Finding Fatima: The Female Empowerment Movement Among Muslim American Women

Dr. Amina Wadud, Professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, was personally horrified by the unfolding events of September 11,

2001, a day that brought Americans together in a way unprecedented since the attack on Pearl Harbor or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Despite her life long status as an American citizen, by the end of the day she realized that as a Muslim woman in hijab she was not immediately included in this groundswell of camaraderie. At lunch cars honked at her and by the time she went home she had wrapped her scarf differently to avoid unwanted attention. For weeks she covered her hair in short scarves so she would not appear “Islamic.” During these weeks she felt as if the different facets of her identity were at war with each other; female, American, and Muslim.¹ This tension was felt among many women and was the beginning of a larger movement to reclaim American Islam for women.

The months following the attack of September 11, 2001 were marked by a tremendous increase in assaults upon American Muslims and mosques. The religion of Islam was being closely scrutinized, and many Muslims, even life long Americans, felt endangered.² Out of this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, a movement that had been confined to college classrooms and scholarly journals found an outlet into the real world. American Muslim women began to question their place within the mosque and take actions to secure their rights within the tradition. The terrorist attacks of 2001 were the impetus for a reevaluation of the female place within American Islam and the subsequent implementation of the teachings of this movement.

The movement towards female empowerment within American Islam did not spontaneously erupt on one day. Many events before September 11, 2001 were evidence to some of an accumulating tendency towards using Islam to subjugate women. The first such event was the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian revolution in 1979. Worldwide, women saw their Iranian sisters veiled, removed from the public sphere, and confined to the role of forced motherhood. This was a stark presentation of the possible abuses of Islamic law.⁴ During the 1980’s and 1990’s the phenomenon known as globalization let people from all cultures and creeds interact. Soon, American women were more aware of the plight of women in Islamic countries as well as the theories of scholars such as Fatima Mernissi and Leila Ahmed. These scholars began to demand equal access to the scriptures. Global networks and non-governmental agencies grew rapidly and interactions between all people, including Muslim women, became easier.⁵ This did not automatically lead to viewing all Muslim women as disempowered, but a growing number of scholars began to turn their energies towards such questions.

In the United States, Muslims were incorporated into a social system that had different values than most predominantly Muslim nations. Between 1960 and 1990 the number of United States residents who claimed their region of birth was Asia or Africa increased by a factor of ten.⁶ These new immigrants are more likely to be Muslim than any other wave of immigrants before. Like most immigrant groups, as much as they may try to prevent it, second and third generation American Muslims usually date and many marry outside of their religion. American Muslims have been learning to deal with the realities of such a free and open society.⁷ At the same time, the rise of militant Islam began to tear at American female Muslim identities. While these new movements were forcing Muslims into more traditional roles, American women were used to the concept of gender equality, a western import.⁸ This tension was in full display during the 1986 conference on women and Arab society at Georgetown University where keynote speaker Fatima Mernissi acknowledged the strain between scriptural readings and tradition of female resistance in Islam, headed by women such as Aisha, the Prophet’s wife. She also understood the tension between democracy and theocracy, secularism and religion, capitalism and traditional Muslim cultures.⁹ When the planes hit their targets many American Muslim women were already experiencing tension, if not dissatisfaction, with their religion.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 women were the first to feel the pressure mounting on the Islamic population of the United States. Many women were harassed for wearing hijab in public. For many Muslim women hijab creates a sense of identity and solidarity with other members of their religion¹¹. After the attacks the Council for American-Islamic Relations announced that women who wear hijab should stay inside for a few days if they were able. For many in hijab this was like asking them to deny who they were.¹² Some women stayed inside while others tied their scarves differently or wore bandannas to avoid looking Muslim. Still, reports of women being heckled, yelled at, and even physically abused surfaced for months. Dr. Amina Wadud recalls this painful period: “By Friday that first week this first erasure was beginning to impinge upon the integrity of my identity. This was erasure of being Muslim.”¹³ Fear and shame took hold of female Muslims quickly following the fall of the towers. Although the terrorists were all male, Muslim women became the visible public target of American anxiety.

After a few days the media started asking questions about the nature of Islam. Non-Muslims wanted to understand the religion that drove a few people to mass murder. Some outlets like the History Channel ran stock programs about the history and beliefs of Islam. However, in many circumstance what surfaced were skewed and incomplete versions of the Islam most believers knew. Talking head Ann Coulter wrote on September 12, 2001:

Pundits were not the only culprits. The Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi decreed that Western civilization is far superior to the Islamic world.¹⁵ Misconceptions and angry bigotry were pervasive in all facets of American society.

Along with the incorrect and offensive caricatures of Islam, some observers noticed another disturbing trend. When Muslims were called upon to defend Islam, women were never in the picture. There was no female voice to express their take on Islam or their own personal struggles in coping with the recent tragedy. Dr. Wadud reflects, “Women, one-half of the Muslim population, would form none of the major spokespersons, yet, women remained the most easily identifiable and most vulnerable for random acts of retaliation in the aftermath.”¹⁶ Women were threatened but still remained silent. Similarly, Rhonda Roumani, associate producer of Beliefnet.com, told Azizah in Fall of 2001, "Cultivating Muslim journalists is important...If you are not present in the media others will gladly speak for you and misconceptions will continue."¹⁷ Muslim women could draw no strength from the mainstream media because they simply were not represented.

Finally, the patriotism that washed over the United States following the terrorist attacks was just as prevalent among the Muslim population. Many women refused to chose between their identities as Muslim and American. Instead they celebrated the way the United States allowed them to observe their religion. As one commentator wrote, “As the second and third generations of Muslim Americans approach adulthood and blend with immigrants of different Islamic traditions, we are cultivating a strong Muslim culture that is uniquely American.”¹⁸ The pluralism and change that defines American society was a positive influence in their own culture and would become a crucial force in creating a female Muslim movement in the USA.

In the last five years, many women have become proponents of a new movement called Islamic feminism. This title is problematic to some. Haideh Moghissi says that the tension between Islam and feminism is the fight between, “a religion which is based on gender hierarchy [and] the struggle for gender democracy and women’s equality with men.”²⁰ These critics believe that women’s rights and Islam are inherently incompatible. However, other women feel differently. Miriam Cooke espouses the more nuanced position that women in this movement tend to harbor: “The label Islamic feminist brings together two epithets whose juxtaposition describes the emergence of a new, complex self-positioning that celebrates multiple belongings.”²¹ These women believe that in questioning their faith they are expanding their understanding of it. The new wave of immigrants is experiencing a mixture of two cultures that they do not believe are diametrically opposed to each other. The movement within Islam that has been growing recently is an attempt by all kinds of Muslim women to redefine their position within the religion that they have either been brought up in or have embraced. Some Muslims women find Western feminists to be anti-Muslim.

Islam is the last Abrahamic tradition to come under public female scrutiny in the United States. Christianity and Judaism were placed under the magnifying glass soon after the second wave of feminism in the 1960’s. Responses ranged from Judith Plaskow’s desire to reform Judaism so her daughter would not feel excluded to Mary Daly’s radical break with Catholicism and all patriarchal religions. One feminist scholar defines the current Islamic position: “This is what we do: We develop feminist jurisprudence, which is totally based on tradition. We do not invent things. We do not reject tradition. We just show how patriarchal men have distorted that tradition.”²³ From re-interpreting the words of the Qur’an to searching for female role models in sacred history, many American Muslim women are searching for their own niches within their belief system.

One issue women must face is the anti-female rhetoric some Islamic scholars used to contort the message of the Qur’an into one of hatred and segregation. Among these interpretations are the tenets of veiling, polygamy, extreme modesty, and female subservience. Female scholars combat this interpretation with their own. Writers such as Asra Nomani claim that in the historical tendency towards patriarchy the positive female images of Islam have been swept under the rug.²⁴ The Qur’an, according to Nomani and others, is an egalitarian text. It gives women property rights and the right to divorce. The Qur’an says, “Unto men a fortune from that which they have earned and unto women a fortune from that which they have earned” (Sura 4, Verse 23). Moreover, the scriptures assure female sexual fulfillment and bans polygamy. Many verses in the Qur’an can be read as insuring equality among all Muslims.

Furthermore, many feminist scholars have struggled with the meaning of the Jewish and Christian creation story in Genesis for decades; however, this is not as big of an issue in Islam. On the issue of the creation story in Genesis 2-3, Phyllis Trible writes, “Accepting centuries of (male) exegesis, many feminists interpret this story as legitimizing male supremacy and female subordination. They read to reject.”²⁵ The Qur’an does not blame Eve for eating the forbidden fruit; in fact the devil speaks to Adam. The Judeo-Christian tension over the creation story is thus surpassed in the tradition of Islam. Female scholars assert that men are only reading what they wish were true; this of course leaves the feminists vulnerable to a similar critique.

Another popular way of discrediting the prevalence of male domination within Islam is to draw on pre-Islamic traditions. Before Mohammad, the tribal structures of the Middle East were already in place and extremely male-dominated. Mohammad was a social reformer. As Islam became assimilated it had to fit into other’s worldviews in order to spread. Slowly, some of Muhammad’s reforms were lost. Leila Ahmed writes, “The moment in which Islamic law and scriptural interpretations were elaborated and cast into the forms considered authoritative to our own day was a singularly unpropitious one for women.”²⁶ The culture forced Islam into patriarchy, not the other way around.

A third issue that is raised in all Abrahamic traditions is the question of gendered language. Allah is always given the male gender. This language as in other traditions excludes females spiritually from the male-patterned sermons and prayers of their religion. Since God is neither male nor female some Islamic feminists are pushing for neuter or varied gender language.²⁷ Scholars of other traditions have also pointed out this tremendous problem. In Beyond God the Father Mary Daly makes the case that masculine language and images in Christianity eclipse the female experience and automatically place women into a subordinate role.²⁸ Similarly, Wadud writes,

American Muslim women are seeking to reverse this alienation and incorporate the female experience alongside the male experience.

A key component to the push for re-evaluating the female role in Islam is the history of Islam. Strong females throughout Islamic history can help prove the points of feminist scholars. Hagar, the mother of the tribe of Mohammad, raised her child alone. Mohammad himself was brought into the world without a father. Women advocating for Muslim single motherhood can easily point to these examples as precedence for their positions. The Prophet’s first wife Khadijah was an independent businesswoman who approached him first. The Prophet’s daughter Fatima was very influential in the early years of Islam. Some argue that Umm Waraqa was designated by the Prophet to lead prayers in the presence of a man. This is an argument used to justify female leadership of prayers. These women were crucial to the development of Islam; why would the situation have changed? As Nomani writes, “Hajar should have had a revered place in Islam. Instead, even her choice of a bride for the son she raised was rejected.”³⁰ This is a question the American Muslim feminists are challenging the establishment to answer.

Perhaps the most controversial issue facing women and Islam in America is the division of the sexes during prayers. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations 66 percent of Muslim women in the United States pray physically divided form men.³¹ While some women may enjoy the privacy others feel relegated to second-class status. One woman present at Dr. Wadud’s prayer services recounts her earlier, segregated experiences, “Seated behind a wall or screen or above the men’s heads in a balcony surrounded by frosted glass, I was blind. I was invisible. I was silent.”³² For many people the use of space is symbolic of the patriarchal structure the mosque has developed over the centuries. However, many women feel that it is time to re-claim their rightful place on the prayer rug. In ancient times men and women did not wear undergarments, and the act of prostration required separation for the modesty of all parties involved. The current mode of dress does not require that restriction. On a more symbolic level for many women, men and women are allowed to pray side by side in Mecca, the most holy place on Earth.³³ It is difficult for many feminists to understand why mixed prayer is all right in the holy city but not in every mosque on the planet. Once this new brand of women can get their feet in the front door and their knees on the prayer rug they believe that they will be able to change the mosque into a place of unity, understanding, and compassion, but as long as a group of people are relegated to unequal status this cannot happen.

The movement towards female inclusion in American Islam is more than a scholarly battle. Women have already begun the difficult work of re-education, re-structuring resistance, and bold defiance. Directly after September 11, 2001 many women had open houses to invite members of their communities to learn about the kind of Islam that they practiced.³⁵ Others held protests against the war and the domestic violence perpetrated against Muslims within the United States. Still others began new rites of passage for their daughters, including both Muslim and American traditions, such as the all-female prom. ^36* These women were the beginning of a larger push.

On March 18, 2005 Amina Wadud held a prayer service in New York. This was the first public female led prayer to a mixed audience in the United States. The prayer mat behind Dr. Wadud was divided up into three sections: Women on the right, families in the center, and men on the left. No one had to pray in the back.³⁷ After the service Dr. Wadud was forced to leave the country and when she returned she had to teach classes over closed circuit television because of death threats. Many conservative Muslims felt very threatened by Dr. Wadud’s service. Many feel that the tradition will be corrupted and changed should women get these sorts of freedoms. However, this act of religious devotion is perfectly emblematic of the aims of the so-called Islamic feminists. No one was relegated to second-class status and the prayer was no less sacred simply because it came from the mouth of a woman.

Asra Nomani is fighting a related battle in her hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia. Her mosque makes women enter through the back door and pray in a small balcony so that they cannot even hear the prayers. She tried her hardest to work through the establishment within the mosque. However, no matter what she tried she made negligible improvements against the conservative leaders. Eventually Nomani realized that the most effective way to get equality in the mosque is to use the United States’ legal system.³⁸ The egalitarian structure of the laws of the US is a round about way for American Islamic feminists to put their convictions into action. Nomani and Wadud, along with other brave women, are on the front lines fighting the battle for female equality in Islam, nearly 100 years after it was granted by the USA.

The American Islamic feminist movement has attracted opposition from a variety of sources, the most obvious being conservative Muslims. This can be particularly problematic since the extremely conservative Wahhabism has been gaining popularity in the United States in recent years. It is a conservative export of Saudi Arabia, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahab who believed that Sunni Islam had been corrupted by alterations such as Sufism. Wahhabism is particularly hard to argue with. It is strictly text-oriented and rejects cultural and historical interpretations used by many female scholars such as Leila Ahmed. Furthermore, Wahhabism tends to reject universal human values, integral to liberal democratic theory and therefore to the American Islamic feminist movement.⁴⁰ Wahhabism is the branch of Islam that overtook Nomani’s mosque and made it her own personal battleground.

Conservative Muslims’ reliance on strict scriptural readings is very detrimental to the feminist cause. Because of this fundamentalism, men can use Qur’anic verses such as, “The best rows (in the mosque) are the first rows, and the worst are the last, and the best rows (in the mosque) for women are last the rows, and the worst are the first,” and follow such a proclamation, as in one Wahhabi sermon, with admonitions such as, “Slaves of Allah! [The previous evidence] came from the mouth of the Prophet...who never spoke from his own desires, and everything he ever said was nothing but revelation. So how could anybody accept anyone else’s opinion over this?”⁴¹ Arguing with the word of God is a difficult undertaking, and a major detriment to the theology of the Islamic feminists. Many conservative sects refer to scripture other than the Qur’an as a supplement to their teachings. These scriptures are not the actual word of God and easier to argue with, but still a formidable task because it is in the nature of fundamentalists to avoid change.

Other opposition comes from the mainstream feminist movement. Many feminists, such as Mary Daly, have turned from organized religion and deemed it hopelessly mixed in patriarchy. Others, like Starhawk, have tried to find less traditional religions that are more accommodating to women. Some reformers, such as Rita Gross and Judith Plaskow, have worked to transform their own traditions. Many women who were previously Muslim have also given up on their religion. Haideh Moghissi claims that “Sharia is not compatible with the principles of equality of human beings.”⁴² Because Muslim feminist refuse to abandon their beliefs they are often marginalized in the global debate over the role of women.⁴³ Marginalized by their own religion and sex, American Islamic feminists have to find support within their growing community.

Internal support may not even be that easy to come by, since there are differences among the adherents. For example, Asra Nomani and Amina Wadud have publicly stated that they will not work on any projects together in the near future because they have ,”various agendas.”⁴⁴ After the prayer service in New York Nomani welcomed the press coverage as a way to show the world what she was working for. Wadud saw the coverage of the event as a slap in the face of the Islamic world.⁴⁵ The difference between these women is twofold. Nomani, who has a child out of wedlock, is much less religiously observant than Wadud, who wears hijab in her every day life. The second difference is a dispute that plagues the world of feminism in general. Nomani believes that men and women are the same. Wadud believes that males and females are inherently different. In fact, she believes that government by women would not include war.⁴⁶ Between these two extremes are many shades of Islamic feminists who sometimes have as much trouble agreeing with each other as they do with conservative Muslims and secular feminists.

American Muslim women are stuck walking a razor fine line between the teachings of Mohammed, John Locke, and Betty Freidan. Many believe that the line does not even exist. However, these women refuse to give up one identity so that they can more comfortably fit into another. They are trying to find their strong Islamic foremothers. They are searching for Fatima. This is how the American Islamic Feminist movement began. In practice and scholarship many American women are redefining their places in the Islamic tradition. Whether their impetus was the fundamentalist takeover of Iran, the anger over the terrorist attacks of the last decade, or a personal tension building up inside, these women have made the commitment to create change. In many ways to give up on religion is easier than to try to redefine it. The Islamic feminists in the United States are strong and will continue to build their momentum until something changes. Unless they give up the system cannot remain the same for long.

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Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

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El Fadl, Khaled Abou. The Place of Tolerance in Islam. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.

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Kahf, Moja. “The Muslim in the Mirror.” In Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, edited by Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur. Boston: Beacon Press, 2005.

Khayyaat, Usaamah. “A Warning Against Improper Dress for Women Intermixing With Men.” AlMinbar.com. www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/2587.htm.

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Marshall, Susan E. and Read, Jen’nan Ghazal. “Identity Politics Among Arab-American Women.” Social Science Quarterly 84, no. 4 (2003): 875.

Muhammad, Ragayyah Kamillah and Tayyibah Taylor. “Reality Check: Addressing The Media’s Portrayal.” Azizah, Fall 2001, 29.

“Muslim Women Want Single Sex Workouts.” StarTribune.com. ` http://www.startribune.com/484/story/384882.html.

Nomani, Asra Q. Standing Alone in Mecca. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2005.

Rouf, Sheerin Siddique. “Braving the Backlash: In the Aftermath of September 11, 2001.” Azizah, Summer 2002.

Trible, Phyllis. “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread.” In WomanSpirit Rising, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow. 74-83. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992.

Wadud, Amina. “Erasures: The Events of September 11^th Changed Our World Forever.” Azizah, Summer 2002, 110.

Wadud, Amina. “Qur’an and Woman.” In Liberal Islam, edited by Charles Kurzman. 127-138. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

NOTES

1 Amina Wadud, “Erasures: The Events of September 11^th Changed Our World Forever,” Azizah, Summer 2002, 110.

2 Ibid.

3 Su’ad Abdul-Khabeer, “A Day in the Life,” in Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, ed. Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005) 100.

4 Miriam Cooke, Women Claim Islam (New York: Routledge, 2001), x.

6 Campbell Gibson and Emily Lennon, Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990, U.S. Bureau of the Census, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/twps0029.html.

7 Asra Q. Nomani, Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2005), v.

8 Susan E. Marshall and Jen’nan Ghazal Read, “Identity Politics Among Arab-American Women,” Social Science Quarterly, 84 no. 4 (2003): 875.

9 Tricia Lootens, “Women and Arab Society: Old Boundaries, New Frontiers,” Off Our Backs 26, iss. 7 (1986): 10.

14 Ann Coulter, This is War, http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2001/091301.htm.

15 Steven Erlanger, “Italy's Premier Calls Western Civilization Superior to Islamic World” New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). September 27, 2001. sec. A.

17 Ragayyah Kamillah Muhammad and Tayyibah Taylor, “Reality Check: Addressing The Media’s Portrayal,” Azizah, Fall 2001, 29.

18 Renee Warner Syed, “Only in America,” Azizah, Aug 2005, 28.

23 Azizal al-Hibri, “Three,” in Transforming the Faiths of our Fathers, ed. Ann Braude (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) 52.

25 Phyllis Trible, “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread,” in WomanSpirit Rising, ed, Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992) 74.

26 Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 100.

28 Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), 8.

29 Amina Wadud, “Qur’an and Woman,” in Liberal Islam, ed. Charles Kurzman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) 128.

31 Ruth Nasrullah, “A Place to Pray,” Azizah, Dec. 2004/ Jan 2005, 34.

32 Eisa Nefertari Ulen, “A Woman’s Place,” Essence, Dec. 2005, 138.

35 Sheerin Siddique Rouf, “Braving the Backlash: In the Aftermath of September 11, 2001,” Azizah, Summer 2002, 40.

* While these women are working to promote women within sex segregation they are working for female empowerment without leaving the tradition and therefore are of note. A recent example of this is a petition by 200 female Muslims with memberships to Fitness USA requesting segregated exercise facilities. (“Muslim Women Want Single Sex Workouts,” StarTribune.com, http://www.startribune.com/484/story/384882.html.)

40 Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Place of Tolerance in Islam (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), 8-10.

41 Usaamah Khayyaat, “A Warning Against Improper Dress fo Women and Intermixing With Men,” AlMinbar.com, www.alminbar.com/khutbaheng/2587.htm.

43 Maliha Chishti, “Feminism and Islam- Oil and Water? Resisting the Feminist Gaze,” Azizah, Summer 2002, 106.

44 Walid Al-Saquaf, “Muslim Activist Wages ‘Gender Jihad,’” Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2005, sec. B