• The New York Times reports on the headscarf’s rise as a political symbol in Indonesia.

• Women in Turkey take back the night.

• A Palestinian journalist claims that Hamas arrested her while she was at the beach.

• The man who murdered Banaz Mahmood will be extradited to stand trial for her rape and murder.

• More on the death of Marwa el-Sherbini: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Plus more here.

• Aafia Siddiqui appeared in a U.S. court and made her first public statements about being accused of terrorism. More from ABC. Via TalkIslam.

• Honor killings in the Sindh province of Pakistan continue to rise.

• TehranBureau speaks with Zillah Eisenstein about Iranian feminism.

• The Globe and Mail examines the lives of female refugees in Afghanistan.

• More burqa ban discussions: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, and here. Plus more here.

• The Calgary Herald profiles Nida Makhdoom, a fashion designer. Via Hijab Style.

• Al Jazeera interviews Amal Soliman, the first woman to be an Egyptian marriage registrar.

• A Canadian Muslim women died the Yemeni plane crash last month. May Allah give her peace. Via Euro-Islam.

• A Saudi journalist goes undercover as a maid to understand the extent of maid abuse.

• GetReligion writes about Neda Agha Soltani’s martyrdom.

• Malaysia aims to be the world’s Islamic fashion center. Via Hijabtrendz.

• An Islamic university in Lucknow, India, is beginning a program to teach women how to be muftis.

• A woman flees an abusive father and an abusive legal system.

• Many Afghan women are switching to the chador. No burqa ban required. Via ifeminists.

• I write about the dos & don’ts of Muslim women’s liberation. Shabana Mir also wrote about this a few years earlier.

• Chinese officials blame Rebiya Kadeer for the Uighur uprising.

• On Malaysia’s changing social landscape for women.

• On the death of Shahi Imam Maulana Syed Abdullah Bukhari, his daughter-in-law speaks about what he meant to the world.

• Payvand News republishes an essay from the Iranian feminist magazine Meydaan.com, which rejects compulsory hijab.

• Muslim women in North Carolina run a free clinic.

• Bahraini basketball players refuse to remove their headscarves in an unnamed international competition.

• AltMuslimah reports on the rise of Muslim women’s memoirs.

• A Lebanese man’s jail term has been cut for honor killing. WTF.

• Despite the fact that women are a majority in Kurdistan, politicians don’t address women’s issues.

• The U.N. recognizes that there is an urgent need to criminalize rape in Afghan law. More from CNN.

• The Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice gives an inch. Via ifeminists.

• AltMuslim interviews Farah Pandith.

• A Saudi man is standing trial for murdering his sisters.

• Islam Online profiles Dr. Nadia El-Awady, who became the first Muslim woman to lead the World Federation of Science Journalists.

• More burqa/niqab haterade.

• A U.S. feminist group backs escalation in Afghanistan. BOO.

A rally to honor Marwa Sherbini. Image via BBC.

By now many Muslims have heard of the tragic murder of Marwa el-Sherbini, mother, daughter, wife, pharmacist, who lived in Germany while her husband completed his Ph.D. May God give her peace and grant her paradise.

According to the BBC:

Marwa Sherbini, 31, was stabbed 18 times by Axel W, who is now under arrest in Dresden for suspected murder. Husband Elwi Okaz is also in a critical condition in hospital, after being injured as he tried to save his wife. Ms Sherbini had sued her killer after he called her a “terrorist” because of her headscarf.

Sherbini, who was pregnant at the time, had sued and won the case. At this point in time they had been in the courthouse to hear Axel/Alex’s appeal.

According to CNN:

The man, identified in German media as Alex A., 28, was convicted of calling Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, “terrorist,” “bitch” and “Islamist” when she asked him him to leave a swing for her 3-year-old son Mustafa during an August 2008 visit to a children’s park.

Subsequently, Sherbini sued W. for his Islamophobic rant.

Christian Avenarius, the prosecutor in Dresden where the incident took place, described the killer as driven by a deep hatred of Muslims. “It was very clearly a xenophobic attack of a fanatical lone wolf.”

He added that the attacker was a Russian of German descent who had immigrated to Germany in 2003 and had expressed his contempt for Muslims at the start of the trial.

The Islamophobic and racist nature of the attack is clear. If one follows the events as reported by the media, it appears clear that this man was driven by a hate of Muslims. He initially referred to her in Islamophobic ways and was thus sued and lost. He then attacked her again, though the nature of the attack is unclear, which resulted in prosecutors seeking a jail term for W. He then murdered Sherbini in the courtroom, yelling “[y]ou have no right to live.”

The Hijab Martyr

Sherbini is being hailed by many Egyptians, as well as others, as the “Hijab Martyr” as she lost her life because she was Muslim, a part of her identity made obvious by her hijab.

Newspapers in Egypt have expressed outrage at the case, asking how it was allowed to happen and dubbing Ms Sherbini “the martyr of the Hijab”.

- BBC News

Anger about Sherbini’s death smoldered online, as Twitterers and bloggers pushed the cause.

“She is a victim of hatred and racism,” tweeted Ghada Essawy, among many other Arab twitters and bloggers. Essawy called Sherbini “the martyr of the veil.”

- CNN

According to numerous interviews in Egyptian local papers with el-Sherbini family, the man who stabbed al-Sherbini used to accuse her of being a “terrorist,” and in one incident, he tried to take off her head scarf. Mourners at her funeral called her the “martyr of the head scarf.”

- Huffington Post

Some have stated that claiming her to be a hijab martyr is inappropriate as W. did not state that he hated her because of her hijab or that he killed her because of it. But what they forget is that the hijab is what made it obvious that she was Muslim. It is the hijab which led to the initial harassment. Had she not worn the hijab, perhaps she would not have faced Islamophobic comments. Additionally, Sherbini died defending her right to wear the hijab without fear of harassment as a result of it. Therefore, the term “hijab martyr” seems appropriate in this case. The hijab, in this case, serves to function as the proxy for being Muslim.

It’s about Egyptians, not Sherbini

As Maggie Michael of the Huffington Post mentions this story has received little attention in German and Western media. However, the attention that has been given to the case has focused on the anger Egyptians in Egypt, as well as other Muslims and Arabs, have felt over the case.

BBC News entitled their piece “Egypt mourns ‘headscarf martyr‘”. Additionally, they describe the murderer’s initial actions toward Sherbini as “insulting her religion” – an inaccurate statement, as W. insulted Sherbini herself, not her religion. Making such a statement skews the reality of the case and paints the story as the “Muslim angry over insult to Islam” trope. Stating this lie trivializes Sherbini’s very real experience of personal hate and Islamophobia. It diminishes W.’s hateful actions toward a Muslim woman. It ignores the fact that it was human being who was hurt, not a religion.

CNN reported “Egyptians angry over German court slaying“. The article focuses on the anger that many Egyptians are feeling as a result of the incident providing such quotes as

Many shouted hostile slogans against Germany and called for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to take a firm stand on the incident. Egypt’s grand mufti, Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, demanded the severest punishment to be issued against Alex A.

Berlin witnessed angry protests on Saturday, when hundreds of Arabs and Muslims demonstrated after a funeral prayer that called her killing an outrageous racist murder against Muslims.

The Guardian entitled their piece “Outrage over Muslim woman killed in court” and continued to explain

Many in her homeland were outraged by the attack and saw the low-key response in Germany as an example of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

…

“There is no God but God and the Germans are the enemies of God,” chanted mourners for 32-year-old Marwa el-Sherbini in Alexandria, where her body was buried.

“We will avenge her killing,” her brother Tarek el-Sherbini told the Associated Press by telephone from the mosque where prayers were being recited in front of his sister’s coffin. “In the west, they don’t recognise us. There is racism.”

The rage that many feel over her death is not just about the loss of an innocent life. But it also reflects an anger at the hate that many Muslims are facing around the world. Sherbini’s murder, and subsequent silence on the part of Germans, appears to demonstrate a disregard for the experiences and lives of Muslims. Therefore, although many could take those statements out of context and attribute them simply to “those angry Muslims”, one must consider that such anger is not just about Sherbini’s murder. It is about the complicity of many Western nations in Islamophobic beliefs and actions, and about the frustration of Muslims regarding this lack of respect for such traumatic experiences faced by Muslims living in Muslim minority countries.

From the Huffington Post:

A German Muslim group criticized government officials and the media for not paying enough attention to the crime.

“The incident in Dresden had anti-Islamic motives. So far, the reactions from politicians and media have been incomprehensibly meager,” Aiman Mazyek, the general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims, told Berlin’s Tagesspiegel daily.

Egyptian commentators said the incident was an example of how hate crimes against Muslims are overlooked in comparison to those committed by Muslims against Westerners. Many commentators pointed to the uproar that followed the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-born Islamic fundamentalist angry over one of his films criticizing the treatment of Muslim women.

Also from the Huffington Post:

“What we demand is just some attention to be given to the killing of a young innocent mother on the hands of fanatic extremist,” he wrote in his column.

An Egyptian blogger Hicham Maged, wrote “let us play the ‘What If’ game.”

“Just imagine if the situation was reversed and the victim was a Westerner who was stabbed anywhere in the world or _ God forbid _ in any Middle Eastern country by Muslim extremists,” he said.

Yes, imagine. The news would have spread like wildfire and all Muslims would be being condemned.

From  the articles, one would assume that it is only Egyptians and/or other Arabs and/or Muslims who are the ones outraged by this Islamophobic murder. And one could assume right. No outrage has poured out from Germans. No outrage from any other Western nations either.

It is here I will ask the same question asked of Muslims every time a Muslim some place in the world commits a crime. Where are the moderate Germans I ask? Where are the moderate Westerners? Where is their outrage at the acts of hate by one of their own? Why is the burden of being outraged at the actions of “one of our own” only placed on Muslims? Why can we not expect fellow Germans as complicit in some manner as all Muslims are assumed to be complicit?

We are thought to be one monolithic entity, barbaric to the point of being complicit in all acts of violence. White Westerners on the other hand are viewed as diverse, understood to not condone violence, therefore not required to express their condemnation of violent acts committed in their name. Of course they would not condone such violence, we are expected to believe. But Muslims, and other minority groups, are not given that luxury. We must prove that we condemn violence. Such condemnation of violence cannot be assumed or expected of us. We are after all barbarians, we are expected to believe.

And this leads to my next and final point.

The Lone Wolf

In one above quote W. is described as a lone wolf. In this Racialicious post regrading the shooting at the Holocaust museum, a discussion ensued in the comments section regarding the problems with painting a white supremacist criminal as a lone, crazy killer acting on his/her own. The fact is that such white supremacist beliefs and attitudes do not exist in a vacuum. They do not occur in isolation. They require nurturing and a complicit society. W.’s use of the terms “terrorist” and “Islamist” were not creations of his own imagination. The association of Muslims with terrorism and Islamism was not his creation. His hate of Muslims and derogatory views of Muslims were not his own creation, but rather a creation of the world he lives in. His actions were not that of a lone wolf, but rather of one living in a society full of Islamophobia. This of course does not shift the blame from him, but rather places his behavior in context and demonstrates how, when one is the powerful group in society, if not the world, then that power means a greater ability to perpetuate hateful views and to cause more damage as those words and actions become just another method of oppression.

Additionally, if one views this portrayal as the one lone criminal in contrast to the ways in which people of color, including Muslims of color, are portrayed as guilty by association, one sees the ways in which people of color are viewed as violent barbarians whereas white, non-Muslims as civilized individuals who would never condone violence.

Conclusion

Sherbini’s tragic murder has reminded us once again of the violent nature of Islamophobia and the lack of regard for a Muslim life. From the ways in which the media reports this tragedy, one would assume that Sherbini’s murder has disturbed only those who share her religion. Not many others have expressed any outrage. Even a “German government spokesman, Thomas Steg, said that if the attack was racist, the government ‘naturally condemns this in the strongest terms’ ” (emphasis mine). Although many more should be outraged, there seems to be a denial among those who have allowed for such hateful views of Muslims to perpetuate of the severity of this case.

Let’s hope she gets justice, Insha’Allah.

A recent anti-discrimination campaign in the Netherlands is using a poster of a hijabi, whose face is hidden behind the photo of a non-hijabi, as part of an advertising campaign to fight discrimination. The poster appears at bus stops, and says “Do you have to let yourself at home when going out?” At first, I was confused by what the poster meant. Was it saying that Muslim women who cover were hiding themselves or that Dutch society was making hijabis leave a part of their selves at home by pressuring them not to cover?

Image via Flickr.

After clicking on the link in the Flickr page where I saw the image of the poster, I concluded it was the latter. Using Google translate to help me understand the website, I discovered that the site was a website dedicated to fighting discrimination of all kinds in the Netherlands. In fact, the URL (”http://discriminatie.nl/”) actually means “discrimination”. The image of the hijabi hiding behind the photo of the non-hijabi that appears on the home page of the site is one of a few images done in a similar vein: a white woman whose face is hidden behind the photo a white man, a black man whose face is hidden behind the photo of a white man, and a gay couple with one of the men’s face hidden behind the photo of a woman.

I love the image of the hidden hijabi for two reasons. The first is that it comes from the Netherlands. The Islamophobia directed towards Muslims by Dutch society, as well as proposed ban on the burqa and niqab in other European countries, have been given extensive coverage in the media in recent years. Seeing an anti-discrimination ad campaign in the Netherlands featuring a Muslim woman is heartening to say the least, because it shows an attempt to truly embrace the diversity that exists in the Netherlands.

The second reason why I love this image is because it completely reverses the looker’s expectation of hijab. Instead of the hijab hiding some aspect of the woman, it is society’s pressure for conformity that is making the woman hide an aspect of herself. The discrimination that woman is receiving, which in turn is discouraging her from wearing hijab, is damaging to her, not her hijab. In fact, the hijab is given a role of liberator in the ad. By not discriminating against the woman for wearing hijab, by letting her wear it, we are liberating her to be who she wants to be in the public sphere. The ad stands out for me because of its simple imagery and symbolism.

The one critique I do have with the ad is that it can be ambiguous, as described in the introductory paragraph of the Flickr post. The ambiguity that can occur looking at the ad for the first time could lead some people to come away with the wrong message such as the idea that hijab is preventing the woman from being herself. This would obviously negate the actual intent of the ad. Still, it is a great ad and positive image of hijabis that is very welcomed.

Muslimah Media Watch thanks Zahed for the tip!

The state of Georgia, which just last year infamously jailed a woman for wearing a hijab in a courtroom, is now under controversy again: this time Georgia State University is discriminating against a former student and visiting instructor.

The start of the bullying began when Dr. Mary Stuckey, a senior faculty member in the communications department asked Slma Shelbayah, a GSU alum and former Arabic instructor, if she was carrying any bombs under her headscarf. This account breaks down the chain of events well, as described by Shelbayah and Dr. Dona Stewart, the head of GSU’s Middle East Institute.

Shelbayah was harassed with this question repeatedly before she filed a formal complaint with the Dean of College of Arts and Sciences, with the help of Dr. Stewart, the director of the Middle East Institute. Dr. Stewart claims she suffered immediate mistreatment that  “impaired her ability to fulfill federal grant commitments and harmed her career.”  That and the racist remarks against Shelbayah prompted her to resign, after investing 13 years at GSU.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution briefly covers the story here, running a summary of the complaint filed by Ms. Shelbayah and Dr. Stewart, along with a standard university spokesperson quote.

In this AP story Dr. Stewart describes Dr. Stuckey’s insults this way:

“What started as a series of unbelievable comments in public over a period of eight days back in August — basically calling her a terrorist — developed into attempts to remove her.”

I understand no one has been convicted, but I believe this story misses the point: regardless of who is at fault, the university did not respond to Shelbayah’s complaint with the attention it deserves in a post 9/11 Islamophobic America. Instead, as stated in the plaintiffs’ press release, the university retaliated when Dr. Stewart refused to participate in its anti-Muslim game:

“The dean’s office demanded that Dr. Stewart remove Ms. Shelbayah from her visiting instructor position, cancelled Ms. Shelbayah’s registration for her doctoral courses, and declared Ms. Shelbayah ineligible to lead a study abroad program to Egypt previously approved by the president of the university. Dr. Stewart refused to meet the dean’s demands, believing they violated Ms. Shelbayah’s constitutional rights and lacked due process. Dr. Stewart was subjected to numerous hostile comments and retaliatory actions.”

GSU’s discriminatory harassment policy defines discriminatory harassment as speech or conduct that:

is addressed directly to the individual or individuals whom it insults or stigmatizes and,

the speaker knows or reasonably should know would constitute “fighting words.” “Fighting words” are words, pictures, or other symbols that, by virtue of their form, are commonly understood to convey direct and visceral hatred or contempt for other human beings and would naturally tend to provoke acts of violence or imminent harm.

According to the EEOC, Dr. Stuckey insulted Shelbayah directly on more than one occasion by making references to her carrying bombs. There is no adult, let alone one educated in ideas of tolerance and diversity, who does not understand the weight of this insult.

It should be noted that Shelbayah’s initial response was to be passive. When the comments became unbearable, she took action. Even after she filed the complaint, she took the extra step to email to try to set things straight:

She wrote in a September 7 e-mail to the communications department chair, which was included in Stewart’s EEOC complaint, that “I want you to know that this incident has touched me personally on several levels, but in the end of it all, I feel that it has left me with more positive than negative! I feel that I’ve grown and developed through it all! I also want to say that Dr. Stuckey and I both feel that it has only brought us to a better understanding of each other and has also strengthened our relationship and connection with one another.”

Apparently Dr. Stuckey and university officials didn’t feel the same.  According to the Inside Higher Ed article,

“A day later the associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences informed Shelbayah that she could not remain a visiting instructor while also being a graduate student in the department of communications. Though she had been admitted into the Ph.D. program with the university’s full endorsement that she would also be a visiting instructor — and her previous office-mate had done both as well — she was told that unwritten policies disallowed such a practice, Shelbayah said.”

Universities should be the example of fair treatment for all people, regardless of sex, race or religion. Discrimination should never be tolerated, by its professors or its students. Universities should be the example of fair treatment for all people, regardless of sex, race or religion. The university must examine the way it deals with issues of race and religion especially since this is not the first lawsuit filed by a professor alleging discrimination.  Georgia State University owes Ms. Shelbayah and Dr. Stewart an apology.

In the Inside Higher Ed article, Dr. Stewart reflects the wisdom and maturity that tenured professors should have:

“As professors, we are in powerful positions,” said Stewart, who has been tenured since 2002 and worked at Georgia State since 1996. “We have an obligation not to abuse power, and in this case the professor clearly did that. I am simply not willing to sit by and watch this happen, and I’m shocked that our institution is willing to do so.”

So are we.

If you’d like to express your concern over this situation, you can contact President of Georgia State University Mark Becker at (404) 413-1300 or mbecker@gsu.edu, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Lauren Adamson (ladamson@gsu.edu).

I saw this on Bitch magazine’s blog. Kjerstin Johnson posted a great takedown of Dina Goldstein’s “Fallen Princesses” series for JP Magazine, which basically uses Disney princesses and puts them in “modern day scenarios.”

Part VI of Fallen Princesses series: Princess Jasmine. Image via JPG Magazine.

• Afghan Shi’as rallied for the passing of the women’s law in Kabul.

• A widow and several other men and women in Bangladesh were whipped according to a women and children repression prevention act.

• The BBC highlights two sisters who design couture abayas in Dubai. More here. Via Hijab Style.

• A Moroccan woman is Spain’s first Swine flu death. Via Islam in Europe.

• A statement from members of the women’s movement in Iran.

• Bahrain offers women no protection from marital rape.

• Muslim workers in the Philippine Department of Heath are allowed to wear headscarves. More here.

• More reactions on Sarkozy’s Burqa Saga: Islam Online, Feministing, Dawn, The National, The Independent, Al Qaeda, NPR, The Huffington Post, Mona El Tahawy, the Washington Post, and KABOBfest.

• On feminism and Iran’s civil unrest.

• Sumbul Ali-Karamali writes about the negative images of Muslim women brought on by recent media.

• Saudi women welcome Farah Pandith as the U.S. appointment to “Special Representative to Muslim Communities.”

• On sexual harassment in Egypt.

• Bloomberg.com writes about Iranian women and business.

• After two schools ban headscarves in Antwerp, Belgium, Muslims protest.

• A group of Australian Muslim women are behind an animated film about Muslim women.

• AltMuslimah launches a photo campaign.

• Some top Western designers give the abaya a makeover.

• Latoya Peterson writes about how Iranian women have been portrayed in the media recently.

• A girl and three family members were murdered in Charsadda, Pakistan. May Allah give them peace and justice.

• A divorce reminiscent of the Home Alone movies.

• An Afghan woman’s shop defies local mores.

• A Norwegian imam plans to publish a book showing that female genital cutting is incompatible with Islam.

• The Indonesian presidential race is disappointing local women activists.

• What U.S. troop withdrawal may mean for Iraqi women.

• A CIA official has been charged with assault of an Algerian woman.

• The story of a design studio and a Muslim women’s association.

• On honor killing in Gaza.

• Syria has removed a law that limits sentences on men convicted of honor killing.

• Feministe critiques Richard Bernstein’s The East, the West, and Sex.

• Another review of The Stoning of Soraya M.

• epiphanies introduces us to The Khadija Project.

• Nuseiba reviews Stolen.

• The dentist who refused service to patients who didn’t wear headscarves faces a ban.

• A woman was stabbed outside a courtroom in Germany. May Allah give her peace and justice.

• Guernica magazine interviews Fatima Bhutto.

• A Muslim women was harassed for her headscarf at Georgia State University. More here and here. We’ll have more next week.

• Islam Online profiles Mahinur Ozdemir, the first Belgian woman to wear a headscarf in parliament.

This is a slightly edited version of an article written by Sahar, which originally appeared at Nuseiba. You can also read Yusra’s take on the debates.

Recently, I saw the Doha Debates, which is a show that debates controversial political, social and religious issues.  Journalist and mediator Tim Sebastian proposes a motion and the speakers on the panel discuss the topic at length. The audience then has an opportunity to respond to the panel. The latest motion proposed: “This house believes that Muslim women should be free to marry anyone they choose.”

There were four speakers on the panel. For the motion there was American Muslim feminist Asra Nomani, who has authored several books. Also for the motion, there was Dr. Muhammad Habash, a member of parliament and a cleric. Against the motion were Shaykh Yasir Qadhi and Dr. Thuraya Al Arrayed, a Saudi writer, columnist and member of the advisory board of the Arab Thought Foundation.

Nomani began the debate with an emotional tone, declaring that Muslim women face barriers and that “just about every Muslim woman” encounters these barriers and internalizes them, and that she does not have the right to choose when it comes to marriage. She then directly addresses Muslim women and reassures them that she doesn’t wish that they suffer forced or loveless marriages.

With the way Nomani is carrying on, you’d think she was convinced she was shaking the very sheltered world of Muslim women. Apparently, we’re not aware of our rights!  In her self-aggrandizement, Nomani homogenizes Muslim women’s experiences and assumes that every Muslim woman has had the same experience as her. That yes, we are all doomed to the same fate.

True, there are Muslim women like Nomani who marry either through some sort of coercion or just to keep their family happy–I also agree with her point that these women will be the ones who share their bed with their husbands at the end. However, Nomani seems to think that these experiences are the experiences of the vast majority of Muslim women–where we are helpless beings who are victims of our community and our imposing families, who Nomani assumes don’t want the best for us. She thus undermines the importance of family within the context of Muslim marriage.  I’m not saying women have to follow the decisions of their families, but many women and men will be thinking that family does matter in many of the decisions we make for ourselves, including marriage.  In other words, choice comes with responsibility and it  does at times mean we consider everything, not just ourselves.

Nomani’s entire argument is predicated on a particular construction of the Muslim woman which she deploys to legitimize her claim: she is just chattel, in shackles, and silenced by her subjugation. Nomani belittles the minds of Muslim women because she assumes they lack agency of their own and cannot comprehend their supposed suffering.  In doing so, Nomani constructs herself as their savior, the enlightened one who recognizes their oppression– the liberal light at the end of this oppressive dark tunnel that is their unfortunate experience.

I found it interesting that Nomani’s extremely liberal position was juxtaposed with the other Muslim woman, who was opposed to the motion.  Dr. Al Arrayed opposes the motion because she believes that anyone 27 and under bases their decisions on physical attraction and that they are not responsible enough to be making important decisions like this– so the role of the family is essential.  Her simplistic position is mired by her lack of faith in young Muslim women and their responsible attitude to such issues like marriage—which a woman in the audience pointed out.  However, I do agree with Dr.  Al Arrayed’s overall point that family is important in these decisions and it is dangerous to deny this reality because it could lead to women being isolated.

What was interesting is the issue of children did not come up in the debate. For me, my decision to marry a Muslim man is affirmed when it comes to the faith of my children. I would not want my children to belong to any other faith but Islam. Keep in mind, this is not only an issue women who marry non-Muslims have to face but also men who do.

Supporting the motion, Dr. Habash begins his defense declaring there is no compulsion in religion and so we should extend this to marriage, too (I think he was a little confused with his position and often would agree with the opposing side). However, no compulsion in religion does not mean a Muslim shouldn’t abide by the laws of her religion—she has the choice not to, of course, but if she wishes to practice her religion, there are certain rules and practices that need to be followed as part of worship.  Sure, a Muslim woman can marry who she wants, but the question here is, is there religious justification for this unlimited freedom?  Dr. Habash refers to the hadith of when the Prophet was approached by a woman who told him of how she was forced to marry but later agreed with her father’s decision. The Prophet then told her he’ll absolve the marriage but she assured him she was now happy in her marriage but wanted to let women know that the father has no right to do such a thing which the Prophet agreed.  Habash takes from this hadith the principle that women should be able to choose who she should marry, regardless of the faith of the person. However, as Shaykh Qadhi points out, we cannot be selective with our religion because Habash is ignoring what Islam has to say about a woman marrying a non-Muslim.

As I listened to Nomani’s concern over the depressing fate of Muslim women, I thought, why isn’t she mentioning the importance of recognizing cultural ideas and customs that have infiltrated how we conceptualise and perceive Islam? Her analysis was simple: Muslim women are downtrodden; there was no attempt to contextualise and understand this further.  To compensate for Nomani’s reductive observation, Shaykh Qadhi and Dr. Al Arrayed point out that yes, there are women who are oppressed in our communities in the name of religion, but Islam is not responsible for any oppression that occurs, rather it is cultural and tribal prejudice which justify oppressive practices. These practices are the antithesis to Islam’s principles of equality and justice which are protected in its law. Importantly, Shaykh Qadhi explains how  this is not a problem of the uneducated In our community but those who have committed themselves to the study of religion, who may consciously or unconsciously introduce their own cultural prejudice that affects how they view Islam. This was imperative to the debate I thought because of the dichotomy that Nomani was desperately trying to establish.

Nomani posited herself as the liberal defender of Muslim women against the oppressive religious leadership that Shaykh Qadhi—with his long beard (as opposed to the more subtle beard of Habash) represented.  When Shaykh Qadhi objected to her removal of any boundaries and warned that limitations are a part of our religion, she would turn to the audience and say “that is their interpretation” in her attempt to marginalize him. In fact, she was well prepared for this response and early on in the debate warned of the theological arguments that she claimed lay the barriers for women.

Shaykh Qadhi undermined this false dichotomy in pointing out that there are elements of the religious establishment who are tainted by cultural understandings and that we should resist this. However, Nomani wasn’t interested in hearing a shaykh criticize women’s oppression in our community— that was simply not the role Nomani had decided for him.

In the end, the motion was passed (62%). I was actually surprised, but Shaykh Qadhi explains in his piece on the debate that it was likely to be because of the vagueness of the motion which stressed freedom to choose rather than Shariah ruling on the issue.  But the fact that these kinds of discussions are taking place between Muslims (both men and women)  is a step forward in providing a space to discuss issues that impact on the lives of Muslim women.

This was written by Elise Auerbach and originally published on Human Rights Now, the Amnesty International USA blog.

Ordinarily, human rights activists would be pleased when the rare major motion picture shining a light on human rights violations comes along. In fact, aside from documentaries, it is very unusual to see issues that Amnesty International has worked on appear on film. However, sometimes a film can so distort an important human rights issue, that it may do more harm than good to the cause.

Sadly, this is the case with the new movie opening this Friday, The Stoning of Soraya M, the purportedly true story of the brutal execution by stoning of an innocent Iranian village woman. For one thing, the film is marked by crude story-telling: the main character Soraya is merely a mutely suffering victim while her brutish husband, who falsely accuses her of adultery so that he can marry a teen-aged girl, is a cardboard caricature of evil and malice. More importantly, aside from the numerous inaccuracies and implausibilities, the climax of the film—a bloody and prolonged stoning scene with villagers mercilessly pelting the victim—is so sensationalized that the audience response is likely to be disgust and revulsion at Iranians themselves, who are portrayed as primitive and blood-thirsty savages.

The film is presented as an indictment of Iranian society as a whole, and the setting—a remote rural village of about 25 years ago—is presented as typical of contemporary Iran. In the film, the victim’s aunt (who though she is supposed to be an ignorant village woman, inexplicably speaks excellent English and smokes cigarettes with 1940s femme fatale flourishes) is eager to have the French-Iranian journalist, who stops in the village shortly after the incident, smuggle a tape of her relating the story out of the village. She states that she wants the whole world to know what happened there, presumably so that those on the outside (the west?) can rescue the benighted Iranian people from their barbaric practices.

In fact, Iranians themselves—and in particular Iranian women’s rights activists– have organized and carried out a vigorous campaign against the practice of stoning and have themselves been actively documenting the practice. Opposition to the practice occurs at the highest level of the Iranian legal system; the Head of the Iranian Judiciary announced a moratorium on stoning back in 2002 and it was reiterated in August 2008. Sadly, at least three people have been executed by stoning since then. Interestingly, all three were men.

By criticizing the film, I am not dismissing the importance of the issue. Amnesty International issued a major report on stoning in January 2008, in which it is described how this form of execution is prescribed for adultery—although in practice, it is usually adultery in conjunction with some other crime, such as being an accessory to the murder of a husband. Furthermore stonings are carried out in prison yards by government agents, not by members of the community.

Crucially, we must look at stoning in the overall context of executions in Iran. Stonings represent a tiny fraction of executions in that country. Iran executes more people than any other country in the world except for China. In 2008 it executed at least 346, the overwhelming majority of whom were executed by hanging, sometimes for politically motivated offenses, and often after flawed legal proceedings. But again, Iranians don’t need people from outside Iran telling them what is good for them because Iranians themselves have taken the lead in opposing executions in their country. The renowned Iranian human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi was recently awarded the prestigious Martin Ennals award, partially for his anti-death penalty activism.

I would urge those who really want to see important social issues in Iran critically examined should check out some of the great films made in Iran such as A Time for Drunken Horses, which deals with poverty among Iran’s Kurdish minority, The Day I Became a Woman and As Simple As That, about the frustrations experienced by women in Iran, and Santoori, which deals with drug addiction.

An accurate and thoughtful film about executions in Iran would be welcome, but we will still have to wait as the Stoning of Soraya M is not it.