that are no restrictions placed on
them and here I have in mind the ban on the head-scarf in France. However, to
me this is no more problematic than forcing women to wear a veil in some
Muslim countries. In both cases, the state is mandating women’s dress which I
believe should be strictly within the purview of individual Muslim women to
choose. In cases where women are being forced to veil when the Qur’an does
not call for certain forms of veiling, they also are not being allowed to live in
accordance with their religious beliefs even in the so-called Muslim world.
Do you think that the Hadith, Ijma-e-Sahaba, and the work of the early
scholars (Imams) of Islam were all patriarchal interpretations of the Quran and
that all, or a major part, of that work should be revised?
I should clarify that when I speak about patriarchal interpretations I use two
very specific definitions of patriarchy: as a form of father (and husband) rule
over women and as a politics of sexual differentiation that privileges males. My
own understanding of the Qur’an is that not only does it not support either form
of patriarchy, but that its teachings are fundamentally at odds with theories of
male privilege. To me it seems obvious, then, that we need to rethink religious
knowledge where this knowledge conflicts with the Qur’an’s teachings. If this
means questioning the knowledge produced by the imams you mention, what is
wrong with that? None of the imams ever claimed that their work was
complete or infallible and that it was incapable of being reformed. The Qur’an is
a universal text applicable for all times. One cannot undercut its universality by
claiming that it could only be understood by four scholars for all of eternity! To
me this is blasphemy because it elevates human beings over the word of God.
According to some religious scholars “equity” between men and women is more
appropriate a term than that of “equality.” Is it correct?
Equity and equality are very hard terms to define in practice and even in the
West the debate on what equality entails is far from over. As to why some
Muslims like to use the word equity, I think it is because they feel that equality is
a Western and feminist concept, hence somehow decadent. It’s amazing how
Muslims shortchange themselves! Equality is very much a Qur’anic concept and,
in the Qur’an, sexual equality is ontological in that it is a function of our very
being and existence since both women and men were created from the same
nafs, or self. However, Muslims disregard this crucial principle in favor of three
or four words or lines in the Qur’an that they read as establishing men as
guardians over women and giving them the right to beat their wives, and so on.
There are now several studies that show such readings to be flawed and
misrepresentative of the Qur’an’s teachings. Conveniently, however, many
conservative Muslims who want to cling to patriarchal readings of the Qur’an
dismiss this work on various pretexts in order not to have to deal with it.
How was your book “Believing Women” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal
Interpretations of the Qur’an received in the Muslim world?
There is no monolithic Muslim world and even if there were, it would be hard to
generalize. The book is being translated into Indonesian and of course now
there is a South Asian edition but it has only just been released, so one has to
wait and see. In the U.S., it has done very well since it is in its fourth printing in
two years.
What was the reason behind your leaving of your home country and settling in
the US?
I left Pakistan in 1983 after General Zia ul Haq had me dismissed from the
Foreign Service on two charges: having called him a buffoon in my diary (which
was turned over to him by my former husband’s family as punishment for
leaving a bad marriage), and for having said at a private dinner in the home of
Pakistan’s ambassador to the Philippines that the judiciary in Pakistan was
neither free and nor fair (this was after the hanging of Mr. Bhutto in 1979). I was
in the sixth year of my service when this happened and for a year or so I worked
as assistant editor of the Muslim in Islamabad. However, I eventually had to
leave for reasons of personal safety and later received political asylum in the U.S.
I did not mean to settle in the U.S., but life has its own way of unfolding and here
I am, more than twenty years later. For a very long time, I felt that I had no real
home but lately I’ve been trying to make peace with my life.
Where is the actual problem—the misinterpreted and misused Hudood Act in
Pakistan; or the Hudood law itself?
I am not a legal scholar and cannot answer the specifics of this question. But I do
want to note that the late Fazlur Rahman used to say that the Qur’an is not a law
book but that we need to derive laws from it. The process of deriving the law is
thus very much an interpretive act that is far from perfect; we should thus
always be willing to entertain the possibility that some laws may not be
consonant with the Qur’an’s teachings. I say this as a general proposition.
As for the implementation of the Hudood laws in Pakistan, I would say that it
has been terribly egregious because the weight of all moral crimes has fallen
disproportionately on women. There are thousands of women languishing in
Pakistan’s jails while the men with whom they are alleged to have committed
sexual crimes have magically disappeared. How just is that? And how just is it
not to be able to distinguish, from a strictly legal perspective, between rape and
consensual sex so that a victim of rape is actually treated as the criminal? And
how “Islamic” is it to mandate stoning to death for adultery when the Qur’an
doesn’t mandate such a punishment for any crime? It is true that the Prophet
(pbuh) sanctioned this punishment for a Jewish couple taken in adultery since he
was judging them by their own law. How has stoning become part of Islamic
law?
The US and the West have always supported the Muslim states where Islam is
used as a tool to enforce the writ of patriarchal monarchies or authoritarian
forms of government, like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iraq (of 1980s). Do you
think that there is a role of the West in promoting patriarchal Islam?
Oh, absolutely! And that is partly why I find all this pious talk about “moderate
Islam” on the part of the U.S. and “the West” so hypocritical and galling.
What can be done to liberate Muslims from the holds of patriarchal
interpretations of Islam?
Since I have already suggested that the Qur’an is not a patriarchal text, I would
say reading the Qur’an in light of new understandings of the world that come as
the result of living in this world; of educating Muslims so that, among other
things, they can read the Qur’an for themselves; challenging the authority of all
those readings of the Qur’an that project sexual preferences and hatred onto
God; punishing tribal notions of “honor” that allow men to exercise the right of
life and death over their female relatives, and working to develop an Islamic
praxis of sexual equality. However, I realize that for any of this to happen, there
needs to be far reaching social, economic, and political reform so that Muslim
societies become more egalitarian and democratic. For me, the challenge isn’t
identifying what needs to be done, but finding the means to do what needs to be
done and that’s a totally different question.
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