Suraiya Tabassum is a Delhi-based researcher and is actively involved in Muslim women’s issues. She is the author of ‘Waiting for the New Dawn: Muslim Women’s Perceptions of Muslim Personal Law and its Practices’ (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 2004). In this interview with Yoginder Sikand she speaks about her work.

Q: How did you get involved in working on Muslim women’s issues?

A: After finishing my Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, I joined the Indian Social Institute, Delhi, as a researcher in the Institute’s women’s unit, which is where I worked on a project on Muslim women’s perceptions of Muslim Personal Law, which has now been published as a book. Actually, the research director of the Indian Social Institute, Dr. Fernando Franco, asked me to take up this project. Initially, I was hesitant to do so. Some of my friends cautioned me not to take it up. They said I was too young to speak about such a complicated subject. However, my father insisted that I should go ahead. He said that this was something that I owed to the community. And that is how I started reading the available literature on Islamic law.

Q: How do you think your research can influence policy making or social attitudes?

A: This is a question that I always ask myself. How are the people whom I study, who give me so much of their time and love and who relate to me their stories, going to benefit from my writings? Generally, what happens is that social scientists produce voluminous tomes that gather dust on the shelves of libraries and do not make any impact on society. The problem is how to make academic work influence social reality, how to produce literature that is geared to social change. I have received some positive responses to my book, but I will not say it has been successful unless it actually helps usher in the “New Dawn” that the title of the book refers to.

Q: What are the main arguments of the book?

A: The book looks at how Muslim women themselves perceive Muslim Personal Law. It highlights the fact that some aspects of the Muslim Personal Law, as it exists today in India, are not a true reflection of the intention of the Quran. For instance, unrestricted polygamy or triple divorce in one sitting. I have also tried to show that despite the fact that the Quran provides a range of rights to Muslim women, many Muslim women are simply unaware of these.

Q: What are your views on the Muslim Personal Law Board, which sees itself as the sole authority in these matters?

A: I respect the ‘ulama on the Board, but I must say that, in some ways, the Board has not been fair to women. It is no use simply proclaiming that Islam provides adequate rights to women and not do anything to stop the flagrant violation of women’s rights in the name of Islam. At the same time, I must also say that the whole issue of Muslim women’s oppression is often sensationalised in the press out of ulterior motives. For instance, while many non-Muslims imagine that Muslims are rampantly polygamous, in my sample size of 1003 Muslim families I found only two cases of polygamous marriages. I also found that some non-Muslims convert to Islam simply to contract a second marriage and after that go back to their previous religion. I think such misuse of religion must be banned. But, on the issue of Muslim Personal Law, I think reforms cannot be imposed from outside. In order to gain general acceptance in the community they have to come from within. For this the ‘ulama, including those associated with the Board, have to come forward with a gender-sensitive understanding and interpretation of Islam and Islamic laws. But I do not see that happening on the scale that it should.

Q: What steps do you think that the Board or the ‘ulama in general should take in this regard?

A: I think many more women should be represented on the Board. If today we are talking about 33% reservation for women in parliament, what is the problem in having an adequate number of women on the Board, especially since many of the decisions taken by the Board directly impact on the lives of Muslim women?

Q: It is sometimes argued that the Board’s perceived reluctance to any change in Muslim Personal Law stems, at root, from a fear that this might result in doing away with separate personal laws altogether. Do you agree?

A. Well, as I see it, the legacy of Partition and the consequent insecurity among Muslims in India in general has led to an immense identity crisis, the fear that others are all out to destroy Muslim identity. But then by not discussing these vital issues and refusing to dialogue on them we are only further compounding the problem. We have to learn how to adjust in a religiously plural society. Of course, the responsibility for this lies not only with the Muslims, but also with the state and other communities. I do not see it impossible or difficult for the different communities to live together in peace while maintaining their own identities.

Q: How do see the role of the women who are at present members of the Board?

A: Some of these women do highlight women’s rights and concerns, but, on the whole, the women are controlled and marginalised by the male-dominated Board. As a result, they cannot effectively assert themselves and their views are often not heard. In any case, all the women on the Board have been nominated, not elected. Naturally, this filters out women who would be seen as “too” vocal.

I think what the Board, and Muslim society in general, needs is to develop gender-sensitive understandings of Islam. Without this, the mere addition of women to the Board will not make much difference.

Q: What exactly do you mean by a gender-sensitive understanding of Islam?

A: The point I want to make is that women’s rights are basic human rights, and these have to be protected. As I see it, the Quran speaks about the fundamental equality of women and men. However, the vast majority of Muslim women in India have little or no knowledge of their Quranic rights. The Board should do something about this, because at the grassroots it is almost invisible. It needs to make both men and women aware of the Quranic rights of women. It also needs to speak out openly against the practice of triple talaq in one sitting, which hangs like a sword above many women’s heads, and which is sought to be justified by numerous ulama. It is pointless seeking to deny the existence of the problem by claiming that Islam provides adequate rights to women. The very real problems of Muslim women have to be recognised. Take, for instance, the question of dowry. Now, this custom is “un-Islamic”, but it is widespread among Muslims. We need a flurry of fatwas against dowry, but I do not see that happening.

Q: What do you feel about the Board’s stance on a model nikah namah (marriage contract)?

A: After much pressure the Board has begun speaking about the need for such a contract. I think it is a good sign, because at least in this way the rights of the wife will be clearly spelled out. I mean, you have nikah namahs in some parts of the country that provide intricate details of the various responsibilities that a wife owes her husband, that she cannot talk to any man without his permission and so on, and so a model nikah namah would certainly be a step forward. I have seen the model nikah namah prepared by the Islamic Fiqh Academy, Delhi, and I think it is a good document to start with. But the problem remains of how to get the various schools of thought to come to a consensus. And, then, even if the Board approves of a standard nikah namah, how is it going to ensure that the maulvis and qazis at the local level are going to accept it?

Q: How do you think that Muslim academics like you can intervene in the debate and help make a difference?

A: I think we need to dialogue with the ulama, not oppose them. There is absolutely no forum for such dialogue, as a result of which there exists such a wide gulf between us and them that we do not understand each other. When you speak to several ulama in private they tell you, yes, things are bad, triple talaq in one sitting is wrong, it is a biddat or wrongful innovation and men misuse the freedom of polygamy sometimes. But when they speak in public they keep silent, fearing, perhaps, that if they spoke their minds it would undermine their own authority.

When we were young we felt that the ulama were somehow different, because of their knowledge of religion. We stayed away from them because we did not want to be dictated to. But now I feel that we have to dialogue with them if we are to bring about the social change that we are working for. We need to learn from them, and also make them aware of social reality.

Q: To come back to a point that you made earlier about gender-just understandings of Islamic law. Do you see any signs of that emerging from the madrasas?

A: There are today a number of writers who are indeed arguing for gender justice from within a broad Islamic paradigm. However, I do not see this sort of perspective emerging from the madrasas as such. On the whole, the madrasas remain cut off from the world, and their students and teachers have little knowledge of what is happening in the wider society. Students are taught mainly fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence, as formulated in the different mazhabs or schools in the early medieval ages. They have little or no knowledge of contemporary social realities. For this I think the teaching of modern social sciences must be introduced in the madrasas. Learning fiqh is valuable, but it must also go along with knowledge of social reality in order to render fiqh formulations relevant. You have to see what the reality of women’s lives is today and then develop perspectives accordingly. It just cannot be done in a sociological vacuum. And for this you need many more empirically grounded studies of Muslim women. It serves little purpose to talk about women’s rights, whether in the Indian Constitution or in Islamic jurisprudence, if these are not observed in reality.

Q: In recent years a number of girls’ madrasas have come up in different parts of India. Do you see them playing an important role in developing gender-just understandings of Islam?

A: I think girls’ madrasas are a good thing, in a sense. At least in this way girls will gain an understanding of the Quran for themselves. Who knows, they may even go on to challenge deeply rooted patriarchal understandings of religion. However, I think that many of these girls’ madrasas do not teach Islamic law from the perspective of gender justice. Their understanding is still within the framework of a patriarchal structure. The stress is more on the duties of a wife, and the Quranic message of gender equality is generally missed out.

I think one major problem in this regard is that almost none of the available texts that are used in the madrasas and are also widely read by the general public are written by women themselves. Almost all the books I have seen on Islam and women have been written by men. I think women writers can offer a very different perspective, as indeed some Muslim women scholars in other countries have done. I cannot think of more than a handful of women in India who write on Islam. Sadly, the community does not think that they are mature enough to do so. That is why I feel more Muslim women should begin studying the Quran themselves. I see that as leading to new possibilities for developing gender-sensitive understandings of Islam and Islamic law.

Suraiya Tabassum can be contacted at suraiya@ifesindia.org
Yoginder Sikand can be contacted at ysikand@islaminterfaith.org
This article first appeared on www.islaminterfaith.org