Maryam Amir – When Muslim women struggle religious texts

Sometimes when women have a question about a particular

quranic verse or a hadith that they're not sure how could be

empowering or uplifting, they're told it's because you don't have

strong enough faith, or you're impacted by feminism, and that's

why you don't understand the meaning of these verses. In

reality, many women walk into many different Muslim spaces and feel

like the architecture, infrastructure and policies of the

masjid not only don't welcome her, but actively push her out, bind

that with the reality of many women in our communities are

victims and survivors of child sexual trauma and of sexual

assault and domestic violence, and when they have the courage to seek

help and blame shame, often their abusers are the ones who are

protected, and instead of looking at a Muslim woman like a

cumulative believer to support the messages that she keeps hearing is

modesty and hijab are the only parts of you that we care about.

Isn't that because she has a lack of faith, the fact that she's

still Muslim speaks to the strength of her faith, because she

keeps hearing that she doesn't have worth it's because she keeps

seeing that her safety, her emotional protection, her physical

protection, are not priorities. That is the lens that she goes to

those verses with. So before blaming woman and saying they're

just impacted by progressive feminism, recognize a lack of

community systems of accountability impact her. Iman

for you Queens know that the Quran is power for women. Get to know

who Allah is, and take classes with women who are scholars, who

understand your reality and who will support your journey. A.