Thoughts on the Conference on Islamic Law in the West

On Friday and Saturday I attended a conference on Islamic Law and the West held at the Washington College of Law. The list of speakers included Dr.Umar Faruq Abdullah, Dr. Mohammad Fadel, and Dr. M. Shahid Alam. The introductory panel consisted of an interesting, if basic, introduction to the categories used in Islamic Law (Dr. Fadel), an analysis of Islamic Constitutionalism with reference to the ideas of Abdul-Karim Sourush (Intisar Rabb), and an account of the recent attempt to provide alternative, religiously based arbitration in Ontario (Jasmin Zine). Dr. Abdullah presented the keynote address on "Muslims in the Mainstream" where he recounted something of the history of Islam in America and suggested tipping points to increase our political capital and counteract mainstream media demonization of Islam and Muslims.

The next day saw a panel on Islam and Violence. I was captivated by the speech of Dr. Alam; he spoke a truth which needed to be proclaimed in an elite college like American University. His primary thesis was that the threat of terror has been greatly exaggerated in order to scare the American people into agreement with draconian government policies and to manipulate public opinion about which forms of resistance are legitimate. He detailed how the discourse of violence has succeeded in delegitimizing liberation struggles around the world and how talk of violence is primarily concerned with means and not results. He pointed out that the institutionalized violence which has resulted from the attempts of Neo-Liberal organizations such as the World Bank and WTO to enforce their economic policies on the global South has killed more people (many more) than terrorism has. I suggest downloading the podcast or the video for this discussion; Dr. Alam's delivery was remarkable, charismatic, and engrossing. I was moved to by his book and have found it quite a good read.

The last panel, on Islam and Gender Politics, was definitely the most controversial. On the one hand, I agree with the speakers about the need for increasing participation by female 'Ulema in the process of developing Fiqh, especially where Women's issues are concerned. Misogynistic and gynophobic practices such as 'honor' killing need to be stopped and the judiciary made to prosecute the perpetrators. I disagree, however, with the attitude which pervaded the discussion. Overall, it was rather defeatist; it either assumed that the West is right about the 'oppression' of women in Islam or it tied concrete matters of Islamic Law, such as the laws of inheritance, into the specific society in which they were revealed. While context is incredibly important in matters of Fiqh, issues such as inheritance are not left solely to the discretion of the jurist; the core of these laws is enshrined in the Qur'an itself. Rather than abandon them because they cause us difficulties (or embarrass us in front of our Western neighbors), we must ponder the hikmah behind their institution and work to create a society where they can implemented justly. The laws were revealed in part to maintain economic balance in a society where the men were given the responsibility to care for three generations: their children, their unmarried female siblings in the absence of parents, and their parents in old age. Women are absolved of these financial responsibilities. There is a balance here. While men get gross more under this system, they also have many others who have share in their wealth; a women's property is hers and hers alone: it is not required that she spend it on anyone, not even her children. This is not simply an archaic social system; there is a wisdom behind it. This system allows for bringing up of the next generation and for the care of the preceding one on the basis of natural ties of affection and of an Islamic sense of duty to one's Creator. The drive for filthy lucre which dominates Western thought on these matters and which has created a generation eager to dump their parents in 'retirement' homes and their children into the arms of the state and the television is altogether absent. It also recognizes the value of women's work in the home, a value which cannot be reduced to a dollar value. They are therefore free to keep what property they have earned (and to earn more at her discretion) without being burdened with additional responsibilities beyond those of caring for her children (Housework such as cooking and cleaning is, from what I have read, actually the husband's responsibility).

This can be usefully contrasted with the position of women in the west, where until recently a wife became subsumed into the legal entity of her husband, where her property became his property, and where the husband felt entitled to extract as much work from her as he could get. With the onset of the industrial revolution women were, in addition to the indignities already mentioned, forced to deal with new challenges: in addition to what was demanded from them in the home they were forced by the poverty created by capitalism to work in the factories in horrendous conditions, subject to the perverted desires of their male supervisors and bosses who wielded near total control over them. The liberation of women has very much been the liberation of women to work, to add to the value of accumulating capital. Women are the oppressed of the oppressed, forced to slave under tyrants in both the factory and the home, adding value to capital in one and rearing the next brood of workers in the other. Even the increasing penetration of women into managerial positions has an economic underpinning; who better to complete the exploitation of women but women? Who knows better how to most thoroughly and efficiently derive the maximum economic benefit from having women in the labor force and consumer base?

Islam is founded on struggle. We should not simply accept existing political, social, and economic realities; we should endeavor to change them. The talk of rights is very often a guise for "that single, unconscionable freedom- Free Trade"(Marx); there are profound structural injustices and systems of exploitation waiting to be imposed upon Muslim women in the name of liberation. Conversely, much talk of establishing Islam reduces to a desire to institute a hand full of Hudd punishments and call it a day. Neither of these alternatives is acceptable; we must evolve our own discourse of liberty within community, guided by our understanding of the texts revealed by All-Mighty Allah (SWT) and founded upon a vision which embraces all aspects of personal and communal life: familial, social, cultural, political, and economic. This latter part has been horribly neglected; we hear right and left calls for establishing Islam as a social order but very little is done to establish this order on a solid, halal economic foundation. What good is it to on occasion stone or flog someone in the interests of promoting public order if that very order is established on exploitative and unjust economic practices and institutions? How can you establish a halal superstructure on a haram economic base? Until these economic issues are resolved, and they will only be resolved through great thought and struggle, any attempt to establish Islam culturally or socially will fail. Attempts at political reform or revolution will be mere window dressing if the economic base isn't remade according "Islamic concepts of 'adl and Ihsan"(Dr. Alam). I pray that Allah (SWT) grants this generation the capacity to succeed at this economic refoundation which the Ummah so desperately needs. Ameen.