Interview: Islamic Scholar Farida Khanam on Muslim Women

Muslim women are still not taken seriously: Farida Khanam

By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net

Farida Khanam is Associate Professor at the Department of Islamic Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Daughter of the well-known Islamic scholar, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, she has translated more than sixty of her father’s books into English, besides being the author of several books on Islam. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand for TwoCircles.net, she reflects on issues related to Islam, Muslim women and patriarchy.

Q: Almost all well-known Indian Muslim scholars who write on Islamic issues, including on matters related to Islam and women, are men. As one of the very few Indian Muslim women who write on Islamic issues, how do you account for this?

A: You have a valid point here. Very few Muslim women writers have received the attention they deserve. Most of them write fiction. Among them there are hardly any of note who write on Islamic issues, including on matters related to Islam and women. One reason for this is, quite simply, that Muslim women writers do not receive proper encouragement and appreciation from their men, their families and from the wider society. Generally speaking, women continue to be looked upon as commodities, not as life partners of equal worth and capacity. They are still seen, and defined by, what are expected to be their domestic roles, as wives and mothers, and as having no public role. There is still this deep-rooted belief that education for women is simply a means to get a ‘good’, wealthy husband. In fact, many Muslim women continue to be conditioned to believe that being subjugated by their husbands is their fate, that faithfully serving their husbands, no matter how they are treated, is their path to salvation. Given all this, how can you expect our women to be intellectually productive?

Muslim women and their intellectual abilities and development are still not taken seriously. The situation is particularly pathetic in north India, where Muslim elite culture continues to remain steeped in medieval, backward-looking, feudal traditions. In my view, this has to do with culture rather than with Islam per se. The dominant interpretations and understandings of Islam here have been heavily moulded by the deep-rooted patriarchal, feudal culture and mind-set. This has also to do with the heavy influence of traditional, patriarchal Hindu culture on most Indian Muslims. But, while patriarchy has been forcefully challenged by educated Hindu women, Muslim women, on the whole, remain much more backward because, compared to the Hindus, the Muslims in India lag considerably behind in terms of modern education.

Q: You, too, come from a feudal family. How is it, then, that you were able to overcome that barrier?

A: In this my mother had a special role to play. In traditional Muslim families, mothers begin to prepare dowries for their daughters when they are young—a reflection of the belief that marriage is a woman’s ultimate destiny in this world. But, my mother did not do that. She, as well as my father, insisted I should continue my studies. My parents were a constant source of support in my education.

Q: What is your educational background?

A: I did my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Delhi University, and then did a PhD, which I completed in 1990, in Islamic Studies from the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, where I have been teaching since 1994. For my thesis, I worked on a critique of the theological vision and politics of Maulana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of the Jamaat-e Islami. My thesis was recently published as a book.

Q: Maulana Maududi’s views on women have influenced Islamist thinking in the sub-continent. How do you look at his approach to gender relations?

A: Maulana Maududi remained trapped within a patriarchal mind-set. For instance, he insisted on women wearing the burqa and the naqab, the face-veil. Interestingly, neither his own daughter nor his daughter in law followed his advice in this regard!

Women are generally more tender, spiritual, sincere and dedicated, and so they can, and should, play a central role in social movements and efforts for social welfare. But the traditional scholars continue to oppose this, even though at the time of the Prophet, women, including the Prophet’s wives and those of his companions, played important social roles and were very active in imparting religious education to Muslim children. At the same time, however, Islam does not allow for permissiveness and uncontrolled intermingling between men and women.

Q: Besides yourself, there are hardly any women teachers in the few Departments of Islamic Studies that exist in universities across India. How has your being a woman affected your experience of working in the Department of Islamic Studies at the Jamia Millia Islamia?

A: In the beginning I did feel somewhat alienated, being the only female member; but gradually, by dint of hard work and the spirit of adjustment, I surmounted the hurdles. God has been very gracious to me. He was always by my side.

Q: A fairly sizeable proportion of students in your Department are girls. In addition, in recent years a number of girls’ madrasas have been established in different parts of India. Do you think this rise in the number of trained Muslim women Islamic scholars might lead to the articulation and popularization of more gender-sensitive interpretations of Islam?

A: I really don’t know. To be honest, most students in our Department, both boys and girls, are graduates of madrasas or of traditional Muslim schools, because of which they have few alternatives other than to study Islamic Studies, History, Political Science, Arabic and Urdu, etc. Frankly, the intellectual output of these students is far from encouraging. The situation in the traditional girls’ madrasas is hardly better. In most of these madrasas, girls are reared on the same outdated syllabus and are not taught to be critical, innovative or to think for themselves. They insist that women cover-up completely and even teach their students that a woman’s voice is aurah or something to be concealed, thus effectively silencing and invisiblising them.

Q: The All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which projects itself as the principal body of the Indian Muslims, has been critiqued for its defense of patriarchy and certain laws that, while militating against gender-justice, have also been condemned as ‘un-Islamic’, most notably the practice of triple talaq in one sitting. What do you feel about the Board and its claims of speaking for the Indian Muslims, including Indian Muslim women?

A: It is not true that the Board represents the Muslims of India. The vast majority of Indian Muslims do not even know who its members are! Muslims in India are so diverse, divided on the basis of fiqh, school of thought, ethnicity and language, that it is impossible for a single body to represent the entire Indian Muslim community.

Most of the leaders of the AIMPLB have received education in traditional seminaries. They have little understanding and appreciation of modern realities. They keep fighting among themselves on sectarian lines over minor details and even non-issues. In the madrasas they learn little or nothing at all about the modern world. How can one expect such people to represent the entire Muslim community?

Q: How do you think modern educated Indian Muslim women respond, or react to, the traditional ulama, many of who continue to uphold a deeply patriarchal understanding of Islam? How does this affect the way such women relate to Islam itself?

A: It is an undeniable fact that a number of educated Muslim women do, indeed, feel distanced from Islam because of the conservative and patriarchal understandings and interpretations of Islam by traditional religious scholars. There is no doubt about that. Unfortunately, a large section of them do not want any change as far as gender relations are concerned. They are also unable to interpret and convey Islam in a modern, contemporary idiom, which also alienates many educated people, including Muslims themselves. They continue to talk simply in terms of halal and haram, do’s and don’t’s, while today’s educated youth are looking for reason-based arguments, which the traditional scholars are unable to supply. Traditional Islamic scholars focus simply on the duties of women, not their rights, and so, obviously, educated women feel completely alienated. No wonder then, that some Muslim women go to the other extreme and advocate radical forms of feminism.

Farida Khanam can be contacted on fkhan1001@yahoo.co.in or info@cpsglobal.org.