Aishah as a Symbol for Women in Islam

Aishah as a Symbol for Women in Islam

Aishah has been interpreted as a symbol for women by several Muslim thinkers. Generally the Sunnis have had a more favorable opinion about Aishah than the Shiite Muslims. Among the Sunnis stories about Aishah have mostly been stories that praise Aishah's virtues and show Aishah as an ideal woman that other women should emulate, or they are used to show as an example of why women should not be in politics. Aishah has served has served as a unifying factor in some Muslim communities and as an object of strife in others. More Hadiths are attributed to Aishah than body else and she is a central figure in one of the most unique and detailed Hadiths.

Aishah is unique in Islamic literature in many ways. Firstly, we known an usual amount about her because of the Hadith al-ifk. Secondly Aishah is said to be Muhammad's favorite wife. Lastly, Aishah highly involved with the running of the early Umma after Muhammad passed away and she was also highly involved in the disputes over the Caliph lineage of Uthman and the subsequent political incidents with Ali and his followers. Because of her position of favor and power she is one of the most controversial figures in Islamic history.

Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi mentions Aisha several times in his writings on Perfecting Women but because a lot of his writings deal with trying to teach Indian Muslims to follow Islamic customs about marrying and remarrying widows and divorcées, he often mentions Aishah as the exception of Muhammad's wifes because she was the only one of Muhammad's wives that had not been previously married. Whenever he mentions her or any of Muhammad's wives he always does so favorably.

Thanawi cites two Hadiths involving Aishah back to back. In the first one he praises Aishah for giving praise to her co-wife Sauda and in the second one he says that there once was a woman that was so great that scholars consulted her on problems of religion. In both incidences he goes on to say that women in Thanawi's day do not reach the ideal that Aisha represents. The ladder example is interesting because Thanawi is using Aisha as an example of the fact that women can become very educated, to the point that people will seek them out to ask for religious advice. This contrasted with what else Thanawi had to say about women, one may conclude that Thanawi believes that there is a fundamental difference between modern women and women from the age of Muhammad. With this in mind one must consider if Aishah is suppose to represent an attainable goal or if she represents an unattainable ideal.

Some modern Muslim feminist, such as Nawal Saadawi, have used the story of Aishah as an example of a strong, self thinking, woman who was able to be an excellent Muslim yet not be unreasonably subjugated to the whims of men. Not every Muslim thinker has been as kind to Aishah as Thanawi and Saadawi. Some will use the story of Aishah as an example of why women should not be involved with politics.

Some Muslim thinkers would not draw the same conclusion about the Hadith where people sought out Aishah for religious advice. They would use this story as an example of what can go wrong when a woman is involved with politics. This view may be most dominate in Shiite circles where the discourse that took place between Aishah and Ali are considered to be most unfortunate and Aishah is considered to be the wrong mistaken one in the conflict.

Some Muslim thinks may argue that there exist some foreshadowing of the Uthman controversy in the Hadith al-ifk. In one of the versions it is Ali who tells the prophet Muhammad that women are plentiful and he could easily change one for another. One may wonder if Ali's remarks here have anything to do with what will happen between Aishah and Ali later. One may also wonder if Ali's remarks in this Hadiths are indicative of a Shiite perspective of women, or if they represent how Sunnis perceive Shiites view of women.

Aishah has come to represent a difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam. Because of this Sunnis may go out of their way to exemplify the actions of Aishah and are adament in their claim that Aishah was Muhammad's favorite wife. There is even a story about Gabrial bringing an image of Aishah before Muhammad and telling Muhammad to marry her. In this story not only is Aishah Muhammad's favorite wife, they are also divinely matched. Shiite however may go out of their way to denounce and vilify her, use her as examples of why women should not get involved in politics, and associate her with fitna.

The idea that Aishah's story serves as an example of why women should not be involved with politics may owe something to the idea of fitna. Fitna is the idea that women have some primordial association with chaos; fitna also means civil war. Considering Aishah's role in the Uthman controversy linking Aishah to fitna may be a logical jump for some Shiite Muslims. Associating Aishah, and women in general, with fitna may have been a big issue for some early Muslim converts that had a preexisting belief in the inherent impure and chaotic nature of women. The idea of the inherent impurity of women hasn't remained a popular in Islam but there definitely seems some remnant of the belief that women are chaotic and random. It is not uncommon to find female characters in Islamic named Fitna that represent some sort of chaos or misfortune.

Less controversial lessons have also been inferred about the Hadiths involving Aishah. Since Aishah presumably did not have water with her when she excused herself from her howdah to use the restroom, so one could use this story as an example of how one can use clean earth for ablution. Or one could contemplate how Um Mistah cursed her own son and Aishah scolded her for that. Cultural things can be inferred from the Hadith about the world that Aishah lived in such as her people's tendency to use the bathroom outside.

It is difficult but one can try to detangle Aishah from the Hadith, to try to figure out who Aishah really was and what her world view was like. A young girl married to a revolutionary figure, who's very existence has shaped much of the modern world's view on women and Islam. Aishah is one of the most beloved women in the Sunni Islamic tradition. Her stories have been used as proofs for many, sometimes contradictory, ideas. To be able to control Aishah and remake her in your own ideals, is to be able to define the role of women in Islam. That is why so many people have tried to tame her story, to bend it into agreement with their ideology. And when studying Aishah it is important to realize that we are studying her through multiple lens of history, culture, and perception.

The issue of headscarves in France

The issue of headscarves in France

The Muslim population in France, as it is else where, is representative of a whole spectrum of practices and beliefs; however in France the Islamic headscarf became a popular symbol for the problems associated with Muslim immigration, “Islamism” in France, and the role of secularism in French society (Bowen 4,5). The issue of Muslim women wearing headscarves has become a heated issue in France especially after a law banning all religious garb in public schools went into effect in 2004.

Hijab is an Arabic term used to describe proper dress according to Islam. There is variation to what exactly hijab, which is related to modesty for both men and women, exactly means. Different Islamic schools of thought, called madh'habs (not to be confused with larger more general sects such as Sunni or Shiite) have different answer. What's considered hijab in one movement may not be hijab in another movement. Here on out I will use the term hijab specifically to refer to headscarves worn by some Islamic women.

In 1994 it was reported that of the whole Muslim population in France only 700 girls wore hijab to school (Hamel 295). John Bowen, an anthropologist and Islamic scholar argues that through the combined workings of French media, politicians, and popular writers the hijab not only became a symbol for the tensions between Muslims in France and the larger, supposedly secular, French society but it became an externalization for everything that is wrong with French society and was associated with everything from anti-Semitism to the suppression middle class suburban women (Bowen 3).

In French politics there is a trend to justify current actions by putting them in context of larger French history and this is what was done to justify promoting secularism and barring religious apparel in public schools (Bowen 5, 6). Therefore the argument, whether valid or not, is that Muslim immigrants to France should have to adapt to a long standing tradition of secularism and keeping religion out of the public forum and one need not only know how this fits into the larger French history but also one must be well versed in all the major French political and philosophical writings of the last few centuries (Bowen 6).

The tensions between Muslim immigrants wanting to maintain some of their linguistic or ethnic culture verses a French society, that while ferociously denying it, promotes and harbors “la pensée unique ” or the single [French] way of thinking are obvious. What is less obvious is how all these complex issues became epitomized and externalized into the hijab. However irrational or convoluted the reasons for the hijab becoming the focal point of many complex issues, it is not really surprising when one puts it in the larger context of Islam's relationship with the West and how women's role in both societies have a tendency to become not only issues in their own right, but also symbols of the larger struggles of the West and the Middle East.

March 15th, 2004 Jacques Chirac signed a bill from the national legislature that banned the wearing of religious garb that is immediately recognizable from being worn in French public schools (Bowen 7). While this bill bans all religious garb unilaterally there are several issues we need to unpack first before we can appreciate why some Muslims felt like this bill was specifically targeted towards them.

First off we need to understand a key difference between attitudes towards the role of the government in France verses the Anglophone world. One of the key differences between what Bowen categorized as Lockian views of personal liberty verses what Bowen categorized as Rousseauian ideas of personal liberty is that in the Lockian system the government is only responsible for providing for the safety of its citizens. People give up their right to take justice into their own hands in exchange for living in a safe society. I being very simplistic here but in the Rousseauian system the government, besides securing the safety of its citizens, is responsible for providing ways for people to become good citizens.

In France citizenship is based on being integrated into the larger dominate society and adopting their social roles, unlike the United States that bases citizenship on birth or Germany that bases citizenship on ethnicity (Killian 21). In the Rousseauian system you cannot be a good citizens without certain things, so the government is responsible for making sure that all of its citizens have access to those things. One very important social agent in this system is the schools (Bowen 17). Schools, more so than any other institution, are the agents by which people learn what it means to be good citizen, and in the case of France what it means to be a good French citizen.

The school is a system of the state used to make people into good equal citizens. The notion of equal citizenship is an important notion in the Rousseauian system. It is important that in order to facilitate this equality students should not set themselves apart in any kind of subgroups. Habits that do not promote becoming a good citizen are discouraged. Therefor some argue that religious markers are a problem because they divide up the student body into subgroups and promote non-unity. So in order for somebody to grow up to appreciate equality, fraternity, and appreciation of the over-arching dominate culture religious markers should be discouraged.

Notice that this system puts a great deal on precedence, and that the goal is to become a good French citizen. What it means to be a good French citizen is the issue where people tend to find themselves disagreeing. Imagine being an Islamic family that your daughter should wear a headscarf at all times and then imagine that the school system says your daughter cannot wear a headscarf to school because it is contradictory to what they want to teach them about what it means to be a good French citizen. You might be understandably upset.

Although it is a crude system, integrating women can be viewed in two different lights, either as “barriers of assimilation” or as “vehicles of assimilation into the dominate society” (Killian 11). The issue of hijab is an example of women being used as pawns in a larger struggle, a struggle that is less about women or hijab and more about France’s fear of Islamic extremism being harbored in French ghettos, or le citiés, that some French people were scared had become nodes in an international Islamic fundamentalist network (Killian 15).

The French media played no small part in making the public believe that Muslims in France, especially Muslims in bad neighborhoods, were in on a larger Pan-Islamic plot to take over the whole world (Bowen 157, Silverstein 4). French fears of radical Islam were shaken up by the linking of French-born Muslims to the 1995 bombings in Paris and Lyon as well as the arrest of French-Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui (Silverstein 4).

This is an issue of integration (Bowen 247). Some Muslims think this system is unfair because it favors those who, “drink wine and wear berets” over “those who prefer tea and headscarves” (Bowen 427). The issue of integrating Muslims into the larger French society is also a complex issue we'll return to after one more point about Lockian versus Rousseauian views.

A criticism of the Rousseau point of view that people need to be conditioned and taught how to be equal is that in practice sometimes it seems that the quest for equality infringes on people's personal freedom to do what they want. A related issue of laïcité or the idea of a secular state that's devoid of religious influence or input (Bowen 3,156).

According to Bowen some staunch supports of laïcité will trace its lineage back unbroken to the French revolution, however Bowen argues that the real issue is much more complex (Bowen 23). Those that say that there is a precedent for laïcité are correct however the notion that laïcité is unyielding and absolute can't be right and to prove his point Bowen says that even if you omit France's relationship both culturally and in legislation towards the Catholic church and use only Islamic examples the precedence of laïcité begins to fade (Bowen 27). Bowen points to examples like that French state and local governments giving monetary aid to help build mosques, to provide graveyard space for Muslims, and the creation of the quasi-state Muslim Council (Bowen 27, 35).

And it's hardly fair to say laïcité is a 200 year old institution when, the interplay of church and school has been complex but mostly has leaned towards favoring the Church. It wasn't really until after the Paris Commune in 1871 that there was really an big push to use the schools as an instrument to create "French citizens" and thus make and an attempt was made to decrease the influence the Church has on schools, previous to this time besides have major influences over schools Priest could dismiss school teachers in their diocese that they didn't like (Bowen 27, 30-33).

In 1989 three young ladies were expelled for refusing to take off their headscarves (Silverstein 3, Killin 23). The Highest French court decided that students may wear religious garb as long as it wasn’t “ostentatious” or “political” in nature (Silverstein 3). The court’s decision set the precedent of letting the individual school decide what and was not ostentatious or political and most hijab school issues after this were settled through parent-teacher compromises and when that couldn’t be done be done special Stasi commission, a special commission established in 1998 to specifically handel issues of laïcité members were sent to try to mediate (Silverstein 3).

Why women wear hijab is another issue. Its kind of a no win situation for the women that want to wear hijab because many French people argue that she's only wearing it because she feels pressured into it and even if she really wants to wear it she only really wants to wear it because of how she's been raised. So even arguments by Muslim women defending their choice to wear hijab fall on deaf ears according to Bowen (45).

Besides attacking hijab in lieu in other more serious problems, another tactic the French have used to quell their fears has been to create its own brand of secular-Islam and sell it back to the French community as a whole (Silverstein 4). Many young Muslims and other Muslims that have been acculturated enough to French society enough or it are just naturally ready for such a progression to prefer that kind of Islam.

These developments have made the issue of hijab very complex. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a Muslim in France that on the one hand you have your traditional culture pulling at your loyalties, you have a larger society that’s trying to bring you over to the French way of thinking, and you also have the voices of successfully integrated Muslims to listen to. Growing up in such a world must be having some effect on young Muslims today and I’d imagine that these tensions pulling them in all different directions will be the source of many interesting novels and coming of age books in France in the next few decades.

The separation of church and state, integration, and learning to become a good citizen are all superfluous issues being used as an excuse to attack Muslims, specifically hijab wearing women, as a reactionary retaliation to the tensions surrounding immigration and fears of radical Islam (Bowen 198). Bowen argues that the hijab became a symbol of all the problems with society and that some politicians, news media, and popular writers fueled the fire of over simplifying issues.

According to Bowen one of the really serious issues underlying the hijab issue is the issue of Muslim immigrants and few-generation Muslims in France and the fear of Islamic extremist terrorist (Bowen 155, 182). The issue of immigration of Muslims into France is complex but it is fair to say that many Muslims in France come from or are decedent from families from North Africa, especially Algeria (169). However modern waves of immigration have people coming from all over the Muslim world (Bowen 170).

Paul Silverstein argues that the notion of “religious freedom” has been sacrificed in France in France’s strive for national unity. Silverstein argues that this isn’t a case of separation of Church and state but the case of a new state religion of France that supresses other religions. The notion of laïcité has become some abstract source of morals and people have been eisegesisically using it as a tool to supress the religious freedoms of others, thus making laïcité not only a quasi-state religion but also a suppressive tyrannical one.

For many first, second, and even third generation Muslims in France the whole situation of trying to find a happy medium between being true to their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious roots while also being good French citizens must be very frustrating.

Works Cited

Bowen, John B. Why the French Don't Like Headscaves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007.

Hamel, Chouki E. "Muslim Diaspora in Western Europe: the Islamic Headscarf (Hijab), the Media and Muslims' Integration in France." Citizenship Studies 6 (2002): 293-308. Google Scholar. 03 Apr. 2008.

Killian, Caitlin. North African Women in France: Gender, Culture, and Identity. Standford UP, 2006.

Silverstein, Paul. "Headscarfs and the French Tricolor." Middle East Report Online. 30 Jan. 2004 <http://merip.org/mero/mero013004.htm>.

Legal Concept of Marriage in Islam

The Legal Concept of Marriage and How It Has Affected Women in Islam

Marriage in terms of Islamic law is an oath. Oaths are extremely important in Islamic law and in Islamic tradition in general. Divorce serves as a way to nullify or satisfy this oath and terminate the marriage. Because marriage is an oath and oaths are so important to Islamic culture there are strict rules about how to get out of one. Also built into the system are mandatory waiting times called iddiah which help to prevent divorces of passion and also help to protect the inheritance rights of unborn babies.

The minor divorce, or ila' is an oath a man takes to not have sex with his wife for four months. An ila' is implied but not mentioned in Surah II verse 226. This practice of minor divorce may be in reference to some pre-Islamic tradition that allowed men to easily partially divorce their wives so that their wives could not remarry but they did not enjoy full status in their own house hold. Also according to Hanbal there are instances where these types of oaths are still acceptable under Islamic law. However Hanbal argues that if a man vows to not have sex with a woman while in their house, that does not count as an 'ila because they could have sex in some other location.

The 'ila seems to be slanted against the female. It services as a tool men can use against their wives to scare them into being more obedient. A husband may use this as a threat against his wife. This may make a woman live in constant fear that she is not performing well enough and may cause psychological stress on her. Hanbal says that after the 'ila is complete the man must either have sex with his wife or divorce her. If the man was using this as a psychological tool against his wife he may decide to singly divorce her, and then doubly, and then only take her back at the last moment. And then start the whole process over again. This is an extreme example of what could happen.

Other than the minor divorce there are two types of divorce. One initiated by the man and one initiated by the woman. Divorces initiated by the man are done as follows: the man must say aloud that he divorces the woman three times. After he does so three times a waiting period begins. The waiting period either last three menstrual cycles of the woman or three lunar months if the woman does not menstruate. This is explained in Surah II verse 229.

Men initiated divorces have several implications on the status of Muslim women. For one thing they get to keep their dowry. So this gives the woman some money to support herself. The woman may live off of this dowry until she finds another husband or some other way to support herself. Also in Islam a divorced woman does not get thrown to the bottom of the society. Ibn Hanbal and Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi both speak about how it is lawful and acceptable for divorced women to remarry. Thanawi actually goes on a great deal about this issue because he was trying to combat what he considered to be unislamic traditions. All of the prophet Muhammad's wives, except Aishah, had previous husbands. If the prophet did it, then it must be good, so the argument goes.

Because the man must say that he divorces the woman three times that also protects people from getting divorced hastily because of passion. The waiting period also gives the couple time to reconcile their differences before the divorce goes into effect, it is said that if a man and a woman reconcile before the waiting period is up then there is no shame or punish to be brought upon them. The waiting period also gives time for the woman to figure out of if she is pregnant or not. This allows for her to assure the status and inheritance of her children by her husband. It should be noted that the couple can not get back together if the man declares the divorce three times. There are varying opinions on what constitutes as a triple divorce, such if a man says that he divorces a woman triply should it count as a single divorce or a triple divorce. Hanbal argues that it should count as a triple divorce if the man's intentions were for it to count as a triple divorce, and it should count as a single divorce if the man intended for it to count as a single divorce.

The 'iddah also has several other implifications for women. It prevents a man from marrying one of his former wives sisters until after his former wife's 'iddah is over. This is because until the 'iddah is over they are still considered family and his former wife's sister is forbidden to him. Also if a man has four wives and he divorces one of them, he must wait for her 'iddah to be done with before he takes another wife. This is because he may reconcile with his her or she may be pregnant and then he'd have five wives, which is forbidden. The 'iddah also gives all parties involved in a divorce the chance to calm down and reflect on why they are getting divorced. It is considered best for the couple to get reconcile than it is for them to divorce.

If however a couple does not reconcile in time and their divorce becomes final. The woman must remarry, get another divorce, wait another 'iddah before returning to her husband. The implications of this are that there may be times when a woman will engage in a marriage of convenience to somebody for only one day and then divorce him to start her 'iddah.

The woman initiated divorce is implied in Surah II verse 229. This idea has several implications on the status of women. There are disagreements in Islamic law over a women initiated divorces. If the couple reconciles, should the woman get her dowry back? If they do decide to get back together but the woman does not get her dowry and then the man decides to divorce her, how is the woman suppose to support herself if she does not have any family?

Women initiated divorces do allow women to leave abusive relationships, or even one that she simply does not like. There are no stipulations on why one performs divorce. This has several implications for women. They never know if there husband will decide to divorce them. And if their husbands do decide to divorce them there is nothing they can do about it if there husband is stubborn. But as mentioned before, on the positive side they do get to keep their dowry, unless they decide to give it as a free gift to their husband. This also gives women an elevated amount of freedom in a marriage because they are free to threaten to leave or actually leave their husbands for any reason. This can be a powerful factor in keeping marriages fair and balanced, provided the female has somewhere to go and some way of supporting herself if she decides to ransom herself.

Another type of Islamic divorce that Shiite Muslims have that Sunnis do not is the mut'a marriage. That is a temporary marriage done for pleasure. In this case the dowry and the marriage are akin to prostitution and prostitution fees. Shiite Muslims justify these types of marriages by citing Surah 4 verse 24.

Islamic divorce laws have for the most part been an uplifting factor in the lives of married women, because of the built in safe guards and that women get their dowry back if their husband decides to divorce them. The triple nature of divorce and mandatory waiting period until a divorce is official prevents people from getting divorced too quickly.