Faith, tradition and the world of Islam's women

The Position of Women in Islam
A Progressive View
Mohammad Ali Syed
State University of New York Press

Mohammad Ali Syed subtitles his work as 'A Progressive View', which certainly points to the kind of case he makes for his interpretation of Islamic rules and conventions as they apply to women. Syed has little patience with the proponents of radical Islam, those whose view of the faith embraces some of the most conservative, indeed fanatic assessments of the position Muslim women should hold in society. The increasing alarm that in recent times has been raised over such issues as the use of the niqab and hijab by Muslim women does not, for the writer, emphasise the core of the Islamic faith and indeed goes against history. Not for him the bigotry which has long characterised (and still does characterise) the status of women in Islam. Not for him, therefore, an acquiescence in the thought that women in Islam belong in one place, in this instance the four walls of a male-dominated home.
And Syed should know, given his years of practice of the law and study of historical Islamic society. Something of his background also helps. His father was a prominent Muslim politician in pre- and post-partition India and in his own way was an individual who set much store by a modern, liberal interpretation of Islam. The stream of Syed's thoughts in this work is therefore palpable. He makes a beginning through presenting the complex history of the Quran and Hadiths, but especially the latter, considering that the Hadiths for hundreds of years have served as an underpinning of Muslim thought. The Hadiths, being the sayings of the Prophet of Islam, are of course a major determining factor in any pursuit of Islamic cultural, religious and political traditions. The trouble, though, is that throughout the ages, since the death of Prophet Muhammad, (Pbuh) an entire body of questionable Hadiths has arisen which has readily been seized upon by ill-educated and ill-informed preachers as a weapon to be employed in a sustained struggle against liberality.
Syed spends a good length of time illustrating the nature and history of the Hadiths, before moving off to the issue confronting him. Women, he puts it plainly, enjoy the same degree of rights as men. He thus slices through the notion of Islam being a place for only macho men ready to order women around. He quotes the Prophet (M 13:11): "The most excellent of you is he who is best in the treatment of his wife". And yet, as in M 15:19 T 10:11, there is a caveat which follows the advice on treating women: "And be careful of your duty to God in the matter of women, for you have taken them as the trust of God . .
The question of purdah occupies critical space in Mohammad Ali Syed's arguments. His opinion holds that women in Persia and India had been bound to a purdah system long before the arrival of Islam in their lives. Purdah is therefore a reality that has little to do with Islam, or so the author puts it to his readers. But Syed does not rest on his interpretations of purdah alone. He goes back to the Quran for a vindication of his thoughts: "Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: and God is well acquainted with all that they do" (24:30). In 24:31, this is the instruction that goes out in relation to women: "And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments (zeenatahunna) except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons . . . and they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments . . ." Syed quotes Mohammad Ali, whose historical analysis regarding women covering their bosoms dates back to pre-Islamic Arabia, when women sought to demonstrate their beauty through an uncovering of their breasts (or perhaps it was a matter of cleavage here?) although they had their head coverings in place.
Freedom of movement for Muslim women soon comes under Syed's scrutiny. He goes back to some relevant Hadiths to explain why independence is a right for Muslim women. In B 11:12, it is thus stated, "The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, 'Do not prohibit the handmaids of Allah from going to the mosques of Allah'." Again, in B 10:162, comes this: "The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, 'If a woman wanted to go to the mosque at night, she should not be prohibited from doing so'." Such freedom, argues Syed, goes beyond the parameters of the mosque: "The Prophet (pbuh) said, 'When the wife of one of you asks permission to go out she should not be prohibited from doing so'." History also bears testimony to women's freedom in Islam: "In the mosques the women were not forbidden to speak to the men. Once Hazrat Ayesha could not hear the last part of the sermon of the Prophet (pbuh) as his companions (ahsabs) were crying loudly and then she had asked a man sitting by her side . . . 'May God be kind to you. Could you tell me what were the last words of the Prophet?' The man said that the Prophet (pbuh) had said, 'It has been revealed to me that you have to face the test of the grave before the test of your dajjal'."
The Quran, notes Syed, is silent on the issue of whether or not women can become heads of Muslim states. And yet the Quran does not deny women the opportunity of pursuing a political life or providing leadership to governments. The author is dismissive of men who have long used isolated or ahad Hadiths to deny women a role of leadership in politics. Syed holds up Ayesha as an exemplar of free Islamic womanhood. And then he goes on to cite the tales of other women in Islam. In the late fifteenth century, Hurrah Malika Arwa Binte Ahmed provided leadership to Yemen province under the Fatimid caliphs Mustansir, Moost'Ali and Amir. When Amir died, she became sole ruler of Yemen.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star