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Claiming Our
Rights: A Manual for Women's Human Rights Education in Muslim Societies
"The spirit of Islam is
egalitarian. We can have a life of civility, of plurality, that is respectful of
the religion and draws on it." Barbara Crossette reports on an "Islam-based
and not threatening" manual on women's rights.
For several years, an informal
group of Muslim women from around the world has met to spur discussion among
Muslims everywhere about the rights of women. Now, with the shadow of a
repressive Islamic regime in Afghanistan hovering over the debate, the group has
produced a manual on the rights of women under Islam.
Intended to be adaptable to a wide
range of cultures at the grass-roots level, the new publication, "Claiming
Our Rights: A Manual for Women's Human Rights Education in Muslim
Societies," will be tested over the next year in five very different
countries: Bangladesh, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Uzbekistan.
The plan is to assemble discussion
groups to exchange ideas on the subject. There has already been a quiet trial
run among a group of university women in Iran.
"There is a great change in
self-awareness among women in Muslim societies," said Mahnaz Afkhami,
executive director of the Sisterhood Is Global Institute, a private organization
based in Bethesda, Md.
Ms. Afkhami directed the effort on
the manual, which the institute produced with the help of the National Endowment
for Democracy and the Ford Foundation.
Sometimes at great risk to
themselves, women are making gains, though frequently small and fragile. But
developments like the introduction of more egalitarian family laws in North
Africa often go unnoticed, Ms. Afkhami said, because militants and
fundamentalists dominate contemporary images of Islam.
"This very
sound-bite-friendly Islamicist movement doesn't allow the other side to be
heard," she said in an interview. "But women are often the center of
debate, even in Iran."
Ms. Afkhami, who was minister for
women's affairs in the government of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammed Riza
Pahlevi, has strong critics among Islamic women because of that. And she is
aware that promoting women's rights from a base outside the Muslim world
attracts the criticism that the campaign is Western and alien.
"We are not
confrontational," she said. "Our manual is Islam-based and not
threatening. Our hope is that we can get people to engage in dialogue."
The manual on women's rights in
Islam -- which is being published in Arabic, Bengali, Malay, Persian and Uzbek
as well as English -- contains instructions for conducting grass-roots
discussions. It also includes sometimes provocative passages from the Koran --
like those about a husband's punishment of an "ill-behaved" wife --
and the Hadith, the often-disputed collection of teachings of the Prophet
Mohammed as recorded by religious leaders centuries later.
Juxtaposed are texts of major
international agreements on human rights, particularly women's rights, which
many Muslim nations have signed.
The book briefly profiles four
women it calls "the first heroines of Islam": two wives of Mohammed;
his daughter Fatima, and Zainab, the sister of a Shiite leader who went into
battle and successfully pleaded with a victorious enemy to spare her brother's
life in defeat.
There is also a sampling of Arab
proverbs about women, a bibliography, and the names, addresses and telephone and
fax numbers of women's rights groups throughout the Islamic world.
Women who contributed to the
manual brought a range of experiences to bear, Ms. Afkhami said. In Bangladesh,
where grass-roots women's groups are strong and women are well represented in
politics, there is an interest in more sophisticated political training at the
local level.
In Uzbekistan, women are concerned
that the process of sloughing off the Soviet system could allow the adoption of
a fundamentalist order in the name of Uzbek nationalism, with the consequent
loss of the considerable rights Muslim women enjoyed under communism.
In Malaysia, where the equality of
women has been fostered by the government, several women's organizations are
engaged in scholarly revision of traditional Muslim laws and practices to make
them more relevant to the times. Islamic militancy has been largely
marginalized.
"Give women rights, let them
participate -- that's the lesson of Malaysia," Ms. Afkhami said. "The
spirit of our religion is egalitarian. We can have a life of civility, of
plurality, that is respectful of the religion and draws on it."
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