Women in Muslim society

As we saw in my earlier articles, the practices of head covering and veiling in the ancient world had some linkage with the male perception of woman as property, as inferior and subordinate to men, and as inherently given to mischief. These practices were expected to mitigate her unwholesome propensities. In treating of women, Islam does not proceed from these perceptions and assessments.

The status of woman in Islam is indisputably a vast improvement upon her situation in ancient Israel, early Christianity, or in the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Greek cultures. She stands equal with man in the sight of God. Man has a slight edge over her (a "degree" above) in the management of worldly affairs, not because he is superior to her but because he is the family's provider, protector, and guardian. It is assumed that in most cases he is better situated to perform these roles.

Muslim woman cannot be given away in marriage without her consent; she is free to choose her spouse. She has the unabridged right to receive, buy and sell, or give away property both before and after marriage. She has a share in her husband's earnings and belongings, but what is hers is hers alone. This makes a striking contrast with the western woman's position. Under British law until 1882 a woman had to turn over her property to her husband. It was the same in America through much of the nineteenth century.

Islamic law does impose certain limitations upon the woman. She inherits from her father half as much as her brothers do, and her testimony in court cases involving financial transactions carries half as much weight as that of a man. Divorce is more difficult for her to obtain than it is for her husband to give. Muslim man's role as his family's guardian requires obedience to him on the part of his wife and children. He may discipline her if she persists in misconduct. He may also restrict her freedom of movement. But note that these and other similar disabilities can be removed or mitigated by inserting appropriate safeguards in her marriage contract.

It is important to note, however, that a Muslim woman's legal status has nothing to do with her wearing of hijab or the veil. The Quran enjoins both men and women to maintain a demeanour of modesty. It asks men to lower their gaze when they confront a woman. "And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze (when in front of a man) and guard their modesty; and that they should not display their beauty and adornments except what (must ordinarily) appear; that they should draw their veils (head coverings) over their bosoms ... and they should not stamp their feet to draw attention to their adornments" (24: 31).

Modesty on the part of a woman will, hopefully, discourage unwanted male attention: "Tell them to cast their outer garments over their bodies so that they should be known (identified as Muslims) and not molested (33: 59). It should be clear that these injunctions do not require the veiling of a woman's face. For obviously there is no reason for a man to lower his gaze if the person in front of him is invisible, that is, if her face is covered.

The Prophet's (PBUH) wives were not to appear before male strangers. The Quran says to the believing men: "And when ye ask his ladies for anything ye want, ask them from behind a screen; that makes for greater purity for your hearts and for theirs" (33: 53). But what is required of them is not required of ordinary women. For instance, the Prophet's wives were forbidden to marry anyone after his death. They had a special status. "O consorts of the Prophet! Ye are not like any of the other women." (33: 32).

If they "were guilty of evident unseemly conduct, the punishment would be doubled to them," and their reward for righteousness would likewise be twice as much as that of others (33: 30-31). Needless to say, if a Muslim woman wanted to take one of them as a role model, she would be free to do so. But their example is not binding on other women.

Veiling of the face ("niqab," "burqah") may then be set aside as something that Islam does not require. It has been imposed on women by some of the latter day theologians as an additional precautionary measure. Nor does Islam require seclusion or segregation of women. It may be recalled that they went to the Prophet's mosque not only to pray but also to consult him on a variety of matters. They were also free to go out to do their errands and chores.

Our theologians have greatly enlarged the scope of modesty. They forbid a woman to: (1) receive a male visitor when she is alone or receive gifts from him; (2) allow any man (other than her husband, son, etc.) to be in physical contact (no handshakes); (3) "loiter" about outside her home (e.g., go around "window shopping"); (4) wear sheer or tight-fitting garments that reveal the contours of her figure; (5) walk in a flirtatious gait; (6) plait her head like the "humps of camels"; (7) pluck her eyebrows; (8) get her teeth fixed to make them look good (no braces); (9) visit public baths (or swimming pools), even the ones that admit only women.

Let us now consider the Quranic injunction for man and woman to lower his/her gaze when in front of each other, and the Prophet's observation that while one look at a woman is acceptable, a second look at her is wrong, presumably because it is likely to be lustful.

I will venture, most respectfully, to suggest that these injunctions are situational, that is, addressed to the circumstances of a given time and place. Recall that almost none of the women in the Prophet's day were professional persons (physicians, lawyers, judges, engineers, professors, or bureaucrats). They did not have to work with men or discuss matters of mutual professional concern with them.

It is entirely dysfunctional not to have eye contact when a man and a woman are discussing a serious issue. It is likewise dysfunctional, even absurd, for a woman lawyer to keep looking at the ground, and not to look at the judges and the jury while she is arguing a case before them simply because some of them are men. Similarly, a woman professor who does not look at her men students will end up being ineffective.

The purpose behind this emphasis on modesty may well have been to exclude the likelihood of sex out of wedlock, which had been considered immoral in most of the contemporary and earlier societies. In my interpretation, Islam considered it wrong not because it would reduce a woman's value as property, but because it would subvert the institution of matrimony, which was essential to the establishment of family, which in turn served as the primary building bloc in the formation of society. Sexual relations between unmarried parties had to be forbidden, because it detracted from, and belittled, the institution of marriage. It was therefore seen as wicked.

Muslim women seem to have been burdened with more than their share of responsibility for keeping society on the path of virtue. The requirements for men are relatively light. They are free to wear elaborate clothing if they so desire, but they are required to do no more than cover their bodies between the navel and knees. It may have been taken for granted that their bare muscles would not entice women. Men were presumed to be aggressively covetous, while women, as the late Maulana Maududi once noted, were timid and inhibited.

The Maulana's reading of the woman's psychology would bear reconsideration. On the other hand, it is possible also that Arab men of the Prophet's time could not contain themselves and were liable to lose control at even slight encounters with women. But that is not necessarily the case with all Muslim men in all lands and ages.

Islam did not invent the "hijab." In my reading, the Quran does not specifically require the woman to cover her head. In asking her to extend her "veil" to cover her bosom, it assumes that she is wearing a long enough garment over her head. In a number of adjoining societies and cultures, women had been covering their heads for many centuries. It was a well-established custom, and it seems that Islam merely let it remain, as it did with some of the other ongoing practices.

It may be said that a woman's hair is a thing of beauty, as such a seducing agent, and that therefore it should be kept hidden from men's view. Our Urdu and Farsi poetry is replete with references to the beloved's hair (zulf). But it cannot be said that her hair has greater seductive potential than her eyes, mouth, and the general cut of her face.

Yet, as we have seen above, Islam does not require the woman's face to be covered. It follows that, within the context of Islam, a woman's head covering is best seen as a pre-existing custom that was retained. It would appear to follow also that Muslim women are free to keep or give up this custom, and that their piety remains unaffected by the choice they make.

During the last few decades many women in the Muslim world have adopted the hijab as a symbol of their dissociation with the western culture and as a way of asserting their distinct identity. This is then essentially a political, rather than a moral, choice on their part. Once again, women should be free to make this choice if the spirit so moves them. But those who do not feel called upon to adopt a confrontational posture vis-a-vis the West, and do not take to the hijab, should not be deemed to have lost their Muslim identity.

E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net

Future of district government

The Sindh chief minister will not permit the nazim of Karachi to go abroad any more. A tally of 36 countries in three years he thinks, and rightly so, is more than enough.

The lure of foreign travel is irresistible for every official - from the head of state all the way down. The nazim succumbed to it a bit too often. That the cost was borne by some interested agency or individual only makes it worse.

The justification or propriety of the nazim's foreign visits apart, the chief minister's prohibitory order and the nazim's defiant reaction to it have brought into focus yet again the many stresses the devolution plan has caused in the administration of the provinces. The conflict between the provincial governments and the nazims is inherent in the scheme of the laws - the Local Government Ordinance 2001 and the Police Order 2002 - which have created the district governments.

Whether a chief minister can stop a nazim from going abroad or restrain him from doing whatever else he chooses to do can be the subject of a legal discourse. The law makes the authority of the district government, hence of the nazim, subject only to the "general policy" of the provincial government and not to its specific direction. Under the law, the order or decision of the nazim can be set aside by the chief minister only if it is recommended to him by the local government commission (which is an independent body) that it is "against the public policy or interest of the people".

The chief minister could also get rid of a nazim (as Arbab Rahim threatens he would if Naimatullah Khan were to persist in his defiance) by a majority vote in the provincial assembly but only if he is "guilty of misconduct". That may pose no difficulty to a chief minister for he holds his office by virtue of commanding a majority support in the assembly. But whether the nazim indeed was guilty of misconduct shall have to be determined by a court of law.

The general point to be emphasized in the context of the current wrangle between the Sindh chief minister and the Karachi nazim is that the central government will be its arbiter. This is the paradox of the devolution plan which seeks to empower the people at the grassroots.

The functions and powers indeed have been divided between the district government and the provincial government but in the process both have become dependent on the centre which has divested no power at all to either. Now, like it or not, the ultimate authority in all matters provincial rests at the centre. The centre already had full control over the finances. In implementing its political aims and policies, the president or the prime minister may now choose between the chief minister and the nazim whoever suits their interest better in a particular area or situation.

In the new constitutional scheme the focus has shifted from empowering the provinces to the balance of power between the provinces and the districts with the federation holding the scales. The federal hold over the provincial affairs is expected to strengthen further after the next round of local elections - the new councils are due to be installed on the August 14, 2005.

Though the local government law is provincial it was drafted at the centre and can be amended only with the previous sanction of the president. This is a constitutional requirement. What amendments need to be made will also be finally determined by the federal bosses on the advice of their think tank - the national reconstruction bureau.

The distribution of subjects between the provinces and the districts, the direct election of the district nazim and whether the elections should be held on party or non-party basis will be some of the critical decisions to be made over the next few months.

Quite a few functions which under the law were required to be transferred to the district governments could not be transferred because of the resistance put up by the provincial governments or by the service cadres. Law and order heads this list. Some other functions like information technology and investment promotion made little headway because the district establishments lacked both the resources and the skills.

Some other vital community services like health and education suffered because of a constant tussle between the provincial and district governments over the control on their establishments - more particularly over the appointment and transfer of officials.

The independent commissions and authorities, which were to supervise the police force and oversee crime control, were either not created or remained moribund. The police, in the absence of a parallel executive and magisterial hierarchy, passed completely under the control of the political arms of the federal and provincial governments. Thus exactly the reverse of what was intended has intended.

The first lesson drawn from the three years of chaos and waste should be to restrict the working sphere of the district governments and the lower councils to municipal services, primary education, health and other projects of local welfare. To illustrate, Karachi's city government showed little concern for basic civic chores like sanitation, literacy and vocational training but went all out to pursue extravagant plans which were beyond its charter and resources.

The nazim roamed the earth in search of and signing MoUs for a variety of rail systems for Karachi - mono, magnetic and elevated - before turning, in the closing days of his term, to the only practicable proposition of improving the city's bus service.

The local councils are meant to take care of the basic needs of the people. That is where the hardship lies. Infrastructure projects which need foreign investment or loans or technology are better left to the combined resources of the federal and provincial governments.

Besides drawing a distinct line between the provincial and local spheres of work and responsibility, it is important to ensure that the district government does not become a third tier of the country's political structure which indeed it has tended to be, over the past three years. Civil servants are getting involved in political wrangles. The elections to the councils at all levels therefore should be on a non-party basis and the contesting individuals must sever their political links.

The district and tehsil / taluka / town nazims should be directly elected by the people. Now they are chosen by groups with political complexion which inevitably sucks them into politics with the party bosses heavily weighing in. Political rhetoric and posturing and not commitment to public duty has generally defined the conduct of the nazims. They should, instead, be working like career civil servants - only more responsive to the needs of the people and more accessible to them.

The essence of it all is that the district governments and the local councils with their nazims will be able to survive after Musharraf's protective umbrella is gone only if they serve the people without discrimination and curb their ambition to share the political clout and executive authority of the provincial government. A nazim, for instance, should not seek to appoint or transfer a police SHO but help the people resist his transgressions.

Arafat's epic struggle

Yasser Arafat, who died on November 11, tirelessly waged a four-decade struggle to right the deep injustices his people had suffered. In the process, he met and overcame more daunting obstacles than any other modern leader.

All men's hands were against the 5.5 million Palestinian refugees whose ancestral lands had been seized by Israel in the 1948 and 1967 wars. The Palestinian state called for by the UN in 1949 was secretly divided up by Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Stateless Palestinians became sand in the eye of the Mideast: abused or cynically misused by their heartless Arab "brothers," and relentlessly oppressed by Israel, which wanted their land. The late Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, even claimed Palestinians did not exist. The highly effective Zionist slogan that Palestine was "a land without people for a people without land," however untrue, became the prevailing view in North America.

In the mid-1960s, Yasser Arafat, an engineer, took control of the floundering Palestinian movement at a time when no one recognized or cared about this destitute people subsisting in squalor.

With infinite patience, serpentine cunning, and unshakable determination, Arafat almost single-handedly awoke Palestinian nationalism, created the dream of a sovereign Palestinian state, and kept reminding the world his refugee people deserved justice.

Along the way, Arafat and his lieutenants resorted to what we call terrorism - the only way the weak can fight the strong. Israel's independence leaders did the same. Had Palestinians not employed violence, the world would have totally ignored their plight.

For the past 40 years, each day for Arafat was a life and death struggle. He faced Palestinian rivals, like crazed killer, Abu Nidal, Israeli and American attempts to kill or overthrow him, plots and attempted assassinations by Arab states, and massacres in Lebanon that killed thousands of Palestinians.

Abu Amar, as he was known, led a people without land, money, support, respect, or friends. Yet he somehow managed to create something close to a real nation in the face of the most awesome obstacles.

In spite of his tough talk, Arafat sought peace with Israel on numerous occasions based on an Arab state holding 21 per cent of original Palestine. But each time, the Israelis moved the goal posts away and stalled, intent on buying time to finish colonizing the West Bank and Golan. Only in his Oslo Peace accords with Israel's PM Yitzhak Rabin did Arafat really come close to a just settlement. But Rabin was murdered by Israeli far rightists determined to expand the Jewish state. Further peace efforts were wrecked by Rabin's successors and Arafat's indecision.

Israel long followed a policy of assassinating or jailing promising Palestinian leaders. This writer believes Arafat may have been murdered by an untraceable toxin brought to Israel from the KGB's Moscow labs.

Israel and the Bush administration want a "moderate" Palestinian leadership. Translation: weak leaders bribed into agreeing to Israel's continued hold on prime West Bank land and Golan, with weak, isolated little Arab Bantustans surrounded by Israeli territory.-Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2004

Saffron humbug

It all depends of course on what you mean by ordinary and extraordinary. The dictionary definition of "ordinary" is "expected". In that sense, the Uma Bharti outburst at the BJP meeting of plenipotentiaries and high officials recently was ordinary.

Uma Bharti is a saffron-humbug power-addict who has climbed the greasier part of the BJP ladder by a careful use of petulance and virulence. Her petulance is reserved for her Hindutva colleagues. Her virulence is concentrated on Muslims. Even her saffron is humbug, for she is as far from renunciation as anyone could possibly be. Flaunting it as a uniform cannot disguise the fact that her addiction to power is pathetic.

Her tantrums are an instance of acute withdrawal syndrome after she was lured out of the chief minister's chair in Madhya Pradesh by a relieved BJP high command since her quirky behaviour was guaranteed to destroy the party.

She was lulled in the first phase of detoxification by visions of flag-waving heroism, and since intellect is not her primary asset she thought she was headed straight for the history books. But she is clever, and when the patriotic jingles petered out into nothing, realized what had happened.

She has re-crafted herself as a victim, adding pious self-justification to the bleeding resentment-anger against the two men who have run the party for the last two decades, Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee. Her periodic trips to the Himalayas might be considered the perfect metaphor for the ultimate withdrawal symptom.

So that takes care of the ordinary element in the low drama. What I found extraordinary was a particular decision by Advani.

That the BJP president should want to chastise the upper echelons of his flock is unexceptionable. That he should do so in a setting reminiscent of a classroom is entirely appropriate, for the much-vaunted Generation Next has been behaving like delinquent schoolchildren ever since the lollipops of Delhi were snatched away from them.

The party office on the day in question looked like a room in a school for habitual offenders. There was a prim desk at the head of class at which the triumvirate were assembled to reinforce the mood of judgment. Vajpayee looked like a chairman of the board deeply reluctant to face facts that were smirking at him. He kept his head generally down. Jaswant Singh, to the left of Advani, had the impenetrable uncertainty of a back-up enforcer without a Plan B in any of his multifarious pockets.

Advani, centre stage, had the distinct manner of a tired war-horse only one stage away from despair. He should have kept a Malacca cane in his hand. Instead, he merely lashed out with his tongue. The Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva of the BJP did not seem a very confident lot.

In front of them, the party gods seemed like Indra and his fellow deities just after they had been defeated and driven out of swargawas by the demon Mahisha. These chaps still have not understood what happened during those halcyon days of India Rising and Vote Falling. The generals of this once-mighty divine host - well, general secretaries at least if not quite generals - wore penitent white and hangdog looks. Gone were the resplendent colours they had once flaunted, along with chubby cheeks, on hungry television screens.

The one exception to humble white was of course Uma Bharti, but then she was not in the least bit penitent. She does not hold herself or her club of true believers responsible for the debacle of the party. As she has often told those in her confidence, she holds Vajpayee and Advani responsible, for they sold out the Ram temple in order to stay in power. Instead of hearing a reprimand, she would have loved to reverse the roles. That is why she stomped off in a holy rage.

What I found extraordinary is that Advani should have opted to rebuke his assembled functionaries in front of television cameras. All party presidents have to throw the rule book at offending deputies from time to time. Why did he invite television cameras to record an internal castigation? Does he believe that self-flagellation works only if accompanied by public humiliation?

This may well be true of the BJP's Generation Next. Six years ago, with the exception of an Arun Jaitley or a Pramod Mahajan, they were nobodies. Six years of unexpected power spoilt them. Some - not all, I hasten to add - have benefited deeply from the gravy train on which they got first class seats from the lottery of life. One cabinet minister, to provide an example, was leader of the rickshaw union in his constituency when, to his surprise, he won the election of 1999 and, to his total shock, rose quickly to become cabinet minister. Today he leads the nation from a multi-crore farmhouse.

It is possible that Advani summoned the cameras in order to reach the party cadre. He did make the point that he had no answers when the cadre queried him about the sordid name-calling that has become par for the course between faction leaders. The BJP claims that its traditions and ideology provide a glue of discipline that unites the party through good times and bad. Even if this was once true (say in the time of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya), it is not a myth. The factions have denuded the BJP of even a fraction of credibility. And Uma Bharti provided the Congress with a handsome Diwali gift.

There is a serious question that awaits an answer. Is the BJP in effect split? It was certainly fear of an open split that persuaded Advani to think again just after he ordered the expulsion of Uma Bharti from the party for six years, through a public statement by Jaswant Singh. Arun Jaitley is not a weasel. But he was given the weaselish task of amending that order to "further notice" from six years, and blaming the press for getting it wrong.

Uma Bharti's strength lies in the simple reality that she is not alone. She has chosen to become the voice of a strong section in the Hindutva family that believes that Vajpayee and Advani have together betrayed the Hindutva agenda. Her outburst is part of a pattern that has been building up for a while. Pramod Mahajan was only the stalking horse. The Ram temple is only one point on the agenda.

The larger objective is to refashion India into a Hindu state in which the minorities become second-class citizens. Truth to tell, there is enough evidence to suggest that Vajpayee, Advani and Jaswant Singh have been trying to steer, as discreetly as they can, the party away from Muslim-hatred. They were tolerated by the vitriol-sprayers as long as they kept the party in power. With defeat, the claws are out.

Advani will do his best to prevent further stress on the frayed tensile strength of the BJP, but a very harsh truth contains the difference between 1984 and 2004. After the demolition of the 1984 elections, in which the BJP got only two seats in the Lok Sabha, Advani emerged as the hope for the future, particularly of its hardliners. Today, they see him as the past, and as part of the betrayal. For Uma Bharti and the core base, he is yesterday's man in the struggle for the future.

The writer is editor-in-chief, The Asian Age, New Delhi.