Daily Times

A few months ago, Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign minister, denounced the subjugation of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She focused on the fact that Saudi Arabia bars women from travelling, conducting official business or marrying without the permission of male guardians. Moreover, girls can be forced into child marriages and sexual relationships with older men. Instead of inviting discussion, Wallström’s comments were met with an embarrassed and hugely revealing silence. Gender right activists often accuse the Kingdom of possessing one of the most extensive and pervasive systems of oppression with regards to women across the Muslim world. As scholar Ann Elizabeth Mayer notes, “Saudi basic law accommodates the system of gender apartheid employing appeals to family values and pre-modern Islamic law in order to maintain the traditional patriarchal family structure, and to keep women subordinated and cloistered within its confines.”
Muslim countries dismiss, as political and cultural interference, western criticism of the enormous disparities in terms of gender equality and treatment of women. They consider female subjugation, polygamy, child marriage and domestic violence sensitive and difficult subjects. They reject the images of downtrodden and subjugated Muslim women so popular in the west. It is a fact, though, that much of the Muslim world does not adhere to international human rights standards with regards to women. Across the global sphere, there exist a number of official documents outlining international human rights standards pertaining to relevant women’s issues. A document that lies at the basis of all human rights discourse, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, makes the explicit statement: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” This statement is made without stipulation or qualifier, outlining quite clearly the equality that should exist unilaterally between men and women.
In contrast, one of the most controversial verses in the Quran, verse 4:34, is frequently used to support the notion that Islam can treat women as submissive to men and supports physical abuse as punishment for wrongdoing. Titled ‘The verse of women’, it has the following proclamation: “Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance – [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.”
A body of opinion in the Muslim world preaches that in a good Islamic society, women should not seek equality but willingly accept submission to men. It is, after all, divinely ordained. Very often, Muslim women who demand justice and want to change discriminatory laws and practices are told, “This is God’s law”, and therefore not open to negotiation and change. To question, challenge or demand reform supposedly goes against sharia, weakens faith in God and leads women astray from the straight path.
The explanation behind continued perpetuation of human rights abuses lies largely in the relationship between sharia and law. Much of society itself blindly accepts present-day sharia as religious tradition and thereby justifies continued male domination in both the public and private spheres. In reality, however, the sharia in place in many countries is not reflective of core Islamic values and instead constitutes a collection of antiquated interpretations influenced by patriarchal male jurists and foreign interactions. Many Muslim governments feed off of patriarchal interpretations of Islam and use them to support further subjugation of women, and ensure a monopoly of power within the countries.
There is an urgent need for Muslim countries to implement reforms promoting gender equality, bringing their countries more in accordance with international norms. Rather than rely on the past — often misogynistic, conceptions of sharia developed with the influence of outside cultural interactions and patriarchal interpretations — lawmakers should appeal directly to the core principles and teachings of the religion itself as they stood at the outset. New family laws are required that aim to return to Islam’s egalitarian roots and reevaluate traditional doctrine in light of changing times, rather than unconditionally accept sharia practices as absolute and immutable.
A positive sign is that the Muslim feminist movement has become more active and organised in recent years, partly as a response to the real threat from increasing obscurantism. Muslim feminists are increasingly turning their attention to the interpretation of religious texts and to analysis of the role of women in Islamic history. They seek to promote equality within the Muslim family by supporting feminist interpretations of the Holy Quran and of sharia law. They argue that the concepts of wilayah and qiwamah (guardianship and obedience) must be challenged because they were made by man in relation to human desires for control and power. It seems a huge task but, unless it is done, future generations of Muslim women will again read the popular translations of verse 4:34 and believe that the male right to demand obedience from them, to discipline them, is given by God.

The writer can be reached at shgcci@gmail.com