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RELIGIOUS MODERATION vis-à-vis WASATHIYAH

Religious moderation consists of two words: “moderation” and “religious.” The word “moderation” comes from the Latin “moderatio,” which means “in the middle,” not excessive, and not lacking. In a more technical or operational definition, “moderation” is an attitude and self-control that is neither excessive nor deficient. However, many people are more familiar with the English noun “moderation,” which signifies being in the middle and not excessive.

In the Islamic tradition, the term moderation is known as “wasathiyah,” referring to attitudes and actions that are neither excessive nor biased. “Wasathiyah” implies fairness, balance, and proportionality. As expressed by Ibn Faris Al-Qazwaini in Mu’jam Maqayisi Al-Lughah:

“بِنَاءٌ صَحِيْح يَدُلُّ عَلى الْعَدْلِ وَالنِّصْفِ”

“The correct construction of language shows the meaning of justice and the middle.”

Ibn Faris’ definition is concise, simple, and easy to understand compared to those of other Arabic language experts like Ibn Manzhur. Over the last 14 centuries, the definition of “wasathiyah” has not changed significantly, as the term is enshrined in the Quran and has become a foundational teaching concept with its own terminology. Thus, the concept of “wasathiyah” serves as a principle and standard of behavior that every Muslim must adhere to. Every Muslim is required to adopt a moderate stance, free from intolerance and discrimination. As stated in Surah Al-Baqarah (2:143):

وَكَذٰلِكَ جَعَلْنٰكُمْ اُمَّةً وَّسَطًا لِّتَكُوْنُوْا شُهَدَاۤءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَيَكُوْنَ الرَّسُوْلُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيْدًاۗ وَمَا جَعَلْنَا الْقِبْلَةَ الَّتِيْ كُنْتَ عَلَيْهَآ اِلَّا لِنَعْلَمَ مَنْ يَّتَّبِعُ الرَّسُوْلَ مِمَّنْ يَّنْقَلِبُ عَلٰى عَقِبَيْهِۗ وَاِنْ كَانَتْ لَكَبِيْرَةً اِلَّا عَلَى الَّذِيْنَ هَدَى اللّٰهُۗ وَمَا كَانَ اللّٰهُ لِيُضِيْعَ اِيْمَانَكُمْۗ اِنَّ اللّٰهَ بِالنَّاسِ لَرَءُوْفٌ رَّحِيْمٌ

“And it is thus that We appointed you to be the community of the middle way so that you might be witnesses to all mankind and the Messenger might be a witness to you. We appointed the direction which you formerly observed so that We might distinguish those who follow the Messenger from those who turn on their heels. For it was indeed burdensome except for those whom Allah guided. And Allah will never leave your faith to waste. Allah is full of gentleness and mercy to mankind.”

Additionally, in Surah An-Nisa (4:171):

يٰٓاَهْلَ الْكِتٰبِ لَا تَغْلُوْا فِيْ دِيْنِكُمْ وَلَا تَقُوْلُوْا عَلَى اللّٰهِ اِلَّا الْحَقَّۗ اِنَّمَا الْمَسِيْحُ عِيْسَى ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ رَسُوْلُ اللّٰهِ وَكَلِمَتُهٗۚ اَلْقٰهَآ اِلٰى مَرْيَمَ وَرُوْحٌ مِّنْهُۖ فَاٰمِنُوْا بِاللّٰهِ وَرُسُلِهٖۗ وَلَا تَقُوْلُوْا ثَلٰثَةٌۗ اِنْتَهُوْا خَيْرًا لَّكُمْۗ اِنَّمَا اللّٰهُ اِلٰهٌ وَّاحِدٌۗ سُبْحٰنَهٗٓ اَنْ يَّكُوْنَ لَهٗ وَلَدٌۘ لَهٗ مَا فِى السَّمٰوٰتِ وَمَا فِى الْاَرْضِۗ وَكَفٰى بِاللّٰهِ وَكِيْلًاࣖ

“People of the Book! Do not exceed the limits in your religion, and attribute to Allah nothing except the truth. Isa Al-Masih, son of Maryam, was only a Messenger of Allah, and His command that He conveyed unto Maryam, and a spirit from Him. Believe in Allah and His Messengers, and do not say: (Allah is a) trinity. Give up this assertion; it would be better for you. Allah is indeed just one God. Far be it from His glory that He should have a son. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth. Allah is sufficient for a guardian.”

The views and attitudes of moderation in Islam have been taught since the Quran was revealed and practiced by the Prophet Muhammad SAW, 14 centuries ago. As a concept, moderation in Islam has undergone significant development since the Science of Kalam flourished in the second and third centuries Hijri, followed by discourses on Tafsir, Hadith, Fiqh, Usul Fiqh, Sufism, and Maqashid Sharia until the eighth century Hijri, at the end of the Classical Islamic era.

Various sects within the science of Kalam have developed their own theories of moderation, such as Mu’tazilah, Ash’ariyah, and Shia. These three sects have played a crucial role in transforming Kalam into a philosophical discourse within Islam. This indicates that individuals who mature in the science of Kalam will adopt a wise approach to differences. Conversely, those with a superficial understanding of Kalam may display intolerance, as evidenced by the Khawarij group in the early Islamic era, who assassinated Ali bin Abi Thalib on January 27, 661 AD, for opposing their views. Similarly, contemporary Salafis often misinterpret rationalist Islam as dogmatic, treating religion in a rigid, mathematical manner. Intolerant groups such as Khawarij, Salafi, Taliban, and extremist organizations like ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al-Qaeda view religion dogmatically, interpreting Quranic verses in a narrow, normative sense. They consider all Jews and Christians as eternal enemies based solely on the linguistic construction of the text, neglecting the context of the verses’ revelation.

This extreme reliance on translated versions of the Quran, particularly those disseminated on social media, often results in a limited understanding. Translations can narrow readers’ comprehension, especially for fundamentalist and extremist groups lacking proficiency in Arabic. This restricted understanding complicates the acceptance of moderate religious perspectives. Additionally, these groups often reject interpretations from outside their own circle, labeling dissenters as liberal and contrary to Islamic teachings.

If left unchecked, attitudes opposing moderation can pose significant dangers to Indonesia’s diversity. Such views may foster “tatharruf,” or extremism, also known as Ghuluw in Shia tradition. Non-moderate attitudes can lead to intolerance and ultimately to extremist behavior, potentially inciting violent acts against those who oppose them.

Moderate attitudes, on the other hand, position religion as a subject requiring in-depth study, allowing for perspectives grounded in rationalism. For moderates, religion encompasses not only transcendental faith but also rational understanding.[]

RELIGIOUS MODERATION IN ISLAM: An Introduction

When discussing Islam, we can view it from various perspectives, including a doctrinal one that pertains to monotheism. The doctrinal area refers to faith or belief held transcendentally, accepted without rationalization. However, in subsequent stages, we can rationalize this belief when transitioning from the realm of monotheism to theological-kalam discourse, a process known as rationalizing dogma. The potential risk associated with this discourse is the possibility of societal division, especially when theological-kalam discussions intersect with political ideologies. Historical instances, such as the Muktaziliyan, Asy’ariyan, Maturidiyan, Khawarij, and Shia sects, illustrate the intolerance faced by earlier generations, beginning with Washil bin Atha (700-748 AD). Theological-Kalam reached its maturity in the 2nd century Hijri through constructive scientific debates, unlike the deconstructive debates observed in contemporary Indonesian issues, such as the persecution related to the Ba’alawi lineage, where fanatical supporters targeted Ki Imad’s group.

Returning to the discussion of doctrine, scholars define Islam as a monotheistic religion that teaches the oneness of Allah SWT and acknowledges the Prophet Muhammad SAW as the final Prophet and Messenger, with the Qur’an revealed through His Prophet’s Sunnah. As quoted from Tafsir Ath-Thabari:

“Allah SWT revealed the Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad SAW through the Angel Gabriel. It is said, ‘wa Ma Yanthiqu ‘An Al-Hawa’ – with ‘hawa’ meaning lust.”

In the context of doctrine, religion as a belief system is grounded in holy books. For Islam, this belief system is constructed based on the Qur’an and Sunnah. The Sunnah represents the contextualization of revelation through the exemplary actions of Muhammad SAW and his statements, which are considered explanations of revelation:

“And he does not speak out of (his own) desire. It is not but revelation revealed [to him]…” (An-Najm 53:3-4)

As a system of faith, Islam asserts the truth of the concept of tauhid or oneness as explained by theologians, and similarly, other religions have the right to claim the validity of their own faith concepts.

Each religion’s belief system is a private matter, and maintaining this privacy is a form of tolerance, which stems from a moderate stance. The common thread in religious ideological privacy is rationalism and openness. Rationalism in Islam is exemplified by theological philosophy, or kalam science, which seeks to rationalize faith, dogma, and belief systems regarding God. This rational concept of faith demands that adherents explore the realm of divinity through philosophical means. Dogma, traditionally taken for granted in a transcendent way, is examined critically through rational faith, known in Islamic theology as “alamul uluhah.”

Muslims who achieve intellectual status are those who excel in philosophical reasoning and thus attain wise thinking and openness. Openness is a prerequisite for religious moderation, especially concerning tolerance. It is challenging, as it requires elevating one’s belief system to a rational faith system. Remaining within dogma often leads to conflicts about whether religions share teachings of virtue or if all religions are the same. This perspective faces strong resistance from fundamentalist and traditionalist groups. Fundamentalists and traditionalists view the Words of God and Hadith as normative concepts, while rationalists, particularly those studying Maqashid Syariah, see them as frameworks for welfare and justice. Each verse of the Qur’an is interpreted within its conceptual framework of welfare and justice.

For example, consider the verse:

[هُنَّ لِبَاسٌ لَكُمْ وَأَنْتُمْ لِبَاسٌ لَهُنَّ] (البقرة: 187) “They are clothes for you, and you are clothes for them.”

Traditionalists interpret this verse as supporting the husband’s sexual rights, while fundamentalists may see it as evidence that heaven is forbidden to wives who disobey their husbands. In contrast, rationalist groups, such as those relying on Maqashid Syariah Lin Nisa, interpret this verse as a framework for husband-wife relations in both domestic and public contexts, emphasizing mutual support and cooperation in a marriage. The verse is seen as promoting sexual activity as a source of happiness rather than a burden, highlighting the importance of mutual satisfaction.

In the concept of muamalah (relationships), Islam also envisions welfare, which extends to human relations and interactions with the environment. Distinctions are made between domestic and public relations. Domestic relations include interactions between husband and wife, parents and children, and extended family. Domestic welfare, in popular and religious terms, is expressed as sakinah, mawaddah, wa rahmah (SAMAWA). Sakinah refers to peace without hostility, aiming to resolve and prevent conflicts. This will be the focus of the next discussion.

Women in Islam: Hiding Her Story

by 

The discussion of women in Islam is a highly charged one. It is an issue infected with Orientalist and Islamophobic rhetoric about the assumed inferiority and subjugation of women intrinsic in Islam. Patriarchal and oppressive cultural norms are often couched in religious terminology and deemed “Islamic” in order to justify and validate them. However, notions that Islam is inherently oppressive to women are contradicted not only by an in-depth analysis of the Qur’ān but also by extensive evidence that demonstrates that women, during the formative years of Islam, enjoyed a high standing and were included in every aspect of life.

From the time of Prophet Muhammad, there were thousands of women scholars and jurists who exercised the same authority as men and taught male and female disciples, including judges and caliphs.1 Women who lived during the time of the Prophet, whose life example is seen by Muslims as the most perfect manifestation of the spirit of the Qur’ān,2 felt they had full rights and used to go to the mosque, pray next to men, pray in close proximity to the Prophet, fight in battles, teach men and women, move about freely, and interrupt scholars as they spoke to ask questions for which they demanded answers.

All this history has been forgotten or deliberately buried and erased. Recently, a conservative Sunni scholar of hadīthSheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, found written evidence of the existence of over nine thousand prominent women scholars and jurists who lived during the formative era of Islam. While in residence at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Nadwi produced a forty-volume work on Muslim women scholars, jurists and prayer leaders.

This scholar, who studied in a traditional madrasa in Lucknow, India, came across countless mentions of women in early hadīth manuscripts and thus began to investigate, taking a detour from his intended work. He first assumed the detour would be a short one and that he would produce a small volume. However, he kept discovering more and more women scholars and concluded that “he does not know of another religious tradition in which women were so central, so present, so active in its formative history.”3

Nadwi explains that for centuries, women traveled intensively, fulfilling their religious duty of seeking knowledge and attending prestigious mosques and madrassas throughout the Islamic world.

Nadwi discovered a reality that surprised him and that is, unfortunately, quite different from the one many Muslim women experience today, primarily due to mistaken interpretations that aim at preserving patriarchal systems. Nadwi explains that for centuries, women traveled intensively, fulfilling their religious duty of seeking knowledge and attending prestigious mosques and madrassas throughout the Islamic world. The fact that over nine thousand women scholars were found by chance and are mentioned in writing means that there were countless more. It is commonly known that men did not want the names of their wives or daughters published.

Some interesting examples of the women scholars discovered by Nadwi are the following: In Samarkand, during the 12th century, Fatimah As-Samarqandiyyah, trained by her father in hadth and fiqh, used to teach men and women, train judges, and judge court cases. She also issued fatwās and advised her well known husband on how to issue his.

Another woman scholar, Umm Al-Darda, was a companion of the Prophet and a prominent jurist and hadth scholar in seventh-century Damascus and Jerusalem. Among her students was the caliph ‘Abd al-Mālik ibn Marwān. Umm Al-Darda was declared by Iyas ibn Mu’āwiya Al-Muzani, a qāḍī (Muslim judge) of undisputed ability and merit, known for her immense cleverness, to be a scholar superior to all the other scholars of the period.

In Medieval Mauritania, there is evidence of hundreds of girls who memorized books of fiqh by heart. Fatimah al-Batainiyyah was a fourteenth century Syrian scholar who taught men and women in the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. Students traveled from all over the Muslim world, some from as far as Fez, to study with her. She used to lean against the Prophet’s tomb as she taught, placing herself right beside the Prophet’s head.

A remarkable woman who took extremely seriously the duty to seek knowledge was Fatimah bint Sa’d al-Khayr. She traveled all over Asia studying with various prominent teachers, including another woman scholar in Isfahan, Fatimah al-Juzdaniyah, who was the primary narrator of a massive thirty-seven-volume hadth collections of Al-Tabarani. Al Juzdaniyah was a student of al-Tabarani, who characterized her scholarship as possessing one of the highest chains with the shortest links to the Prophet in her lifetime, which Fatimah bint Sa’d al Khayr learned and began to transmit as well.4

Throughout his life, the Prophet himself was surrounded by women he greatly respected. He constantly worked to raise their status. Ibn Ḥaẓm (994-1064), an Andalusian scholar who produced a reported four-hundred works on Islamic jurisprudence, history, ethics, comparative religion, and theology, cites a number of hadīths that prove that in the days of the Prophet, women moved freely and prayed next to men, a practice that has been curtailed today because it is viewed as “un-Islamic.”

Ibn Ḥaẓm describes a hadth where Caliph Umar wanted to prevent women from going to the mosque and was sternly rebuked by his father who stated it would be against the Prophet’s wishes. A hadth from the Prophet also narrated by Ibn Ḥaẓm states, “Do not prevent the women from going out to the mosques at night.” Ibn Ḥaẓm said that if the Prophet did not prevent women from going to the mosque, then it would be “a sin and bid’ah to do so in one’s own authority.”5

Ibn Hazm adduces a number of traditions that prove that in the days of the Prophet, women frequented the mosque together with men. He reports that, during this time, should anything happen during prayer, such as an error made by the imam, “men should praise God and women should clap their hands.” Similarly, a hadth reported in the Book of Muslim states that Umm Hisham said “I memorized sura Qaf from hearing it from the Prophet Muhammad because he used to recite it during his sermon on Fridays.” This is a clear indication that Umm Hisham stood in close proximity to the Prophet as there were no microphones or loudspeakers at the time. Finally, Ibn Abbas, the paternal cousin of the Prophet reported in a hadth with a strong chain of narration that “A beautiful woman, from among the most beautiful of women, used to pray behind the Prophet.”6

A striking example of the status and independence women had during the Prophet’s time is that of Nusaybah bint Kaab. Nusaybah was legendary for her bravery and military skills. She fought in numerous battles and in the battle of Uhud, saved the Prophet’s life. She was wounded severely while defending the Prophet and he said, “whenever I looked to my right or left, I would find Nusaybah fighting defensively” and praised her for her courage. Nusaybah was unwilling to stay at home while her husband and son went to battle, so she decided to join them. At first, her intention was to tend to the wounded and bring water to the warriors, but later, she proved invaluable in the battlefield and turned out to be highly skilled with the sword.7

It is thus clear from these and many other cases of female agency and freedom in the Islamic premodernity, that the problem of oppression does not lie in Islam and is not advocated by the Qur’ān.

It is thus clear from these and many other cases of female agency and freedom in the Islamic premodernity, that the problem of oppression does not lie in Islam and is not advocated by the Qur’ān. In fact, far from subjugating women, the Qur’ān can and should be read as liberating. It is not necessary to resort to secular or Western-style feminism to “empower” Muslim women. It is, however, of crucial importance to engage in interpretations that are in accordance with the Qur’ānic spirit.

Professor Asma Barlas, Ethica College NY

The strong refusal in the Qur’ān to perpetuate the religious depictions of God as a father-figure that exist in Judaism and Christianity, and the refusal to engender and sexualize God, can be understood as militating against patriarchy, which Asma Barlas considers to be “the chief instrument of women’s oppression in Muslim societies.”8

Barlas eloquently explains that it would be absurd for a God who is above sex and gender, who is Most Compassionate and Merciful, and will not transgress against the rights of others, to privilege men and take sexual partisanship. Even more absurd would be that this God should advocate the oppression of women. Not only does the Qur’ān not oppress women, “but it also affirms that women and men originated in the same self, have the same capacity for moral choice and personality and, as God’s vice-regents on earth, have a mutual duty to enjoin the right and forbid the wrong.”9

Not only does the Qur’ān not oppress women, “but it also affirms that women and men originated in the same self, have the same capacity for moral choice and personality and, as God’s vice-regents on earth, have a mutual duty to enjoin the right and forbid the wrong.”

The Qur’ān encompasses “a horizon of ethical possibilities and [counsels] to read it for its best meanings.”10 To put it simply, all interpretations that women should be subjugated, or their movements limited, or their choices controlled by men are erroneous interpretations: “Any religious opinion that tries to limit the rights or opportunities of any group of people is a false interpretation.”11

1  Nadwi, Mohammad Akram. Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam. Oxford: Interface Publications, 2014.
2  His wife Aisha called him “the walking Qur’ān.”
 3  Power, Carla. If the Oceans Were Ink. New York: Holt Paperbacks: 2015, p. 130.
4  To clarify: Fatimah bint Sa’d al-Khayr was considered (by the student of Tarabani) to have one of the most reliable chains of transmission for the hadiths she narrated. Meaning, the hadiths she narrated were sound, and with relatively few links between the transmitter and the Prophet himself. It is essential for hadiths to have a sound chain of transmission (i.e., those who passed on the Prophet’s sayings must be reliable in character and sound mind and also, their narrations must have been confirmed by others…of course the closer in time to the Prophet the better a hadith’s chain is).
5  Marin, Manuela and Deguilhem, Randy, Eds. Writing the Feminine: Women in Arab Sources. London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2002, p. 82., p. 83.
6  This hadīth was judged authentic by Sheikh Al-Albaani in his Silsilat Ahadeeth (Saheehah #2472). This hadīth was narrated by Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud, Attayalisy, Ahmad, and Tirmidhi among others.
7  Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. London: Inner Traditions, 2006, p. 181.
8  Barlas, Asma. “Uncrossed bridges: Islam, feminism and secular democracy.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(4-5) 417–425, 2013, p. 421.
9  Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Abdulhameed, Sultan. The Qur’ān and the Life of Excellence. Denver: Outskirts Press, 2010, p. 207.

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Bibliography

Abdulhameed, Sultan. The Qur’ān and the Life of Excellence. Denver: Outskirts Press, 2010.

Barlas, Asma. “Uncrossed bridges: Islam, feminism and secular democracy.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(4-5) 417–425, 2013. 

Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. London: Inner Traditions, 2006.

Marin, Manuela and Deguilhem, Randy, Eds. Writing the Feminine: Women in Arab Sources. London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2002.

Nadwi, Mohammad Akram. Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam. Oxford: Interface Publications, 2014.

Power, Carla. If the Oceans Were Ink. New York: Holt Paperbacks: 2015.

Source: https://insidearabia.com/women-in-islam-hiding-her-story/?fbclid=IwAR08tBUyb9xIfn5tZbRVMpo67Q1lgR8PHBGToNmY7WqvKFhCuq59-_cN2Gk

Democratic, Islamic values aligned in Indonesia, webinar hears

Marchio Irfan Gorbiano

The Jakarta Post

Democratic and Islamic values are intrinsically aligned in Muslim-majority Indonesia, experts and activists have said, amid growing concerns about a rise in religious conservatism that seeks to undermine the country’s democratic institutions. Muhammadiyah secretary-general Abdul Mu’ti said during a webinar over the weekend that he viewed democracy not only as a political system but also as a system of values, in which “prosperities” could be built upon. To wit, he identified three core values of democracy – emancipation, meritocracy and pluralism – and said they were aligned with Islamic values. “Emancipation puts emphasis on egalitarianism and humanism, while meritocracy also allows democracy to give room to appreciate achievements and ensure fairness [among people], and pluralism guarantees mutual responsibility, coexistence and collaboration,” said Abdul. “I can say that democratic values can implicitly be found in the teachings of Islam and are part of the reason why a good Muslim will also support a true democracy.” The statement from Abdul, who is part of the country’s second largest Muslim grassroots group, comes against the backdrop of rising religious conservatism in Indonesia, a phenomenon that many analysts have noted appeared after the large-scale rallies of the 212 Movement in 2016.

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The government, meanwhile, banned Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), an Islamist organization seeking to establish a caliphate in the country, in 2017, deeming its values contradictory to the 1945 Constitution and its presence a threat to public order. The move, however, also prompted concern among human rights activists about threats to freedom of association and expression. Last year, a joint-decree signed by 11 ministries and state bodies was also issued to regulate the kind of content that civil servants are allowed to post on social media. The decree stipulates that civil servants must not express opinions containing “hate speech” against the state ideology Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, the national motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity), or the government itself. The policy was issued amid growing concerns that many civil servants have been exposed to religious extremism.

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According to a 2019 survey conducted by Jakarta-based pollster Alvara institute, 16.9 percent of 1,567 respondents in the survey believed that an Islamic caliphate was the “right” mode of government for Indonesia. A committee member for the Indonesian Anti-Slander Society (Mafindo), Anita Wahid, said there was a growing narrative of advocating for the “purity” of Islam that justified discrimination against other groups based on a strict interpretation of religious texts. “By using religious [texts] as a point of reference that pits Islam against democracy, it’s as if Islam is not aligned with democracy. We have to respond with a counternarrative that highlights democratic and just values in Islam,” Anita said during the same webinar hosted by the AE Priyono Democracy Forum. Meanwhile, women’s rights activist Lies Marcoes Natsir said the current wave of growing religious conservatism could be viewed as a result of measures taken by the New Order regime in the past to suppress such groups, which resulted in a lack of opportunities for dialogue.

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“The New Order pressured them in such a way that we never got to discuss […] why they rejected birth control or agreed with child marriage,” Lies said. “After [the reform era], we only became aware that [religious conservative groups] had surfaced and were challenging ideas that we previously thought were settled, like gender and reproductive rights.” Islamic scholar Budhy Munawar Rachman pointed out that previous works of Muslim intellectuals such as the late Nurcholish “Cak Nur” Madjid and late president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid had paved the way for an interpretation of Islam that had inherently democratic values. “We are thankful that we already have Islamic arguments in favor of democracy so it became something that is inherent in our [religion],” said Budhy. “The works of Cak Nur and Gus Dur have helped society, particularly in the post-reform era, to be accepting of democracy.”

This article was published in thejakartapost.com with the title “Democratic, Islamic values aligned in Indonesia, webinar hears”. Click to read: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/10/19/democratic-islamic-values-aligned-in-indonesia-webinar-hears.html.

Why Are Women (Still) Comfortable in Islam?

By Lies Marcoes (Researcher, Rumah KitaB)

Please show where and how women are placed with dignity in the conceptual framework (epistemology) of Islam? This question resounded in my mind following the discussion of Dr. Zahra Ayubi’s book Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family and Society, (Columbia University, July 2019). This is not some strange or eccentric query, but rather an accusation that demands an honest answer. Where?The virtual discussion was held on the morning of 20 May 2020 by WE LEAD, an empowerment network of seven feminist NGOs, three of which are Islam-based. We all perceive the strong rising tide of fundamentalism that threatens women’s bodies and existence as well as the diversity of Indonesia. This was truly a very special discussion, in terms of the quality of the book, the discussants, and the dialogue. Dr. Ayubi herself participated throughout the discussion, even though it was before dawn in California. The discussion was led and notes were provided by Ulil Abshar Abdalla, M.A., who has for the past several years been an expert on Imam Ghazali’s work Ngaji Ihlya. It was important to have kyai Ulil involved, because one of the texts discussed in Gendered Morality is the works of Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, better known as Imam Ghazali. Meanwhile, Dr. amina wadud (who officially prefers her name written without capital letters), serving as one of the discussants, led the discussion straight to the heart of the problem. She asked Dr. Ayubi to explain about her motivation, the basis of her arguments, and her analysis of the three texts of tasawuf (mysticism) she explored: Kimiya’i Sa’adat by Imam Ghazali, Akhlaaq-i Nasiri by Nasiruddin Tusi, and Akhlaaq-i Jalali by Jalaluddin Davani. These last two books are more popular in Iran.In his introduction to the discussion, kyai Ulil- and I concurred,  explained that mysticism has long been considered a discipline that is friendly toward women – for example, by presenting the “feminine side” of God. For many Muslim feminists, tasawuf is a branch of knowledge that can help to console them in their frustration with the teachings of Islam in other areas, which are often misogynistic and patriarchal. For example, in fiqh or dogma, women are discussed by first of all positioning them as subordinate to men. A woman is the property of her father or of some other man in his line of descent, or of her husband. Women are deemed to be only half the equal of men, and this assumption pervades practical matters such as giving testimony, inheritance rights, polygamy, and not being allowed to lead communal prayers. Sachiko Murata’s book The Tao of Islam is a study on Islamic spirituality that explores the balance of Yin and Yang and the masculine and feminine aspects in the characteristics of God. Other books, such as My Soul is a Woman by Annemarie Schimmel, also explore the feminine aspect in Islamic spirituality. But Dr. Zahra’s study and analysis leads to a very different conclusion. The construction of the teachings on akhlak (ethics), as explored in these three mystical works, is full of male-centered bias. The entire conceptual framework of thinking in mysticism about ethics solely discusses how men should behave and achieve superior moral character. In her book, she presents evidence of how these medieval Islamic intellectuals created a system of ethical philosophy that inherently has gender implications by ignoring the experience of women as subjects.

Ayubi’s study is very important and counts as new because until now, scholars of Islam who explore the issues of gender have generally criticized the patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an, the hadith, or traditions of fiqh. In the Sufi teachings as portrayed in the three works she studied, the ideal concept of a human is a man who is able to control his passions. Such an attribute can only be achieved by the elite (the nobility, higher social classes), because only these upper classes are considered intellectually capable to grasp the concepts of philosophy and to achieve realization as persons of noble character.

 

Methodologically, what Ayubi has done is to “interrogate” the text. To be able to analyze how gender is understood in the texts, she first examined the masculinity and the class bias contained in the texts, particularly how men – and specifically, men from the elite class, in terms of wealth, education, and power – are conditioned from birth to become patriarchs/ leaders in society. It is important to recognize here that the issue is not simply that women are not included in a given text, but rather how, overall, the texts on ethical behavior require a certain form of relationship that is based on the subordination of others (for example, wives or slaves) to men in the effort to become more ethical.

 

According to Ayubi, in the understanding of mysticism, the studies of akhlak and fiqh occupy different “strata”. Fiqh is seen as discourse on ethics for the common people, who do not need heavy ideas but just require practical guidelines on what is and is not permitted; in contrast, akhlak is seen as discourse on ethics that is formulated by philosophical thinking, and therefore is intended only for the upper classes/ nobles. In her research, Ayubi concluded that the discourse on ethics in tasawuf suffers not only from male gender bias but also from class bias, because it is oriented toward the male elite. Obviously, the discussion of akhlak does include some discussion of women, and also of slaves. But the main thrust of these studies is on how a man should act ethically when facing (the temptations of) women or slaves. Hence, women are discussed in their role as the touchstone to test the quality of a man’s ethics, as a direct object to test the purity of men’s souls.

 

The concept of akhlak in mysticism is “refinement of nafs” (purification of the heart). Kyai Ulil added that the process of purification of the heart in tasawuf consists of three concepts: takholi (cleansing the heart of negative characteristics), takhali (filling it with good characteristics), and tajali (the peak of human endeavor, becoming a person who always acts ethically). amina wadud explained how this relates to the concept of Insaan Kamil, the ideal person, which revolves around purification of the hearts of men. According to Zahra, this “refinement of nafs” is in fact a concept that is solely for cleansing the hearts of men. In this way, no different from the epistemology in the fields of fiqh and tafsir, the texts on akhlak in tasawuf are full of misogyny and gender bias.

 

According to Dr. Ayubi, essentially the discipline of ethics (akhlak) offers a basic perspective on the meaning of being human, especially in the concept of dien according to Islam, which offers a way and a path of life for all humans. But apart from this rich discourse on ethics, there are still many other assumptions that need to be unpacked so that the humanity of every person can be fully recognized, so that this discourse can contribute to answering how to achieve the superiority and nobility of humankind in the perspective of Islam, i.e. as insaan kamil as mentioned by amina wadud.

 

Dr. Ayubi notes that in these texts, the question of gender can be raised not only in those matters that often discuss women, such as marriage, but in fact in all aspects discussed in the texts. Everything includes the issue of gender. She sees that, first, although the texts she studied were written in Persian, in which the pronouns do not literally distinguish between masculine and feminine, when we read them in context it is evident that these texts specifically refer only to males. For example, when discussing how to be a better person and Muslim, or when discussing the concept of nafs (the psyche) and how to control it, what is actually meant by the text is how to become a better Muslim male and be able to control one’s nafs. As another example, in the discussion on society, such as how to be a good leader and how to deal with opponents, the entire context is men’s leadership in society.

 

Second, the construction of akhlak in Islamic tradition as a way of life has to date been an exclusive effort. The ethical discourse aimed at purifying and upgrading oneself continues to exclude other groups based on gender, ability, rationality, social class, and race.

 

Rationality is one aspect that causes women to be treated unequally in the epistemological constructs of tasawuf, as in the other epistemologies (Fiqh, Aqidah, Philosophy, Politics). In fact, all these epistemological constructs focus on rationality. Perhaps this is why women are excluded in the texts. In fact, rationality should have no gender and need not always follow the same path.

 

But women’s reproductive capabilities, such as menstruation, pregnancy, giving birth, postnatal confinement, which are recognized in the text of the Qur’an as extremely burdensome events, “wahnan ‘ala wahnin”, have been used as a unilateral argument that women’s rationality is lower. This also relates to the ways in which women are obstructed in performing worship. The reproductive events that women experience have been used as a judgement on their inequality with men. Their essential ability has become a stigma implying that women are less rational than men, as well as further implications departing from the same prejudice – doubting their rationality.

 

For Dr. Nur Rofiah, one of the initiators of KUPI (Congress of Indonesian Women Ulama), Zahra’s book further reinforces her view that there are problems within Islam’s system of knowledge, including in mysticism, which has until now been considered neutral. It turns out that tasawuf is also characterized by a masculine awareness (using males as the standard). For many centuries, the experience of women with their bodies and their reproductive capability has not been taken into account in the system of teachings/ knowledge of Islam. The long history of human civilization, including Islamic civilization, is characterized by a tradition that “does not treat women as human”. This gives rise to a collective view (including in women’s own thinking) that men are considered the standard for women’s humanity.

 

Yet women’s biological and social experiences, such as giving birth and nursing their children, as well as their social implications, are never experienced by men. Women’s experience with reproduction seldom even enters into men’s awareness. Meanwhile, men hold strategic positions, including in constructing the concepts of knowledge. It is this situation that creates the gaps and differences in determining the standards of benefit in gender relations. The concept of “maslahat” (benefit, advantage) relies entirely on the standard of males. The most obvious example is that when determining permission for polygamy, in terms of both ethics/ fiqih and akhlak, polygamy is justified because women have certain time restrictions for engaging in sexual relations. Rather than having some empathy for women who are menstruating, pregnant, or in post-partum seclusion, men perceive that these obstacles interfere with their own benefit, and they therefore formulate their rights themselves so that they can continue to enjoy having sex whenever they feel they need it. On this basis, they formulate polygamy as a right that is permitted for men. Another example is marriages between young girls and adult men. This practice, which creates suffering and trauma for the girls, is considered beneficial because such marriages bring benefit to men, who feel they have the right to repeatedly deflower virgins by marrying young girls!

The importance of reproduction for the survival of living creatures, which brings with it many biological experiences for women, will never be compatible with the concepts of akhlak according to masculine bodies and experience. For amina wadud, a rereading of this issue requires us to radically integrate the bodily experiences of all humankind (not just women) in constructing an understanding of humankind, insaan kamil, and then enhancing it so that spiritual refinement is not allocated only to formal rituals of worship.

 

Returning to the question I raised earlier, if women are treated so badly in the epistemology of Islam, why are women (still) comfortable being in Islam?

Dr. Zahra Ayubi stated that texts such as the ones she explored should not automatically be ignored. An effort is needed to reexamine them critically and in depth, and to raise critical questions at a more philosophical and cosmic level. We can ask what the ethical basis is in interpreting the meaning of being a Muslim, what is the purpose of human existence, and what it means to surrender oneself to Allah. She recommends that Muslim intellectuals should collectively and sincerely think about a more inclusive philosophy of ethics that does not merely construct happiness based on the concept of use of reason (such that rationality holds the most important position and neglects other kinds of experience). The current definition of akhlak is problematic, because it excludes the experience of women.

 

Ideally, the texts on akhlak should be able to acknowledge the diversity of humankind – not just in terms of gender, but also race, ability, and class. The recognition of this diversity could give rise to a diversity of standards – not just a single standard for achieving “refinement”. And this would be more appropriate, because the various differences, social constructs, and structural challenges will lead to differences in defining the obstacles each individual faces in achieving the potential of their nafs.

 

I held a virtual discussion with several of my feminist colleagues. They provided some answers that seem quite reasonable to me. The most common answer was that women lack the courage or willingness to leave Islam, because the ties that bind them are so tight and strong. Imagine: from the day she is born, the first stones are laid in the walls that guard her; she is the daughter (binti) of a particular father, and the entire family line of the patriarchal hierarchy feels they have rights over her. Starting even as a baby, she is told of her obligation to maintain the dignity of the family, and then of ever-widening circles, until she must protect the reputation of the entire “Muslim community”. If she chooses to become an apostate, for example, how many people will feel they have the right to punish her? In this sense, the question of “comfortable or not” becomes irrelevant.

Second was an answer which asserts that within religion there are in fact aspects of affection, warmth, a feeling of peace, a devout relationship between individual women and their God. This experience is not codified as a discipline of knowledge, nor is it institutionalized. This is because women’s experience is not known by the men who have for so long constructed the epistemology of Islam. These aspects of warmth in religion live and are passed on as a secret among women from generation to generation. The experience of reproduction is something only they experience, which they do not share with those who will never be able to understand it (men) and who consider it a taboo subject. They choose to maintain an internal love, with their Creator, whom they treat as their beloved.

Another option is to leave Islam and take up some other religion or ideology that defends women, such as secular philosophy and thinking that is based on the legal system. But such an option does not necessarily provide space for women. And finally, and I think this is the path that is now being pursued by feminist Muslims, including Dr. Zahra Ayubi: seize the tafsir (interpretation)! The epistemology of Islam already offers a wealth of methodologies that can be criticized and reused to provide a critique that presents the experiences of women as valid truth. In this way, the epistemology of Islam can be reexamined and reconstructed! []

 

How coronavirus challenges Muslims’ faith and changes their lives

As the world faces the greatest disruption of our lifetimes, Muslims throughout the world are also grappling with the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the Islamic cultural, spiritual and theological dimensions offer Muslims myriad ways of coping.

Adapting to new social norms

Muslims have relatively large families and tend to maintain extended family relations. Prophet Muhammad encouraged Muslims to keep strong family ties. The Quran inspires Muslims to be generous to kin (16:90) and treat the elderly with compassion (17:23).

These teachings have resulted in Muslims either living together as large families or keeping regular weekly visits and gatherings of extended family members. Many Muslims feel conflicted about the need to apply social distancing on one hand and the need to be close to family and relatives for comfort and support. Tighter restrictions on movement in some parts of Australia (NSW and Victoria) mean Muslims, like everyone else, are not allowed to visit extended family anymore.

One of the first changes brought about by social distancing has been to the Muslim custom of shaking hands followed by hugging (same gender) friends and acquaintances, especially in mosques and Muslim organisations. After a week or two of hesitation in March, the hugging completely stopped, making Muslims feel dismal.

Visiting the sick is considered a good deed in Islam. However, in the case of COVID-19, such visits are not possible. Checking up on those who are sick with phone calls, messages and social media is still possible and encouraged.

Cleanliness is half of faith

One aspect of coronavirus prevention that comes very naturally to Muslims is personal hygiene. Health organisations and experts promote personal hygiene to limit the spread of coronavirus, especially washing hands frequently for at least 20 seconds.

Islam has been encouraging personal hygiene for centuries. The Quran instructs Muslims to keep their clothes clean in one of the earliest revelations (74:4), remarking “God loves those who are clean” (2:222).

More than 14 centuries ago, Prophet Muhammad emphasized “cleanliness is half of faith” and encouraged Muslims to wash their hands before and after eating, bath at least once a week (and after marital relations), brush their teeth daily, and to groom their nails and private parts.

Additionally, Muslims have to perform a ritual ablution before the five daily prayers. The ablution involves washing hands up to the elbows, including interlacing of fingers, washing the face and feet, and wiping the hair.

While these do not completely prevent the spread of disease, they certainly help reduce the risk.

An interesting detail is that Muslims are required to wash their genitals after using the toilet. Even though Muslims use toilet paper, they are required to finish cleaning with water. This requirement led to some Muslims installing bidet sprayers in their bathrooms.

Closure of mosques and Friday services

Congregational prayers in mosques are important for Muslims in instilling a sense of being in the presence of the sacred, and a sense of being with other believers. Accordingly, they line up in rows with shoulders touching. This arrangement is extremely risky during a pandemic. Australian mosques are now closed because of coronavirus.

Deciding to skip optional daily congregational prayers was not too difficult for Muslims, but stopping Friday prayers has been more challenging. Friday prayer is the only Muslim prayer that has to be performed in a mosque. It consists of a 30-60 minute sermon followed by a five-minute congregational prayer conducted just after noon.

Stopping Friday prayers on a global scale has not occurred since it was introduced by Prophet Muhammad in 622, after he migrated to the city of Medina from the persecution he and his followers endured in Mecca.

Iran was the first to ban Friday prayers on March 4. While countries like Turkey and Indonesia tried to continue Friday prayers with social distancing, it did not work, and soon the entire Muslim world closed mosques for prayer services.

Fortunately for Muslims, the closure of mosques does not mean they stop daily prayers altogether. In Islam, individual prayers and worship play a greater role than communal ones. Muslims can pray five times a day wherever they are, and often home is a place where most praying takes place.

The void left by ending of Friday sermons in mosques has been filled to some extent by Friday sermons offered online.

Effect on Ramadan and the annual pilgrimage to Mecca

Two of the five pillars of Islamic practice are the fasting in Ramadan and the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Ramadan is only three weeks away. It starts in the last week of April and goes for a month. During this month, Muslims refrain from eating, drinking and marital relations from dawn to sunset on each day of the month. This part will not be affected by COVID-19.

What is affected are the evening breaking of fast dinners (iftar) and daily evening congregational prayers (tarawih). Muslims generally invite their friends and family members to these dinners. In Western countries, the invitations include non-Muslim acquaintances as well. Islamic organizations have already announced the cancellation of iftar dinners.

The three-day end of Ramadan festive celebrations (eid) will also be limited to family that live together.

The impact on pilgrimage is far greater.

The minor (and optional) Islamic pilgrimage (umrah) happens throughout the year, intensifying near Ramadan. With Iran a hot spot for coronavirus, Saudi Arabia suspended entry to Iranian and all other pilgrims as early as February 27.

The main pilgrimage (hajj) season occurs in late July. Although there is the possibility of the spread of the virus slowing by July, a pilgrimage involving more than two million people from just about every country on earth would almost certainly flame the virus into a second wave. Saudi Arabia is likely to cancel the main pilgrimage for 2020.

In the 14 centuries of Islamic history, pilgrimage has not been undertaken several times because of war and roads not being safe. But this is the first time in pilgrimage may be called off due to a pandemic.

As pilgrims reserve their spot and pay the full fee months ahead, the cancellation of hajj would result in losses of savings for millions of Muslims and cause massive job losses in the pilgrimage industry.

The balance between precaution and reliance on God

An early debate in Muslim circles around coronavirus has been a theological one. Muslims believe God created the universe and continues to actively govern its affairs. This would mean the emergence of the virus is an active creation of God.

So like some other religious groups, some Muslims argue that coronavirus was created by God to warn and punish humanity for consumerism, destruction of the environment and personal excesses. This means fighting the pandemic is futile and people should rely (tawakkul) on God to protect the righteous.

Such thinking may help in reducing the sense of fear and panic such a large-scale pandemic poses, but it can also make people unnecessarily complacent.

The vast majority of Muslims counter this fatalistic approach by arguing that while the emergence of the virus was not in human control, the spread of disease certainly is. They remind us that Prophet Muhammad advised a man who did not tie his camel because he trusted in God: “tie the camel first and then trust in God”.

Prophet Muhammad sought medical treatment and encouraged his followers to seek medical treatment, saying “God has not made a disease without appointing a remedy for it, with the exception of one disease—old age”.

Further, Prophet Muhammad advised on quarantine:

If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it; if the plague outbreaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place.

Sometimes affliction inevitably comes our way. The Quran teaches Muslims to see life’s difficult circumstances as a test — they are temporary hardships to strengthen us (2:153-157). Such a perspective allows Muslims to show resilience in times of hardship and tribulation, with sufficient strength to make it to the other side intact.

In times like this, some people will inevitably lose their wealth, income and even their lives. Prophet Muhammad advised the grieving that property lost during tribulations will be considered charity, and those who die as a result of pandemics will be considered martyrs of paradise.

As Muslims continue to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, they, like everyone else, are wondering how their lives might be changed afterwards.

Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

If you want to help in the fight against COVID-19, we have compiled an up-to-date list of community initiatives designed to aid medical workers and low-income people in this article. Link: [UPDATED] Anti-COVID-19 initiatives: Helping Indonesia fight the outbreak
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.

 

Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/04/02/how-coronavirus-challenges-muslims-faith-and-changes-their-lives.html

Meet Amina Wadud, The Rock Star of Islamic Feminist

The Lady Imam talks to Managing Editor Hera Diani about her endless spiritual journey, Feminism in Islam, and how she enjoys taking off her hijab in her new home in Indonesia.

 

by Hera Diani, Managing Editor

 

amina wadud distributed the copies of the Quranic verses related to Islam and feminism during a class in Jakarta last year. It was held during Ramadan by Rumah KitaB, a non-governmental research organization focusing on the rights marginalized groups facing discrimination against socio-religious perspective.

There were 35 participants from different professional backgrounds, including public figures like women activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, as well as Muslim scholars Ulil Abshar Abdalla and Nur Rofiah. But all of us share the same interest in Islam and gender and we were all star-struck by the presence of the Lady Imam in front of our very eyes.

My introduction to the 68 years old American Muslim philosopher was in 2005, when she created a controversy by leading Friday prayers for a congregation in the United States, going against the general rule that allows only male imam in mixed gender congregations. For someone who had been questioning the very rule and had been asked by non-Muslims about it, I became an instant fan and follower after that.

Getting her PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Michigan in 1988, wadud (who prefers her name in lower case as Arabic alphabets do not recognize capital letters), has focused on relation of gender and Islam. She wrote the quintessential Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective, which has since become a seminal work on the topic. She has been part of several civil society organizations and movements that promote principles of equality for women under the principles of Islam, such as Sisters in Islam and Musawah.

As an Islamic scholar, she has a progressive focus on Quran exegesis, or the interpretation of the holy text. That was what she tried to teach us last year in the class, to read the holy text using contextual methods.

wadud said we need to ask the following questions in seeing gender discrepancies in the Quran. Is it a reflection of the historical context? Is it the shortcoming of Arabic language? Is it a reflection of patriarchy? Or a matter of divine intent? How do we know?

We were divided into groups of 2-3, and each group read different verses. My group got Surah Al-Ankabut 28-35, about the Prophet Lot’s people and their abomination, which have been used by many Muslims to reject homosexuality.

“Check the verse. Who is the speaker? Is it God? Is it the prophet? Who or what is this statement made about? Is the message clear? If there is a woman, does she speak?” said wadud.

As we dissect the verses word by word to answer these questions, it became clear that the verses were not crystal clear about homosexuality. There are mentions about “obscenity” and “people of corruption”, as well as “wrongdoers” and “lewdness”. The narrators alternate between God and Prophet Abraham telling the story of Prophet Lot, and other unclear narrator(s). There are a few mentions about Lot’s wife, such as “We will save you and your family, except for your wife, who will remain behind.” But it was not clear what vice she does, and does she speak for her own? Never.

It was such a mind-blowing exercise.

“Compare each verse to other verses. If we find contradictory passages or ideas in the text, choose on the side of equality and justice. If other people can read in patriarchy, you can read in equality and justice. The only way to resolve contradiction is to think,” said wadud.

“No need to be scared of people. You don’t have to be a scholar to interpret the text, it’s your right to do so.”

As she talked about hegemonic binaries in Islamic context, wadud also made a reference Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, a 1992 work of literary criticism by Toni Morrison, which made her class even more exciting.

In between the classes, I had the opportunity to sit and talk with amina wadud and the excerpt is as follows.

Magdalene: So you are now moving to Indonesia. May I know why?

amina wadud: I love this part of the world; I love the weather. I have arthritis, it fits me better. I’m very happy here. My kids, the youngest one is turning 30 today. They have a life of their own and they’re living their lives, and I can always visit them. Because it’s cheaper to live here and visit them there. So I’m hoping to find a place that I can either purchase or, you know, move to.

How did you begin to be interested in Islam, being a daughter of a Methodist priest?

I think being raised in a God-centered household, it was fairly early on that I was clear that there was more to it than just one way. And at that time I just was interested in looking into various Christian denominations to see what’s the same, what’s different. When I was in high school, I lived with families, some were Jewish, Unitarian Universalists…so again, there was this idea that religion is not just one.

By the time I got into the university, I really was interested in Eastern spiritualist tradition and I became a Buddhist and lived in Ashram for a year and practiced meditation and textual practice. And the next year, when I was like 18 or 19, I started reading about Islam. There was a very strong movement in the U.S., so anybody who expressed any interest, they converted them. So I actually went to the mosque to get information and they said, “Oh, you should just take your shahadat (the Muslim profession of faith).” Five months later, I was given a copy of the Quran, which in my mind should’ve come way earlier but nevertheless by that time, I kind of committed myself to some level of practice, to some kind of community. But one time I read the Quran, I really fell in love and that’s really when it made a profound difference.

Did you face resistance from your family?

No, because I was always the odd person out. I was the only one who had ever went to university. I was vegetarian. They were, like, “Ok what else she is bringing home today?” (laugh). And I was already in the university, I wasn’t living at home, so there wasn’t any major issue. My father also had an illness that took his life, and his health deteriorated over the first two years that I was a Muslim until he passed away. So there was never really an opportunity to have any frank theological discussions.

I think my father also never knew about any other version of Islam except for the Black Muslim movement in the United States. At that time the Black Muslim movement was a non-esoteric movement. They didn’t believe in heaven and hell; they didn’t believe in white Jesus. And I’m sure that that seemed like it was a problem even though that wasn’t what the doorway was for me. I did not enter into the doorway, many Muslims did. They also, in a way, had internal movement until they became religious Sunni Muslim. But in the beginning it was a different kind of movement but I didn’t enter into that. But I think my father might’ve thought that, but as I said, I was living away from home, so if I came to see him and visited him at the hospital up until he died, we never really had time to talk about, “what is it you’re doing – do I agree, do I disagree”.

Being a Muslim back then in the U.S. must be very different from now in Trump’s U.S.

I’m sure because that was like over 40 years ago. I’ve been a Muslim for 46 years now. At that time actually there was a very strong movement in the African-American community towards Islam. In the 1930s to 70s, there was a very strong movement of conversion in the African-American community. And being an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, I was right in the heart of Philadelphia. And even today, of all the cities that you might visit in the United States, if you’re in the city of Philadelphia, Islam is very noticeable. It’s got a very strong presence and it is predominantly African-American even though there are Muslims from everywhere. So it was not as strange, but it still was rare.

But Islamophobia wasn’t as apparent as it is today?

No, there was a real lack of knowledge and people were pretty much stuck with that. With Islamophobia, there was a kind of consolidated profiling of types. The Muslims already figured out what was the “type” at that time and Muslims already knew what our type was. So we didn’t really have that palpable quality of hate and prejudice discrimination that goes on profiling everyone now.

So, how did you start focusing on feminism in Islam?

I never studied feminism in Islam. I actually distinguished myself from feminism for 35 years of being a Muslim. I studied Quran because I was interested in the Quran, and when I studied the Quran at my undergraduate university, I was mostly on my own because there wasn’t a really advance level. I started learning Arabic in the early 70s, then I lived in Libya and my Arabic fluency increased. I went to work, just teaching and tutoring in Islamic private schools, then I went to graduate school for Islamic Studies and Arabic. And by that time, I was clear that I really wanted to understand the role of women as promoted by the Quran.

 

Participants of Islam and Feminism class with amina wadud. (Courtesy of Rumah KitaB) 

 

I had lived abroad; I’d lived in a Muslim majority country. I’ve been around in the communities in the US, which are eclectic, with Muslims from all over the world, as well as home-grown, what you’d call indigenous Muslims. I had already absorbed that there were discrepancies between the ideas about what rights belong to men as Muslims and what rights belong to women as Muslims. I was very curious about where these differences had come from. And so my first question was, is this what Allah intends? And if this is what Allah intends, where would be the source of getting that information that I would best to be able to access? And that was the Quran.

So it worked out well because I was already in love with the Quran, and so I was clear that I wanted to look at that… Even then I didn’t even call it gender. My first book is called Quran and Women, it should be called Quran and Gender. But I didn’t take Feminist Studies, which was just evolving. I took a few random courses at Women’s Studies, but I took all these courses that say Islam is the best way. Here, look at all these researches that say why Islam is the best way, and they always gave me an A but it wasn’t really critical.

I think after I finished my master’s and PhD, and I wrote my dissertation, which became the book Quran and Women…I think it was then that it became clear to me that if you actually, methodically demonstrate discrepancies between certain cultural practices throughout the history of Islam and Muslims, from the Quranic trajectory based on knowledge of the Quran, it was so challenging to the comfort zone and authority given to men, that they resisted.

So I already became controversial when I really was not by personality very controversial. I was actually very conservative. Even Quran and Women as a book, it’s conservative, but in terms of scholarship it’s very rigorous. And, unfortunately, for the patriarchal projection of Islam, it does not support that projection. So it already began to create some problems. But I wasn’t interested in creating problems; I’m just interested in the truth.

 

It was much more challenging to the mainstream when the basis for your resistance to unequal treatment of women and men was not secular liberal feminism, but it was Quranic.

 

After I did my dissertation and got my PhD, I came to Malaysia and joined the International Islamic University to teach Quran and Quranic Studies to undergraduates. I began to have a relationship with the women in the communities and the beginning of Sisters in Islam. And that really shifted my thinking from just theory and theology to the level of activism and realities. When both thinking align with that trajectory that I understood from the Quran, it was much more challenging to the mainstream when the basis for your resistance to unequal treatment of women and men was not secular liberal feminism, but it was Quranic. That was even more powerful.

As a consequence, I actually began to experience some relevance in my work. Because before, it was all utopic, like Islam is the best religion in the world, and it does only wonderful things and the Quran says all these wonderful things, but the lived reality is something else. When you start having conversation between these two cosmologies, for me it’s the easy answer that the Quran will come first but how come we’re not living it? And trying to figure out not only how come we’re not living it, but how to live it. What were the steps needed to be put into place to follow that, putting it on the trajectory was actually revolutionary?

I left Malaysia in 1992 and Sisters in Islam started in 1987 but I didn’t join until 1989. And Musawah was launched in 2009 and by that time I identified as an Islamic feminist. I actually wrote critically about the … shaping of feminism, which was very secular, very white, and very class-elitist in its origin for it to relate to me as an African-American woman and a Muslim. There are a lot of things that need to be looked into.

Actually in 1995, at the Beijing World Conference of Women, it became clear that Muslim women’s issues were being put into a kind of battleground between the secular feminist and the Islamist. And the Islamists were a hundred percent patriarchal interpretations of Islam and that was fine because Islam is perfect, and the secular had a hundred percent “we don’t know religion” and they were in an agreement that you can’t have Islam and feminism. It wasn’t until those who were in the middle said, “who is defining Islam and how are they defining it? And who is defining feminism or human rights? How are they defining it? And when will the authority be given to us who are also living as Muslims and women to be able to define feminism, Islam and human rights all for ourselves?” And that’s when the shift came in terms of even the work that Sisters in Islam, the right to exert the authority to define not just feminism, but also to define Islam and that’s been the cornerstone of our work.

Because before people just say, “Oh you know what, that’s just Islam.” It’s like whose Islam? How is it defined? And where do they get their authority?” Those are the three questions that you need to ask continually because people are very strategically asserting limits for Islam in accordance to the agenda that they have and patriarchy was one such agenda that has a long history. So people just started taking it for granted. And when we challenge even that history to say, “That was one way of doing it, but there are other ways to do it” and here are the source stacks, here’s the methodology to support the idea that there are other trajectories of Islam, then we became a lot more empowered, but also a lot more controversial.

I can relate with what you call the battleground because Magdalene often talks about that trajectory and redefining Islam, like, is feminism in Islam oxymoronic or is there actually an intersection. And we are being attacked by both the right who say we’re liberal, and the left who say we are Islam apologists.

Yeah, that was what happened to us in the 90s, and it turned out also to strategically be a very good turning point, because then we had to figure out what is our identity. Because the Islamists said that we were secular feminist and the secular feminists said that we were Islamist. We were not either one of them. So, technically, not having an identity, and so clarifying both for ourselves and for the projection of our work and our relationship to larger communities took the next 10-15 years. By the time the launching of Musawah took place and we became a part of the global movements.

So now we teach the methodology of combining Islam and human rights for the dignity of women. It’s a lovely journey for me because everything just opened itself up to the next thing in a way that I was allowed to grow and change and learn and teach, and at the same time being a part of movements to implement what was being grown and what was being taught. So yeah, it’s a great blessing. But I didn’t know about it when I got into it, I only know that the dissertation I wrote that I became the book. I just get my royalty payment, twice a year from Quran and Women, it’s still making money. You know it’s like 27-something years old… so I mean it’s a blessing, really, to think about it.

Musawah focuses on family law, why is that?

Yes, the reason is that we have to work within an instrument, implement it within the context of the nation state. Many Muslim countries or non-Muslim countries with a large Muslim population that are minority will establish courts to adjudicate the matters that most relate to women and women’s well-being. They are family law courts, or personal status law courts. The fundamental understanding of those courts is that men are in charge. To dismantle the rubric of men’s superiority at a pragmatic level means challenging the established means of laws that support certain notions that actually violate in many ways the constitutional equality that is guaranteed to the same women in the context of direct nation-state. So strategically it’s a very powerful tool, otherwise it’s just too big.

We get to align with very specific kind of projects. For example, each country must give a report to CEDAW for the documents that they have become signature forms and each country is also permitted a shadow report. The shadow report is the unofficial report by women’s activists on the ground to say they’re telling you that they’ve been handling this and this is what is really happening on the ground.

It became a very powerful tool because it puts the nation state under its international connection empowering women on the ground to talk back to the state. But that also took time because CEDAW (The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women) was not in the UN and all its bodies was not qualified to interrogate the interpretation of Islam that came down the road. They were also believing that their job was to be hands off.

One of the ways that Musawah has worked with CEDAW and nation state to nation state’s agendas for women is to actually teach people in the UN about definitions of Islam. Like, who defines it and how, and we say if it’s defined by these things, how come these things are not put into these principles of Islam or these reservations on these international document and everything, so that took a lot of time and it’s not a hundred percent replaced, but it’s becoming more and more effective as we just keep on doing it.

Eventually, even in the UN, they said, “You know what? You defining Islam, what about these ways based on these principles” and all of a sudden we can no longer come to this body and say “Well you can’t do anything about it cause it’s Islam” because that body is also asking “whose interpretation of Islam are you using?”. It’s slow, but it’s happening.

One of the thorniest issues among Muslim women is hijab. What is actually said in the Quran about hijab?

First of all, there’s nothing said in the Quran about the hijab. There are some statements in the Quran about women’s dress, they’re taken one hundred percent from the style of the dress that existed at that time and place, and I used those based on things I presented in the first two sessions here. I use those as reflections of a general principle, and that general principle is modesty. But you cannot restrict modesty to only one form.

I don’t believe that hijab is a requirement of the religion. But it is personally my preference for my public work. I don’t wear it at home, I don’t wear it in my neighborhood, I don’t wear it when I go for some shopping, but when I were in public I do and it’s because I have a different relationship with symbols. This is one of the clearest, symbolic representations of Islam. And in that way, I identify this as a public performance. But I don’t see it as a requirement and I don’t see it as the only expression of modesty.

But because hijab is so politicized in a negative way, under the roof of Islamophobia, I am implying even more incline to assert it. So, for example, after 9/11, I was always subject to additional screening because I wore hijab at the time and I wear long dreadlocks as well, so it was like a nightmare. Because I would choose not to wear it, people were saying “why don’t you just go through the thing and not wear it?” I was, like, “No, no, why would I not identify with the people being the most oppressed?”

 

Compare each verse to other verses. If we find contradictory passages or ideas in the text, choose on the side of equality and justice. If other people can read in patriarchy, you can read in equality and justice. The only way to resolve contradiction is to think.

 

You know, I do also identify with wearing hijab, and recently when I went to Bali or something like that, I realized, “Oh, I’m in a Muslim majority country, they would let me wear if I have to they won’t pass at me, and if I don’t, they won’t pass on me either.” So, for the first time in 18 years, I went through security without having on hijab. That was, like, huge for me, because we have to see that there are politics related to it as well, and I don’t feel like my dress should be subject to the convenience of Islamophobes. Like, you don’t get to determine for me how I dress. Even your hate and your laws say that you don’t get to determine it for me. So obviously I believe in the wearing of choice and I believe in the taking off of choice. Because I both wear it and don’t wear it, I live in one hundred percent a place of choice, and that’s where I am.

What about niqab or burqa?

Well first of all, I chose to wear niqab myself for four years. I was in the United States and then I moved to Libya and I was still wearing it. And when I was in Libya, I stopped wearing it. But it was possible to wear the niqab by choice as well. Unfortunately, because of the politicization of the discussion, it is a long way before we know what would a person do if they were totally free. That is, if they were free to wear whatever they wanted, nobody said anything, would that be as big a deal? Even for the wearer? As it is to those who are resisting it? I don’t know.

So, until we actually accept people in the full range of their choices, we can’t know about what is the full spectrum or full range of women Muslim and their dress. We can’t know. So I support this movement going on terribly in Iran just as much as I support the burqini protest that is going on in France. They emphasize on two different things, but they’re all about women saying we give the same, that’s my body my choice. And that’s hard to do with the (unintelligible)

Now that you’re living here, how do you see the increased conservatism?

Yes, it’s interesting because many people have been pointing this out to me. I’m a little bit insulated living in Bogor and not speaking fluent bahasa. But also because I lived in Malaysia and actually it is way worse in Malaysia. Malaysia goes under the guise of a little bit more modern, a little bit more economic prosperity, but extreme Islamists is a really more rampant.

So, I’ve lived around it, so it still seems to be less in Indonesia but it is growing. It is in the favor of the Indonesian people to arrest the force of it by promotion of all kinds of tolerant, diverse representation of Islam. You just have to load the ways with more of the history of the tolerant nature that is typical of Indonesians. We have to make that the loudest part of the public.

The thing is we give more attention to the extreme voices and because we do, it seems as if they’re greater in number than they really are. Or that they have greater favor. They’re fighters, they make people afraid, so we really need to flood the waves with more conversation about just generic Indonesian Islam. And then it won’t seem so overwhelming. Because it is. It’s negatively overwhelming, and that’s part of the effect. We shouldn’t want that effect, and I think that they don’t have as much clout as they pretend they do. But they have enough to make other people afraid and so that’s the clout. That’s why we have to proliferate the friendlier messages.

But it’s worrying, like public schools are getting more conservative. And everywhere we go, more and more women are wearing hijab. My friend said when she was going to the church, she was genuinely taken aback, “Wow, it’s odd that nobody’s wearing hijab. Oh, wait a minute. I’m in a church.”

(Laugh) That’s right, you don’t go somewhere without seeing…. It does proliferate. It’s funny because I have to walk my neighborhood every morning, I tried to walk every morning because of my age and my arthritis and all that stuff, and I mostly go with a T-shirt, sometimes gym pants. And sometimes I think to myself, because everybody in the neighborhood wears hijab, “Are you showing off?” And actually, at the time that I go there are so few people that are out and about, and I always say, “Pagi, Bu/Pak. Apa kabar, Ibu.” and just trying to be neighborly, but the opportunity for me to walk with just a t-shirt on is rare. I can’t do it in the country like the United States because we got that other thing that’s going on there and I need to represent myself as a Muslim because I don’t want other things to come…I’m Muslim here, I don’t have to dress to go with it.

I went to the mosque with my T-shirt on, I just bring along scarf to do the prayer part, and I take it off and I get up and everything, I’m finally whole. My body is whole. I’m not fighting a war all the time with my body so I will have that choice to a Muslim woman. I don’t have to fight that here, so it is a pleasure. But sometimes, I worried, I said, “Are you showing off?” Because I would never, I mean, stay in an island… I went to Madagascar, which is an island, we have our own little private beach, so I’m in a sort of regular bathing suit, like a one-piece, but not like a burqini. And my friend, who’s also a Muslim, from the UK, she would go to the village to buy food, and she would wear just the shirt on. I mean, I could not go that far, so I have to put back on more clothes. I could not go with my chest all out, in my bathing suit, so I had to put on a regular T-shirt, so I’m not comfortable in certain levels of dress. Even on an island, if I’m going to meet other people, but I swim in a bathing suit like this, you know. So it’s a really funny thing because I noticed it more as I get older that the right to be able to choose my own body politics is very rarely given to me. So, when I walk in my neighborhood, I can do that, but you know, I wouldn’t be able to do that in many places.

But yeah, I do notice more (people are wearing hijab). Since the first time I lived here, which was 2008 to 2009, so in those ten years, I do notice more. Because I also wear (hijab) and I take it off as I want to as well, and I only started doing that when I was here. Living here the first time, I realized I don’t have to defend Islam. I’m not a walking poster for Islam, I’m just another person out here in the community, and most of them are Muslims, it took a weight off my back. So my first time to experience what would it be like to walk all the time without my hijab on is living here, and I said that I’m okay with this. But as I said, I wouldn’t go with a tank top, that’s not me. I came back here so I can enjoy taking it off. I’m not here for anybody’s pleasure or inspection, so if you don’t like that I don’t wear it, that’s your problem. Just as I would tell the Americans, if you don’t like that I do wear it, that’s your problem.

We also received quite a number of articles from the women who took off their hijab and receive a lot of backlash.

I used to say that most people give that backlash because they’re jealous, like, “Why do you get to take yours off while I have to wear mine?” I mean, like, that’s your problem.

So, are you doing your research here?

This first year, I must admit, I’m flaunting being retired, just trying to make some friends for safari, I’m going to South Africa next month. I’m enjoying not having to do anything except for what I want to do, because I’m a workaholic and I have five children. So, I never got the chance to do whatever I wanted to do for more than a minute, so I’m just flaunting it.

But I need to get to do some writing, which is why I left the U.S., I didn’t plan to stay, but this happened in such a good way. But yeah I want to do some writing from this research on sexual diversity and human dignity, and also I put in a proposal for a book about progressive ideas about the summit of spirituality and devotional practices. A kind of a progressive version of the five pillars, so I can talk about women imams, and also talk about the ways which people connect themselves to Allah, that include the regular five pillar that also extends it beyond itself.

After I made hajj, I ran a proposal that was accepted like, okay, here’s a chapter, and I never get any further. So I’d like to make that book, sometimes when people think of a book, to know about the fact that there are lady imams. Because if you learn about lady imams, it has to be like on a marginal discussion, on a marginal aspect, but no. It’s just a part of a regular Islamic salah (prayer), so, inshallah (God willing). Put me in your dua’ (prayer), because the idea is good but the discipline really sucks.

 

Source: https://magdalene.co/story/meet-amina-wadud-the-rock-star-of-islamic-feminist?fbclid=IwAR3Qt9Py8RI-q6DECUdqWabKUWNHfuhX-Q_Svw7Kt4ottvDdSnS87AF61og

KSI Interview with Lies Marcoes: GESI Perspective in Research for Development

Lies Marcoes Natsir is one of Indonesia’s foremost experts in Islam and gender. She has played a pioneering role in the Indonesian gender equality movement by bridging the divide between Muslim and secular feminists and encouraging feminists to work within Islam to promote gender equality. Lies is a passionate and talented trainer – frequently used by KSI and other DFAT programs – and has used these skills to change people’s attitudes to the status of women in Islam. With her strong leadership and commitment, Lies has empowered countless Indonesian women and brought gender into mainstream parlance in Indonesia.

 

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about your background?
A: I graduated from IAIN/UIN Jakarta, from the Islamic Theology Faculty, with a Religious Comparison Major. After more than 15 years as an activist in the reproductive health area, including as a program manager at the Association of Islamic School Development and Community (P3M), I received a scholarship from the Ford Foundation for my Masters program in the field of Health Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. 
I have also been a researcher and activist in the women’s movement in Indonesia. These are two roles that, in a number of cases, are not always linked to each other and not always played by one person. Usually, people choose to become activists by using the research outcomes of another institution as the basis for their cause, or they only become a researcher without advocating their research outcomes. 
I may be a bit unique, in that I do both. I love the research world, especially research on religious social anthropology. This issue gave my life colour and meaning. I love to go to the field; finding out, asking questions, listening to stories, and writing them up with a specific discipline and theory, particularly feminism. By doing this, I can explain a phenomenon by using a critical perspective related to the relationship (authority) between men and women, a perspective that can dismantle gender prejudice and bias, and the resulting discrimination. 
I also love to write. I love writing research outcomes. I often write an extract of my research outcome in the opinion section in media such as Kompas, the Jakarta Post, or on social media by using popular and easy to understand language. When I am writing all of these, I feel that I am conducting advocacy to change perspectives or policies. 
In the context of time, I think my momentum was timely, even though any time can be used as momentum for anyone to experience changes in their lives. I was going through life in the era of mid-New Order, which at the time was very arrogant towards people. 
The political engine of the New Order, namely the Golkar party and civil servants, became the most effective backbone in supporting the regime. Meanwhile, others of us, NGOs, the student movement and the press, must work under a shadowy pressure – invincible but frightening. Speaking on women’s rights at the time, we had to point out the mistakes of the Family Planning (FP) program for example, a program that has been proven to support development by significantly reducing the birth rate. We had to explain that a program, even with its positive impact, must still be questioned if, in its implementation, it takes away individual basic rights of women controlling their own bodies and violates the principles of democracy by forcing their will without any room for negotiation. We know that at the time, FP was done coercively, using military means, systemic threats, using the approach of shame for those who did not follow the State’s will, and did not leave room to question or refuse the program. These methods, according to us activists, violated the basic principles of freedom and jeopardized the program itself. People were following FP because of force, not because of their own awareness, but through mobilisation. Now, we can see the result, we have found the evidence that FB has been rejected for reasons that should have been discussed in the past–reasons related to its objectives, benefits, methods and origins. And this comes from a domain that should have been discussed first, such as religious or demographic political perspectives. 
I used to speak about reproductive health in the face of state coercion, now my research and advocacy remains on reproductive health issues. The difference is that we used to face the coercive force of the State, now we are facing another shadowy force from the religious perspective, which also feels entitled to have power and control over a woman’s body.    
 
Q: Can you explain how feminism is made operational in your research?
A: In researching any theme, I always want to critically observe the power relationship, including the gender power relationship.  
With this gender analysis and feminism, I can also see the agency of women: how they provide meaning, either by being compliant or fighting against the patriarchal will that is making them suffer, but it requires a critical awareness to realise this. For example, when I researched the radical movements in Indonesia, I read several research outcomes on this issue. I am baffled as to how a religious movement in Indonesia can ignore the involvement of women. How can something so real and visible manage to be skipped in the research framework. For example, the wanted terrorist Noordin M. Top can survive because he is camouflaged by forming a regular and normal family. Don’t we want to know who the wife is, whether she is afraid or not, how did they know each other, what is the wife’s view of her husband’s cause? In short, don’t we want to know how the terrorist moves from one city to another, who washes his underwear? I am very surprised that research on a religious movement in Indonesia can fail to question the women’s position. At that point, I assume there is a huge gender bias. Terrorism is considered a masculine world, the world of men. But this bias is lost in the research.
Based on this curiosity, I designed research on women and fundamentalism. I tried to observe it in a round way, not directly at the heart of the research on radicalism. I agree with the opinion of Ihsan Ali Fauzie from PUSAD Paramadina, who concluded that fundamentalism is a way to radicalism. Together with a researcher of Yayasan Rumah Kita Bersama (Rumah KitaB), we intensively interviewed 20 women on what can connect women to a fundamentalist point of view and movement in Indonesia. The outcome was very interesting. In each woman we interviewed, there is an agency to fight and engage in a jihad to defend her religion. The women attached a very personal meaning to jihad. Of course, this concept was received through their involvement in their fundamentalist group. Here, there is an agency role of women, namely as ‘servants’, both in providing meaning or even criticising the organisation or their fundamentalist group. 
A more interesting thing is how women attach meaning to their jihad. Fundamentalist groups place jihad in two categories. One is major jihad (jihad kabir), namely jihad that puts your life on the line in the battlefield/conflict area. Meanwhile, small jihad (jihad saghir) is a jihad related to the role of women to give birth, especially to boys, that will become the actors of major jihad, and being patient while their husbands go on jihad. However, women from younger generations are not satisfied by this social role. They negotiate to participate in major jihad, for example by becoming bomb carriers. This is an interesting fact. But it is the researcher’s job to question this fact in a deeper way. 
In my research, because I used gender analysis and feminism, I raised the question of why women feel dissatisfied with their traditional roles in performing small jihads. This question brought me to a more interesting finding. It would seem that the social position of women within fundamentalist groups is very low. They are unappreciated, unseen and unrecognised as something that provides meaning to jihad. These young women are desperate to prove their bravery, even being braver than men. They want their role to be seen and recognised. The only way to prove this is by sacrificing their lives (as the bomb carrier). In the theological concept, actors of jihad are incentivised by receiving angels in the next world, but what is in it for the women? The concept is not as bright and clear as for men. Despite this, women still want to prove that they are willing to put their lives at risk. With this, they are ‘respected’ and their presence and existence are accepted. We can then understand why some women are willing to blow themselves up by carrying a bomb and thinking of this as a jihad (read the publication of Rumah KitaB entitled the Testimony of Servants: A Study about Women and Fundamentalism in Indonesia, red.).
Q: Violence against women is a long-standing phenomenon. How does your research bring to light data and information on the facts of violence, and thus, become evidence for policy change and social justice?
A: This is an interesting question. This explains my two working arenas – research, and writing for advocacy. I wrote an article in Kompas to respond to the statement of the Minister of Education and Culture, Mohammad Nuh, (he was in power from 22 October 2009 to 27 October 2014, red). At the time there was a rape of a Junior High School student in Depok, committed by her senior. The school refused the victim’s right to go to school after the rape. The minister said that this was not sexual violence, but consensual sex. So, instead of finding a solution on the discriminatory action of the school, the minister condoned it in the name of protecting more students. 
In this article, I explained that sexual violence against teenagers is similar to violence in dating. The point is rape can occur in a relationship initially built on a consensual basis, but at one point there is a coercion using the power relationship in the name of love. There is a gender difference that must be understood on the perception of teen boys and girls on the expression of love, the power relationship, and the meaning of a sexual relationship. This difference needs correct understanding that is not biased and not based on male assumptions.  
Another example is the research of Rumah KitaB that I am leading on child marriage (there are 14 research titles that can be viewed on https://rumahkitab.com/project-list/karya/). Attempting to step out of the focus that sees child marriage as a result of poverty, we tried to further explore the root of such poverty. Child marriage has become a phenomenon that can be found almost anywhere in Indonesia, both in rural and urban areas. Data shows that one in five Indonesian women were married when they were under age, and two thirds of these marriages ended in divorce. Indonesia is in the top ten countries with the highest child marriage rates in the world. We tried to observe the root of the poverty, namely the changing living space in rural areas as a result of change of land ownership and its conversion. When men and community figures lose their access to land, they become more picky in dealing with public moral problems, including their teenagers. They tend to be more conservative and at least let child marriage slide. By doing this, they show their power politics role and receive economic benefits by becoming a regulation broker. At the analysis level, this research demonstrated how child marriage is actually a form of violence by adults to children. To make matters even more frightening, this violence is agreed upon between adults. Not one adult is challenging it. They often state moral reasoning, in the best interests of the child, covering up shame or resolving immoral conduct. This is contradictory, because marriage of a child is clearly immoral. They drop out of school, stop expressing themselves, and stop playing, which are their rights.
Among the institutions that we observed in the context of this research, there were ‘vague’ institutions. There were neither formal nor informal institutions, but they were extraordinarily effective in promoting child marriage practices. 
Q: How do you, along with other researchers, advocate a policy change that is not reactive and does not target the issue on this ‘vague power at work’?
A: We see that child marriage is promoted not only by formal institutions, but by other institutions accommodating this practice. Emergency door regulations, such as dispensation to get married when under age from the Religious Court after the Religious Office has refused because it violated the Marriage Law is one of the accommodative formal institutions. Or, people take advantage of informal institutions, where a community figure is involved in approving a child marriage by conducting an under-handed marriage, which is illegal from the State’s point of view, but legal from a religious stand point.
Between these two institutions, there is a very powerful situation encouraging child marriage practices, neither by formal nor informal institutions. We call it a ‘vague institution’, namely decisions taken by unknown figures. It may be the mother, father, relative, a big family or the community. The point is marriage is done to cover up shame and resolve the anxiety of adults surrounding the child. This is particularly true when the child is pregnant, or is considered to have disturbed the family stability by the way the child expresses his or her sexuality. They are considered flirtatious, unable to control themselves, and so forth. This shame has plenty of power, but its bearer is so vague. That is what we mean by vague power at work. 
The research on child marriage that we conducted has produced new theories that still need to undergo some testing, for example, the phenomenon of social orphans, where the child does not have a father and mother as a place for them to seek protection and help. Their parents have lost their social roles as parents due to severe and systemic poverty.    
Q: What kind of progressive maneuver would you like to create through your research to improve the gap in the power relationship between women and men in Indonesia?
A: Our research on FP (publication entitled Religious Perspective Map on Family Planning, red.), fundamentalism, women in radical movements, or child marriage basically shows how religious views and institutions can take a larger role in protecting women. We do this by contrasting text and reality when text is used blindly as a tool to justify or legitimise violence against women. We show facts on this violence and face it with the normative, ideal teachings brought by religion. If we believe religion is a blessing for all humanity, why are only some people enjoying it? If religion teaches us good things, why does it result in bad treatment of women? Certainly, it is not about the religion, but how people interpret it in a biased and incomplete way. In the niche between the fact of bad treatment suffered by women and the normative ideal value of religion, we have the opportunity to build an alignment to women. The feminism analysis knife to me is a way to grow critical thinking and methodology to build alignment, namely thinking and action to address oppression. 
Q: What trend do you want to see in the next generation of researchers and analysts that want to promote policy change for social justice?
A: A while ago, I saw a documentary video of a poet, Agam Wispi, an Indonesian runaway poet staying in Amsterdam. He was a poet for the People’s Cultural Institution (Lekra) from Medan, North Sumatera in the late 1930s. He was the most influential Lekra poet during 1950-1960s, before joining the navy and being stuck abroad during the 1965 incident. According to the records of the Literature Encyclopaedia developed by the Ministry of Education and Culture, his poetry contained reform never seen before, such as language, expression and emotional word choices. I was very impressed with his work because it contained anger about the social situation that he considered to be unfair for the poor. 
In the 1980s, he was invited to Jakarta and he met young poets and writers in Indonesia. He was very impressed with how active these youths were. According to him, their work was very creative and they were acting to fight the oppressive regime.
Inspired by this interview, I see that a critical young generation is the most important element in social change. Issues of environment, labour and specific issues on the oppression of women are mobilised by activists. They are not just conducting research, but also consistently and persistently taking action to move and resist a bad situation. The methods may be different than during my years. The actions today are done through fun methods, out of the standard organisational boxes, but they produce very good results. Social media and technology are clearly helping them, while back in my era cell phones did not even exist.
I see the use of social media as an advocacy tool being a trend that will develop in the future. Infographics, short videos and short movies will become inevitable smart choices in this digital era to advocate policies from research outcomes. This is the era of youth in a fast-paced global era. 
However, there are two things that can pose a threat. The first is ethics. The truth of social media news is very hard to trace, from research methodology and knowledge management perspectives. How the research was conducted is not explained, all we get is the outcome. We really must uphold ethics, if not, there will be research outcomes that cannot be academically accounted for, making it no different from hoax news. If false information is used for advocacy material, that is truly frightening and clearly wrong. 
The second issue, and I feel that this is a crisis, is organisation at the grass roots level. It is there that the real fight for humanity issues lies. Who do we want to defend? Surely the oppressed people. To find them and build their resistance to oppression in the social or gender structure, they need friends. Who is currently working at the village level to organise the people? Political parties do not go that low, instead we have religious communal groups. A number of villages are lucky to be selected for NGO work. Beyond that, we expect the awareness to come from the villagers themselves, who regretfully, have not learned to truly organise themselves for more than 40 or 50 years. Existing organisations are established by the State through agents (village officials). Village elites become small kings who are currently managing their own funds, such as the village fund allocation. In my observation, this is an important facility to conduct advocacy for change. However, the institutional and organisational aspects at the lower level are very fragile. Village discussions become a technocratic mechanism where the voice of the marginalised, including women, is rarely heard. I feel that the trend of change should come from there, but who is over there? Without any critical people, without organisations based on the essence of democracy and public space free from primordial interests, we will let democracy die from its most basic core: representation at the village level. 
So if you ask me what do I want to see in the future, I want people’s education at the village level. Not only Qur’an recital. Not only about livelihoods. I want a community organisation growing at the community level, the village. It is not enough through organisations managed by the village or recital/religious groups, but a critical people’s organisation, where people are aware of their rights, within which are elements of marginalised villagers who have the same opportunity to voice their opinions. Efforts toward this have clearly been done, but again, who is over there? I left the village a while ago. I am only looking from afar and am powerless to raise the awareness of my own village people. This is ironic for many activists of social movement and the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, red. (GESI) justice movement.     
        
Q: Within the next five years, how do you see the ‘GESI perspective in research for development’ helping to create and support a wider and more robust knowledge sector in Indonesia?
A: At the knowledge production level, we have to be able to prove that without GESI, just like the examples I put forward from several researches above, the research outcomes are not only inaccurate, but also lost. Lost here means that the knowledge production cannot fulfil the expectation, which should be the basis of policies. When the research is wrong, how can the recommendations be right? At the communication level, we need creative ways, just as activists do through media, but they must be very GESI-sensitive. Not for the sake of GESI itself, but so that knowledge can really be effective and knowledge can be easily read by policy makers.
I feel that issues related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) must be prioritised. There are 17 targets that need robust knowledge production. This will also help policy makers to budget and plan a policy. A simple example is how many contraceptives are needed in this country? We cannot simply give up to the drug industry producers. Knowledge production must be able to complement the State with correct data, so that the State can meet the reach of contraceptives, thus meeting the rights of women.
SGD targets need good databases. The GESI perspective is important to be brought forward, especially for data on targets that seem to be neutral on GESI, for example, the target to eradicate malnutrition and famine, or targets on water and sanitation. Without using GESI, the target to eradicate malnutrition, stunting, famine, or to make clean water available will not be achieved. There needs to be an understanding of how the power relationship works and influences access and control of nutrition and clean water. The power relationship can be based on ethnicity, race, physical condition, or geographical condition, within which there should be the reality of the gender and age relationship. 
Source: https://www.ksi-indonesia.org/en//news/detail/ksi-interview-with-lies-marcoes-gesi-perspective-in-research-for-development?fbclid=IwAR04kL94bzjdc3sTgW25pk2uuNoT2BNnRZXgY8g6BNoGGIcHWBX0nsX9JOE

MAQÂSHID AL-ISLÂM: Konsep Perlindungan Manusia dalam Perspektif Islam (The Concept of Human Protection in Islamic Perspective)

The Religion and Cultural Fundamentalist Issues in BERDAYA Program

One of the challenges of BERDAYA program is that the purpose of this activity can contradict with religious and cultural fundamentalists who consider child marriage to be their domain.

Religious fundamentalism is both a religious as well as an ideology that believes that the best way to save people from destruction on earth is to “return to the basic dogma.” Methodologically they invite to return to the understanding of the text of Scripture (Qur’an and hadith). But its way of understanding uses the literalist basis. This literalist argumentation rejects the results of ijtihad and the classical law argumentation that have been codified by scholars who develop Islamic thought contextually for centuries through the process of culture-civilization to Islam in accordance with the times. This reinvigorated effort of textual teaching eliminates the essence of humanity within it. This literalist view makes the religious view stalled, static and consequently Islam evolving backward so that religious views become rigid and incapable of adapting to the modern age, this condition creates an antipathic view of the modern civilization itself.

Ideologically, this view of fundamentalism is one level below radicalism, while radicalism is a belief or action with the imposition of views and attitudes through violence and terrorism. Fundamentalism is the embryo of the birth of radicalism even to the level of terrorism if there is no process that prevents it. Cultural fundamentalism is also similar to the condition of religious fundamentalism, both of them refers to the basic guidelines of an ideology, one a religious ideology, while another is a cultural ideology. Cultural fundamentalism will give rise to a rigid and absolute view of treating traditions. Religious and cultural fundamentalism are equally harmful to women because they consider the existence of women to be a measure of change, so control over the women is important to keep their ideology. Child marriage is one of the things that they maintain because it is in accordance with the religious fundamentalism that is believed.