THE question of women’s rights in Islam has become more pertinent in our time because literacy and higher education have significantly increased among women, as have urbanisation and the pressures exerted by it.

Women are no longer prepared to accept their position as ‘the second sex’, as the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir put it in the last century. Women today are very conscious of their rights and they rightfully demand gender parity in all fields.

Muslim women are far behind their counterparts in other world communities; they are more subjugated to men’s will than women in other faith-traditions. Muslim women arguably suffer more because of Sharia rules whose interpretation is projected as ‘divine’ and ‘immutable’ which it is not. This illusion persists among Muslims (men and women) perhaps only because Sharia is based on the Quran and hadith.

What few people realise is that Sharia, though based on the Quran and hadith, is in fact based on the interpretation of the Quran (and hadith), and interpretation is human while the Quranic text is divine. This human interpretation of the divine text has all along been done by men and hardly by any women. Even when some women attempted it, the overwhelming authority has been that of men. I meet many women educated in women’s madressahs today, who fully justify all such interpreted Sharia rules and accept their secondary position in society.

This situation can be balanced perhaps if more women scholars interpreted the Quran. The Quran indeed gives equal rights to women unambiguously (2:228). Thus, when women interpret the Quran from their perspective, they would benefit from the rights given to them by the Holy Book. In some cases problems also arise because Quranic verses have been interpreted in the light of certain ahadith; ahadith also need to be critically examined.

The science of hadith was developed by the muhaddessin (those who specialise in the science of hadith), which entirely depends on the narrator. The authenticity of a hadith depends on the character of narrator, not on his/her intellectual capacity or ideological position towards women. Also, in some cases even if a hadith apparently contradicts a Quranic formulation it may be accepted as long as it fulfils other criteria. Thus, it will be seen that riwayat (narration of text) is held as more important than dirayat (i.e. intellectual criteria) by traditional theologians.

This is precisely why the Quran was perhaps so interpreted in a male-dominated and feudal society to subject women to men’s overriding authority. The Quranic positions and unambiguous formulations for equality of men and women were considerably diluted in such formulations. One of the key values of the Quran, namely, adl (justice), became secondary when it came to women’s rights.

Quranic verses on polygamy or nushuz (rebellion by women, 4:34) were so interpreted, especially with the help of ahadith, that their real meaning and intent were lost and social ethos prevailed over divine intent. Even the verses on talaq (divorce) were interpreted by some to justify triple divorce in one sitting. Thus, the verses on polygamy and divorce were so interpreted to subject women to men’s overriding authority.

There is a great need for women theologians in Islam who can read and interpret the Quran. Some men like Maulavi Mumtaz Ali Khan, who was one of the colleagues of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, did excellent work in the 19th century to advocate gender equality, based on his interpretation of Islam. His book Huququn Niswan is an excellent work published in early 1890s. Another such theologian in the 20th century was Maulana Umar Ahmad Usmani, who was a graduate from Darul Uloom (before he migrated to Pakistan), and a great advocate of gender equality. He named his book – quite significantly – Fiqh al-Quran because his understanding of the Quran is not based on hadith literature; he depends for his formulations only on the Quran.

Recently some women scholars were making efforts to understand the Quran from their own perspective. Fatima Mernissi of Morocco and Amina Wudud and others have done excellent work interpreting the Quran from independent scholarly perspectives. Also, from the US, one scholar, Laleh Bakhtiar, has translated the Quran into English from a feminist perspective. She calls it ‘inclusive’ as against others’ ‘exclusive’ translations. But all this is not sufficient though quite important. More and more women theologians should come forward and interpret the Quran. It is not easy to challenge the corpus of literature on the Quran for the last 1,300-1,400 years. This is necessary to restore to women the rights they lost to men under a feudal social ethos.

The writer is an Islamic scholar and heads the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai.

THERE are, broadly speaking, two types of intellectuals in our society. There are the ones who support and defend established traditions, customs and practices because they believe in continuity and, hence, oppose any disruption which might cause confusion and chaos. They argue that any change in the political or social structure is subversive and destabilises a well-established society.

Therefore, they support the status quo, which in their opinion provides peace, harmony and security to people. With this commitment and point of view, they are on the side of the establishment. As defenders of continuity, they are patronised by the ruling classes and are given access to the state and private media. Their writings are included in curricula to influence the minds of the young generation. Their services are acclaimed from time to time and in recognition of their services they are awarded titles and cash by the government.

In the second category are those intellectuals who oppose obsolete traditions and want to initiate a process for social and political change in society. However, they have to pay a high price for their views. It becomes difficult for them to have access to the media to present their ideas freely. Their books are either censored or banned.

They are condemned as enemies of the state and agents of foreign countries. All doors to employment are closed to them. There is such a negative campaign against them that even society treats them as outcasts. Consequently, their ideas are circulated in a limited circle.

The difference between the two types of intellectuals is that the pro-establishment ones have no new ideas and concepts in their writings. As they seek to preserve old values, they tend to be conservative in their approach. The others, who stand for change, introduce new ideas for the transformation of society. They are progressive and liberal.

Then, there are some intellectuals who accommodate contradictory views and, therefore, are acceptable to both sides. An example is Mohammad Iqbal, the poet. He is acclaimed by rightists as well as leftists as their man. He is as popular amongst the ruling classes as he is in the progressive circles. After the death of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, an attempt was made to convert Faiz into a poet of the establishment but unlike Iqbal the conservatives did not find anything in his work that supported their ideology. That is why Faiz is not popular among conservative circles and the state refuses to own him as a national poet.Given this polarisation, one may well ask what should be the responsibility of an intellectual. A true intellectual is not a politician who has to worry about getting popular support to win an election. He is expected to say what he thinks is correct in his view. We have examples of leftist intellectuals, including Sartre, who condemned the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956 and supported Algerian war of liberation from France.

Recently Arundhati Roy openly supported the Kashmiri people and their struggle for freedom. She wrote very critical articles condemning the Indian state and media for adverse propaganda. We do not have such examples in our history. When military action was taken against East Pakistan, except one or two, all intellectuals either supported the state or kept silent about military atrocities.

We must also keep in mind that our intellectual domain is dominated by poets and fiction writers. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists have a minimum role to play in creating awareness in society. The literary field is dominated by poets whose poetry simply mobilises the emotions and sentiments of the people but fails to create any organised thinking in them.

Moreover, there is no link between intellectuals and politicians. Intellectuals create new ideas and thoughts but if they are not put into practice, they evaporate without leaving a trace of an impact. The tragedy is that politicians are interested in winning the popular support of voters and do not care about changing society.

When both intellectuals and politicians remain poles apart, politics remains barren because it lacks fresh and relevant ideas without which democracy and its institution cannot take roots.