In the name of Islam - Women are being abused, even mutilated

[Guest guest]

In the name of Islam - Women are being abused, even mutilated

by Ann Louise Bardach

Readers' Digest, March 1994

 

In April 1991, a 22-year-old Saudi woman arrived at Montreal's

Mirabel Airport and requested asylum on the ground of " gender-related

persecution. " She told authorities that if Canada forced her to

return to Saudi Arabia, her life would be in danger. Her crime?

Walking outside her home without being enveloped from head to toe in

a black chador.

 

Initially, the woman's request was rejected. Canadian officials were

apparently reluctant to believe that women in Saudi Arabia today live

as third-class citizens. In fact, they do: Saudi women are not

allowed to drive, to marry whom they want or to travel without

written permission from a male guardian, and they are the target of

frequent searches by the Mutawwai'in, dreaded religious police.

 

Following an outcry, Canada finally granted the woman asylum.

However, some people feared that the decision would lead to an influx

of women asylum-seekers. One official commented, " There are one

billion Muslims in the world, so we're talking hypothetically about

500 million who might want out. "

 

As Islamic fundamentalists seize the social agenda of one country

after another, women have been the greatest sufferers. By selectively

interpreting the Koran, Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) and

Shariah (a code of religious law), regimes in certain Muslim

countries have severely restricted the rights of women. Many have

legalised polygamy and repudiation - whereby a man divorces his wife

simply by announcing, " I divorce you. " At the same time they have

denied women the right to divorce, child custody and community

property.

 

Under the banner of Islam, (although it is not Islamic in origin)

female circumcision, more accurately defined at female genital

mutilation (F.G.M.) has flourished in many countries. Algerian Marie-

Aimee Helie-Lucas, founder of the French-based advocacy group Women

Living Under Islamic Laws, likens the past decade for Muslim women to

the Dark Ages. She rattles off some of the most heinous developments

regarding women in the Muslim world: -

 

In 1990, Iraq issued a decree effectively allowing men to kill their

wives, daughters or sisters for adultery. -

 

In Pakistan, current penal laws stipulate stoning to death as the

maximum penalty for murder. Unlike man, however, an accused woman is

not allowed to testify on her own behalf. Women who claim to have

been raped are often imprisoned for committing 'zina', sex outside

marriage. In maximum-sentence rape cases, women's testimonies carry

no weight. They must produce four adult, pious, male Muslims who

actually witnessed the crime. An estimated 2000 women languish in

Pakistani jails under ordinances governing such crimes as 'zina'. -

 

In certain parts of the Muslim world, " honor killings " - in wish a

father kills a wife or daughter believed to have dishonoured a

family - are not uncommon.

 

" Search for Identity. " The issue is not Islam - the world's fastest

growing religion - but extremist fundamentalism, which uses Islam as

a billy club. " In Islam, the communion is direct between God and the

individual, " says Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan. " But

throughout the Muslim world, you have clerics saying that Muslims

don't know what's good for them. They say a woman has to look down at

the floor. But the Prophet said the best veils is the veil in the

eyes. "

 

According to Fatima Mernissi, a Koranic scholar and Moroccan

sociologist specialising in women's issues and Islam, the Prophet

Mohammed revolutionized life for women in the 7th century - granting

them access to the mosque, full participation in public affairs and

the right to inherit property. As for veiling, the Koran makes no

requirement that women veil their faces, but suggests modesty for

both men and women.

 

The success of fundamentalism, says Bhutto, is twofold. First, it

springs from the " search for identity in an increasingly global

village where all the messages from the Christian West. It is a

reaction to preserve one's culture when other cultures have

dominance. " Second, she says, it was created to keep communists at

bay. " Political parties largely banned, " she says. " The mosque was

allowed to become a place where people could gather, and the clerics

became very powerful. They started a new doctrine, where they knew

what was best for everybody else. "

 

" Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement, not a religious

movement, " Helie-Lucas declares. " It's the extreme right wing using

religion as a cover. It is the fascism of today. "

 

Last May, the World Health Organisation adopted a resolution

sponsored by several African countries calling for the elimination of

female genital mutilation, which is performed on an estimated two

million children each year, ranging in age from infancy to

adolescence.

 

Although F.G.M. is practised in both Islamic and non-Islamic

cultures, many African Muslim communities that do perform the

procedure cite religion as a reason. F.G.M. takes one of the three

forms. Sunna circumcision - the mildest form is the removal of all or

part of the clitoris. Excision is the cutting away of the clitoris

and all or part of the inner vaginal lips. Infibulation involves the

removal of the clitoris, the inner vaginal lips and part of the outer

vaginal lips, followed by the sewing together of the two sides of the

vulva, leaving only a pea-size opening for urine and blood.

 

Because of the crude, unhygienic tools used by practitioners, it is

not uncommon for a child to develop tetanus or septicemia. Many

females who undergo the procedure develop secondary infections or

painful, lifelong medical problems.

 

F.G.M. is practiced in more than 30 countries, primarily through the

central belt of Africa, from Senegal to Somalia and as far north as

Egypt. Despite the belief that it is a religious duty, in fact, the

Koran offers no encouragement of the procedure.

 

Arrange Marriages. Catherine Hogan, who heads the Washington

Metropolitan Alliance against Female Genital Mutilation, believes

that F.G.M. is being performed in the United States. A major problem,

she says, is that no one advises African refugees against it when

they enter the country. In fact, there is no state or federal law

that specifically bans the practice. " The U.S. Immigration and

Naturalisation Service tells all Muslim men that polygamy is illegal

here, " says Hogan, " but says nothing to women about F.G.M. How can

you charge someone with a crime if there isn't even a law against it,

and you never warned them?

 

But not all American doctors, or even all feminists, stand united

against the practice. A few argue that the decision to be re-sutured

after pregnancy should be left to the woman herself.

 

" It doesn't matter that the patient wants it done, " counters Dr.

Joseph Tate, an Atlanta obstetrician and gynecologist. " Would you cut

off someone's leg if she asked you? "

 

In the past decade, the West has been confronted with a series of

unfamiliar legal, medical and ethical problems, says Ahmed Jamal, a

London film maker who was raised in Pakistan. His recent British TV

film documented the career of Tahir Mahmood, a former cabdriver from

Huddersfield, England, which tracks down runaway wives and daughters.

Some of them were escaping physical abuse or were trying to dodge

arranged marriages.

 

The film triggered public outrage, which stunned Mahmood. He believed

that " he was a public servant of sorts, putting back together good

Muslim families, " says Jamal.

 

Scottish lawyer Cameron Fyfe represents Muslim clients forced into

arranged marriages. In October 1992 he won an annulment for one woman

on the ground that she had been forced into marriage when she was

under the legal age.

 

The woman, who now lives with her three children in Glasgow, was 14

when her father announced that he was taking her on a vacation to

Pakistan. Shortly after their arrival, she was told that she would be

marrying her cousin. Following the ceremony, her father turned over

her passport to the new husband and returned to Scotland. The teen-

age bride's new home was a hut with no electricity, gas, or running

water, and from the first day her husband beat her.

 

Two years later, he moved his young family to Glasgow in the hope of

making more money. When he finally got his own residence permit, he

punched his wife in the face, screaming, she says, " This is the only

reason I married you. " The beating became so grisly that neighbours

finally called the police, who explained to the bewildered, battered

girl that she could legally leave her husband.

 

During the three years it took to win her case, the woman became the

pariah of Glasgow's Pakistani community. " Some people spat on me,

others would cross the street if they saw me, " she says.

 

Attempted Censorship. In the United States as well, among a small

segment of American Muslims there is a resentment bordering on

hostility toward any kind of scrutiny or criticism of Islam. When the

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a series on women and Islamic

fundamentalism, it was besieged with letter accusing it of racism and

Muslim-bashing.

 

The 1991 release of " Not Without My Daughter " , a film based on the

true story of an American woman's escape from her Iranian husband,

occasioned chilling attempts at suppression. Movie theatres where the

film played received threats. It is unclear whether such censorship

is homegrown or orchestrated from abroad.

 

Most observers believe that fundamentalist extremists have found

nesting sites throughout the country, and that they hide within

unsuspecting Muslim communities. Meanwhile, the bewildered media,

scrambling to be politically correct, have cranked out a plethora of

feel-good features on Muslim culture. At the same time they

erroneously imply that restrictions against women are part and parcel

of Islamic law.

 

" We try to educate our own community about the true teachings of

Islam, " says Nahid Ansari, a board member of the Muslim Women's

League and a member of the Islamic Centre of Southern California in

Los Angeles. " It's appalling what goes on in the name of Islam. "

 

In the name of Islam - Women are being abused, even mutilated

by Ann Louise Bardach