http://www.abacwomen.org/zainah-anwar---a-true-pioneer-for-muslim-women.aspx
2 June 2014
Women shouldn’t have to choose between being a Muslim and being a feminist – there are no contradictions there. This is the basic tenet of Zainah Anwar, co-founder of Sisters in Islam in Malaysia and recipient of the highest French honour, the Legion d'Honneur.
Anwar received the honour in recognition of her quest for women’s rights in the structure available in the Koran.
Malaysia has two separate judicial systems. Muslims are bound by Sharia law on personal matters like marriage and custody rights, while members of other faiths are subject to civil law. The establishment of Sharia law in 1970 left women, alongside religious and ethnic minorities, disenfranchised in their own state. Sharia law offered legal justification for spousal abuse like domestic violence as well as other discriminatory practices against women.
In 1987 Anwar and a group of woman came together to discuss the problem of discrimination against Muslim women in the name of Islam. The question that they wanted answered was: Why do laws and policies made in the name of Islam create injustice?
The women - lawyers, academics, journalists, analysts, and activists - decided on a simple course of action: they set about to study the religious text to discover for themselves where the text permits discrimination against women.
“Even if we are not mullahs, we can, as citizens of a democratic society, speak up, and if religion is used as a source of law or public policy, then every citizen has a right to speak on religion and on laws based on religious principles,” Anwar maintained.
The group's area of study included those sections of the text used to justify domestic violence, polygamy, women's unquestioning obedience to men, the inferior position of women as witnesses, and gender inequality in general.
What the women found was that the Koran talks about justice, compassion, and mercy and about men and women being each other's guardian. It became clear that it was not Islam that oppressed women, but male-centred interpretations of the Koran influenced by cultural practices and values of a patriarchal society. Empowered with the realization that Islam doesn’t discriminate against women, Sisters in Islam set about to share their new-found knowledge. They wrote letters to editors of all major newspapers which drew huge public response. By 1991 the group had published two booklets on women’s rights in Islam. The advocacy group went on to submit memoranda to the government on law reform.
In 1994 Sisters in Islam was instrumental in the passing of the Domestic Violence Act in Malaysia and in thwarting the government’s view that the law would not apply to Muslim men by proving that Islam does not support violence against women.
Anwar and Sisters in Islam have succeeded in offering leadership and guidance to Muslim women by educating them and reframing the traditional readings of Islam in a way that offers more just interpretations supporting women's rights.
They are part of a growing wave of people proclaiming that Islam is just, equal and fair. Let’s hope their efforts reach into every corner of the globe.
The French government’s highest order, created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, rewards men and women, French and foreigners, for their distinguished merits and the exemplary services to causes supported by France.
Source: bit.ly/1pqsPE0 ; bit.ly/1mxXbjb
2 June 2014
Anwar received the honour in recognition of her quest for women’s rights in the structure available in the Koran.
Malaysia has two separate judicial systems. Muslims are bound by Sharia law on personal matters like marriage and custody rights, while members of other faiths are subject to civil law. The establishment of Sharia law in 1970 left women, alongside religious and ethnic minorities, disenfranchised in their own state. Sharia law offered legal justification for spousal abuse like domestic violence as well as other discriminatory practices against women.
In 1987 Anwar and a group of woman came together to discuss the problem of discrimination against Muslim women in the name of Islam. The question that they wanted answered was: Why do laws and policies made in the name of Islam create injustice?
The women - lawyers, academics, journalists, analysts, and activists - decided on a simple course of action: they set about to study the religious text to discover for themselves where the text permits discrimination against women.
“Even if we are not mullahs, we can, as citizens of a democratic society, speak up, and if religion is used as a source of law or public policy, then every citizen has a right to speak on religion and on laws based on religious principles,” Anwar maintained.
The group's area of study included those sections of the text used to justify domestic violence, polygamy, women's unquestioning obedience to men, the inferior position of women as witnesses, and gender inequality in general.
What the women found was that the Koran talks about justice, compassion, and mercy and about men and women being each other's guardian. It became clear that it was not Islam that oppressed women, but male-centred interpretations of the Koran influenced by cultural practices and values of a patriarchal society. Empowered with the realization that Islam doesn’t discriminate against women, Sisters in Islam set about to share their new-found knowledge. They wrote letters to editors of all major newspapers which drew huge public response. By 1991 the group had published two booklets on women’s rights in Islam. The advocacy group went on to submit memoranda to the government on law reform.
In 1994 Sisters in Islam was instrumental in the passing of the Domestic Violence Act in Malaysia and in thwarting the government’s view that the law would not apply to Muslim men by proving that Islam does not support violence against women.
Anwar and Sisters in Islam have succeeded in offering leadership and guidance to Muslim women by educating them and reframing the traditional readings of Islam in a way that offers more just interpretations supporting women's rights.
They are part of a growing wave of people proclaiming that Islam is just, equal and fair. Let’s hope their efforts reach into every corner of the globe.
The French government’s highest order, created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, rewards men and women, French and foreigners, for their distinguished merits and the exemplary services to causes supported by France.
Source: bit.ly/1pqsPE0 ; bit.ly/1mxXbjb
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