Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
234feminist s in many Muslim soc iet ies have persist ent ly mount ed at t empt s t o
introduce reforms, the laws developed in highly misogynist soc iet ies in t he first
three or four c enturies of Islam c ontinue to govern the relations between men and
women. Only a few c ountries – Iraq, Syria, and T unisia – have introduc ed
modific at ions in t heir laws t hat improve on t he laws of est ablishment Islam in
varying degrees.
Family law is the cornerstone of the system of male privilege set up by
est ablishment Islam. T hat it is st ill preserved almost int ac t signals t he exist enc e of
enormously powerful forc es wit hin Middle East ern soc iet ies determined to uphold
male privilege and male c ont rol over women. Among polit ic al Islamist movement s
suc h forc es are gaining ground. Where Islamist movements have led to the
inst it ut ion of "Islam" as t he formal basis of polit ic al power – Iran, Pakistan under
Zia ul-Huq – the governments have proceeded to transform the countries, as well
as women's homes, into prison houses for women, where the c onfinement of
women, their exc lusion from many fields of work, and their unjust and inhumane
treatment are the proclaimed laws of t he land. In addit ion, t he misogynist rhet oric
t hey let loose int o t he soc ial syst em implic it ly sanc t ions male violenc e t oward
women and sets up women – rather than the c orruptions and bankruptc ies of the
government – as t arget s of male frust ration at poverty and powerlessness. Besides
the costs to women themselves, limiting their access to remunerative work
deprives their societies of the creativity and productivity that women throughout
the world have proven themselves to be capable of.
Clearly, the Islam suc h governments set up bears no relation to an Islam
reinterpreted to give precedence to the ethical voice of Islam. With respect at any
rat e t o women, it is t he t ec hnic al, legalist ic legac y of est ablishment Islam t hat
polit ic al Islamis m institutes once it gains power. There is one difference between
these modern enforcers of technical Islam and their predecessors who developed
the laws being reinstituted today. The encoders of the earlier Islamic period,
host age t o soc iet ies in whic h misogyny and androc entrism were the unc ontested
and invisible norms, st rove t o t he best of t heir abilit ies t o render Islamic prec ept s
into laws that expressed justice according to the available measures of their times.
In c ontrast, their desc endants, today reinstituting the laws devised in other ages
and other societies, are choosing to eschew, when it comes to women,
c ontemporary understandings of the meanings of justic e and human rights, even as
they adopt modern tec hnologies and languages in every other domain of life.
Deferring justic e to women until rights and prosperity have been won for all
men, perpetuating and reinstituting systems immora l by c ontemporary standards in
order t o pander t o male frust rat ions – these are sterile and destructive to no less
an extent than the politic s of rage and the disingenuous rhetoric of rejec ting the
West in favor of a return to indigenous c ulture while allowing the mental and
technological appurtenances of the West to permeate society without barrier...
It was in this discourse of c olonial "feminis m" that the notion that an intrinsic
c onnec tion existed between the issues of c ulture and the status of women, and in
partic ular that progress for women c ould be ac hieved only through abandoning the
nat ive c ult ure, first made it s appearance. The idea was the product of a particular
hist oric al moment and was c onst ruc t ed by t he disc ourses of pat riarc hal c olonialism
in t he servic e of part ic ular polit ic al ends. As t he hist ory of West ern women makes
c lear, t here is no validit y t o t he not ion that progress for women can be achieved