Saint? Sinner? Or a bit of both?

A month ago or so, I wrote about a woman leading a mixed congregation prayer in a mosque (http://tinyurl.com/c2sn7). It has also been my privilege to join two internet groups relating to progressive Muslims and Sufism. I have to admit that it is amazing and very educational to be in the company of such people, whose passion for righting wrongs just leaps off the screen. This is not to say that they are only talkers, each and every one of the participants are activists, carrying out tasks, leading marches, writing scintillating prose and generally fighting for their rights and views relating to anti-imperialism to affirmative action to women’s rights. In particular, I was referred to a controversial book by an American Muslim woman, Asra Nomani and it moved me. I figured, a book review would be too boring, so I decided to jot down some thoughts that I had and some points which crystallised from a heated discussion with my sister.

It was the Saturday of the FA Cup Final and the book “Standing Alone in Mecca” had thumped on the doormat in the morning. I was, as you would appreciate, a bit occupied with the game when my little princess decided to help daddy by opening up his mail. Thankfully, I spotted her attempts to masticate the thick envelope and rescued it from her, absentmindedly opened up the envelope, took the book out and gave the envelope back to my little princess, who immediately tried to cram it all into her mouth. After dealing with the fallout from THAT priceless piece of incompetent daddy behaviour, I settled back on the settee with the book in hand. Very soon, I got engrossed in the book, so much that I actually started reading it instead of sitting there with my eyes on stalks on the TV. Just goes to show how engaging and interesting I found the book to be.

Simply put, the book is about Asra’s life and experience, what she terms her religious reawakening, precipitated by a series of life changing events, her being caught between three cultures (the Indian, the Muslim and the immigrant American culture), her short-lived marriage, her boyfriend’s abandonment when she finds herself pregnant, the foul murder of her friend, Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan , the birth of her child and life as a single unwed mother. She begins a search for her Muslim identity, surrounded by censorious opprobrium of orthodox and traditional people, goes to do the Hajj (pilgrimage) in Saudi Arabia, and comes back with more questions and what she terms as a deeper understanding of her own faith. Then she embarks on another mission to fight for women’s rights within Islam in America. A very bald statement of facts, which does not really explain the feeling of joy, and identification that I felt while reading the book. It is not a book about a heroine. It is not a book written where the good get the plaudits and the bad suffer. It is about an ordinary woman, who has been transplanted from India to USA, facing the tensions between traditional cultures, how she sees her religion, and the cacophony of the individualistic/capitalistic culture of USA.

I saw the book in two sections. The first section was related to her search for God, as well as trying to make peace with what she was, her background, her actions, her experiences, her family, her society, her religion, and her country. It is brutal in its honesty. It may sound insincere to many people, simply because, in my opinion, that level of honesty is extremely uncommon or perhaps they see it as insincere to not feel any remorse about what Islam defines as a grave sin (pre-marital sex), but even trying to find a justification for it. Given the sheer amount of cynicism prevalent in the world and the extreme rarity of self-discovery books, I am not surprised at the stones thrown at her. The funny thing is, she believes that she has gone through the fire already, and people’s judgements on her personal behaviour, or her search will simply make her stronger. Still, I have to admit that her search for God is strangely, akin to what I feel as well, confused, sometimes very close to Him, sometimes very cynical and unable to slough off the scientist/westernised/secular/atheist cloak. The feeling of love for the eternal being, the search in and comparison with other religions, the impact of a warm, freshly born child in your arms, yes, it definitely makes sense to me.

That said, let’s see some issues which have been raised. Some issues with the accuracy of her Arabic translations, but since I do not know Arabic, I will let other people who are more qualified address that issue. Some problems with some of her historical facts such as the fact that Prophet Mohammed had four daughters who survived infancy instead of only one, or that Aisha was the daughter of Abu Bakr and not Umar or the Caliph succession after the the Prophet’s death. A suggestion would be to really get historical facts right as they can cause people to diverge from the main overall message of the book. There are lots of criticisms of her personal behaviour. Having a child out of wedlock seems to be the biggest issue for some people. An unwed mother seems to be the worst of the lot for many people. Who can forget the British disease of blaming everything from global warming to loss of morals to single mothers?. The fact that no blame seems to be attached to the loser who left her hanging seems to have escaped them.

However, the biggest criticism seems to be associated with the fact that she had pre-marital sex and is seen as advocating it (with her point 8 of the bill of rights for Muslim women in the bedroom) which contrasts with Sura 4:24 where sex is banned for everybody who is not married. So far so good as I believe all sects and schools of Islam say that pre- or extra-marital sex is illegal. This is sometimes viewed as a contentious issue, because it is commonly accepted that any pre- or extra-marital sex is forbidden, but then the Shia branch of Islam has the concept of temporary marriage, “mutah” (which means pleasure). Needless to say, the Sunni side totally disagrees with this type of marriage and calls it forbidden. But the Sunni side has the “misyar” marriage which is also not agreed upon by all sects. The viewpoint against them is, marriage is for life and not temporary or limited. Be that as it may, both “mutah” as well as “misyar” are in the end-effect some form of marriage. As for who is right, there are very many scholars who can talk about the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. Then again, when a luminary of the stature of Tariq Ramadan can ask for recalibration and banning of Hudood punishments, there is definitely hope that some element of modernisation and ijhtihad are accepted or even applied.

The fact that she does not talk about affirmative action, the Israeli Palestinian issue, the Iraq War, the fate of the green horned eagle, capitalism, reuniting Gondwanaland, childcare in Sweden, minimum wages and the like seems also to be an issue. Well, to each his own, I say, you fight for what you believe in. She at least walks the walk instead of just talking the talk.

However, it is the second part, which ties into what we were talking about earlier. The struggle for women to carve out a space in the mosque, either from the perspective of leading prayers (as we have already spoken about) or just simply being one with and equal to everybody else in the mosque when praying or worshipping. As we very well know, the struggle for women’s rights is carried out on so many different levels. While reading her book about how women would pray shoulder to shoulder with men in Mecca, but were shoved into a pokey room in the common mosques in America, I had a flashback to a situation I witnessed when I was a young callow kid in shorts. My mother was leading a group of college girls in a tourist group visiting south India. The details are hazy, but at a particular temple, most of the girls, who were dressed in jeans or a salwar kameez (a traditional Punjabi outfit), were not allowed into the temple. Only women wearing saris were allowed to enter. My mother, who let’s just say isn't shy and retiring, was in her full Durga/Kali persona, but those obdurate priests were not budging. After filling the priest’s ears with some choice invective about them and their silly customs, she stalked off with the girls in tow. Man, I felt so very proud of her.

Asra Nomani explains how she fought for her right to pray in the main section, where only men were allowed to pray before. I am no theologian and certainly not that knowledgeable about all the various details of Islamic rituals, so I had to rely on the most excellent and knowledgeable group of people on the mailing lists. There is, from all accounts, no valid theological reason for women to be excluded from praying with men at all. It is only the old patriarchal, traditional, and hidebound customs coming from Neanderthal times that have forced women into separate enclosures, pokey rooms and excluded them from any discussion or worship. Asra Nomani, while not the first person to do so, is the first person in many respects, who has stood her ground and faced those powers-that-be inviting more grief than praise. Her family has supported her totally and her exposition on how her relationship with her God, and with her mother and father helped her to be strong in the face of death threats, vile comments, and opprobrium is touching.

Why do I think this book or rather some of its messages are important? Why am I, an amateur historian and political analyst, counter-terrorism student, so interested in this? This is because, besides the fight for women’s rights, the waves of fundamentalist Islam she touched upon, which are emanating from Saudi Arabia and other hot spots of Wahhabi/Salafi Islam are causing ructions in the societal fabric. I have already talked about the Sufi tradition in Islam, with which I am most familiar. If anybody wants to see the difference between Sufi Islam and the Wahhabi/Salafi Islam, just subscribe to two mailing lists and what we see on the mailing lists/websites of the obscurantist type , and see the difference between both over one week. The Sufi approach is a kind gentle loving path to god, the path is strewn with songs, poems, love, dancing, adoration, kindness, mercy, beauty, laughter, forgiveness and the like. Anybody who has read the great Rumi’s poems will immediately notice the similarity in the adoration that we find in Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna’s paeans to the Mother Goddess. The problems start emerging when literalist and fundamentalist religious interpretations emerge and they start swamping everybody, urging people to start discriminating and even killing for their God. Any attempts to remove any of the jagged edges, however small, of this intolerance and fundamentalism as a start is to be supported and welcomed.

In the appendix of her book, Asra lists two sets of what she terms as Bill of Rights. The first relates to women in mosques and the second (the more controversial one) are rights of Muslim women in the bedroom. I read them both, and then figured; hmmm, now why would anybody have an issue with them? Why would Asra need to list them out? Then I realised, it is the very fact of listing them out that shows how much they are needed. By itself, nobody in their sane minds will say that women’s rights are not required or supported. It is just when it comes to the mosque that all the Neanderthal brains dribble out. The bill of rights for Muslim women in the mosque is an excellent checklist for people to follow to verify whether their local mosques do indeed support these, and if not, why not? As for the bill of rights in the bedroom, maybe Ms. Asra Nomani should supply the Quranic base for the points she makes or perhaps rephrase them to make them less vague to avoid being branded as promoting ‘zina’.

Before we assume that this is just one woman’s crusade or it’s only happening in the godless west so to say, we should not forget that there is a similar wave of Muslim women-lead activism in India where women have set up their own mosques, are fighting for their own rights with respect to marriage, divorce and custody, are fighting for recognition. All in all, after reading the book, I felt like saying, “You go, girl”. Her website (www.asranomani.com) gives more details on the book. This woman is fighting for something which is good and will impact many women in some shape or form and for that, and that deserves support. For the rest of the people who are cynics or simply against what she is aiming for, or would rather focus on the mistakes she makes than also see the good she is trying to achieve, all I can say is that who are we to judge, so let us not judge what is in each other’s hearts for the Qur’an says Allah knows best: [64.4] He knows what is in the heavens and the earth, and He knows what you hide and what you manifest;and Allah is Cognizant of what is in the hearts.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!