BY NIGAR ATAULLA
Assalam Alaikum, my dear brothers.
I hope that by your rules a sister can write a letter to
her brother and that is why I am writing this letter to you. I wish to
start by stating that I do respect the ulema, and also admit that
your knowledge of Islam is a thousand times better than mine. A major part
of my zakaat goes to the madrasas, where the ulema
teach and where they train would-be scholars of Islam. Hence, please do
not think that I am a radical feminist out to attack you out of blind
prejudice.
My own interaction with the ulema, I must confess,
has been very limited. It began with the Maulvi Saheb who used to come
home to teach me to read the Quran when I was a child. Thereafter, I
met with no other Maulvi Sahebs, till one day, as a trainee reporter, I
met with a dreadful accident and landed in hospital. There, a Maulvi Sahib
friend of my father came to visit me. This is what he had to say to me
about my accident: “If you were sitting at home instead, this would not
have happened to you.”
That was the starting point for me to wake up. I found the
Maulvi Sahib’s advice utterly insensitive. But, as the saying goes,
forgive and forget. And I have forgiven, although I have not forgotten.
A fatwa issued by a reputed seminary in India last
month shook me quite a bit, I must confess. It argued that it was
impermissible for Muslim women to work outside their homes if, in doing
so, they would have to talk ‘frankly’ with men. It also insisted that if
they had to work, they must be veiled while at the workplace. Other
fatwas issued by this seminary in the past insist that Muslim women
must veil even their faces.
I have been a working woman ever since I completed my
college education. I certainly do not fall into your category of the
“pious Muslim woman” because I do not wear the veil and have never
covered-up my face, although I do dress modestly. While some of you have
issued fatwas declaring watching television (including even Islamic
programmes) as wholly haraam, I do turn on the TV once in a
while, but only to watch my favourite cartoon show ‘Tom and Jerry’ (It’s
about a cat and a mouse chasing each other and having loads of fun. You
can also watch it, its clean stuff!). For my job as a writer, I have to
interact and interview people, and not just women. Given all this, perhaps
I do not fit your description of what the ideal Muslimah is.
About what you might find my ‘nicer’ side, I don’t drive
(a fatwa from the same madrasa that issued the fatwa on
working women insists that women should not drive cars), and I work in a
Muslim-run media organization, where every morning, all of us greet each
other with loud-throated Assalam Alaikums. Our office has some non-Muslim
staff, and they, too, generally use the same greeting. I hope this makes
you happy!
What I wish to convey to you as a Muslim working woman is
that your fatwa sends out wrong signals to not just us Muslims but
to non-Muslims as well. Is it necessarily the case that, as some of you
seem to imagine, a Muslim woman who works outside her home does so with
bad intentions or is necessarily irreligious? Does she work, as some of
you seem to think, only to pass her time? Does she work simply because she
wants to interact with men? The answer to all this is a resounding NO!
A Muslim woman — or any woman, for that matter — may work to support
herself if she is single, to support her old parents, to support her
children, to support her husband, to add some money to the family savings
in these days of economic crises, and, quite simply, to evolve emotionally
and intellectually.
I can cite any number of cases of Muslim women who are
married, divorced, widowed or just plain single, who work and are
economically independent, and are still believing and practicing Muslims,
like myself. They work because they do not want to be a burden on the
men-folk in their families or communities.
You might claim that a father or a husband will provide
maintenance to his daughter or wife, and so women need not work outside
their homes. But doesn’t a Muslim woman have a mind of her own? Is she to
remain forever dependent on the goodwill of others? Of course, I agree
that her earnings (like that of men) should be halal and that her
work (again, like that of men) should not violate the universal rules of
honesty, integrity, dignity and modesty. But it is not just women but men,
too, who ought to follow these basic rules.
I recall here my late mother’s wisdom when she used to
question why all ‘moral rulings’ are showered on women and not men. She
would ask, “Is the imaan of men so weak that the mere sight or
sound of a woman will dilute their faith?” I, too, want to ask you this
same question. Why you do not issue such fatwas for Muslim men?
Please be so kind as to let me know.
The first such fatwa that you should issue is to
order men to lower their gaze when they pass by women. Just the other day,
I was walking through the Muslim-dominated Jamia Nagar locality in Delhi,
when a man who looked like a Maulvi Sahib, with a long beard and cap and
dressed in white kurta-pajama, stopped and stared and stared and stared at
me as if I were some strange creature. That, I assure you, is not the
first time that I have experienced such horrendous behaviour.
I need not tell you, for you know it well, that God judges
actions by their intentions. In this regard, what troubles me particularly
about some of your fatwas on women’s issues is how you seem to
presume (and, on the basis of that presumption, judge) that Muslim women
who work out of their homes are so weak in faith that they can easily turn
astray and immoral. I am beginning to believe that you seem to think that
all of us Muslim working women go to work as if we are participants in
some fashion parade!
My humble submission to you, as a sister-in-Islam, is that
some of the absurd fatwas that you hurl from time to time only
create fear and foreboding in the hearts and minds of Muslims and others.
They can easily take Muslims far away from true spirituality and the fear
and love of God. As Muslims, we are supposed to fear God and not anybody
else. We are answerable to the Almighty alone for all our actions,
intentions and deeds. If I fear a fatwa, then I am committing
shirk, which is the biggest sin since I must fear Allah alone.
I sometimes wonder how religious scholars from other
communities, such as Hindus Christians, Buddhists, and Sikhs, interact
with the common folk among their co-religionists. Frankly, sometimes I
really envy them. Non-Muslim women can freely ask questions to their
priests, gurus and so on and discuss religious matters with them. I simply
cannot, for the life of me, fathom why Muslim women cannot have a healthy
and positive dialogue with the ulema. Is it because of some
deep-rooted fear on both sides? Is it because of a totally unwarranted
hierarchy that seems to prevail between the ulema and the common
folk, paralleling that between medieval kings and their subjects? I don’t
need to explain who the ‘kings’ and the ‘subjects’ here are, for surely
you will understand.
During my travels, if I do happen to visit an Islamic
seminary I would be delighted to meet you and discuss all these issues. I
promise to come properly dressed, and along with my mahram (my
husband) Inshallah. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t whisk me off into the
women’s quarters or banish me to a corner. And please do not claim that my
voice, too, must be ‘veiled’—which is what some of you insist in the
fatwas you have issued.
I have experienced that enough, and, quite frankly, am not
willing to take it any longer. My dialogue is with you. I am your sister
after all, and when I die I know that for my maghfirat duas
will be held in your madrasas for the peace of my soul. Till I live,
please allow me to let my soul to talk freely with yours.
May God be with you.
With respects and regards
Your sister-in-Islam
Nigar Ataulla
(Nigar Ataulla is the associate editor of the
Bangalore-based monthly ‘Islamic Voice’; www.islamicvoice.com. She can be
contacted on [email protected].)