Sh Zaynab Ansari
Haifaa Younis – Feminism Islamism or No Ism
AI: Summary ©
The conversation discusses the paradigm of women's roles and the negative impact of the Sun airline's decision to remove the term "ma'am" in book titles. The shift from domesticated women to female roles has been described as centered around a presentation of women's clothing and the need to read literature in a uncritical way to address issues of women's rights and women seeking respect. The segment also touches on the use of shia language in women's clothing and the potential negative impact of the Sun airline's decision to remove the term "ma'am" in book titles. A call to action is provided for further questions.
AI: Summary ©
Salam Alikum smolyar Well hello Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah while our early he was savvy he will Manuela La Molina my info now one foreigner Bhima alum tena indica Simeon would you be dua or be struggling on sudo Rana eliminare Mayan fowl now on foreigner v marlington. Also Allahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad Ali he was heartbeat esteem and Kathira welcome everyone JSOC malarkey for coming on a Friday and I know how it's Friday traffic. Everyone, when you move to California talk about traffic. They don't talk about whether they talk about traffic. So welcome again does Kamala here and we'd like to start our program today. This is as a weekend program. Today is for the for us for
the woman and it's about feminism, Islamism or Islam. And tomorrow inshallah is about it's a pride month so we're going to be discussing LGBT is Allah here she has enough Ansari agreed to fly from Atlanta, and then to come and give this talk to now tonight and Inshallah, of course tomorrow she will be with us. So I want to introduce her her Zainab and most of you know her, and I'm going to read what she wanted me to read within I'm going to put Of course my personal touches, right? You want the personal touches first or you want the reading first? Let's do the reading. First, let's be formal. Okay. And then informal. Is that okay? Like this will so this is what she sent me. Maybe I
will just modify a little bit. She has no one sorry. She was blessed to study in the Middle East, spending her formative years in Damascus in Syria, where she introduced was introduced to the foundations of traditional Islam, and the etiquettes of seeking knowledge. When she came back, she enrolled in Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she focused on humanities with an emphasis on history and Middle Eastern Studies. While she was pursuing her studies, Sheikh Hasina was active in interfaith dialogue through the award winning Islamic speaker's bureau of Atlanta. In addition to her work in her local community, she spent many years in pioneering field of online Islamic
education as a consultant, writer, volunteer and an instructor. She's a strong believer in woman education, and she and leadership training. She is a contributor to robata curriculum. She her tomorrow Gray, a four year curriculum program for the woman. She also is and we are actually very lucky Jana Institute. She is one of our scholar, visiting scholars and she actually teaches in the year of knowledge for the first year two topics science of the Quran, and the Allume and the commentary of the 14th hour we she currently serves as a full time instructor as tayseer at tayseer seminary and adjuvant instructor at Boston Islamic seminary. She teaches classes on Islamic law,
Quran, Hadith, prophetic biography, and American Muslim history and woman in Islam. So that's what she told me. So I did my Amana. Right. Okay, now I'm going to tell you this story. So basically, I
come to know Sheikh Hasina, before I met her, we have a group called female scholar, woman, female scholars, so there's always interaction and I know the name. And then in St. Louis, the youth, the youth, I'm looking at the youth. Okay, so we have Mr. It's Muslim, St. Louis, Muslim youth girls of St. Louis. They did an amazing program. I have to say it's actually the parents that I came to know as the parents were actually, exactly. So basically, they invited her so I texted her and says, you're not staying in a hotel. So you're staying in my home. She said, share her, but I have my three kids with me. I said, Our pleasure. And do you have any allergies to cats? And she said, No.
The kids loves the cats. And that's the story basically. So she stayed with me three, three days. It was one of the most memorable three days. Honestly, Allah is my witness some of it he maybe she hasn't heard that before. I learned a lot from this without going into personal details, but definitely Sheikh Hasina Allah has tested her with a lot of things. And I don't have the permission to say the tests but it is not easy. And many of us as woman probably will not be able to handle it. Let's put it this way. Allah subhanaw taala out of his blessings, made her to live it and to make most of it and then I had the pleasure of meeting one of the challenges in beautiful, beautiful
human being. So three days I have to say I have not seen someone Allah the Idaho and I you know me, I don't praise people a lot, because that's not from the Sunnah, but also just for you to know, the most polite person I have seen in my life. In my house three days Subhanallah amazing. It was this was before just before the COVID actually was three months before the COVID and from there Subhan Allah, Allah colubrid Allah wa denodo JANA Rasul Allah salatu salam said this
souls on like soldiers matter out of Birmingham tellef The one that they as if they know each other for a long time they feel they are so close, or Martin Alfa Romeo wama telephone Matana for Rahman hatherleigh. And those who don't feel close to each other, you don't know them, you just pull away. The first one is was us again when she stayed in my house. I didn't know her to be honest with you, but I was like you're not staying anywhere else. And I'm so glad Allah made me see this. And from there, the story started. And then we came Jenner Institute. We had her in our Tuesday night program and we were doing it online. And for the last two years, masha Allah she teaches 100, Lauterbrunnen
me, gives me a lot of honor to have her and I learned from her and then we meet also were common speakers with miftah Institute. So at hamdulillah mean, and I didn't even do a lot of pressure. I just say, can you come for the Saturday one? So she said yes. And I said, Can you come on Friday?
And I have to do something for us. Right. And then she said when I can't, and I know because she lives in Kentucky. Right? Knoxville, I always make mistake. Knoxville. Exactly. So Knoxville but her mother lives in Atlanta. That's why she grew up in Atlanta. Oh, the most important thing I didn't say who I mentioned Atlanta. I remember her father passed away recently. May Allah give him Jen nettleford dose. And looking at his picture which is on her. You look like *? Yes. Subhanallah the day that her father was passing. She was teaching in Jana Institute.
On the students told me I was like, subhanAllah that's the best example for everybody. There's no excuse Subhanallah and then she asked the students permission. And I didn't know that the students told me this Subhanallah so you you need to learn the called the etiquette of the students with the teacher was all the teacher with the students so I may Allah reward her so she said I can't because I have to drop my children. She has three mashallah to my mother. And then of course, I met Doha.
And then she texted me and says, Well, I have to be in Atlanta anyway. Because Sunday I'm teaching I said hello. So you come on Friday, fly directly on Delta come arrive at six. And then can you do something for us for the woman? And you know, how far is Atlanta from here? With a time change? It's a It's 10 o'clock Atlanta time. Right? Exactly. So may Allah reward her May Allah accept from her make you all I this is specific requests from me make dua for her for her children. Now Allah subhanaw taala use her May Allah Subhana Allah Bucha Baraka in her efforts Yoruba me, can I asked the mothers children are not allowed in here 12 years is the minimum if you have a child please go
upstairs. The topic is sensitive. And we have put it clearly on the flyer. So I would really appreciate please forgive me, but there is things we need to discuss. And we don't want to expose our young children to things that they are not yet ready for. Such as Kamala Hayden. I will give it to the way we will do it she will be presenting we will stop 10 minutes before Mahara and then we all going to be going upstairs inshallah to pray Muharram and then we will take questions and answers upstairs between modernization is Aquila. Hi, Ron. Welcome to Islamic Center of our wine in Southern California.
We're on now right? Alright.
Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa sallahu wa ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi Tasneem Salam, Aleikum. Wa
Is it
okay, keep this because Okay, inshallah. Sure.
Yeah, that's that's that's better. Yes. Mr. Smilla Rahmanir Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa sallahu wa ala said Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi. Taslima Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
I want to begin by thanking our beloved che ha May Allah to Allah preserve you for that beautiful introduction I'm very you know, the honor is mine I'm very humbled by Masha Allah just just everything the hospitality is amazing already this beautiful community here may Allah Allah bless and protect all of you and thank you for hosting me so I have to apologize Sheikh I'm still quite hoarse I've been it's not COVID I've been dealing with kind of
a cold for the last few weeks was getting a lot it's getting better Alhamdulillah it's getting better. Water will be excellent. Thank you so much.
So you know when I first met che ha in and that in Missourian Mashallah. The hospitality was amazing. Indeed. You know, Shayla just basically gave her entire home over to me and my kids and it was just a wonderful experience. And it's my honor to teach for Jenner Institute. You know, one of the things that I was looking at when I was preparing for my presentation
I was reading a lot of Muslim feminist literature. And one of the main arguments in that Muslim feminist literature is that somehow there was
almost a conspiracy that ended up kind of putting women to the side, and marginalizing the contribution of Muslim women as scholars. And I think that really is if they're, you know, they're if there's any takeaway from tonight, the takeaway is that shapeless work is, is is representative of a tradition. That's not it's not a modern Western liberal tradition. But it's a tradition that goes back to the earliest days, the days of our righteous predecessors of Salah and the days of the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him. So I really want to emphasize that point that that having a women scholar in residence having a che ha, this is not an innovation, but in fact, this takes us
back to the earliest days. So why this topic Inshallah, I will address why we're talking about feminism, and then I'm going to do my overview and I will try to wrap that up within the next 40 minutes. So I've compressed a lot of information, my dear sisters into this presentation, so bear with me. So we'll go through the presentation and then inshallah we're going to go to the women's masala pray method and then we're going to do q&a, you know, feminism, and I love it how to feminism Islamism or no ism, I will be focusing on feminism Inshallah, but I will address what is Islamism? And how does it how does it actually compare to Islam, the religion itself.
What I want all of us to understand here is that there's been a trend within the American Muslim community to really embrace ideas of the progressive left. And part of this embrace is, is women,
identifying as feminists, especially a lot of young Muslim Muslim women. And I have been, I've observed that there's an almost kind of uncritical embrace of feminism. And I really want to emphasize this point, my dear sisters, that we have to make sure that we look very closely at what are the origins of these ideologies that some of us are rather quick to, to embrace.
And there was probably a time when I had probably more sympathies for the progressive left, in terms of how I saw certain political issues, social issues, not as much, but definitely political issues.
And I'll speak more to this tomorrow, inshallah and make sure that you tell everybody about our program tomorrow on Islam, and an LGBT, very, very important topic that again, highlights this embrace of the progressive left. But one of the things that, you know, again, kind of made the progressive left kind of look like this sort of almost refuge for Muslims was what was happening during the Trump years.
But then, my dear sisters, as I was preparing for this presentation, I thought it was very important for me to actually go back and look at the history of feminism, and to understand why so many of us are so quick to actually want to claim that label of feminism. And that really is my main point of departure tonight, that whether we are addressing feminism itself as an ideology or a movement, whether we are addressing issues of LGBT, that it's very important that we be able that we actually understand to what extent have we uncritically embraced the vocabulary, the framing the approach of the progressive left, I'm seeing it a lot in our community.
So in terms of feminism, I actually want to look at terminology because here's the thing, my dear sisters, I want to start with this.
The term has been claimed by so many in this day and age that I believe that it's almost rendered the term really meaningless. Because in so many circles, you find women saying, Okay, I'm a feminist. And those women are basically defining feminism as it applies to them and their particular sensibilities. So you have secular feminist and you have atheist feminist and you have Muslim, Christian and Jewish feminists, and you have, you know, fourth wave feminists, and in this day and age, it's interesting that there are women that are celebrated for their feminism. And these are women that are, you know, have very sort of get I want to be delicate because I know that we have
some young people in the audience, but it's it's not unusual to even find women
In that work in the adult film industry, and people are now calling these women feminists because of how they use their bodies. All right? So there's a lot of irony in that, especially if you were to go back and kind of look at feminist arguments against objectification of women. And now we're actually saying these women that are in this industry are feminists. So we need to go back to the origins, the etymology of this term. And consider how women actually identified as feminists and what the in what they defined the concept as. So I'm gonna give you two definitions. All right. This definition right here, my dear sisters is pretty anodyne. In other words, most people if you present
Oh, sure. Let me see if I can do the hair slideshow. Okay, so most people, if you present this definition to them, they're going to agree with it. All right. Feminism is the belief in the equality of the sexes, in terms of social, economic and political aspects. Or a feminist is a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes as articulated by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who has a really nice talk about feminism, by the way she's made from Nigeria, you should check it out. Or the belief that women should be allowed the same rights power and opportunities as men, and be treated in the same way are the set of activities intended to
actually achieve this goal.
So if you again, if you presented this definition to a lot of us, we would probably agree with this particular framing of feminism.
However, what I want us to understand is that
when you kind of get beyond these generic definitions of feminism, and you look at the origins of the movement,
you realize that there's a very problematic kind of concept that's emerging here.
And I'm going to actually give you a different definition of feminism. And in this definition of feminism, and by the way, this is drawn from feminist literature. These are the features that really stand out about feminist ideology.
Number one, the demand for a radical reordering of society.
All right, again, a radical reordering of society.
Number two,
dismantling of gender norms, as I was flying over from from Atlanta, you know, I was reading on the plane. And there the particular book that I was reading about feminism, the author made the argument that gender norms need to be completely up ended, just do away with them altogether.
Number three, and androgynous society.
So this particular author was also arguing that we need to do away with gender norms, that to have gender norms where there are kind of roles assigned to men and women, that that's actually the cause of oppression.
And that our objective, again, this is a feminist scholar, our objective should be to create she what she calls an androgynous society. And she contrasts androgynous with androcentric, for her androcentric is very problematic, because in an androcentric society, the man the male is the standard and everything kind of revolves around that standard. But in her view, and androgynous society, it removes gender norms, and supposedly, is going to put males and females on an equal footing.
Here are some other features of feminism
destroyed destruction of the patriarchy. I don't know, you probably have seen the bumper stickers, right? And let's kind of do away the patriarchy, et cetera, et cetera. This is a very common slogan, especially amongst young Muslim feminists. Right, let's do away with patriarchy.
Part of the feminist agenda and one of the features of feminist ideology that also has stood out for me is vilification of the masculine so actually vilifying men and boys for being masculine.
And along with that vilification of men and boys is this constant positioning of women as victims of an oppressive patriarchy
And finally, another feature of feminism, and especially feminists who study religion, and especially Muslim feminists is distrust of male scholarly authority. So I would add those elements to this particular definition.
All right. Now in terms of why should we care about feminism, and the women's movement? Right, I want you to understand I'm going to emphasize certain positive aspects as well. Okay.
I ended up with a quote from Hillary Clinton here, interestingly enough, who in 1995 made the statement about women's rights being human rights, of course, we can definitely kind of critique her approach. Right, and, and the foreign policy position, she ended up advocating a Secretary of State perhaps.
But in this particular framing of feminism, my dear sisters, there's this idea that this is something that is going to universally kind of encompass and benefit all women. And that ultimately, feminism is about taking the lived experiences of women and girls, and really kind of centering those concerns.
And then another thing, too, that we need to think about as Muslim women,
is that there's this SubhanAllah. And this has been the case for many, many years. But a steady stream of headlines and news stories and reports that look at human rights and women's rights in the Muslim world. And ended up always associating the position of women with oppression, with, for example, bans on women's education in Afghanistan, hijab laws in Iran, and other headlines that consistently try to establish a negative link between Islam as a religion and the status of Muslim women.
So, clearly, we care about women, we care about women's rights and empowerment. We want to understand what are the means by which women can address their situation? We want to know what are the means by which women can claim certain rights in the public sphere, I think all of that is very, very valid. But what I'm saying to my dear sisters, this is where we have to be careful.
Because we have to make a decision regarding the methodology that we're going to embrace. Are we going to embrace kind of a Western liberal feminism?
Or are we going to transcend that and say that there's an entirely different framework through which we can actually claim the rights that Allah Subhana Allah has actually conferred upon women.
Now, back to some of the end again, this is why the context is important, because in the statement of Hillary Clinton, there are certain assumptions embedded there.
And one and one of the assumptions is this belief that the you know that that ideas about women's empowerment, the liberation of women, the idea, these ideas about women's equality, that these ideas, properly have their origins in the context of the West and the experience of women within this context, and especially elite white women.
And again, I'm not saying that in a in a disparaging way, this is just simply an historical fact.
So when we want to if we if we do want to sort of carry the banner of feminism, my dear sisters, we want to consider the history.
So very, very quickly, I want to do this overview, I want you all to understand that some scholars trace the origins of the modern feminist movement to the Enlightenment period, but most are going to focus on what they call a first wave feminism.
And this emerges in the mid 19th century with women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and they were abolitionist, by the way, and they This was around 1840 or so they attempted to attend a meeting of abolitionist in London, the men would not allow them to be seated on the floor with with the men. And because they were not allowed to be seated at that meeting. They decided that they would call for a Declaration of Sentiments at a place called Seneca Falls.
In New York, I believe in July in 1848. And so there was a basically a statement, again, a Declaration of Sentiments a statement articulating their stance and it was a public statement. There were people that that
It basically endorsed it. And the statement very deliberately echoed the language of the Declaration of Independence. Now, what's interesting is that most of us see this, as you know, this is a very positive thing, obviously, right? These are abolitionists, they are frustrated with the constraints and women's roles, this is a really positive thing. It's going to lead to women's suffrage, ie the push or the call for women to actually be able to vote.
But when we actually take a look at the Declaration of Sentiments, I'm going to actually read from it. I want you all to get a sense of the positionality of these women. This is what they say. The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries, and usurpations on the part of man toward whip toward woman having a direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. This is quite hyperbolic. Yeah. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. And this is what they say. He man has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise, and that's true at that time, women were prevented from voting.
He has compelled her to submit to laws in the formation of what she had no voice he has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men, both natives and foreigners. He has made her If married in the eye of the law civilly dead.
He has taken from her all right and property even to the wages she earns. He has made her morally and irresponsible being a she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. And the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming to all intents and purposes her master the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty and to administer chastisement. So you can go ahead and pull it up online and read it, I just want to give you all a sense of the language. Now, obviously, there is a legitimate basis for the articulation of certain grievances. All right, I'm not saying that things were very kind of
rosy for women in the 19th century, not at all.
But what I want us to understand, especially for those who have feminist leanings,
that when you have language, and when you have framing, that is going to sort of perpetually cast women as the victims and kind of set up this kind of unending clash between the sexes. This is extremely problematic theologically, from an Islamic standpoint. And also, my dear sisters, the context is very important, because the rights that the women are demanding, if you just do a cursory review of Islamic law, you can see that this is actually in many cases a non issue for Muslim women as these rights were granted 1400 years ago. So we have to understand there's a particular context to Western feminism, a context that's not immediately relevant in many cases to Muslim women.
Now, one of the I won't really say I won't stay on this slide very long. But one of the sort of critiques of this first wave feminism is that it excludes certain women, especially black women. So even though the Declaration of Sentiments emerged from the Women's kind of abolitionist activities, in reality, they struggled to kind of figure out how to kind of include black women and their project of the emancipation of women. So Sojourner Truth is a really interesting person. She speaks very publicly about the struggle that she faces as a black woman in the 19th century being seen as truly feminine. So go ahead and kind of look her up again, I'm just kind of giving you all the
overview of this history. But from your really from its inception, there was this critique of first wave feminism in terms of the limitations it really could not be inclusive of the experiences of black women, for example.
Now, what probably stands out the most, my dear sisters is this one right here, second wave feminism. And, you know, there have been many movies and documentaries made about this. And this is the feminism of the 60s and 70s. And this is when we have we see the publication of Betty for Dan's book, The Feminine Mystique. This is when we get you know, we have Gloria Steinem and we have Miss magazine, where the National Organization for Women, so there's a lot of material that you all can obviously review on your own.
But again, this is what I want us to understand when we kind of try to claim this feminist mantle
that
Even though this moment appear to these women to be very sort of liberatory.
In reality, there was such a dismantling of traditional gender roles and norms that to this day, we're still dealing with the repercussions of that.
And when you look at books like Betty for Dan's feminine mystique, basically in that book, you know, she has a it has a kind of a dramatic introduction, she talks about I know she's at home, hanging up curtains or drapes or something. And then she has this epiphany in terms of why am I doing this is there all there is this all there is in life for me to do this, you know, so she writes this book.
And the book really reinforces the stereotype of sort of, like, bored, kind of like, I don't know, unproductive, 1950s Housewives. And in this book, she is critiquing that, you know, this, she's critiquing that domestic sphere as a place where women's ambitions are being stifled.
And the book becomes hugely influential. And we have to, again, the context is so important here. So these are the these are very heady days in terms of like us, kind of in terms of the United States, and, you know, our political and cultural and social history. So this is when you have the civil rights movement. This is when you have the anti war protests, there are a lot of divisions that are going to emerge in society. And for those that say, You know what, well, she has an argument there, she wants greater kind of opportunity for for women. What's wrong with this, the reality is that we cannot separate the second wave feminism from the emergence of the sexual revolution.
And you know, when you have a society, my dear sisters that kind of embraces those extremes, where you go from again, that kind of rather stereotypical picture of 1950s, suburban domesticity to women just burning their bras and contraceptive pills are freely available. And and what happens is that
and sort of in their quest for liberation, these women ended up liberating themselves entirely from any type of morality to where they are behaving just like men thinking that that is true freedom.
You know, this is when we have this is when Roe v. Wade has passed, I mean, it completely transforms the social, the cultural, the political landscape of the United States. And of course, we know just last year, Roe v. Wade was finally repealed by the Supreme Court.
So what the second wave feminism, my dear sisters, I want you to understand again, it's not without its critique.
And what's really interesting is that the pushback actually comes from women with religious backgrounds. While we might disagree with people's political stances, and what have you.
The one of the really, the most vocal opponents of this type of feminism was a woman named Phyllis Schlafly, who, by the way, had presidential ambitions very interesting woman. All right, she's kind of you know, it's interesting, she kind of reinforces this idea of the woman who is at home and kind of domesticated and so on. But in reality, this woman is providing, you know, policies, she's writing policy papers, for various
administrations, she again harbors her own political ambitions. But what she does is she mobilizes housewives very, very effectively, to counter feminism and what's called the Equal Rights Amendment, which was ratified by 35 of the necessary 38 states but ultimately was defeated. And I believe in terms of her religious commitments, I think she was she was a Catholic, from what I understand. I think she's, she's a she is so I think she's quite obviously quite elderly now, but you can go ahead and look her up. There was there's a kind of a fictionalized series that was made about her life and her activism. But please, I watched it, it's has very kind of graphic depictions of feminism, and
the sexual experimentation and things are happening during that time. So it's interesting from a cultural standpoint, but it's not for kids to watch. Alright, so different waves of feminism. So Pamela need to begin to wrap this up. Now, where that second wave feminism, my dear sisters is critique because again, it's kind of emanating from the frustrations and anxieties of women, you know, white middle class women like Betty Friedan. Then we have a third wave feminism and again, I'm not saying that in in a disparaging way, but those are the facts. Okay.
The main critique was that this feminism is not representative necessarily of the concerns of women of color and women from other parts of the world. So
So, after that, we have the emergence of a third, third wave feminism that includes the voices of women
from different ethnic backgrounds, different religious backgrounds, and what's really interesting is that this third wave feminism
is trying to redefine women as assertive, powerful and in control of their own sexuality.
And this is when we actually have women in kind of pop culture and entertainment, that are sort of held up as problematic as they are people like Madonna, for example, right, they're actually held up as avatars of a femininity,
because this is when we have this kind of shift to where now this feminism is going to emphasize certain aspects of kind of like body positivity and so on.
Is there a fourth wave feminism, this is kind of under debate, some people say it began around 2012 or so. And that the emphasis for that kind of fourth wave feminism is to kind of dismantle the culture of sexual harassment,
and * culture and so on.
And the context is important, the Women's March the election of Trump and 2016, the me to movement, and so on. So this is just a very, very quick overview, my dear sisters have some of these different
phases. And again, for our online audience, and for anyone to hear, you know, again, this is not meant to be comprehensive. This is just meant to introduce you to again, some basic ideas and themes and a chronology
of the emergence of feminism within this western context. Okay.
Now, going back to a couple of thoughts that I have about this,
you might say, look, well, you know, I don't see a lot that's so problematic here. After all, this is about women's rights and dignity, isn't it?
But keep in mind,
my dear sisters, that, you know, as we sit here in the 21st century, I think we can actually kind of critique what has been the end result of feminist activism and ideology.
You know, where is the culture today?
Study after study has demonstrated that in terms of happiness, life satisfaction, being fulfilled, that women in Western society, especially United States are miserable. All right, this is after decades, really, almost half half a century, right? This is after half a century of supposin progress,
rates of depression, anxiety,
suicidal ideation.
You know, what, what accounts for this? Shouldn't we be in a better place of empowerment after all these decades of feminist activism? So there are the there's the reality of how women are actually doing how we actually feel about ourselves as women. And by the way, I want to come back to this because it's directly tied to transgenderism. What's interesting is that a movement a feminist ideology that called for single gender spaces, something we as Muslims can kind of identify with right single gender spaces, sometimes sometimes very radically. So
now that we have a feminism that's shifted from
a recognition that women have their kind of needs for their own spaces to where now anyone who identifies as a woman can now invade those spaces. And I want to come back to that tomorrow, inshallah.
So, again, there's mental issues of mental health, disillusionment amongst women, the me to movement, we can look we can assess that now. It revealed I think the failures of feminism and also resulted in overreach by certain women advocates.
listless enervated males there's a crisis of masculinity, I would argue all right, Red Pill masculinity and in sells serious dysfunction within our Muslim communities, between men and women. And in terms of the impact of feminism, the opening of the floodgates of identity politics, especially the LGBTQ plus movement.
Now
shall before well I guess I probably have to get to this point, inshallah. We have a few more minutes right. Inshallah. Okay. Okay. Mashallah. So,
let's discuss this. And shall we're actually gonna talk about this right now. Yes. So, is there such a thing as an Islamic feminism?
And some, I think some of us would say yes, some would say no.
But let's kind of unpack this for a moment.
All right. Remember one of the critiques I mentioned of sort of third, second wave feminism. Third Wave
feminism it comes in and it kind of critiques the previous wave by saying, Look, we need to be able to kind of broaden women's experiences beyond the context was a suburban United States.
So, around that time there is this increased awareness that this kind of very
Occidental, it kind of focused on the west discourse about feminism was marginalizing the voices and concerns of women who did not come from a white, Judeo Christian American middle class background. So historically, yes, I would argue there definitely has been an Arab feminism centered in Egypt. And in also one could argue, possibly in Islamic feminism.
And if you go back and if you look at the history of these feminism's, you're going to see that often these feminism's, they emerged in that context that was relevant to the Muslim world going through the experiencing the throes of colonialism. So often these calls for total Amara or the liberation of women, were intertwined with colonial or anti colonial struggles. And it calls for self determination calls for kind of
Arab nationalism and other movements, and also reinterpretation of religious texts. Now I can I'm trying to kind of summarize this. And and let me kind of bring us now into the present. So what is kind of the state of Islamic feminism today? Well, there, there certainly is a genre of literature, quite a lot of writing my dear sisters, by Western trained for the most part, these are Western trained female scholars.
These are Muslim women in academia, who employ what they call a feminist, a feminist hermeneutic.
And a feminist hermeneutic is basically a methodology of looking at Scripture and sacred texts, and reinterpreting those texts in order to
establish the equality of women with men. All right, and there's a lot of work that's been done in this regard.
Now, I don't have time to really summarize the literature. But what I will tell you is that this is not these are not methodologies, we can easily dismiss, in fact, one of my concerns, as a woman that teaches
or looms shadow aka sacred knowledge, and is often called upon to address issues of concern to women, as they apply to Islamic law and the Sharia is there is still kind of a dearth of more traditionalist feminine voices to address some of these issues. So if you, for example, want to
look at issues of legal reform, or you want to understand interpretations of IAS 34 of chapter four, or you want to kind of address women in the Hadith, more than likely you're going to find articles and books and presentations by women that are going to are trained in the western Academy, and they have a particular vantage point for which they address these topics. That's just the reality, my dear sisters, but what are some of the hallmarks of this approach, and by the way, some of the literature is quite good. But again, you have to make sure that you're not reading it in a very kind of uncritical way.
One of the things I have found in looking at that literature is that the emphasis number one is on a Quran centered exegesis, Quran centered exegesis. In other words, there's more comfort and more of a tendency to focus on the Quran, to the exclusion of the Hadith of the Prophet peace be upon him. Why because when it comes to sort of the feminist hermeneutic or kind of methodology or approach
many Muslim feminists believe that the Quran lends itself more easily to and gout to an end to any egalitarian reading than does the Hadith. All right, so be very careful about this. So there's the Quran only type feminism, there's actual disdain I mean, I just was reading a book on the plane. One of the essays in this particular anthology, the author basically dismissed all the hadith is kind of misogynistic. And this is a very, very, very common approach of Muslim feminists, whether they're male or female. So there's this disdain towards Hadith. There is distrust, again of male scholarly authorities of their Allah map.
And I thought this was quite interesting.
One of the approaches you will see when you read works by Muslim feminists is that they will, they will emphasize
a paradigm of what of what they identify as toe heat.
However, in their rendering of Tawheed they will argue that
They're, that they will argue that their belief in towhead and the Oneness of Allah subhana, Allah
obliterates all hierarchies. So that if there is any, and this is their arguments, so that if there appears to be any kind of preference or hierarchy between men and women in Islamic law, they say that is not based on toe hate, and that is actual shidduch. Yeah, these arguments are quite radical. And that's why I want you all to know, when you encounter these books, it makes sure that you you know, you're not reading again uncritically.
Another feature of some of these feminist approaches is a deep seated belief that Islamic law is inherently biased and unfair towards women.
So, what I want us to understand my dear sisters, I need to begin to kind of wrap it up inshallah we have just a few more minutes
is inshallah I probably will come back to this for the q&a
is what what are the paradigms that we can draw upon to counter these methodologies?
Whether it is a literalism articulated by some people in the Muslim world that would seek to deprive women of rights or whether it is feminist methodologies, and we have to take a look at this and the Quran. Smell out man Rahim. When what we know now will not be an ad ba boom earlier about yet Marina Del Mar roofer Johanna Adelman car where you play Mona Salah to your tuna Zeca with your with your own Allah wa salam ala Iike Zarahemla, whom Allah in Allah Aziz Hakim, beautiful area, we have we must remind ourselves that Allah to Allah has actually revealed to us what is the paradigm? What's the framework? How do we actually claim these rights? How do we actually look at men and our
complement complementary roles in society and Allah Tala tells us it's through the paradigm of Wilaya.
Because Allah Allah says, the believing men and women, they're only up there friends, supporting protectors and friends and patrons of one another.
They enjoy what is right and forbid what is wrong. And they establish prayer they give their as they can, and they obey God and His messenger. Those Allah will have mercy upon them. Indeed, Allah is Exalted in Might and wise.
And then looking at the example the Prophet peace upon him. And again, I hope we can come back to this during the q&a, because I really feel like the Hadith has been
heavily criticized in these methodologies. And I think theologically, that's a very dangerous thing. And I want to come back to that.
But what we have to do is look at the example the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him. How did he teach about women? What did he say about women for example, and I have just one Hadith here, women as being Shaka elk with a twin halves of men.
So to wrap this up, my dear sisters, and this is the part Inshallah, that I hope we can come, we can come back to be in the law heeta Allah is that
we must, even though it's tempting to make recourse to these contemporary ideologies, we must make sure that we are returning back to the old soul.
All right, the foundations of proper Islamic belief and practice and our values and principles that are rooted in an eternal divine guidance,
we must
begin to do the hard work of learning how to properly be men and women in Islam. I really do believe my dear sister, so many of our problems in terms of social problems, family issues,
could be rectified.
If we actually spent some time on this Tobia aspect,
truly re investigating what it means to be a woman in Islam, what it means to be a man in Islam, and being able to transmit and to model those values to our children.
Last point before we go upstairs for mclubbe
feminists and they've been doing this for a while, are openly calling for the removal and the destruction of gender norms.
Is that what we want? I mean, is that the type of community that we want my dear sisters
because when we remove gender norms, we're really opening the door for the removal of any kind of concrete understanding of gender itself, and how it is going to impact our kids. Right now, studies show that about I think 20% of Gen Z, they identify
As other than distinctly male or female, I mean, this is what's happening right now.
And this has serious implications for the future of our community. So anything beneficial that I showed us from Allah to Allah and the mistakes are entirely my own. I'm so happy to be here tonight. And inshallah we'll go from algorithm q&a bit Elahi to adage as I can look around my dear sister, Santa Monica.
handler, blimey, I hope this made you think a lot. It made me think now it's like almost I'm gonna get a headache.
I really mean it's because what the most important thing to know anything is to know the basics to where it came from. Especially if you I hope you all followed that there is its waves. And now the fourth wave is what is really affecting us because it's our own children when they are being fed in school in universities and the workplace. And I love the end of it, which is and then we get I'm sure you have a lot of questions and answers when you go up there. And I'm going to end up with this is just before Moldova's Joomla remove any doubt any one of you have young specially about the Quran and the Sunnah period. If you don't understand it, because it is my problem. I don't know it is not
because Allah said it, or the Hadith so when someone talks to you always come from the belief the certainty what Allah taught me is right while Roswaal risotto Salam Sam taught me is right I need to explain it and we're going to I'm sure you have a lot of questions was when we go up but it may Allah reward you This is so deep. I will never have been able to do the way she did it. Melody for you. Does that Mala haha you know we have to go get ready for Muharram if I can I ask everyone just fold your chair and just put it on the side.