Women’s
Role in Islamic Renaissance
By Dr. Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD
In his memoir, In the
Line of Fire, President Musharraf has enumerated
the measures his Government has adopted to empower
Pakistani women. Included among these are greater
female representation in the Government, reservation
of sixty seats for them in the National Assembly
and a vigorous program to curb the laws and mores
that discriminate and promote violence against
them. Meanwhile, one of the most infamous regulations,
the Hudood Ordinance, that had generated world-wide
outrage, has been modified by the National Assembly,
making it less odious. These are welcome developments.
Discrimination against women, however, is not
confined to Pakistan. The recently released Arab
Human Development Report crafted by Arab scholars
and intellectuals and sponsored by the United
Nations Development Program focuses on the low
status of women in the Arab world. Although the
data are drawn mainly from Arab sources, the findings
and conclusions apply equally well to the entire
Muslim world.
The authors, alluding to the Golden Age of Islamic
learning, argue that an Arab renaissance cannot
be achieved without the rise of women, representing
half the population, in Arab countries. The latest
report is the fourth and final in the series,
the first of which was launched in 2002. Arab
scholars initially identified three key areas
that have kept their countries backward: the acquisition
of new knowledge, absence of political freedom,
and the suppression of women’s rights. The
first three documents dealt with the first two
topics, while the current report concentrates
on women’s issues in the Arab/Muslim world.
The lack of opportunities for women in the Arab
World is endemic and this deficit is manifested
in a variety of cultural and social realms. While
some impressive improvements in educational opportunities
have been made in the region, about half of all
women remain illiterate, compared to one-third
of men. Even more significant, educated women
are clustered mostly in social sciences and liberal
arts, disciplines in which lucrative jobs and
career opportunities are scarce. Despite overt
discrimination and low representation at educational
institutions, girls do well and account for nearly
half of the highest achievers in the college education
system. Yet, they earn far less than men in the
same professions with equivalent qualifications,
especially in the private sector.
In Jordan, for example, women graduates earn only
71 percent of the salary earned by male graduates,
and the gap in earnings is even wider at lower
level jobs. In most Arab countries, women find
it much harder to obtain meaningful employment
than men do even in low paying jobs. The silver
lining, however, is that an overwhelming majority
of Arab public opinion firmly believes that women
should have the same right to higher education
as men.
The deficiency in female representation is perhaps
most conspicuous in the political arena. Lebanon
was the first Arab country to grant women the
right to vote and contest national elections in
1952. Now, most Arab countries have granted these
twin rights; even Kuwaiti women, following a struggle
lasting nearly forty years, were granted these
rights in 2005. Nevertheless, no Kuwaiti woman
has yet been elected to parliament.
The same general trend is evident elsewhere. Despite
a quota system in some countries, women’s
overall share of parliamentary seats in Arab countries
is lower than 9 percent, as compared to some 40
percent in Scandinavian countries. In Yemen, there
has been only one female parliamentarian elected
since 1993, out of a total of 301 members. Women
rarely occupy powerful political offices, and
few ever rise to the level of cabinet ministers.
Even when they do, they are assigned relatively
less prestigious portfolios, such as education,
health, tourism or cultural affairs. Historically,
Egypt and Iraq have been relatively progressive,
as they appointed their first women ministers
in 1956 and 1959, respectively. The authors recommend
institution of some form of parliamentary quota
system or affirmative action, much like the one
currently operating in Pakistan, to ensure a minimum
female representation in the legislature for a
limited period.
The poor state of women’s health in some
Arab/Muslim countries constitutes another area
of concern, according to the authors of the report.
There is a great variation, however, in figures
relating to female morbidity and mortality; the
variation largely correlates with the economic
conditions of the countries. For example, the
two poorest countries, Mauritania and Somalia,
record a mortality rate of 1,000 women per 100,000
childbirths. In contrast, in Qatar, where the
level of medical care is much superior, only about
7 women die for every 100,000 live births. In
general, more women than men spend a substantial
part of their lives suffering with ill health,
which is attributed to stresses arising from their
lower status within the family and consequent
lack of preventive care and adequate nutrition.
The Human Development Report refutes the widespread
notion that Arab women are intellectually inferior
to men. In fact, whenever afforded the opportunity
to compete freely; they have proven equal to men,
even excelling occasionally in subjects such as
natural and physical sciences. The Arab authors
cite a number of cases where Arab/Muslim women
luminaries demonstrated exceptional talents in
various fields of knowledge, including science,
medicine, genetics, astronomy, literature and
fine arts. In one specific case, Dr. Mervat Badawi
occupied a number of prestigious academic positions
at the University of Paris in the 1970s -- her
brilliant career culminated when she was not yet
30 years old in her appointment to the highest
position, the director of research, at the National
Institute of Scientific Research. Arab women writers
have frequently generated better-quality literature
than men writers. A number of myths have evolved
over the centuries that promote the perception
than women are unsuited for military duty. However,
experience in other countries has shown this notion
to be patently false. In Iraq and Afghanistan,
155,000 American women have served in combat-related
duties during the past five years without any
major trouble.
The UN report expresses dismay that in the twenty-first
century, women continue to be the victim of domestic
violence, often perpetrated in the name of honor
killings, and are subjected to horrible practices
such as female circumcision. The authors note
that female domestic servants working in Arab
countries are physically abused and sexually exploited
while the prevailing labor laws offer them no
protection against these excesses.
The Arab intellectuals emphatically dismiss the
accusations made frequently in the Western media
that the suppression of the women’s rights
is deeply imbedded in the Islamic faith. They
argue that Islam confers equal rights and responsibilities
on both men and women and its historic mission
has been to uplift the status of women. Rather,
women’s emancipation is thwarted by archaic
and biased interpretation of religious scriptures
by conservative religious authorities, unappreciative
of the imperatives of modern times, and is reinforced
by centuries-old tribal and cultural customs that
have become enshrined in Islamic jurisprudence.
This argument draws its major strength from the
recent experiences in Afghanistan where the Taliban
regime, in the name of Sharia, nearly pushed the
country back to medieval ages.
The report concedes that the situation in not
entirely gloomy. Enlightened new thinking has
brought new rights to women in several Arab/Islamic
countries. In 2000, Egyptian Women won the right
to initiate divorce proceedings (Khula), travel
without the permission of their husbands and claim
Egyptian nationality for their non-Egyptian husbands.
Similarly, some welcome changes in family laws
have taken effect in other countries, including
Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. The Arab scholars
end their dissertation on a positive note, proclaiming
their collective optimism that “the release
of Arab women’s captive energies in the
field of knowledge and creativity would be the
freshest sign of spring in the blossoming of the
Arab world.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
