tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/muslim-women-7185/articlesMuslim women – The Conversation2024-02-01T23:03:34Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197862024-02-01T23:03:34Z2024-02-01T23:03:34ZGirls in hijab experience overlapping forms of racial and gendered violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570251/original/file-20240118-27-ltadts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=308%2C625%2C5251%2C3075&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Violence against girls who wear hijabs is often situated in structural oppression, including gendered Islamophobia and white supremacy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/girls-in-hijab-experience-overlapping-forms-of-racial-and-gendered-violence" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://worldhijabday.com/">World Hijab Day</a> recognizes the millions of Muslim women and girls who wear the traditional Islamic headscarf.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/europe/un-hijab-olympics-intl/index.html">Around the world</a>, Muslim girls in hijab are experiencing unique forms and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/islamophobia-canada-health-care-muslim-1.6792148">heightened rates</a> of gender and race-based <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9549134/ttc-islamophobia-nccm-police-toronto/">violence and discrimination</a>. Overt violence against girls and women in hijab have captured global attention, evidenced most recently in the violent Canadian attacks on <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/community-groups-join-calls-for-further-action-in-attack-on-two-women-1.5839402">women in hijabs in Alberta</a> and the horrific <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/it-s-been-6-months-since-members-of-the-afzaal-family-in-london-ont-were-killed-what-s-changed-1.6274751">murders of the Afzaal family in London, Ont.</a></p>
<p>Violence against hijabi girls is often situated in structural oppression, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680600788503">gendered Islamophobia</a> and white supremacy. Understanding the underpinnings of this violence is key to imagining more just and equitable futures for girls and young women in hijab.</p>
<h2>Islamophobia</h2>
<p>The term Islamophobia has often been used and understood in different ways. While often used interchangeably, some have argued that the term anti-Muslim racism, rather than the term Islamophobia, better encapsulates the systemic nature of anti-Muslim hate and violence.</p>
<p>Sociologist and Muslim studies scholar Jasmin Zine <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48696287">has outlined how Islamophobia in Canada is comprised of systemic oppressive networks</a> and industries that are both fueled by and fuel anti-Muslim racism. Zine explains that an “industry behind purveying anti-Muslim hate” distinguishes Islamophobia from other forms of oppression.</p>
<p>According to Zine, this well-funded, lucrative and often transnational industry is comprised of media outlets, political figures and donors, white nationalist groups, think tanks, influencers and ideologues that support and engage in “activities that demonize and marginalize Islam and Muslims in Canada.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C6000%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young girl in a pink hijab watches a sunset" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C6000%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Understanding the underpinnings of violence is key to creating more just and equitable futures for girls and young women in hijab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Gendered Islamophobia</h2>
<p>Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism is part of the fabric of institutions. Critics of laws such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.32.1.05">Bill 21 in Québec</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.738821">similar measures in France</a> have argued that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/muslim-women-most-affected-by-quebec-s-secularism-law-court-of-appeal-hears-1.6644377">Muslim women who wear the hijab are most affected</a>. These measures reflect narratives that <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674088269">position Muslim girls and women as oppressed victims</a> in need of rescue, as well as <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/159783/orientalism-by-edward-w-said/9780394740676">Orientalist tropes</a> in the form of the <a href="https://assertjournal.com/index.php/assert/article/view/31/62">“save us from the Muslim girl” narratives</a>.</p>
<p>As Muslim women in hijab, we grieve horrific violence alongside our communities. Violent attacks highlight how anti-Muslim racism is often situated at a nexus of anti-Black racism, xenophobia, white supremacy and patriarchy. </p>
<p>We know that anti-Muslim violence is often aimed at girls and women in hijab. Yet, academic literature on hijabi girlhood is relatively scarce. Two years ago, we put out <a href="http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/ghs/GHS_cfp_TheGirlInTheHijab.pdf">a call to the international academic community</a> seeking papers and creative submissions on the experiences of girls and young women in hijabs.</p>
<h2>The girl in the hijab</h2>
<p>Two years later, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160302">our new special issue</a>, called <em>The Girl in the Hijab</em>, has now been published in the international journal <em>Girlhood Studies</em>. It comes at a time when anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and <a href="https://www.canarablaw.org/s/Anti-Palestinian-Racism-Naming-Framing-and-Manifestations.pdf">anti-Palestinian racism</a> are on <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/muslim-groups-report-skyrocketing-number-of-islamophobic-incidents-across-canada">the rise around the country</a> and around the world.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/girlhood-studies/16/3/girlhood-studies.16.issue-3.xml">The special issue</a> includes academic articles written by mostly Muslim women and creative works produced by hijab-wearing girls themselves. Both types of work provide insight into the current global landscape of hijabi girl experiences. </p>
<p>Cultural politics lecturer <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160303">Noha Beydoun explores the events surrounding the donning of the American flag as a method of protest</a>. She finds that this phenomenon gained popularity because it worked to conceal complicated U.S. histories regarding Muslim immigration and broader imperial interests. Beydoun’s analysis evidences that the “American flag as hijab for girls and women reinforces the larger constructs it seeks to resist.”</p>
<p>Gender studies professor Ana Carolina Antunes highlights <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160305">how unconscious bias and microaggressions hinder a positive sense of belonging among hijab-wearing students and impacts their academic success</a>. This study also reveals that anti-Muslim sentiment in schools affects the everyday experiences of Muslim girls, leading to disconnection from the school community. </p>
<p>Among the central themes in the special issue is <a href="https://assertjournal.com/index.php/assert/article/view/31/62">how women and girls resist gendered and Islamophobic discrimination in their everyday lives</a>. Hijabi girls resist oppressive narratives through their everyday actions and activist engagements. In Antunes’s study, girls asserted their right to occupy space in the educational environment.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-in-schools-how-teachers-and-communities-can-recognize-and-challenge-its-harms-162992">Islamophobia in schools: How teachers and communities can recognize and challenge its harms</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A girl in a black hijab with a handbag walks down a tree-lined path" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">For Muslim women, donning the hijab can be an act of resistance and resilience in the face of discrimination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Clinical social workers Amilah Baksh and her mother, Bibi Baksh, provide insight into their <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160306">lived experiences as Indo-Caribbean social workers and university educators</a>. In their article, they identify the hijab as a form of resistance and resilience in their personal and professional lives. In their words, “it was never the hijab that rendered us voiceless. It is Islamophobia.”</p>
<p>The special issue highlights how Muslim girls and women, racialized through donning hijab, continue to be at the forefront of the struggle against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence, even as we remain among the primary targets of that violence.</p>
<p>The articles in this special issue demonstrate the need for better policies, education and laws that consider the unique experiences of girls and women in hijab. To counter violence against girls and women in hijab, we must name and understand the complexities of anti-Muslim racism and gendered Islamophobia. </p>
<p>Critically, this must center the voices of girls and women in hijab, opening or widening spaces for girls and women in hijab to practise acts of resistance in ways that are not bound by colonial logics and respectability politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Salsabel Almanssori receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Muna Saleh receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (2022-2024) for her research titled “A Narrative Inquiry into the Curriculum-Making Experiences of Palestinian Muslim Youth and Families in Alberta.”</span></em></p>Around the world, Muslim girls who wear hijabs are experiencing unique forms and heightened rates of gender and race-based violence.Salsabel Almanssori, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, University of WindsorMuna Saleh, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Concordia University of EdmontonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138342023-10-17T12:19:52Z2023-10-17T12:19:52Z#UsToo: How antisemitism and Islamophobia make reporting sexual misconduct and abuse of power harder for Jewish and Muslim women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553742/original/file-20231013-15-4fnj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C2585%2C1779&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Six years after the #MeToo hashtag went viral, women in minority communities still face extra challenges addressing harassment and abuse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressSexualHarassment/a42b9d74f7c841c9a068c04d5e3e14ab/photo?Query=metoo&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=846&currentItemNo=40">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>October 2023 marks the anniversary of #MeToo: six years since <a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/919659438700670976">actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet</a> calling for women to speak out about experiences of abuse went viral and helped launch a global movement. Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/metoo-five-years-later-hollywoods-crafts-community-1235228124/">film sets</a> and office buildings to college campuses and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/silence-is-not-spiritual-the-evangelical-metoo-movement">religious communities</a>.</p>
<p>Many articles about #MeToo and religion focus on large churches, such as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/sexual-misconduct/metoo-goes-church-southern-baptists-face-reckoning-over-treatment-women-n880216">the Southern Baptist Convention</a> – spaces that are mostly white and Christian. Yet the phrase “Me Too” was first coined as a rallying cry against abuse by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/books/tarana-burke-unbound-metoo.html">a Black Christian activist, Tarana Burke</a>, back in 2006. Meanwhile, the perspectives of women in minority racial, ethnic and religious groups were often overshadowed – a focus of <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/research-projects/research.html">my research on Jewish studies and gender</a>.</p>
<p>These women face added challenges when they break the silence around sexual misconduct and abuse of power, as I document in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/UsToo-How-Jewish-Muslim-and-Christian-Women-Changed-Our-Communities/McGinity/p/book/9781032430355">my book “#UsToo</a>.” Many Jewish and Muslim women of color navigate three kinds of oppression simultaneously: sexism, racism and antisemitism or Islamophobia. </p>
<p>My interviews with dozens of women illustrate how race and religion affected their experiences of sexism, underscoring the need to normalize speaking out.</p>
<h2>’Dirty laundry’</h2>
<p>Jews and Muslims both experience prejudice, making them hesitant to <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/we-too/">draw attention to something negative</a> that others could weaponize. It is often harder for minority victims to speak out about abuse because they <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/07/it-s-time-for-muslims-to-talk-about-sexual-misconduct-among-our-islamic-preachers/">do not want to disparage their own faith communities</a>, for fear of fueling hated.</p>
<p>This problem is not exclusive to Jewish or Muslim communities but rather a general problem for all subcultures. Publicly airing communal “dirty laundry” is seen as precarious, both for the individual and for the ethnoreligious group. </p>
<p>Jewish and Muslim women in the United States are diverse, from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">different levels of religious observance</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/07/26/demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/">ethnic identity</a>. For many, though, cultural taboos make it harder to speak out, compounding concerns about antisemitism and Islamophobia.</p>
<p>The Jewish concept of “lashon hora,” for example – Hebrew for “idle gossip” – sometimes deters women from <a href="https://jewishlink.news/lashon-hara-and-abuse-cover-ups/">calling out bad behavior</a>. Likewise, text in the Quran refers to talking about someone else’s actions <a href="https://zakirnaikqa.wordpress.com/tag/eating-the-flesh-of-your-own-brother/">as “backbiting</a>” – literally, “eating the flesh off your brother.” </p>
<p>The #MeToo movement has lessened the likelihood that, going forward, women will be shamed for speaking out. Women I spoke with recalled being warned previously against raising concerns within their communities and being told it would ruin the career or even the life of the abuser. However, these concepts continue to cause concern among those who do.</p>
<h2>Risks of silence and interdependence</h2>
<p>The insularity, sense of connection and interdependence within some minority communities can be conducive to abuses of power. Jewish philanthropy leader Maxyne Finkelstein <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/we-must-own-our-responsibility-as-women/">has referred to the sense of familiarity in some Jewish organizations as “living room syndrome</a>”: the tendency to act more casually than in a community or organization where people do not share as much cultural background.</p>
<p>In a poll of 2,376 people <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2019-predicting-and-preventing-islamophobia/">from many different faith groups</a>, Jews were the second-least likely to report unwanted sexual advances from a faith leader to law enforcement: just 12% of victims told police, according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/08/17/disobedient-women-and-churchtoo-stand-up-to-sexual-abuse-in-evangelicalism/">As in other religions</a>, however, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/08/14/ny/study-communal-orgs-prone-to-abuses-of-power">sexual misconduct and abuse of power</a> exist in many kinds of Jewish spaces, from <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/03/18/lifestyle/how-jewish-summer-camps-are-talking-about-consent-in-the-age-of-metoo">summer camps</a> and foundations to synagogues and academia.</p>
<p>In June 2018, I publicly shared my experience of a prominent sociologist using the pretense of professional advice to sexually harass and assault me. Given his status, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2018/06/21/ny/american-jewrys-metoo-problem-a-first-person-encounter">my op-ed</a> was shared widely. Word spread quickly in the Jewish community, and other women came out of the woodwork about his behavior.</p>
<p>Initiatives around #MeToo in the Jewish community have taken off in the past few years. One of the most visible was the 2018 founding of the <a href="https://srenetwork.org/">SafetyRespectEquity Network</a>, which brought Jewish organizations together under one umbrella to strive toward eliminating sexual harassment and misconduct, as well as discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. <a href="https://www.jewishsacredspaces.org/">Sacred Spaces</a>, incorporated in 2016, is another organization that brings Jewish values to its work addressing and preventing abuse.</p>
<h2>Walking a tightrope</h2>
<p>Like Jewish women of color, many Muslim American women are triple minorities: female in a society where women are still “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/10379/the-second-sex-by-simone-de-beauvoir-newly-translated-by-constance-borde-and-sheila-malovany/">the second sex</a>”; a religious minority in a predominantly Christian country; and often judged by the color of their skin. Being <a href="https://philarchive.org/archive/FATNTMv2">a triple minority</a> exacerbates the challenges of speaking out about sexual harassment and assault.</p>
<p>In many ways, Muslim women of color had a steeper hill to climb than Jewish women, given the xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-muslims-are-portrayed-negatively-in-american-media-2-political-scientists-reviewed-over-250-000-articles-to-find-conclusive-evidence-183327">that have been prevalent in the U.S.</a> since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Breaking Silence’ (2017)</span></figcaption>
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<p>Nevertheless, some Muslim women affected by sexual misconduct have been working for years to bring it out of the communal closet and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/02/26/588855132/-mosquemetoo-gives-muslim-women-a-voice-about-sexual-misconduct-at-mecca">into the public eye</a>. In 2004, for example – two years before the phrase “Me too” was coined – a Muslim woman named Robina Niaz started <a href="https://www.tpny.org/services/">Turning Point</a>, an organization that offers counseling, advocacy and youth programs to help women and families understand that sexual abuse and violence are not their fault. </p>
<p>In 2017, Nadya Ali – a Ph.D. student in biology at the time – directed <a href="http://www.breakingsilencethefilm.com/">the film “Breaking Silence</a>,” which aimed to raise awareness of abuse in Muslim communities. Voted <a href="https://m.imdb.com/event/ev0003612/2017/1">best short documentary</a> at the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival, the film underscores that taboos around discussing sex did not prevent abuse; instead, they protected sexual predators and silenced women whom they abused. </p>
<p>Researchers found that although unwanted sexual advances from faith leaders were no more prevalent among Muslims than other faith groups, Muslims were slightly more likely than other victims to report the incident to law enforcement: 54% compared with 44%, according to <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2019-predicting-and-preventing-islamophobia/">the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding</a>. In almost all other religious groups, women are more likely to report sexual violence to another member of their faith community than to law enforcement – whereas many Muslim women are more comfortable telling strangers about being sexually abused than telling their own community.</p>
<p>Many of the women I interviewed live on a tightrope: calling out the patriarchy and sexual misconduct they experienced, while defending their community against anti-Muslim stereotypes. </p>
<p>The Muslim communal response to #MeToo includes organizations to combat gender-based violence. <a href="https://hearttogrow.org/">HEART</a>, a sexual health and reproductive justice organization founded in 2009, offers education and resources to discuss sexual relationships and violence. More recently, FACE, which stands for <a href="https://facetogether.org/">Facing Abuse in Community Environments</a>, has investigated sexual, physical, financial and spiritual abuses. <a href="https://inshaykhsclothing.com/">In Shaykh’s Clothing</a>, founded in 2017, works with individuals and institutions to prevent abuse, hold abusers accountable and educate Muslims about recognizing abuse and standing up to it.</p>
<p>Despite this progress, many Jewish and Muslim women are still apprehensive about reporting coreligionists, as are women in larger Christian communities. The United States has not yet normalized reporting, and neither have our faith communities. Sharing women’s stories and organizing for change – while battling antisemitism and Islamophobia – will keep the #MeToo movement moving, which I believe will create a better world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213834/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keren McGinity does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In minority faith groups that already face hate, women who have experienced harassment sometimes fear bringing negative attention to their community.Keren McGinity, Research Associate, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142022023-09-27T12:22:55Z2023-09-27T12:22:55ZWhat is an abaya − and why does it cause such controversy in France? A scholar of European studies explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550289/original/file-20230926-21-3zqi6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C7%2C4898%2C3245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The abaya is typically paired with a headscarf to cover the hair.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-attend-a-book-fair-in-riyadh-saudi-arabia-on-march-11-news-photo/646814194?adppopup=true">Lynsey Addario/Getty Images Reportage</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Worn by some Muslim women, an abaya is a long, loose-fitting, robelike garment that covers the entire body, except for the face, hands and feet. Through the abaya, women can <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2159028">express their religious identity</a> and dedication to following Islamic guidelines regarding modest attire. </p>
<p>In more conservative social circles, the abaya is part of expected dress conforming to social norms and culture. In Saudi Arabia, for example, women were required to wear an abaya <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-women/saudi-women-should-have-choice-whether-to-wear-abaya-robe-crown-prince-idUSKBN1GV190">until 2018</a>.</p>
<p>Worn over everyday clothing, the abaya is typically paired with a headscarf to cover the hair. This garment <a href="https://www.learnreligions.com/islamic-clothing-definition-abaya-2004279">finds its primary usage</a> in North Africa; the Horn of Africa, which includes countries such as Somalia and Somaliland; and the Arabian Peninsula. </p>
<p>Traditionally, the abaya was black or dark in color, reflecting a conservative approach. In present times, however, its design and aesthetics can vary between regions and communities. In some places, abayas may feature intricate embroidery that is specific to that locality. In others, the choice of fabric and the style of draping can differ, allowing women to align their abaya with regional fashion preferences. These regional variations offer <a href="https://doi.org/10.1386/fspc.1.1.45_1">women a way to express their cultural identity</a> while respecting religious norms. </p>
<p>In fact, modern abayas – offering a wide spectrum of colors and innovative designs – <a href="https://en.vogue.me/fashion/saudi-designers-reinventing-the-abaya/">have become a fashion statement</a>. These designer abayas offer a departure from the conventional plain styles and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160623-the-high-end-designer-fashion-hidden-beneath-the-abaya">incorporate innovative patterns</a>, like floral prints and geometric designs, and even metallic embellishments such as belts and pins. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Some women modeling colorful abayas." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550302/original/file-20230926-19-138yj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Models displaying abayas during a fashion show in Amman, Jordan, in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/models-display-dresses-by-jordanian-designer-ayat-al-zoubi-news-photo/467076500?adppopup=true">Jordan Pix/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>In societies where Muslims constitute a minority, the abaya takes on an added layer of significance. Muslim women can use the abaya as a <a href="https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/pdf/doi/10.4324/9781351256568-27">means to connect</a> with their cultural heritage. But it has also drawn criticism. </p>
<p>Critics argue that religious garments like the abaya represent a form of religious control <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/MEW.2010.6.1.46">over women’s bodies</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109911405827">and</a> a <a href="https://sekkamag.com/2019/04/30/non-fiction-the-day-i-was-called-out-for-wearing-an-abaya/">reinforcement of patriarchy</a>. </p>
<p>Other critics of abayas say they object to public symbols of religious identity. Some individuals who advocate for a strong separation between religious and state affairs <a href="https://policycommons.net/artifacts/4826610/the-latest-laicite-clothing-controversy-in-france/5663213/">argue that religious expressions should be limited</a> to private settings. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/world/europe/france-abaya-muslims-school.html">France recently banned the wearing of abayas</a> in its public schools, arguing that it was in conflict with secular principles, which has caused an uproar. </p>
<p>Others, however, say these laws predominantly affect the country’s Muslim minority. This is because Christians do not typically express their religious identity through attire. Even when they do, Christianity often <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315149707-15/christonormativity-religious-neutrality-armin-langer">prioritizes belief over outward religious practices</a>, as opposed to mainstream Islam. </p>
<p>These critiques underscore the ongoing discussion surrounding the tension between religious practices and individual rights in diverse, multicultural societies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Armin Langer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In some conservative countries, the abaya is part of expected dress. But in countries where Muslims are in the minority, the abaya can be a way for women to connect with their religious identity.Armin Langer, Assistant Professor of European Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1922352022-11-11T13:13:21Z2022-11-11T13:13:21ZThis course examines how images of veiled Muslim women are used to justify war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489092/original/file-20221011-26-p5xwvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C18%2C2038%2C1355&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Photographs capture images of women in war-torn regions of the world.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/file-picture-showing-an-afghan-woman-passing-by-a-french-news-photo/55712325?phrase=afghan%20women%20war&adppopup=true">SHAH MARAI/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Course Title:</h2>
<p>“Women and War”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>When I was on a fellowship at the Library of Congress finishing my first book, “<a href="https://sararahnama.com/research">The Future is Feminist</a>,” I had the opportunity to connect with other scholars. One of those scholars, <a href="https://marthasjones.com/">historian Martha Jones</a>, encouraged me to design a class based on my research interests. With that in mind, I designed a new freshman seminar, “Women and War.” The seminar bridges my research on gender and Islam in French colonial Algeria with my new project, a history of girlhood in the 1970s Middle East.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>The course looks at how particular depictions of Muslim women – as <a href="https://veil.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/306/2012/04/moorish-women-promenade-1000.jpg">veiled</a>, <a href="https://veil.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/306/2012/04/yachmak.jpg">oppressed</a>, <a href="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/59d26c8527eccc3d6d6ada7e/master/w_1600,c_limit/Sentilles-Colonial-Harem_1.jpeg">constrained</a> and yet <a href="https://veil.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/306/2012/04/dance-of-the-veil-1.jpg">sexually alluring</a> – have been used to legitimize political intervention and wars in three contexts: colonial Algeria, Iran before and after the Iranian Revolution, and Afghanistan since 2001. </p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>Tensions over gender and Islam reappear regularly in the news. Examples include developments in the Middle East, such as the case of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-iran-protests-over-dress-codes-stoked-broader-public-anger/2022/10/11/d73a5b96-497d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html">died in police custody in Iran</a> after being detained for violating the country’s dress code. Other examples include new laws in Europe that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/15/top-eu-court-rules-hijab-can-be-banned-at-work">curtail Muslim women’s right to wear a veil</a>. Yet, these discussions are often disconnected from political and military intervention in the Middle East. </p>
<p>I begin the course with a look at how in 2001, former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4645885/user-clip-rep-carolyn-maloney-wears-burka-house-floor">wore a burqa on the floor of the House of Representatives</a>. She did so to <a href="https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2021/08/26/maloney-defends-wearing-burqa-amid-criticism-from-challenger">argue in favor</a> of United States military intervention on behalf of Afghan women. She assumed the public would read the burqa as a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/afghanistan-burqa-congress-speech-b1904142.html">visible marker of women’s subjugation</a> – and many people did. This gives students a concrete example of the themes we discuss in the course and their ongoing relevance.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>One example is how, from the very beginning of the French colonial rule in Algeria, French photographers <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/colonial-postcards-and-women-as-props-for-war-making">produced postcards that depicted Algerian women</a>, usually either fully veiled or in various states of undress. These photographs evoked both notions of oppression and exotic allure. The images also helped make the colonization of Algeria a more popular enterprise, with people at home both fascinated by Algerian women and convinced that they needed intervention to emancipate them from the shackles of their oppressive religion. </p>
<p>Later, we examined how even as the French empire was struggling to survive in Algeria during the Algerian War of Independence, the French army targeted Algerian women through <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/13/frances-ban-veil-looks-far-more-sinister-historical-context/">unveiling campaigns and veil-burning ceremonies</a>.</p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>The class has used a wide range of materials, from an <a href="https://apexart.org/falecka.php">art exhibition</a> that showcases the women who participated in Algeria’s war of independence, to the 1971 book “<a href="https://www.iranchamber.com/personalities/ashariati/works/fatima_is_fatima1.php">Fatima is Fatima</a>,” written by the Iranian leftist revolutionary <a href="https://merip.org/1982/01/ali-shariati-ideologue-of-the-iranian-revolution/">Ali Shariati</a>. It describes how Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, could be a model of revolutionary action for Iranian women.</p>
<p>We have also looked at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920957348">vintage Iranian photographs</a> on social media. In <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CivKubYMwCA/">one montage</a> that has garnered almost 100,000 likes on Instagram, color photographs of women in bikinis and miniskirts during the time of the shah transition to black-and-white photographs of women in black chadors in Iran after 1979. The first two photographs were actually Mexican American women. Still, such images could be subbed in such montages for Iranian women and used to convey a shorthand: Freedom means the freedom to be unveiled, while veiling can only mean restriction and oppression. </p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>The course prepares students to critically engage with news from the Middle East by being able to identify and analyze the recurrent <a href="https://ajammc.com/2017/09/06/weaponization-nostalgia-afghan-miniskirts/">misogynistic</a> and <a href="https://fair.org/home/please-stop-using-woman-in-chador-walks-by-anti-us-mural-stock-photo-for-every-article-about-iran/">Islamophobic</a> ways the region and its peoples are represented.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192235/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Rahnama previously received fellowship funding from the John Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. </span></em></p>Pictures of women in war play a pivotal role in the battlefield of political ideas, argues a feminist historian who examines how images and attire are used and seen in war zones and occupied lands.Sara Rahnama, Assistant Professor of History, Morgan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910492022-10-04T20:30:19Z2022-10-04T20:30:19ZBohra digital entrepreneurship shows how religious communities can help women thrive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487328/original/file-20220929-24-nqgitq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C555%2C3569%2C2059&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bohra women are using social media to access business opportunities while maintaining their religious traditions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Georgia de Lotz/Unsplash)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Women from religious communities around the world, like the <a href="https://www.thedawoodibohras.com/about-the-bohras/">Dawoodi Bohras</a>, are harnessing the potential of social media platforms to set up or expand their businesses and build entrepreneurial networks. The ease of access, wide reach and collaborative nature of these platforms is providing more women with financial opportunities previously unavailable to them. </p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://www.library.ien.bg.ac.rs/index.php/jwee/article/view/190">religion can impact</a> women’s abilities to launch, operate and sustain a business. Religious attitudes towards entrepreneurship affect the support, financial or emotional, that women get from their families and communities. </p>
<p>But religious requirements can also provide the basis for entrepreneurship. Norms and customs around modesty or specific religious dress code can become valuable sources of income for female-led enterprises.</p>
<p>Yet, many women struggle to build businesses or form networks due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048322000086">gender segregation rules</a> that discourage working outside the home and make it logistically challenging. </p>
<h2>Accessing opportunities</h2>
<p>Using social media has helped many women navigate these issues by enabling them to conduct their business from the privacy of their homes. They have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.5367/ijei.2011.0050">proven to offer women more opportunities to connect personally and professionally</a>.</p>
<p>The interactive nature of these platforms blurs social and geographical boundaries to form virtual communities. Through platforms, women can <a href="https://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/2021/dec/12/from-creators-to-bloggers-these-bohra-women-are-takingsocial-media-by-storm-2393732.html">engage in dialogue and build networks of collaboration that provide support and feedback</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman wearing a hijab sits at a desk while using a cell phone. A laptop and notebook are on the desk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487378/original/file-20220929-23-80nfs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social media is providing women in religious communities new entrepreneurial opportunities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time they can overcome many real-life difficulties and barriers. For many women, these <a href="https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/1024/WP01-05B.html">virtual spaces</a> compensate for the invisibility and lack of agency many of them often experience in professional contexts.</p>
<p>Online platforms help women balance their domestic and family responsibilities while enabling them to become financially independent. All-female platforms are created by traders to avoid the involvement and control of men which also helps them navigate the rules of gender segregation.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sudanese-women-are-using-social-media-to-trade-and-break-gender-barriers-115637">Sudanese women are using social media to trade -- and break gender barriers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many Orthodox Jewish women have <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/2019-10-21/ty-article/.premium/meet-the-worlds-most-surprising-instagram-influencers/0000017f-dba6-d3a5-af7f-fbaeab7f0000">used social media</a> to build businesses and connections within their own communities while keeping in line with expectations around modesty. Women like Sarah Haskell, who goes by the handle <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thatrelatablejew/?hl=en">@thatrelatablejew</a>, create content that educates people about Judaism and also combats negative stereotypes about Orthodox Jewish women.</p>
<p>Muslim women all over the world also utilized the marketing potential of social media to create a modest fashion industry by reclaiming of the hijab. Many reappropriate symbols or phrases with negative connotations towards Islam such as “Muslim extremist” to sell t-shirts with the words “extreme Muslim” as a form of <a href="https://neemtreepress.com/book/modesty-a-fashion-paradox/">optimism-driven commodification</a>. </p>
<p>They assert their identity while <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118800308">combating negative stereotypes</a> about Islam and Muslim women. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-018-9290-1">Entrepreneurial networks</a> also function as a form of empowerment to overcome issues faced by them due to Islamophobia.</p>
<h2>Bohra entrepreneurship</h2>
<p>Dawoodi Bohras are a religious community known for their trading activities and entrepreneurial spirit. The community numbers around one million, living mainly in India with smaller diasporas around the world.</p>
<p>For Bohra women, work is a source of income as well as part of their religion and a way to give their lives meaning. This idea is based on historical examples of women such as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Khadijah">Prophet Muhammad’s wife Khadija</a> who was known to be a tradeswoman as well as principles of equality that consider both men and women working together to ensure happiness and prosperity. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of women wearing colourful islamic dress walk along a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487374/original/file-20220929-18-yjtgg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian Dawoodi Bohra women walk along a street in Mumbai, India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Traditionally, Bohra women would either market their products from home or operate physical stores. However, the rise of digital entrepreneurship allows them to expand online. Their ventures range from designing and selling the community’s <a href="https://www.thedawoodibohras.com/2022/03/04/libas-al-anwar-the-attire-of-the-dawoodi-bohra-community/">unique religious dresses</a> to accompanying accessories such as skullcaps, prayer mats, bags, jewelry as well as other items like food, toys, décor and religious teaching aids.</p>
<p>Some women sell exclusively online or as an extension of their physical businesses. They have their own websites or use different social media platforms and form <a href="https://m.facebook.com/groups/205010992955372">online groups</a> where women can interact, advertise their products and receive guidance and mentoring.</p>
<p>Support from community institutions is what differentiates Bohra women’s entrepreneurial activities on social media. Due to its entrepreneurial outlook and eager <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3625060.html">embrace of digital media</a>, the community provides women with financial aid, <a href="https://www.thedawoodibohras.com/2019/03/20/the-journeys-to-entrepreneurship-an-initiative-by-the-women-of-san-francisco/">online training and workshops</a> and <a href="https://www.thedawoodibohras.com/2020/12/31/community-women-in-mississauga-organise-virtual-bazaar/">virtual bazaars</a> which help them succeed. </p>
<p>During COVID-19 pandemic closures the community’s official business department, <a href="https://tijaaratraabehah.org/">Al-Tijaarat Al-Raabehah</a>, helped many entrepreneurs move to digital marketing.</p>
<p>The Dawoodi Bohra model shows how community support of digital entrepreneurship can help women achieve financial independence and success while respecting religious norms and beliefs. </p>
<p>Although these are small ventures in terms of demand and reach, social media platforms have helped Bohra women expand their realms of possibility and create strong networks across the globe.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/social-media-and-society-125586" target="_blank"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479539/original/file-20220817-20-g5jxhm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="100%"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arwa Hussain receives funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec</span></em></p>Bohra women’s use of social media to build businesses is an example of how religious communities can help women gain financial independence.Arwa Hussain, PhD Candidate & 2022-23 Concordia University Public Scholar, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1882612022-08-23T15:26:00Z2022-08-23T15:26:00ZHow Québec’s Bill 21 could be vanquished by a rarely used Charter provision<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480193/original/file-20220821-38135-xdwiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4739%2C2920&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lapel pins are seen as part of a campaign in opposition to Québec's Bill 21 during a news conference in Montréal in September 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-quebec-s-bill-21-could-be-vanquished-by-a-rarely-used-charter-provision" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>This November, the Québec Court of Appeal will hear an appeal of <a href="https://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qccs/doc/2021/2021qccs1466/2021qccs1466.html?resultIndex=3"><em>Hak v. Attorney General of Québec</em></a> on the constitutionality of Bill 21, which prohibits public service workers from wearing religious symbols.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-quebec-christian-liberalism-becomes-the-religious-authority-114548">In Québec, Christian liberalism becomes the religious authority</a>
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<p>The trial decision upheld the law in most respects, except for its impact on the management of the province’s <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-sadly-bill-21-lives-on-but-theres-an-important-exemption">minority-language school boards.</a></p>
<p>Despite the harsh effects of the law — primarily on Muslim women like Grade 3 teacher <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/chelsea-teacher-reassigned-due-to-her-hijab-overwhelmed-by-public-support">Fatemeh Anvari</a>, who was removed from a Québec classroom for wearing a hijab — you might think the appeal is bound to fail.</p>
<p>That’s because the Québec National Assembly attempted to shield Bill 21 from Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms by invoking Sec. 33 of the Charter, known as the “notwithstanding clause.” </p>
<p>Sec. 33 allows laws to operate “notwithstanding” certain rights and freedoms contained in the Charter, like the general equality right of Sec. 15 and the freedom of religion right of Sec. 2 </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-ontario-now-quebec-the-notwithstanding-threat-104379">First Ontario, now Quebec: The notwithstanding threat</a>
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<h2>Women’s Charter advocacy</h2>
<p>But what the Québec government appears to have overlooked is the existence of Sec. 28 of the Charter, which states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The provision is unique in that it was <a href="https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/announcement/section-28-adopted-into-draft-of-the-canadian-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms/">drafted by women advocates</a> — not government lawyers — and was included in the Charter virtually unchanged from what they initially proposed. Its purpose was to guarantee that other provisions of the Charter worked to advance, not detract from, the genuine equality of all women in Canada. </p>
<p>When Sec. 33 came on the scene in November 1981, these same women advocates fought <a href="http://www.constitute.ca/the-film/">an epic battle</a> to ensure Sec. 28 was not subject to it, and that the notwithstanding clause could never be used by legislatures to erode women’s rights.</p>
<p>It was apparent <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/quebec-minister-for-women-stands-by-belief-that-hijabs-are-oppressive">from the beginning</a> that Bill 21 was primarily aimed at Muslim women wearing religious head coverings (like the niqab, exposing the wearer’s eyes and the hijab, exposing the wearer’s face). </p>
<p>And in fact, the trial judge in <em>Hak v. Attorney General of Québec</em> found that most — if not all — of those affected by Bill 21 are Muslim women who wear the hijab, a group that is particularly vulnerable. He also found that it was “indisputable” that Bill 21 violated a number of provisions in the Charter. </p>
<p>The most obvious is freedom of religion. Bill 21’s invocation of the notwithstanding clause, therefore, negatively impacts the enjoyment of freedom of religion by this particular group of women and violates Sec. 28.</p>
<p>Furthermore, because Bill 21’s gendered, disproportionate effects disadvantage Muslim women in a variety of ways, it results in diminished access to sexual equality, an additional violation of Sec. 28. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A protester waves a sign that reads Her Head, Her Choice" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People rally against Bill 21 in Chelsea, Que., in December 2021 after a teacher was removed from her position because she wears a hijab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Québec Muslim women feel less safe</h2>
<p>While Bill 21’s preamble states that “the Québec nation attaches importance to the equality of women and men,” the reality is much different. </p>
<p><a href="https://acs-metropolis.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Report_Survey-Law-21_ACS.pdf">A recent report</a> by the Association for Canadian Studies and Léger Marketing indicates that an overwhelming majority of Muslim women have felt less safe since the law’s adoption and report they’ve been subjected to hate crimes. </p>
<p>In one harrowing account, <a href="https://seculartimes.com/bill-21-made-religious-minorities-in-quebec-feel-less-safe-survey/">a Muslim woman reported that a man in a pickup truck attempted</a> to run her and her three-year-old daughter down as they walked home from daycare. Two-thirds of Muslim women say they’ve experienced a decline in their quality of life and mental health.</p>
<p>As I’ve argued in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4171256">a recent paper</a>, Sec. 28 essentially blocks the notwithstanding clause when it would permit a law to operate, despite disproportionately affecting the rights of women.</p>
<p>Bill 21’s religious symbol ban denies Muslim women the right to religious freedom and sexual equality, contrary to Sec. 28. </p>
<p>Therefore, notwithstanding the notwithstanding clause, a court could justifiably rule that Bill 21 violates the Charter and that the provisions of the law resulting in inequality for women are unconstitutional.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three women wearing hijabs are seen walking along a street. One carries a knapsack on her back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2995%2C2061&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women wear hijabs as they walk in the Old Port in Montréal in August 2022. As the Québec Court of Appeal prepares to hear in November an appeal of a Bill 21 ruling, a new survey shows religious minorities in Québec are feeling less safe, less accepted and less hopeful since the province passed the law.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Unknown quantity’</h2>
<p>Sec. 28 is nearly an unknown quantity in law. There are many reasons for this. </p>
<p>One is because the entrenchment of the Charter was met initially with an onslaught of <a href="https://2ogewo36a26v4fawr73g9ah2-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/cacsw-cdncharter-report-1989-OCR-4.pdf">claims from men</a> seeking to roll back some of the modest protections women had under the law. Some of these claims succeeded via judicial misinterpretation of Sec. 28. As a result, other judges thought it best to ignore or marginalize the provision.</p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.leaf.ca/case_summary/shewchuk-v-ricard-1986-2/">in <em>Shewchuck v Ricard</em> in 1986</a>, the British Columbia Court of Appeal rebuffed a Sec. 28 challenge to legislation that provided legal assistance for single mothers seeking child support and compelled deadbeat dads to come to court. </p>
<p>The court expressed concern that Sec. 28 would undermine the judges’ ability to “critically examine” sex-based distinctions for discrimination.</p>
<p>But that time has passed. Bad precedents from almost 40 years ago should not be an impediment to the Québec Court of Appeal’s principled use of Sec. 28 today.</p>
<p>Bill 21 has had a poisonous impact on Québec citizens, Canadians’ willingness to embrace diversity and women’s equality. Thankfully, women advocates of 1981 foresaw the need for the antidote of Sec. 28 to overcome negative uses of the Charter, including Sec. 33. </p>
<p>Let’s hope that the Québec Court of Appeal has the acumen to use it as prescribed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerri Anne Froc receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is affiliated with the National Association of Women and the Law.</span></em></p>The Québec government thought it would Charter-proof its religious symbol law when it invoked the nothwithstanding clause. It was wrong.Kerri Anne Froc, Associate Law Professor, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1876472022-08-22T15:14:30Z2022-08-22T15:14:30Z‘Muslim culture’ is routinely blamed for lower levels of employment – but my research shows this is not what is behind the problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477943/original/file-20220806-23-3551xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=68%2C77%2C5682%2C3750&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/job-applicants-having-interview-1288395415">Shutterstock/adriaticfoto</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People who identify as minority ethnic are at a disadvantage in the labour market compared to the British white majority. They are more likely to <a href="https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/research-report-108-the-ethnicity-pay-gap.pdf">earn less</a>, <a href="https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/unemployment-and-economic-inactivity/economic-inactivity/latest#:%7E:text=Summary%20of%20Economic%20inactivity%20By,out%20of%20all%20ethnic%20groups">be outside of the labour force</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1539241">be unemployed</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1539254">remain unemployed for longer</a>.</p>
<p>Research also shows that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12220">Muslims are worse off</a> than any other religious group relative to white British Christians. Academics refer to this fact as the “Muslim penalty”. Importantly, the Muslim penalty remains even after accounting for factors that are likely to affect employment, such as education, age, region of residence, English language proficiency and health. </p>
<h2>The ‘cultural norms’ argument</h2>
<p>The existence of a Muslim penalty does not in and of itself indicate that discrimination is taking place. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1082903">Some</a> therefore argue that so-called “cultural norms” are at play – that Muslims, and particularly Muslim women, are less likely to be working because the values of their own communities hold them back. These purported norms include a unique “taste for isolation” and a commitment to “traditional gender roles”. </p>
<p>But investigating a decade of data from the <a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/">UK Household Longitudinal Study</a> – one of the largest surveys of its kind, which gathers information on the socio-economic situation and cultural contexts from around 100,000 people – I did not find this view to be supported by the evidence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A collection of CVs with different pictures of job applicants on them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477944/original/file-20220806-35572-lyuhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477944/original/file-20220806-35572-lyuhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477944/original/file-20220806-35572-lyuhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477944/original/file-20220806-35572-lyuhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477944/original/file-20220806-35572-lyuhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477944/original/file-20220806-35572-lyuhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477944/original/file-20220806-35572-lyuhyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What information counts in a CV?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By using information on people’s religious beliefs, membership in social organisations, and the extent to which they agreed with statements such as “Husband should earn, wife should stay at home”, and “Family life suffers if mother works full-time”, I was able to account for a range of attitudes in my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2022.2097887?src=">study</a>. </p>
<p>If “cultural norms” are really so important then we would expect the Muslim penalty to be substantially reduced – if not completely disappear – after taking them into account. Yet, adjusting for this information did not reduce Muslim men and women’s comparatively high likelihood of being unemployed or inactive in any significant way. </p>
<p>In other words, my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2022.2097887?src=">study</a> found no association between so-called “socio-cultural attitudes” and the likelihood of Muslims being unemployed or inactive. </p>
<p>What then is driving the Muslim penalty? Survey analysis like mine cannot prove discrimination is at play, but my findings lend support to the overwhelming evidence from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1622826">field experiments</a> that suggests discrimination is a significant barrier to Muslims looking for work – even if it is not the only driver of such disparities. </p>
<h2>A growing body of evidence</h2>
<p>Findings from field experiments – generally taken as the gold standard for establishing whether discrimination is at play – provide strong evidence that discrimination in Britain contributes to differences in employment outcomes. </p>
<p>For example, a 2019 study examining employer behaviour towards Muslim job seekers across five European countries, including the UK, found high <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1622826">levels of discrimination</a>. One of the study’s findings was that Muslims who disclose their religion to employers experience a lower callback rate, but Christians from the same country who disclose their religion do not. </p>
<p>This is persuasive evidence that the discrimination is targeted at Muslims, and is not an uneasiness with religion in a general sense. Another study has shown that even in cosmopolitan London candidates with a Muslim name secure three times fewer job interviews <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38751307">compared with those with Christian-sounding names</a>.</p>
<p>Evidence of racist and prejudicial <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-racist-is-britain-today-what-the-evidence-tells-us-141657">attitudes in Britain</a> and the continued vilification of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/applij/article/34/3/255/202289">Muslims in the media</a> lend further support to the discrimination thesis. Importantly, it’s not only the white majority who harbour anti-Muslim feelings. Research shows that Muslims are also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-4446.12250#:%7E:text=Firstly%2C%20social%20distance%20from%20other,and%20minority%20groups%20is%20reciprocal,%20p.%20431">“singled out for unique hostility from (…) other minorities”</a>.</p>
<p>While subscribing to racist beliefs does not necessarily translate into action, suggesting that holding such views doesn’t influence a person’s behaviour, for example, in their hiring decisions, implies that employment is negotiated outside the social environment in which it operates. This is not a plausible assumption. </p>
<p>When all the evidence is analysed in combination, it is difficult not to see that discrimination plays an important role in bringing about the Muslim penalty.</p>
<h2>The consequences of ignoring the facts</h2>
<p>The argument that Muslims’ “problematic norms” hold them back appears to be more of an ideological position than one supported by evidence. It trivialises the reality Muslims face in the world of work and fails to acknowledge the complexities of <a href="https://sk.sagepub.com/books/understanding-everyday-racism-an-interdisciplinary-theory">how racism operates</a> – which in turn delays efforts to improve the situation.</p>
<p>Poor labour market outcomes affect multiple aspects of a person’s life. Among other things, they affect what people can afford to eat, where they can afford to live, the education they and their children can access, as well as their physical and mental health. Delaying work to tackle anti-Muslim discrimination in the British labour market therefore reinforces a range of inequalities that extend well beyond the world of work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samir Sweida-Metwally receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>Study shows that so-called “socio-cultural attitudes” are not a plausible explanation for the Muslim penalty.Samir Sweida-Metwally, Doctoral Researcher, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1800122022-05-25T14:38:05Z2022-05-25T14:38:05ZNiqab bans boost hate crimes against Muslims and legalize Islamophobia — Podcast<iframe height="480px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/fb609e39-d729-4a54-860a-8a411be157ae?dark=false&show=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Last year, as a Muslim Canadian family took their evening stroll during lockdown in London, Ont., a white man rammed his pickup truck into them. Four of the five family members were killed. </p>
<p>The incident sparked horror and outrage. But the truth of the matter is anti-Muslim sentiment has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-and-hate-crimes-continue-to-rise-in-canada-110635">on the steady rise in the 20 years since 9/11</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nccm.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Policy-Recommendations_NCCM.pdf">According to a report from July 2021 by the National Council of Canadian Muslims</a>, more Muslims have been killed in Canada in targeted attacks and hate crimes than in any other G7 country. </p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/niqab-bans-boost-hate-crimes-against-muslims-and-legalize-islamophobia">Our guest on today’s episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a> says that instead of deterring anti-Muslim hate, Canadian laws are actually making it worse — in essence, legalizing Islamophobia.</p>
<p>Natasha Bakht is an award-winning legal scholar who has spent the past five years researching the rise in anti-Muslim attitudes in North America. She is a professor in the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa and the author of <a href="https://irwinlaw.com/product/in-your-face/"><em>In Your Face: Law, Justice, and Niqab Wearing Women in Canada</em></a>.</p>
<p>In her book, Natasha explores the stories of niqab-wearing women who have faced discriminatory laws. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-family-killed-in-terror-attack-in-london-ontario-islamophobic-violence-surfaces-once-again-in-canada-162400">Muslim family killed in terror attack in London, Ontario: Islamophobic violence surfaces once again in Canada</a>
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<h2>Follow and listen</h2>
<p>Listen to this episode — and subscribe to <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> — on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. </p>
<p><a href="mailto:theculturedesk@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join <em>The Conversation</em> on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada"> Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient. </p>
<p>To access a full transcript of the episode, go <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/niqab-bans-boost-hate-crimes-against-muslims-and-legalize-islamophobia-0fVG7MiH/transcript">here</a>.</p>
<h2>ICYMI — Articles published in The Conversation</h2>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/quebecs-niqab-ban-uses-womens-bodies-to-bolster-right-wing-extremism-86055">Quebec's niqab ban uses women's bodies to bolster right-wing extremism</a>
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</em>
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<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-and-hate-crimes-continue-to-rise-in-canada-110635">Islamophobia and hate crimes continue to rise in Canada</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-family-killed-in-terror-attack-in-london-ontario-islamophobic-violence-surfaces-once-again-in-canada-162400">Muslim family killed in terror attack in London, Ont.: Islamophobic violence surfaces once again in Canada</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-quebec-city-mosque-attack-islamophobia-and-canadas-national-amnesia-152799">Remembering the Québec City mosque attack: Islamophobia and Canada’s national amnesia</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/media-portrays-indigenous-and-muslim-youth-as-savages-and-barbarians-79153">Media portrays Indigenous and Muslim youth as ‘savages’ and ‘barbarians’</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-in-western-media-is-based-on-false-premises-151443">Islamophobia in western media is based on false premises</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/art-show-takes-on-the-misrepresentation-of-muslims-97233">Art show takes on the misrepresentation of Muslims</a></p>
<h2>Additional Resources</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.mqup.ca/under-siege-products-9780228011187.php"><em>Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation</em> by Jasmin Zine</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/discourses-of-denial"><em>Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender, and Violence</em> by Yasmin Jiwani</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2016/10/04/natasha-bakht-proclaims-her-muslim-identity-in-dance.html?rf">Natasha Bakht proclaims her Muslim identity in dance, in the <em>Toronto Star</em></a></p>
<p><a href="https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/06/09/Canada-Glaring-Islamophobia-Problem/">“Canada’s glaring Islamophobia problem” in <em>The Tyee</em></a></p>
<p><a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8116122/canada-muslim-women-reflect-on-hate/">‘I own all parts of my identity’: 3 generations of Muslim women reflect on hate in Canada, <em>Global News</em></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/podcasts/2022/1/24/canadas-homegrown-islamophobia">Canada’s homegrown Islamophobia, <em>Al Jazeera</em></a></p>
<p>To report a hate crime, <a href="https://www.nccm.ca/programs/incident-report-form/">go here</a>.</p>
<h2>Credits</h2>
<p><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient is a production from The Conversation Canada. This podcast was produced with a grant for Journalism Innovation from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by Vinita Srivastava. The co-producer on this episode is Vaishnavi Dandekar. Our other is producers are: Haley Lewis and Nahid Buie. Reza Dahya is our sound designer. Our sound producer is Lygia Navarro. Our consulting producer is Jennifer Moroz. Lisa Varano is our audience development editor and Scott White is the CEO of The Conversation Canada.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180012/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In today’s episode, we take a look at some ways lawmakers have legalized Islamophobia through niqab bans and other restrictive policies.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientVaishnavi Dandekar, Associate ProducerLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1804682022-04-30T14:21:10Z2022-04-30T14:21:10ZAmerican Muslim women are finding a unique religious space at a women-only mosque in Los Angeles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460580/original/file-20220429-17-62u3nr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C4%2C1020%2C674&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Congregants sit in a circle at the Women's Mosque of America.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://womensmosque.com/faq/">Women's Mosque of America</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Ramadan draws to a close, Muslims around the world prepare to celebrate the festival of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-eid-al-fitr-and-how-do-muslims-celebrate-it-6-questions-answered-118146">Eid al-Fitr</a> to mark the end of a month of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/03/consumerism-caring-ramadan-muslims-holy-month">fasting from dusk till dawn and additional acts of worship</a>. On Eid, as in Ramadan, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/photos-eid-al-fitr-america_n_5b23c9bce4b0d4fc01fdbb5f">community is an integral component</a> of Islamic observance, and many Muslims gather in their local mosque in communal prayer. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/07/26/religious-beliefs-and-practices/#many-muslims-attend-mosque-weekly-but-most-say-they-pursue-spiritual-life-mainly-outside-the-mosque">not all Muslims belong</a> to a religious community, and sacred dates in the Islamic calendar can prove profoundly isolating for those Muslims who are “<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/unmosqued-muslim-millenials_n_4394588">unmosqued</a>” – that is, not affiliated with a particular mosque community.</p>
<p>This may especially be the case for Muslims who are female, nonbinary, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/04/28/ramadan-muslims-want-you-know-queer-muslims-have-always-existed/9510940002/">queer</a> or <a href="https://religionnews.com/2013/07/08/for-some-converts-ramadan-is-the-loneliest-time-of-year/">converts</a>. After all, most mosques in the U.S. and around the world are <a href="http://www.hartfordinstitute.org/The-American-Mosque-Report-3.pdf">patriarchal spaces</a> where men occupy the main prayer area and dominate leadership roles. </p>
<p>In many mosques, women are given <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/04/01/hind-makki-is-helping-lead-the-conversation-around-womens-inclusion-in-mosques/">inferior prayer spaces</a> that are typically <a href="https://sideentrance.tumblr.com/">cramped and poorly ventilated</a>. While in recent years American Muslim women are increasingly taking on leadership roles on <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/04/women-are-becoming-more-involved-in-u-s-mosques/">mosque boards</a>, they are still underrepresented and continue to have limited access to religious learning.</p>
<p>However, a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-women-mosque-idUSKCN1LL1FK">growing number of Muslim spaces</a> provide an alternative culture. One <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479811298/the-womens-mosque-of-america/">I’ve been studying</a> is the <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/3/first-all-female-mosque-opens-in-los-angeles.html">Women’s Mosque of America</a>, a multiracial women-only mosque in Los Angeles. It exists alongside a small number of other alternative mosques including women-led, mixed-gender and queer-affirming mosques in places ranging from <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/women-led-mosque-in-california-gender-equality/">Berkeley, California</a>, and <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/masjid-al-rabia-mosque-for-lgbtq-women-muslims">Chicago</a> to <a href="https://inclusivemosque.org/">London</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/26/women-lead-friday-prayers-denmark-first-female-run-mosque-mariam">Copenhagen</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/12/543096694/new-liberal-mosque-led-by-a-woman-opens-in-berlin">Berlin</a>. </p>
<h2>What is the Women’s Mosque of America?</h2>
<p><a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/02/womens-mosque-of-america-first-female-only-mosque-in-u-s-opens-in-l-a.html">The Women’s Mosque of America</a> was founded in 2015 by two South Asian American Muslim women – comedy writer M. Hasna Maznavi and attorney Sana Muttalib. It was conceived as a space to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/muslim-women-to-launch-their-own-mosque-1422639983">empower Muslim women</a> to take on active roles in their individual community mosques and influence changes in a mosque culture that is often unwelcoming to women.</p>
<p>The mosque hosts monthly Friday prayers where women exclusively run the services. One woman calls the adhan, or call to prayer, while another delivers the sermon and leads the all-female congregation in prayer. Yet, as I explore in <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479811298/the-womens-mosque-of-america/">my forthcoming book</a>, the mosque’s contribution to creating a different kind of Muslim community is not simply its placement of women in leadership roles, but rather the way it elevates particular issues as worthy of concern in religious communities.</p>
<p>For example, with women at the helm of this mosque, the sermons focus on connecting Islamic scriptures to women’s lived experiences in both their personal and professional lives. </p>
<p>Topics have ranged from sexual violence, divorce and motherhood to social justice activism and support for the Black Lives Matter movement. As I learned in my interviews with community members, congregants are eager to hear these types of sermons, which they see as missing in their traditional mosque communities.</p>
<h2>Women in religious leadership roles</h2>
<p>The mosque <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479811298/the-womens-mosque-of-america/">promotes the idea</a> that religious authority can be held by lay American Muslim women, as opposed to only male religious scholars with traditional credentials. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Muslim women in brightly colored clothing and headress kneeling on a rug in a mosque." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460593/original/file-20220429-24-af3a5v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Women’s Mosque of America brings together an ethnically diverse group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://womensmosque.clickopedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/15957664543_5e4f6cc77d_b.jpg">The Women's Mosque of America</a></span>
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<p>Most of the women who deliver sermons and lead prayer at this mosque do not have formal religious training or Arabic expertise. They are a racially and ethnically diverse group who bring their various professional and community activist experiences to their roles as religious authority figures. </p>
<p>The mosque is committed to building community by flattening the hierarchy of religious leadership. For example, after the prayer is complete, congregants sit together in a circle with the prayer leader, asking her questions and engaging in a general religious dialogue with one another. </p>
<p>Moreover, the mosque is invested in using scriptural teachings to work toward social justice causes in the U.S. particularly with respect to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2nut-qxv1U">anti-Black racism</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdU8NbrwhqU">Islamophobia</a>. </p>
<p>The Women’s Mosque of America appeals to women who are dissatisfied with mainstream American mosques and eager to take on more central roles in their religious development. Its alternative culture <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479811298/the-womens-mosque-of-america/">also appeals to Muslim women who may have otherwise turned away from their faith</a>.</p>
<p>And in providing opportunities for women to preach and lead prayer, I contend that the Women’s Mosque of America <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479811298/the-womens-mosque-of-america/">pushes American Muslims</a> to collectively reimagine the very notion of religious community by raising important questions about what a mosque is and whom it should be for.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=weekly&source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tazeen M. Ali does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Muslims congregate in their local mosques in communal prayer for Eid, the Women’s Mosque of America, located in Los Angeles, will provide an exclusive religious space for its female congregants.Tazeen M. Ali, Assistant Professor of Religion and Politics, Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1707312021-10-28T10:23:34Z2021-10-28T10:23:34ZAfghanistan: the west needs to stop seeing women as in need of ‘saving’<p>The west has long had a fascination with “saving” Afghan women – a theme <a href="https://graziamagazine.com/articles/how-help-afghan-women/">we have seen</a> in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58317798">many media reports</a> since August when Kabul <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/09/16/dozens-afghan-women-rescued-kabul-first-ever-israeli-emirati/">fell to Taliban forces</a>. It was a narrative which was also front and centre in 2001 when the administration of US president George W Bush launched the “war on terror” and the invasion of Afghanistan, with his wife <a href="https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2100&context=etd">Laura claiming that</a> “the fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women”. </p>
<p>In Britain, this justification was also <a href="http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=186">used by Tony Blair’s government</a>, which joined the international coalition claiming that the campaign was needed, among other things, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/nov/20/uk.september11">“give back a voice”</a> to Afghan women deprived of human rights under the Taliban regime.</p>
<p>But while it is true that Afghan women faced violent injustices under the Taliban rule, it is important to analyse the misrepresentations that have accompanied this “saviour” narrative.</p>
<p>Ironically, this message has found common cause on both sides of the political spectrum, and has even been a rare example of the <a href="https://www.usfca.edu/sites/default/files/arts_and_sciences/international_studies/saving_muslim_women-_feminism_u.s_policy_and_the_war_on_terror_-_university_of_san_francisco_usf.pdf">language of feminism and the language of colonialism</a> coming together to say essentially the same thing. In this way, the Afghan woman has come to represent the opposite of what the west sees as its defining virtues in that she is represented as backward and powerless.</p>
<h2>The ‘white saviour’ narrative</h2>
<p>The problem with this white saviour narrative is that it is laden with the same orientalist civilising rationales. It’s an age-old fantasy that was used to justify colonial wars – a classic example is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/21/gender.usa">Lord Cromer’s condemnation</a> of the way Islam treated women when Britain colonised Egypt in the 19th century. </p>
<p>This sort of thinking continues to foster the idea that war can both free Muslim women from their oppressive menfolk and liberate the west from Islamic terrorism. Yet, when <a href="https://www.chicagoreporter.com/help-for-afghan-women-was-needed-before-taliban-takeover/">women were assaulted by the US-backed Afghan government</a> and Afghan warlords before the Taliban’s takeover, the international community remained silent.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghan-womens-lives-are-now-in-danger-from-the-taliban-but-they-have-always-faced-male-violence-166768">Afghan women's lives are now in danger from the Taliban – but they have always faced male violence</a>
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<p>And, while the far right often expresses xenophobic and discriminatory positions against Muslims, some groups have been quick to piggyback on the Taliban takeover to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-taliban-afghanistan-social-media-facebook-twitter/">promote their own anti-woman and anti-liberal agenda</a>. Within these debates – and for both the far right and fundamentalists – women are represented in several different and important ways. </p>
<p>For Islamic fundamentalists, Muslim women are always seen as key representatives of their culture, thus the importance of “proper” behaviour and “proper” dress. Meanwhile, some far-right groups – despite their xenophobia – have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/opinion/alt-right-taliban.html">cheering the Taliban’s victory</a>. Both of these positions are harmful to Afghan women.</p>
<p>At the same time, liberal feminists on the left also express concerns for the abuses of rights of the “voiceless” Muslim woman. But opposition to the Taliban in particular and elements of Islamic culture and society more generally sets up a problem for <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/islamism-and-the-left">sections of the left</a> that are wary of opposing Islamist ideology thanks to residual colonial guilt, the honourable desire to respect other cultures and some perceived common causes with some Islamist groups.</p>
<p>As a result, when I have identified as a <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/82264/">secular Muslim feminist</a> and argued that Taliban are a danger to women, I have been accused by both Islamic fundamentalists and certain leftists of being a “mouthpiece”, and a “sellout” who supports western imperialism.</p>
<p>Too often the outside world adopts broad generalisations about the deeply complex political, historical and social history and issues that have shaped the cultural milieu of Afghan women. We need to understand that the goals and desires of Afghan women may not precisely match the “freedoms” envisioned by white feminism.</p>
<h2>What do Afghan women actually want?</h2>
<p>In the end, against all this background noise, the actual voices of Afghan women are often silenced. It may be easier for outsiders, but sticking neat cultural representations of the “victimised Muslim woman” over messier historical and political narratives gets us nowhere. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-women-are-at-the-forefront-of-protests-against-the-taliban-167669">Afghanistan: women are at the forefront of protests against the Taliban</a>
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<p>Obviously it’s not helpful to ignore the dangers faced by Afghan women and the oppression of Muslim women in general. But it’s important to acknowledge the vastly different social, economic and political dynamics that have created the contexts in which these women live. </p>
<p>It’s also important to understand that “Muslim women” are not a fixed, static or homogenous group. And we need to ask ourselves about what we actually mean when we use words like “agency” and “victimisation”. The reality is far more complex.</p>
<p>We need to recognise that Afghan women (a varied group), might want different things than what westerners (also a varied group) might want for them. We need to acknowledge that, with or without the Taliban, Afghan women are the only ones who are able to resist their oppressive conditions. Therefore, we should listen to how they believe we can best help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hind Elhinnawy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The age-old idea that Afghan women need rescuing from their men is a western construct that ignores the voices of Afghan women.Hind Elhinnawy, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1551102021-08-30T21:08:04Z2021-08-30T21:08:04ZWhy some Muslim women feel empowered wearing hijab, a headscarf<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417253/original/file-20210820-23-10ht9h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C3000%2C1962&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">World Hijab Day started in the U.S. and is one way women have asserted pride in wearing a headscarf.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-wear-american-flag-head-scarfs-at-an-event-at-city-news-photo/633356594?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>For people who would like to learn more about Islam, The Conversation is publishing <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/understanding-islam-108919">a series of articles</a>, available on our website or as <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/understanding-islam-79">six emails delivered every other day</a>, written by Senior Religion and Ethics Editor Kalpana Jain. Over the past few years she has commissioned dozens of articles on Islam written by academics. These articles draw from that archive and have been checked for accuracy by religion scholars.</em></p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<p>Some Americans believe that the Islamic faith is oppressive for women. In the West, particularly in France, the hijab, or headscarf, that many Muslim women wear has become a <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-year-on-muslim-women-reflect-on-wearing-the-niqab-in-a-mask-wearing-world-154045">symbol of this perceived oppression</a>.</p>
<p>This article will explain some of the complex issues that go into many Muslim women’s choice to wear the hijab, including why some women see it as a mark of empowerment. It will also draw attention to some of the global Muslim feminist movements that often go unnoticed in the Western world.</p>
<p>Sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/caitlin-killian-664026">Caitlin Killian</a> explains that <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-muslim-women-wear-a-hijab-109717">Jewish, Christian and Hindu women have covered their heads since pre-Islamic days</a>.</p>
<p>For some Muslim women today, wearing a hijab can be a religious act – a way of demonstrating their submission to God. The Quran instructs both men and women <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/hijab_1.shtml">to observe modesty</a> in their dress and behavior. However, Muslim women’s clothing isn’t entirely about adherence to faith. It has been used in the past – and present – as an assertion of identity.</p>
<p>Under colonial rule, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-muslim-women-wear-a-hijab-109717">Muslim women were encouraged</a> to be more like European women and remove the veil. As demands for independence from colonial rule grew, the veil, Killian says, became a “symbol of national identity and opposition to the West.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="women gather on world hijab day while holding pink posters" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418125/original/file-20210826-6429-pq31gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nazma Khan, pictured, founded World Hijab Day in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bangladesh-origin-muslim-woman-nazma-khan-founding-the-news-photo/1092097916?adppopup=true">Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Today, some Muslim women in America may wear the hijab as a way of asserting their pride in the face of Islamophobia. World Hijab Day, celebrated on Feb. 1, starting in 2013, came about through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-muslim-women-wear-a-hijab-109717">efforts of Nazma Khan</a>, an immigrant to the United States from Bangladesh, who had been shamed over wearing a headscarf. She decided to start a day when both Muslim and non-Muslim women could experience wearing the head garment.</p>
<p>Even so, in much of the Western world, the headscarf continues to be seen as representative of Muslim women’s oppression. In Switzerland, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/07/974630640/switzerland-approves-ban-on-face-coverings-in-public">voters approved legislation</a> in March 2021 to ban face coverings, while France is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/08/985475584/french-senate-voted-to-ban-the-hijab-for-minors-in-a-plea-by-the-conservative-ri">pushing for a more restrictive policy on hijabs</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/3/14/employers-allowed-to-ban-the-hijab-eu-court">In a judgment on March 14, 2017</a>, the Court of Justice of the European Union, which interprets EU law, allowed private companies in France to bar employees from wearing “religious, political and philosophical signs” in the interest of “neutrality.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a headscarf at a protest in Toulouse, France, shows a drawing reading 'My veil, my choice, Free' in French." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418127/original/file-20210826-17822-1o7y0l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman at a protest against Islamphobia in Toulouse, France, shows a drawing reading ‘My veil, my choice, free’ in French.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-with-a-headscarf-shows-a-drawing-reading-my-veil-my-news-photo/1178484391?adppopup=true">Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/z-fareen-parvez-338283">Z. Fareen Parvez</a> says the anti-headscarf legislation was a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-court-allows-companies-to-ban-headscarves-what-will-be-the-impact-on-muslim-women-74678">turning point</a>” in the lives of Muslim women looking for acceptance and integration in French society. The headscarf is not just a religious symbol for many of the women; it is a way of being.</p>
<p>But this focus on Muslim women’s clothing takes attention away from other issues and how Muslim feminist movements are trying to bring about change. In Indonesia, for example, female Muslim religious scholars, or ulamas, are helping change how Islam is understood and practiced.</p>
<p>As sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-rinaldo-378316">Rachel Rinaldo </a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-growing-number-of-muslim-women-clerics-are-challenging-traditional-narratives-77932">says</a>, the past three decades in Indonesia have seen the emergence of a new generation of female religious leaders who are interpreting the Quran in a way that is empowering for women. The word of female ulamas is more accepted, compared to women’s rights activists, explains Rinaldo, as they are trained Islamic scholars.</p>
<p>A 2017 conference of female Muslim religious scholars held in Indonesia, with participants from Kenya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, issued fatwas – nonbinding religious edicts – against child marriage, sexual abuse and environmental destruction.</p>
<p>The point is that, like other faiths, Islam is a multifaceted religion, and Muslim women are choosing how they want to be heard and seen.</p>
<p><em>This article was reviewed for accuracy by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jessica-marglin-716245">Jessica Marglin</a>, Associate Professor of Religion at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.</em></p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-growing-number-of-muslim-women-clerics-are-challenging-traditional-narratives-77932">Fact</a>:</strong> Female ulamas in Indonesia go back to the 17th century. Queen Tajul Alam Safiatuddin Syah ruled over the Islamic kingdom of Aceh (now Indonesia’s northernmost province) for 35 years and commissioned several important books of Islamic commentaries and theology. At a time when female rulers anywhere in the world were unusual, she was the primary upholder of religious authority in what was then a prosperous and peaceful kingdom. <em>– From an <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-growing-number-of-muslim-women-clerics-are-challenging-traditional-narratives-77932">article</a> written by Rachel Rinaldo, Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder.</em></p>
<p><strong>In the next issue: <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-understanding-islam-what-is-islamic-law-155112">What is Islamic law?</a></strong></p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418530/original/file-20210830-27-16ejgbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418530/original/file-20210830-27-16ejgbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418530/original/file-20210830-27-16ejgbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418530/original/file-20210830-27-16ejgbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418530/original/file-20210830-27-16ejgbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418530/original/file-20210830-27-16ejgbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418530/original/file-20210830-27-16ejgbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
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<p><em>You can read all six articles in this <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/understanding-islam-108919">Understanding Islam series on TheConversation.com</a>, or we can deliver them straight to your inbox if you <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/understanding-islam-79">sign up for our email newsletter course</a>.</em></p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<h2>Articles from The Conversation articles in this edition:</h2>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-muslim-women-wear-a-hijab-109717">Why do Muslim women wear a hijab?</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-growing-number-of-muslim-women-clerics-are-challenging-traditional-narratives-77932">How a growing number of Muslim women clerics are challenging traditional narratives</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-court-allows-companies-to-ban-headscarves-what-will-be-the-impact-on-muslim-women-74678">EU court allows companies to ban headscarves. What will be the impact on Muslim women</a>? </p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Further Readings and Resources</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>“<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=8030">North African Women in France</a>,” by Caitlin Killian. Sociologist Killian explores how Muslim women construct and manage their identities in a foreign culture.</p></li>
<li><p>“<a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8040125">Navigating Islam: The Hijab and the American Workplace</a>,” by Fatima Koura, explores the lived experiences of 35 hijab-wearing Muslim-American women.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Day 5 our Understanding Islam series. For some Muslim women, wearing a hijab can be a religious act but Muslim women’s clothing isn’t entirely about faith. It has been used – and is still used – as an assertion of identity.Kalpana Jain, Senior Religion + Ethics Editor/ Director of the Global Religion Journalism InitiativeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1647602021-07-27T12:02:41Z2021-07-27T12:02:41ZTaliban ‘has not changed,’ say women facing subjugation in areas of Afghanistan under its extremist rule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412912/original/file-20210723-15-i2h67t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Afghan citizens at a March 2021 rally in Kabul to support peace talks between the Taliban and the government. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/afghan-women-youths-activists-and-elders-gather-at-a-rally-news-photo/1232002648">Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Taliban insurgents continue their deadly war to seize control of Afghanistan after the departure of United States and NATO forces. As they close in on major cities that were once government strongholds, like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan.html">Badakhshan and Kandahar</a>, many Afghans – and the world – fear a total takeover.</p>
<p>Afghan women may have the most to fear from these Islamic militants. </p>
<p>We are academics who interviewed 15 Afghan women activists, community leaders and politicians over the past year as part of an <a href="https://www.wluml.org/afghancampign/">international effort to ensure that women’s human rights</a> are defended and constitutionally protected in Afghanistan. For the safety of our research participants, we use no names or first names only here. </p>
<p>“Reform of the Taliban is not really possible,” one 40-year-old women’s rights activist from Kabul told us. “Their core ideology is fundamentalist, particularly towards women.” </p>
<h2>From subjugation to Parliament</h2>
<p>The Taliban ruled all of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Everyone faced restrictions under their conservative interpretation of Islam, but those imposed on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/24/opinion/liberating-the-women-of-afghanistan.html">women were the most stringent</a>. </p>
<p>Women couldn’t leave their homes without a male guardian, and were required to cover their bodies from head to toe in a long robe called a burqa. They could not visit health centers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/09/world/afghanistan-s-girls-fight-to-read-and-write.html">attend school or work</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two Afghan women wearing different styles of Burqas, pass by an armed fundamentalist Taliban militia soldier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412914/original/file-20210723-23-fu4db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kabul under Taliban rule, October 1996.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/two-afghan-women-wearing-different-styles-of-burqas-pass-by-news-photo/114936599">SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, toppled the Taliban regime and worked with Afghans to establish a democratic government.</p>
<p>Officially, the U.S. war in Afghanistan was about hunting down Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. The Taliban had sheltered bin Laden in Afghanistan. But the U.S. <a href="https://www.usfca.edu/sites/default/files/arts_and_sciences/international_studies/saving_muslim_women-_feminism_u.s_policy_and_the_war_on_terror_-_university_of_san_francisco_usf.pdf">invoked women’s rights</a> as a justification for the occupation, too. </p>
<p>After the Taliban was driven out, women entered public life in Afghanistan in droves. That includes the fields of law, medicine and politics. Women make up <a href="https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking?month=10&year=2020">more than a quarter of parliamentarians</a>, and by 2016 more than <a href="https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/building-trust-in-government-afghanistans-national-solidarity-program">150,000 women had been elected to local offices</a>.</p>
<h2>Rhetoric versus reality</h2>
<p>Last year, after 20 years in Afghanistan, the U.S. signed an accord with the Taliban agreeing to withdraw American troops if the Taliban severed ties with al-Qaida and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/05/around-the-halls-brookings-experts-discuss-the-implications-of-the-us-taliban-agreement/">entered into peace talks with the government</a>.</p>
<p>Officially, in these talks, Taliban leaders emphasize that they wish to <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-constitution-offers-glimpse-into-militant-group-s-vision-for-afghanistan/30577298.html">grant women’s rights “according to Islam.”</a></p>
<p>But the women we interviewed say they believe the Taliban still reject the notion of gender equality. </p>
<p>“The Taliban may have learned to appreciate Twitter and social media for propaganda, but their actions on the ground tells us that they have not changed,” Meetra, a lawyer, shared with us recently. </p>
<p>The Taliban included no women in its own negotiating team, and as their local fighters are taking over districts, women’s rights are being rolled back.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2021/0715/Back-to-the-darkness-Afghan-women-speak-from-Taliban-territory">schoolteacher</a> whose district in northern Mazar-e-Sharif province recently fell to the Taliban told us that, “In the beginning, when we saw the Taliban interviews on TV, we hoped for peace, as if the Taliban had changed. But when I saw the Taliban up close, they have not changed at all.” </p>
<p>Using mosque loudspeakers, Taliban fighters in areas under their control often announce that women must now wear the burqa and have a male chaperone in public. They burn public schools, libraries and computer labs. </p>
<p>“We destroy them [and] put in place our own religious schools, in order to train future Taliban,” a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20210611-afghanistan-a-journey-through-taliban-country?ref=fb_i">local fighter from Herat told the channel France 24</a> in June 2021.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/afghanistan/articles/the-rise-of-fundamentalist-madrassas-in-northern-afghanistan/">Taliban-run religious schools for girls</a>, students learn the “appropriate” Islamic role of women, according to the Taliban’s harsh interpretation of the faith. That consists largely of domestic duties. </p>
<p>Such actions demonstrate to many in Afghanistan that the Taliban <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-taliban-today-164221">disagree with the basic principles of democracy</a>, including gender equality and free expression. Taliban negotiators are demanding Afghanistan adopt a <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-constitution-offers-glimpse-into-militant-group-s-vision-for-afghanistan/30577298.html">new Constitution that would turn it into an “emirate”</a> – an Islamic state ruled by a small group of religious leaders with absolute power. </p>
<p>That’s an impossible demand for the Afghan government, and peace talks have stalled.</p>
<h2>A history of equality</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/islam-and-feminism-are-not-mutually-exclusive-and-faith-can-be-an-important-liberator-77086">Many Muslim countries</a> have <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-women-are-using-sharia-to-push-for-gender-equality-158371">steadily increasing gender equality</a>. That includes Afghanistan, where women have been struggling for and gaining new rights for a century.</p>
<p>In the 1920s, <a href="https://time.com/5792702/queen-soraya-tarzi-100-women-of-the-year/">Queen Soraya</a> of Afghanistan participated in the political development of her country alongside her husband, King Amanullah Khan. An advocate for women’s rights, Soraya introduced a modern education for women, one that included sciences, history and other subjects alongside traditional home economics-style training and religious topics.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="King Amanullah Khan and Queen Soraya Tarzi Hanim arrive at a railway station." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412916/original/file-20210723-19-1jltxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Soraya Tarzi Hanim and King Amanullah Khan, here in 1928, worked together to develop Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/emir-king-of-afghanistan-01-06-1892-amanullah-khans-news-photo/876358664">ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1960s women were among the drafters of <a href="https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1372&context=nyls_law_review">Afghanistan’s first comprehensive Constitution</a>, ratified in 1964. It recognized the equal rights of men and women as citizens and established democratic elections. In 1965, four women were elected to the Afghan Parliament; several others became <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691643434/afghanistan">government ministers</a>. </p>
<p>Afghan women protested any attacks on their rights. For instance, when religious conservatives in 1968 tried to pass a bill banning women from studying abroad, <a href="http://www.afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/azu/3788/azu_acku_pamphlet_hq1735_6_d87_1981_w.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">hundreds of schoolgirls organized</a> a demonstration in Kabul and other cities. </p>
<p>Afghan women’s status continued to improve under Soviet-backed socialist regimes of the late 1970s and 1980s. In this era, Parliament further strengthened girls’ education and outlawed practices that were harmful to women, such as offering them as brides to settle feuds between two tribes or forcing widows to marry the brother of their <a href="http://www.afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/handle/azu/3837?show=full">deceased husband</a>. </p>
<p>By the end of the socialist regime in 1992, women were full participants in public life in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In 1996 the rise of the Taliban interrupted this progress – temporarily.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young men and women stroll in Kabul park." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/412917/original/file-20210723-27-bn3hoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daily life in Kabul in 1988, one year before civil war broke out.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/daily-life-in-kabul-one-year-before-the-civil-war-and-at-news-photo/542346650">Patrick Robert/Sygma via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Resilient republic</h2>
<p>The post-Taliban era demonstrated Afghan women’s resilience after a grueling setback. It also highlighted the public’s desire for a more democratic, responsive government. </p>
<p>That political project is still in its infancy today. The U.S. withdrawal now threatens the survival of Aghanistan’s fragile democratic institutions.</p>
<p>The Taliban cannot win power at the ballot box. Only around 13.4% of respondents in a <a href="https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019_Afghan_Survey_Full-Report.pdf">2019 survey by The Asia Foundation</a> expressed some sympathy with the group. </p>
<p>So the Taliban are forcing their authority over the Afghan people using warfare, much as they did in the 1990s. Many women hope what comes next won’t repeat that history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Homa Hoodfar is affiliated with Women Living Under Muslim Laws as a board member</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>
Mona Tajali serves on the executive board of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. </span></em></p>Burqas and male chaperones for women were features of the Taliban’s extremist rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s. Those policies are now back in some districts controlled by these Islamic militants.Homa Hoodfar, Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, Concordia UniversityMona Tajali, Associate Professor of International Relations and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Agnes Scott CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1572812021-04-07T11:07:54Z2021-04-07T11:07:54ZShamima Begum: what the media’s fixation on her ‘western’ clothing means for Muslim women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392607/original/file-20210330-19-1rpixpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C1500%2C1032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shamima Begum recently lost her appeal to return to the UK after a Supreme Court ruling in February</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMVpaDP_4l0">ITV/YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Europe’s fascination with Muslim women, their bodies and their clothing choices – as seen in the passing of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56314173">discriminatory face covering bans</a> in several countries – shows no sign of abating. Throughout the western world, Muslim women have become expendable commodities, with offensive tropes dominating news coverage on a regular basis. In recent years in the UK, the most high profile victim of such rhetoric has arguably been Shamima Begum.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled Begum could not return to the UK to challenge the government’s decision to revoke her citizenship in 2019. As a result she would have to remain in Syria, where she had travelled to in 2015. </p>
<p>When she was first pictured, as one of three London schoolgirls suspected of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/18/found-the-bethnal-green-schoolgirls-who-ran-away-to-syria/">being groomed to join Isis</a>, she looked no different to many young Muslim women in the UK at the time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="CCTV image of three young girls in an airport" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392606/original/file-20210330-23-1y3qd9i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392606/original/file-20210330-23-1y3qd9i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392606/original/file-20210330-23-1y3qd9i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392606/original/file-20210330-23-1y3qd9i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392606/original/file-20210330-23-1y3qd9i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392606/original/file-20210330-23-1y3qd9i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392606/original/file-20210330-23-1y3qd9i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CCTV image from ITV News report on the Bethnal Green schoolgirls who’d fled the country to join Isis in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMVpaDP_4l0">ITV/YouTube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She then reappeared on our screens in 2019 following an interview with <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/Begum-begum-bring-me-home-says-bethnal-green-girl-who-fled-to-join-isis-hgvqw765d">the Times</a>. In a picture used for the interview, Begum appeared in a black jilbab (long outer clothing worn by some Muslim women), black hijab (headscarf) and a niqab (face veil), which she had lifted over her head. </p>
<p>This image aligned with western media’s portrayal of so-called “Isis brides”, often clad in all black. Images like these flooded the media at the height of Isis’s activity, playing into <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/16653/1/16653%20Tassadaq%20Hussain%20Final%20e-Thesis%20(Master%20Copy)%20March%202016.pdf">established Islamophobic views</a> about a perceived correlation between Islamic clothing and extremism.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2020, another article with images of Begum appeared. This time, reports pointed out her change in style, chiefly that she had “<a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12145658/Begum-begum-pictured-refugee-camp/">ditched her Islamic dress and instead [was] donning western clothes including jeans, a shirt and a blue hat</a>”. In <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/14/exclusive-shamima-begum-seen-make-up-western-clothes-seeks-break/">March 2021</a>, another article highlighted how Begum was seeking to move away from her Isis past with “western clothing” and “straightened hair”.</p>
<p>Aside from the bizarreness of suggesting jeans and t-shirts (clothes popular across the globe) are exclusively “western”, this comparison with Begum’s previous Islamic garb implies that only in the west can Muslim women be liberated.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Shamima Begum walking across sand with detention camp buildings in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392600/original/file-20210330-21-job4d5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392600/original/file-20210330-21-job4d5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392600/original/file-20210330-21-job4d5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392600/original/file-20210330-21-job4d5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392600/original/file-20210330-21-job4d5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392600/original/file-20210330-21-job4d5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392600/original/file-20210330-21-job4d5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ITV News report in February 2021 showed footage of Shamima Begum wearing ‘western’ clothing in a Syrian detention camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMVpaDP_4l0">ITV/YouTube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/behind-veil-study-how-west-imagines-muslim-women">The obsession with her clothes</a> and whether they signal how much of a threat she is has its roots in colonial history. The lands east of Europe have historically been portrayed as lacking in civilisation, too concerned with the fantastical world to ever really understand what it means to be free, as succinctly articulated by philosopher Edward Said in his seminal book, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/orientalism/9780394740676">Orientalism</a>. In this picture, Begum’s emancipation, as signified by her change of clothing, is intimately tied to Europe.</p>
<h2>The dangerous Muslim woman</h2>
<p>The construction of the Muslim woman as “dangerous, yet in need of saving” is characteristically European in its racism. For example, in colonised Algeria in the 1950s, Muslim women were unveiled in public to showcase their “<a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719087547/">liberation</a>”. </p>
<p>Journalists actively “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/14/exclusive-shamima-begum-seen-make-up-western-clothes-seeks-break/">tracking down</a>” Begum, taking photographs of her and projecting them to the world is no different than the Algerian example as a ceremony of unveiling and revealing a Muslim woman. As much as Muslim women continue to argue that we exist beyond the paradigm of liberation versus oppression, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/coronavirus-how-media-scapegoats-muslim-women">the voyeurism just never stops</a>. </p>
<p>Such depictions of Muslim women have serious implications. Research on gendered Islamophobia has found that Muslim women bear the brunt of <a href="http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/76134/3/Misogyny%20paper%20revised%20versionaccepted%20versionMArch2018.pdf">physical attacks</a> after derogatory, infantilising comments have been made about them in the media or following a terrorist attack. This was evident when <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-muslim-women-letterboxes-burqa-islamphobia-rise-a9088476.html">Islamaphobic incidents rose</a> sharply in the UK after Prime Minister Boris Johnson referred to niqab-wearing Muslims as looking like <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/10/how-it-feels-be-branded-letterbox-street-because-boris-johnson">“letterboxes”</a> in August 2018. Using Muslim women for politicking in this way is common in the UK and it shapes how the wider, dominant society views them.</p>
<p>The media’s focus on Begum’s choice of clothing is part and parcel of this consistent obsession with Muslim women, illustrating the pervasive and intrusive ways Muslim women are presented to the public: either as dangerous or oppressed.</p>
<p>Such depictions trickle down and impact Muslim women in their everyday lives, with many faced with intrusive questions based on this perceived lack of freedom among Muslim women. As the pandemic continues to <a href="https://www.bcu.ac.uk/about-us/coronavirus-information/news/covid-19-sparks-online-islamophobia-as-fake-news-and-racist-memes-are-shared-online-new-research-finds">fuel Islamophobia</a>, it’s increasingly important for these narratives to be tackled and stopped in their tracks. The sooner that happens, the easier it’ll be for Muslim women to get on with their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fatima Rajina does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Comparisons between Begum’s Islamic garb and her new wardrobe suggest that Muslim women’s “liberation” depends on westernisation.Fatima Rajina, Legacy in Action Research Fellow, Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1552432021-03-04T12:48:40Z2021-03-04T12:48:40ZWomen in mosques: fixating on the number of female imams overlooks the progress that has been made<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387041/original/file-20210301-15-6rxysa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C1599%2C1065&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zara Mohammed, the new secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, was recently questioned about Muslim female leadership on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abdulmukith Ahmed/Muslim Council of Britain</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Debate continues in the wake of a high-profile Radio 4 Woman’s Hour interview with Zara Mohammed, the <a href="https://mcb.org.uk/press-releases/zara-mohammed-elected-secretary-general-of-the-muslim-council-of-britain/">first woman general secretary</a> of the <a href="https://mcb.org.uk">Muslim Council of Britain</a>. Mohammed was pressured live on air to answer a question about how many female imams there are in Britain. Following accusations of <a href="https://twitter.com/KhanNaima/status/1359497492195344388?s=20">hostile</a> questioning from host Emma Barnett, the discussion pivoted to a widely misunderstood issue in Britain and beyond: the role of Muslim women in religious spaces. </p>
<p>To dispel some of those misconceptions, it’s important to understand the varied experiences of Muslim women in a number of religious roles and communities around the world. There are complicated reasons for the lack of women in leadership roles but that is not to say that no progress has been made on updating gender disparities in Islamic religious life.</p>
<h2>Women’s voices in Muslim communities</h2>
<p>Whether questions about women’s roles in mosques are raised within the Muslim community itself or by wider British society, Muslim women’s own views and practices are key. </p>
<p>Muslim women are increasingly calling for more mosques to include them. Organisations such as the <a href="https://www.mwnuk.co.uk">Muslim Women’s Network UK</a>, <a href="https://www.faith-matters.org">Faith Matters</a> and <a href="https://www.citizensuk.org">Citizens UK</a> have urged mosques to open up spaces for women and to include them in mosque leadership. The <a href="http://minab.org.uk">Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board</a> and the Muslim Council of Britain have issued similar recommendations, as has the <a href="https://www.vibrantscottishmosques.com">Vibrant Scottish Mosques</a> initiative. The Muslim Council of Britain has also launched a programme of <a href="https://mcb.org.uk/project/women-in-mosques-development-programme/">leadership training for women</a>. These initiatives also build on an established history of <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/e07c564c/bi-brief-100218-cme-carnegie-kunkler.pdf">women as Islamic scholars</a>. </p>
<p>In some contexts, women have reacted against male-dominated mosques by establishing mosques that are led by women. The first women-only mosque in the US, <a href="https://womensmosque.com">The Women’s Mosque of America</a>, opened in Los Angeles in 2015, mirroring women-only mosques that have served the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35629565">Hui community in China</a> for several hundred years. In the UK, the <a href="https://www.muslimwomenscouncil.org.uk">Muslim Women’s Council</a> launched an initiative in 2015 to establish a new <a href="https://www.muslimwomenscouncil.org.uk/project/womens-building">women-led mosque</a> in Bradford. The planned mosque will be open to women and men. Prayers where both women and men partake will be led by a male imam. </p>
<p>A more radical innovation is the <a href="https://inclusivemosque.org/about/">Inclusive Mosque Initiative</a> established in London in 2012, which offers a space for worship without gender segregation and works with <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/womans-hour-emma-barnett-female-imams_uk_6023c01bc5b6173dd2fabb51?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMKVWZghNhRu2dMt8OkTAB3zywf7gpHlbkvAepCZmUDsZcRTuDoK6wrXMVJf1I8wmROzKE8PTBnWYYPlI0HOnieWCUvmr8b2LzwN36Wyn0HK9_xPYGpiL6d34pK1YSFoejTg_Pel-RfUf4gAYtjHqOHzTkkUA53FlmT_nu_ktMNi">women imams such as Naima Khan</a>. American female imam <a href="https://musliminstitute.org/freethinking/gender/women-led-mixed-prayer-no-longer-out-cold">Amina Wadud</a> has led gender-mixed prayers in Oxford, London and elsewhere. Other gender and <a href="https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/03/15/what-is-lgbtq-what-does-the-plus-stand-for-and-is-anyone-left-out/">LGBTQ+</a> inclusive developments have emerged in <a href="http://www.jumacircle.com/who-we-are">Canada</a>, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeWkn95a2EM">US</a>, <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20190908-female-imams-lead-prayers-france-mosque-islam-inclusive-fundamentalist-segregation">France</a>, <a href="https://www.ibn-rushd-goethe-moschee.de/en/die-moschee/">Germany</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswjfl">Denmark</a>. </p>
<p>Still, opinions are divided about women’s participation in mosques. My <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/5/321/htm">interview study with Muslim women in the UK and Norway</a> found that they were highly appreciative of dedicated mosque spaces for women. Some also wanted greater influence for women in mosque governance. While some sought advice from imams deemed to be supportive of women, others were critical of imams harbouring conservative views on women’s roles. </p>
<p>The participants agreed, however, that only men can be imams and lead prayers for gender-mixed audiences. This rule was seen as rooted in religious prescriptions and as such was not up for debate. The women also suggested that “authentic” or true Islam supports women’s rights and equal value, while “cultural” or “traditional” forms of Islam deny this. </p>
<h2>Women’s roles in mosques</h2>
<p>Mosques are houses of religious worship that also function as community hubs for social events, welfare services, charitable activities, political engagement and even sports. They are typically governed by male-dominated boards and the main religious leadership role is held by the male imam.</p>
<p>While only men have a religious duty to pray at the mosque, women are increasingly participating in mosques throughout the <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/5/321/htm">UK</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1350506808091506">Europe</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XDLcBAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA225&dq=women+in+American+mosques&ots=V_29DyeJZ5&sig=ImOdUZlHrad7CQaJlQKv_05eDxA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=women%20in%20American%20mosques&f=false">North America</a>. </p>
<p>Some mosques are welcoming and facilitate women’s participation via separate entrances and prayer rooms. These spaces allow women to exercise religious leadership in women-only contexts including leading women’s prayer. Other mosques are less traditional.</p>
<p>Overall, Muslim women’s complex engagement with mosques shows both compliance with, and challenges to, male power and authority. Debates about women’s leadership, authority and participation in mosques, then, are clearly here to stay. While some may be more polarising than others, these discussions raise fundamental questions about democratic governance, gender equality, religious freedom and self-determination. Regardless of people’s views, it should be evident that when it comes to the complex issue of women’s roles in mosques, evidence-based approaches are always best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Line Nyhagen has received funding from the European Commission's 6th framework programme (2007-2011).</span></em></p>Complaints against BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour over an interview about female leadership in Islam have revealed how complex the issue isLine Nyhagen, Professor in Sociology, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1540452021-02-03T13:12:14Z2021-02-03T13:12:14ZOne year on, Muslim women reflect on wearing the niqab in a mask-wearing world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380978/original/file-20210127-23-1qox18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C613%2C408&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muslim women say they are having an easier time wearing the niqab during pandemic times.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/photos/tradition-women-culture-people-3635884/">hjrivas/Pixabay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One year into the pandemic, protective face masks have come to signify different things for different groups of people. </p>
<p>To <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/8/7/21357400/anti-mask-protest-rallies-donald-trump-covid-19">some</a> it’s an issue of protest, while for some <a href="https://umdearborn.edu/news/all-news/articles/study-finds-wearing-really-about-caring">others</a> it’s a statement of social responsibility. Some people have even turned it into a style statement and are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on <a href="https://www.insider.com/where-to-buy-designer-luxury-face-masks-2020-7">designer masks</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, racialized perceptions related to masks have put an additional burden on groups that already experience racism and inequality. Across the country, several Black American men have been <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/03/which-deamany-black-men-fear-wearing-mask-more-than-coronavirus/">arrested, followed and challenged</a> by police officers who claimed they looked “suspicious” in pandemic masks. </p>
<p>But in a group I have studied since 2013 – Muslim women in the West who wear the <a href="https://modestish.com/i-wear-a-two-layer-niqab-when-i-want-to-look-really-marvelous-how-fashion-shapes-criteria-for-face-veils/">niqab, or the Islamic veil</a>, along with a headscarf, the experiences have been more positive.</p>
<h2>Challenges faced by many Muslim women</h2>
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<p>The niqab is worn by a small minority of Muslim women. It is a piece of cloth tied over the headscarf (hijab) that comes in a variety of styles and colors. It is sometimes mistakenly labeled as the burqa, which is an all-enveloping garment that largely <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2011/04/01/cross-cultural-identification-neoliberal-feminism-and-afghan-women">entered the American imagination</a> during the U.S.-led <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Phy9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT152&dq=Muslim+Women+and+Veiled+Threats:+From+Civilizing+Mission+to+Clash+of+Civilizations&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj71MWv_cHuAhUTBs0KHZ6DApYQ6AEwAnoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=Muslim%20Women%20and%20Veiled%20Threats%3A%20From%20Civilizing%20Mission%20to%20Clash%20of%20Civilizations&f=false">invasion of Afghanistan</a>. At that time the Western media, while depicting burqa-clad women, <a href="http://www2.trincoll.edu/csrpl/RINVol5No1/Bush%20burqa.htm">wrote about</a> how the war would help advance the rights of Afghan women. </p>
<p>Niqab wearers are a difficult group to study, and scholars have described them as a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2013.750834">rare and elusive religious sub-culture</a>.” Despite this challenge, I have been able to conduct three research projects that relied on interviews with women who wore the niqab. </p>
<p>Initially, I conducted a larger study of 40 women that I published in my book “<a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/wearing-the-niqab-9781350166035/">Wearing the Niqab: Muslim Women in the UK and the US</a>.” I also interviewed a group of 11 women in April 2020 after mask-wearing became mandated in public in many U.S. states and countries. In January I was able to reach 16 women who agreed to be interviewed about their experiences of wearing the niqab one year into the pandemic.</p>
<p>I found that many recently adopted the niqab because walking around with a covered face became less daunting as more people appeared in public with face masks. As I found, many wanted to wear the niqab to underscore the religious character of this practice. </p>
<p>Some women wore a mask under the niqab, mindful of the health guidance that requires masks to be constructed out of a “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/religious-face-coverings-covid-questions-answered-1.5657670">tightly woven fabric</a>,” in order to stop the virus from being spread. Others used thick, snugly attached niqabs in lieu of a mask. </p>
<p>Studies have shown that Muslim women <a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/discrimination-against-muslim-women-fact-sheet">more likely to experience prejudice</a> in public spaces, employment and other services, when they dress religiously. Over 80% of the women I interviewed for my book said they experienced some form of abuse in public, such as hostile stares, comments, having the niqab ripped off or being physically injured. </p>
<p>Legislation that bans religious face coverings in public has been passed in some countries and territories, such as France and Quebec. On March 7, Swiss citizens <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/19/swiss-govt-urges-voters-to-reject-niqab-ban-in-march-referendum">will be voting on a niqab ban</a> in a nationwide referendum. In the past, advocates of such laws have argued that face-covering is a sign of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-islam-un/french-ban-on-full-face-islamic-veil-violates-human-rights-u-n-panel-idUSKCN1MX15K">religious extremism, social separation and patriarchal oppression</a> of Muslim women. </p>
<p>However, during the pandemic, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/style/face-mask-burqa-ban.html">criticism</a> has been leveled by <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-are-all-niqabis-now-coronavirus-masks-reveal-hypocrisy-of-face-covering-bans-136030">scholars</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/style/face-mask-burqa-ban.html">activists</a> at governments that upheld such legislation while simultaneously requiring their citizens to wear masks.</p>
<p>In France, for example, one is liable to pay US$165 (or <a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/20210119/france-advises-against-fabric-face-masks-due-to-new-covid-variants">135 euros</a>) if caught in public without a mask, while wearing a niqab still carries a risk of being <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-burqa-ban-islamic-face-coverings-masks-mandatory/">fined up to $180</a>.</p>
<p>During my interviews in April with 11 niqab-wearing women in the United States and Europe about their experiences of face-covering <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-women-who-cover-their-faces-find-greater-acceptance-among-coronavirus-masks-nobody-is-giving-me-dirty-looks-136021">during the early phase of the pandemic</a>, I found their responses to be guardedly positive. Women reported decreased levels of the kinds of prejudice they experienced before the pandemic. They attributed this to the new social expectation that everyone was wearing a facial covering. Many enjoyed the sense of “invisibility” while wearing the niqab. </p>
<p>A woman from Illinois who I spoke with over Zoom (names of the respondents are withheld to preserve their anonymity) said: “There are so few of us, and still we were told we were a threat to society because we covered our faces. Now that argument has just disappeared. I just hope this sentiment doesn’t make a comeback once the pandemic is over.” </p>
<h2>Free to dress religiously</h2>
<p>Almost a year later, I went back to find out whether the “mask effect” held steady for these women. I spoke with 16 women who said that the niqab had become a much more accepted option among the pandemic masks. I found that many women were switching from wearing it only occasionally outside their homes to every time they were in public spaces. Some actually adopted this garment for the first time in their lives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A covered Muslim woman is taking a selfie while seated on a bench" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381807/original/file-20210201-17-1v5fczg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Muslim women report feeling less visible when wearing a niqab in public spaces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/worshipers-attend-friday-afternoon-prayers-in-the-mosque-at-news-photo/531453948?adppopup=true">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In an online poll that I ran with the help of the owner of the online Islamic fashion boutique <a href="https://www.instagram.com/qibtiyyah_exlusive_uk/">Qibtiyyah Exclusive UK</a> as part of my 2021 study, 14 women out of 51 who responded said that they had decided to begin wearing the niqab during the pandemic. </p>
<p>One anonymous respondent commented: “I feel this is the perfect opportunity for any Muslimah [Muslim woman] to start wearing the niqab. I would if I didn’t already.” Another wrote: “It’s been a flawless transition [to wearing the niqab]. No one says a word.” Another stated, “I’d been experimenting with the niqab before, but now, since COVID, I have worn the niqab full time.” </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The niqab is not mentioned by the Quran – which mandates only modest clothing for <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/muslim-men-hijab-forcing-women-islam-teaching-mohammed-quran-modesty-a7655191.html">both men and women</a> more generally. The Quran <a href="https://quran.com/24">(24:31)</a> says: “And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their chastity, and not to reveal their adornments except what normally appears. Let them draw their veils over their chests, and not reveal their hidden adornments …”</p>
<h2>An individual practice</h2>
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/17/what-westerners-get-wrong-about-the-hijab/">common misconception</a> in the West that this is an oppressive, patriarchal practice forced upon Muslim women. In reality, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2016.1159710">several studies</a> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article-abstract/87/2/512/5359458">have shown</a> that many women choose to wear the niqab – sometimes against their families’ preferences. </p>
<p>The 40 niqab wearers I interviewed for my book considered it a religious practice. Many of them said that the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/niqab_1.shtml">wives of Prophet Muhammad reportedly wore it</a> regularly. A woman from Texas said: “I wear the niqab because I choose to follow what I believe to be the most accurate interpretation of God’s word that says women who cover their faces will be rewarded for fulfilling this extra duty.” </p>
<p>It is a highly individual practice to which the women I interviewed came after a long reflection. They acknowledged that while the niqab may be suitable for them, it might not work for others. A woman from the U.K. explained why some women choose to wear it while others don’t: “The Quran says to cover yourself modestly. Now, the interpretation of that is different to every group of Muslims. Some people believe it just to be the loose dress. Others believe it to be an outer garment as well as headscarf. Yet others would go one step further and say it’s the face covering as well, because [the Quran] says to cover yourself.” </p>
<p>Women who adopted the niqab after the beginning of the pandemic also described their experiences to me. Following years of doubt about the safety of wearing the niqab in their neighborhoods, they felt this was the best time to try. </p>
<p>A woman from Pennsylvania who began wearing the niqab in late 2020 sent me a message: “I wanted to wear the niqab for a long time, but I live in a very white area. I was afraid – I don’t like to be stared at and I already get enough of that in my hijab. With everyone wearing a mask, I figured now’s the time. At first, I wanted to only test it out, but literally nobody looked at me twice. So I’m just wearing it, with a mask underneath.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Piela does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Muslim women say the practice of wearing masks has given them more confidence to wear face coverings in public.Anna Piela, Visiting Scholar in Religious Studies and Gender, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1515012020-12-07T15:39:21Z2020-12-07T15:39:21ZWhy so many Syrian women get divorced when they move to western countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373335/original/file-20201207-23-1kj007d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C5097%2C3407&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Syrian refugees in Passau, Germany: many of those seeking refuge are from more conservative rural regions where divorce is stigmatised.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jazzmany via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A couple of years ago, I saw a discussion on Facebook of the impact of migration on Arab families. The mainly male writers were arguing that leaving the protection of the homeland has destroyed the fabric of Syrian families and society in the diaspora. They believed it had led Syrian women towards <em>inhiraf</em> or “deviation from the true path” as more of them were seeking divorce. </p>
<p>While this phenomenon has been disparaged among Syrians, it has been <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a25476180/female-refugees-fleeing-syria-divorce/">celebrated</a> by some western commentators. They saw it as part of the western mission to “save Arab (and Muslim) women” from the Muslim men who oppressed them. This is a clearly reductionist and Orientalist (western-centric) account of the situation. </p>
<p>In her book <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674725164&content=bios">Do Muslim Women Need Saving?</a>, the Palestinian-American scholar Lila Abu Lughod condemns this western mindset. She maintains it has justified all kinds of western interference in the Arab and Muslim world – including invasion – in the name of rescuing women from Islam.</p>
<p>But many of the refugee women in question have taken advantage of their new lives in western, secular societies to ask for divorce – often from abusive husbands they had to marry as young girls. They had not been forced to marry the men for religious reasons but often because they came from rural backgrounds where patriarchy (and patriarchal interpretations of Islam) were predominant. The personal status laws in most Arab countries also often deprive women of basic rights such as alimony or custody of their children after divorce. </p>
<p>But patriarchal laws are not the main reason for Syrian women’s silence and acceptance of the status quo when in their homeland. The concept of ‛<em>ayb</em> (shame) rather than the concept of <em>haram</em> (religiously forbidden), has often governed these women’s behaviour. For example, while ‛<em>isma</em> (an additional clause in the marriage contract allowing women to initiate divorce) is permissible in Islam, it is socially frowned upon in most Muslim communities. Women who have such a clause in their marriage contract are often seen as morally and sexually suspect.</p>
<h2>Modern mores</h2>
<p>A female Arabic-speaking lawyer who helps these Syrian women with their divorces in Germany <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a25476180/female-refugees-fleeing-syria-divorce/">is reported as saying</a>: “I have never seen so many people from one nationality want to get divorced,” adding, “I’ve never seen a social structure break down like it has among Syrians.” </p>
<p>This is probably due to the fact that many of the families escaping Syria came from <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Colette_Salemi2/publication/324779900_Syrian_Refugees_in_Jordan_Demographics_Livelihoods_Education_and_Health/links/5ae1d0ec458515c60f66d1ef/Syrian-Refugees-in-Jordan-Demographics-Livelihoods-Education-and-Health.pdf">rural areas and from provincial towns </a>. Once they escaped the oppressive eyes of their relatives and neighbours, and could initiate a no-fault divorce, they did not hesitate to request such a divorce. They knew their rights would now be protected and their children left in their care.</p>
<p>This phenomenon is not unique to Syrian refugees in Germany. It can also be <a href="https://syrianobserver.com/EN/news/55610/divorce-cases-mount-among-syrians-in-sweden.html">observed in Sweden</a>, where Syrian women have been increasingly empowered by the feminist policies of the Swedish government. They also started demanding separation from abusive husbands they had to marry as young girls.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1128828877248319488"}"></div></p>
<p>This is not an indictment of refugee women as much as it is an indictment of Syrian society and laws that force women to accept mistreatment. They do so in order to keep a roof over their heads and custody of their children. </p>
<p>The Syrian government itself has seemingly recently realised its laws are problematic and amended the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/syria-womens-rights-in-light-of-new-amendments-to-syrian-personal-status-law/">Syrian Personal Status laws</a> in February 2019. The amendments included more than 60 legal articles. They not only raised the age of marriage, and granted women custody of their children after divorce, but also <a href="https://syrianobserver.com/EN/features/48528/amendments-to-syrian-personal-status-law-are-not-enough.html">gave all Syrian women ‛<em>isma</em></a> – the right to petition for divorce without anyone’s permission.</p>
<p>As expected, Syrians were split in their reactions to these amendments, with some welcoming these changes while others seeing them as not going far enough. A third group read these amendments as a pathetic attempt by a regime that had lost legitimacy among large swaths of the population to instrumentalise women’s rights in order to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the west. </p>
<p>By amending these laws, the Assad government is trying to portray itself as a modern and “civilized” regime that protects women’s rights against the “backwardness” of what it depicts as Islamically inspired laws. The Assad regime is positioning itself as an enlightened government, one the west does not need to save women from.</p>
<h2>Choice and dignity</h2>
<p>In the meantime, in Europe where large numbers of Syrians have taken refuge – and away from the opprobrium of patriarchal society – women are taking advantage of laws that grant them equal rights and social norms that do not put the blame on them in the case of divorce, or consider them fallen women if they leave their husbands. </p>
<p>Through recourse to a more sympathetic regime for women, Syrian refugees are demonstrating an agency that is often denied to them by western politicians and many Arab intellectual elites. These laws are not inimical to Islam – feminist interpretations of Islam holds that the religious doctrine <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Sexual-Ethics-and-Islam/Kecia-Ali/9781780743813">grants women rights</a> – but that these rights are all to often denied by patriarchal interpretations of religion and by Syrian societal norms.</p>
<p>The principles of social justice are equity, access to resources, human rights and participation. And in Sweden and other European countries refugee women increasingly have access to resources and are made aware of their human rights. In her book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sex-and-social-justice-9780195110326?cc=us&lang=en&">Sex and Social Justice</a>, the American philosopher and legal scholar Martha Nussbaum sees choice as the centrepiece of her theoretical understanding of justice, and links it to dignity.</p>
<p>Choice and dignity are principles of justice lacking for both women and men in the Arab world, but especially for women. Hillary Clinton famously said “<a href="https://www.un.org/esa/gopher-data/conf/fwcw/conf/gov/950905175653.txt">women’s rights are human rights</a>,” and the condition of women at large is only one manifestation of the lack of respect for human rights (for all) in the Arab world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rola El-Husseini does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Divorce isn’t forbidden by Islam, but patriarchal societies make it almost impossible.Rola El-Husseini, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Program Director MA in Middle Eastern Studies, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1431512020-07-23T09:24:34Z2020-07-23T09:24:34ZAbout-face: politicians switch from vilifying burqas to mandating masks<p>People in the UK will be soon be required by law to wear masks in shops to prevent the spread of coronavirus. This follows the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/face-coverings-to-become-mandatory-on-public-transport">introduction of mandatory face coverings</a> on public transport in June. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext#%20">evidence</a> that supports the public health benefits of wearing face coverings in public. But the UK government and public have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/world/europe/uk-coronavirus-masks-mandate.html">slow to accept masks</a> as a pillar of the country’s coronavirus strategy. This should perhaps come as no surprise after two decades of negative messaging about face coverings, largely targeting Muslim women.</p>
<p>Since 9/11, Muslims in the west have endured constant scapegoating and vilification for their religious and lifestyle choices. This includes the wearing of the hijab, burqa, and niqab – different types of hair and face covering. </p>
<p>These garments have been attacked by politicians, including the UK prime minister himself, often characterised as impeding communication, being non-British and representing an anti-western patriarchal culture. </p>
<h2>Banning the burqa, mandating the face mask</h2>
<p>The fact that Boris Johnson is now calling for face coverings to be imposed is particularly ironic given his past comments on the subject.</p>
<p>When he was foreign secretary in 2018, Johnson <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/05/denmark-has-got-wrong-yes-burka-oppressive-ridiculous-still/">wrote in his column in the Telegraph newspaper</a> that while he opposed a ban on Muslim face coverings, he nonetheless felt “entitled” to see the faces of his constituents, and likened women who wore the niqab to letterboxes and bank robbers. “Human beings must be able to see each other’s faces and read their expressions,” he wrote. “It’s how we work.”</p>
<p>These beliefs are not restricted to the Conservative Party. In 2006, Labour foreign secretary Jack Straw <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2006/10/05/straw-sparks-muslim-veil-outrage-256394/">wrote</a> about his encounter with a Muslim couple, including a woman who covered her face, describing the “incongruity between the … entirely English accent, the couple’s education (wholly in the UK) - and the fact of the veil”. In doing so, he further cemented the notion that face coverings cannot be English. </p>
<p>For at least a decade there have been calls to ban Muslim face coverings in the UK. In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum in 2016, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/islam-muslim-veil-burka-ban-burkini-poll-uk-britain-france-a7218386.html">more than half the British population</a> said they supported a burqa ban. Many countries across Europe have done so despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/so-few-muslim-women-wear-the-burqa-in-europe-that-banning-it-is-a-waste-of-time-82957">negligible numbers of people</a> who are affected by such a policy. </p>
<p>In an act of arguable hypocrisy, France, the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/14/france.burqa.ban/?hpt=T1">first country</a> to ban face coverings in 2011, made them <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53471497">mandatory</a> this month to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Face masks are now required in all indoor public spaces in France from August, but the burqa remains banned. </p>
<p>This means <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAxuI4Jg4JP/">fines</a> can be imposed for those who are not covering their face, but also for those whose face coverings are deemed to be religious in nature. In the UK, however, religious clothing can be used as the mandatory face covering in shops.</p>
<h2>Face coverings and ‘freedom’</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/masks-help-stop-the-spread-of-coronavirus-the-science-is-simple-and-im-one-of-100-experts-urging-governors-to-require-public-mask-wearing-138507">evidence</a> for wearing a face mask in public to prevent the spread of coronavirus is clear, and research has shown that most face coverings, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-how-you-sound-when-you-talk-through-a-face-mask-139817">including the niqab</a>, do not impede communication. </p>
<p>But the repeated association of Muslim women’s dress with lacking freedom and being controlled seems to have resulted in a psychological barrier around the use of masks. In a recent <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/north-carolina-takeout-customer-refuses-wear-mask-invokes-trump-2020-1517365">viral video</a>, an American woman screams, “We don’t cover our face in America. They don’t control us. We’re Americans!” </p>
<p>There are also echoes of the association between face coverings and stereotypes of “submissive” Muslim women. A recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-how-coronavirus-is-changing-science-137641">preprint</a> study – which has yet to be peer-reviewed – shows that men are <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/tg7vz/">less likely to wear a face mask</a>, with some believing it to be a “sign of weakness”.</p>
<p>In a bizarre act of parallel solidarity, many anti-maskers are protesting with the phrase, “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/gop-lawmaker-my-body-my-choice-facemasks-1513121">My body, my choice</a>” – a feminist slogan about bodily autonomy that <a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/20200219/my-body-my-choice-muslim-women-in-france-on-why-they-wear-the-headscarf">Muslim women have used</a> to demand their right to cover their face or hair. </p>
<p>The truth is that Muslim women have always had agency in their choice of what they wear, and the reasons for their choices are manifold, as <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Family-Citizenship-and-Islam-The-Changing-Experiences-of-Migrant-Women/Ahmed/p/book/9780367597191">my research has shown</a>. Some women may well be pressured by their husbands to wear the hijab, just as some western women are pressured to dress in ways they don’t want to by their partners. This is an issue of misogyny, not one of religion. </p>
<p>Now we find ourselves in a situation where politicians, who have sought to use the personal dress codes of Muslim women to portray them as pitiful and controlled, have a battle on their hands to convince the population that masks do not restrict communication, are not a sign of coercion, and are actually a marker of being part of an integrated community where people care for each other. </p>
<p>As we move towards face masks becoming more widely accepted, we can only hope the positive messages of unity that are associated with preventing coronavirus infection now can persist in the longer term and be extended to all who cover their faces, no matter the reason.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nilufar Ahmed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Boris Johnson has attacked Muslim women for covering their faces. Now he wants the whole of the UK to do so.Nilufar Ahmed, Lecturer in Social Sciences, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1391002020-05-22T18:03:51Z2020-05-22T18:03:51ZMuslim women observe Ramadan under lockdown – and some say being stuck at home for the holiday is nothing new<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336837/original/file-20200521-102671-1e3s1hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C4707%2C3279&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque in Minneapolis, Minnesota, before the midday prayer during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that ends May 27, 2020, and is celebrated this year amid pandemic. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-takes-a-video-near-dar-al-hijrah-mosque-as-people-news-photo/1210936699?adppopup=true">Stephen Maturen/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most of the world’s <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/01/the-countries-with-the-10-largest-christian-populations-and-the-10-largest-muslim-populations/">1.8 billion Muslims</a>, the holy month of Ramadan has been spent in isolation this year, with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52716535">mosques closed and communal meals canceled</a> due to the coronavirus. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-eid-and-how-do-muslims-celebrate-it-6-questions-answered-118146">Eid-al-fitr</a>, which marks the end of Ramadan, draws near, many Muslim communities are holding virtual events starting May 23 to commemorate this religious festival.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-significance-of-friday-prayers-in-islam-113702">Collective worship</a> is an important part of the Islamic tradition. During Ramadan, which commemorates Prophet Muhammad’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/5/25/11851766/what-is-ramadan-2019-start-date-muslim-islam-about">first Quranic revelation</a>, those who are able fast from before dawn to sunset, pray and break fast together with celebratory meals called iftars. For many in the faith, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/drive-thru-iftars-and-coronavirus-task-forces-how-muslims-are-observing-obligations-to-the-poor-this-ramadan-137365">shift from in-person to online Ramadan</a> has been difficult.</p>
<p>For other Muslims, though, access to <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-chicago-ramadan-women-20200424-mhufcude3zbj7jl45evobjit6q-story.html">mosques was limited</a> well before the pandemic. Women often traditionally pray in separate – and, <a href="https://twitter.com/HindMakki/status/1263355911365636096">critics say, unequal</a> – sections of mosques, and some find child care duties and cooking typically keep them at home for holidays. </p>
<p>For these women, a “remote Ramadan” may be nothing out of the ordinary.</p>
<h2>A difficult Ramadan is nothing new</h2>
<p>I study <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wearing-Niqab-Muslim-Women-Cultures/dp/1350166030/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Anna+piela&qid=1586528684&sr=8-1">Muslim women in non-Muslim majority countries</a>, and I’ve been investigating their experiences of a Ramadan celebrated almost entirely at home.</p>
<p>In collaboration with a colleague who also studies gender and Islam, <a href="https://religioznawstwo.uj.edu.pl/dr-joanna-krotofi">Joanna Krotofil</a> of Poland’s Jagiellonian University, I created an anonymous survey with <a href="https://annamagdalenapiela.wordpress.com/2020/05/22/questions-for-the-ramadan-2020-survey/">open-ended questions</a> about religious practices and rituals, self-care, relationships with family and friends and online activities this Ramadan, and distributed it to Muslim women on social media and in our professional networks. </p>
<p>We received 38 responses, from women ranging in age from 22 to 57 and representing diverse Islamic traditions – Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Orthodox and others. Most respondents live in the United States, Poland and the United Kingdom, but five come from elsewhere. </p>
<p>Like their backgrounds, the women’s perceptions of this year’s remote Ramadan varied widely. </p>
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<p>Some felt that social isolation during the holiday was entirely familiar. One woman commented she was usually “too busy with working and having a large family to be involved in the wider Muslim community.” </p>
<p>“Not much has changed,” another respondent wrote. “I am generally not attending the mosque due to feeling constrained there, as a second class citizen.” </p>
<p>Such responses reflect the lack of well-provisioned, comfortable <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11562-013-0286-3">women’s spaces in many mosques and the scarcity of women in mosque leadership positions</a>. Several “inclusive mosques” in the U.S. – including Chicago’s <a href="https://masjidalrabia.org">Al-Rabia</a> and the <a href="https://womensmosque.com">Women’s Mosque of America</a> in Los Angeles – welcome not only women but also LGBTQ Muslims into their ranks, including in leadership positions. But <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-46567505">such attitudes are rare</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, we found, many welcome this year’s shift away from traditional mosque worship and services. The sudden proliferation of virtual events actually brings more opportunities to participate. </p>
<p>That’s true for Muslims whose disabilities prevent them from leaving home, too.</p>
<p>“Often I can’t attend [events] due to disability,” one woman wrote. “Now that everything is online, it’s great.” </p>
<h2>Varied perceptions</h2>
<p>For Muslim women engaged with their faith communities, however, celebrating Ramadan during a pandemic has been frustrating. </p>
<p>“I’m used to attending my place of prayer about twice a week and having community events on top of that, so having to resort to online worship has been quite a jarring shift,” one woman wrote. </p>
<p>“It has been a struggle,” another responded, saying “it just doesn’t really feel like Ramadan.” </p>
<p>She added that holiday plans made months ahead of time are now scrambled. She’s been “rethinking everything we want to do and if it is possible during this time of quarantine.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337076/original/file-20200522-124836-1tpq6bh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Palestinian women prepare date and nut cookies, traditional Eid al-Fitr treats, for families in need in Gaza City, May 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/palestinian-volunteer-women-prepare-date-and-nutty-cookies-news-photo/1214308179?adppopup=true">Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Trans and queer Muslim women and <a href="https://www.islamic-foundation.org.uk/UserUpload/filemanager/source/Research%20&%20Reports/Between%20Isolation%20%20Integration%20-%20LCC%20Report.pdf">converts to Islam</a> – groups that often <a href="https://www.advocate.com/current-issue/2017/1/18/queering-islam">report feeling unwelcome</a> in traditional congregations – are accustomed to challenges in celebrating their faith. </p>
<p>“Unfortunately, I’ve never had any sort of physical community to be a part of because I’m transgender,” another respondent wrote. “Online is my only means of really connecting to the Muslim community.”</p>
<p>Some are trying to create an inclusive digital community in this isolating time. One respondent said that when the pandemic struck, she created a “virtual mosque” for other queer and nonbinary Muslims, featuring daily prayer, Quran readings and classes. </p>
<p>And the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48zkiw6F6DzAcQ9Np6hBpA">#inclusiveAzaan</a> initiative, started by the group Feminist Islamic Troublemakers of North America, has been streaming the Azaan, or Adhan – the Islamic call to prayer – delivered by trans women, queer women, converts to Islam and American Sign Language speakers. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337083/original/file-20200522-124822-tf5rnq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Socially distant Ramadan prayers in Thailand, May 15, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/muslim-woman-wearing-protective-face-mask-prayers-ramadan-news-photo/1213061079?adppopup=true">Anusak Laowilas/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Solitude may enhance religious experience</h2>
<p>Eid, the three-day feast celebrated by Muslims worldwide at Ramadan’s end, is usually a large, convivial celebration with mountains of food. Observing it privately <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/world/middleeast/ramadan-coronavirus-al-aqsa.html">is almost without historic precedent</a>. </p>
<p>Yet several of our respondents said solitude has enhanced their spiritual experience. </p>
<p>“I’ve discovered that I love to pray alone,” another woman said. “I can tap deep into my emotions.”</p>
<p>Several respondents found iftar, the communal supper eaten after sunset to break the Ramadan fast, more spiritually satisfying in quarantine. Ramadan is about strengthening one’s connection with God, a goal that can sometimes get lost amid all the organizing and “small talk” with strangers. </p>
<p>“Part of me does think that Ramadan is meant to be much more quiet,” one woman wrote. “Being under lockdown kind of forces that aspect of Ramadan” to the fore.</p>
<h2>Diverse perspectives</h2>
<p>The wide range of views women expressed in our survey makes sense. Islam is the world’s second largest religion, and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/31/worlds-muslim-population-more-widespread-than-you-might-think/">Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries</a> with varied cultural norms. </p>
<p>Our survey captures just a tiny slice of this population. But it displays Muslim communities’ divergent <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-women-in-society/">interpretations of Islamic prescriptions about women and gender relations</a>.</p>
<p>If there’s a throughline in the data, it’s that a woman’s perspective on “remote Ramadan” largely depends on her public participation in the faith during normal times. </p>
<p>Those deeply engaged with their mosques are dispirited by the loss of physical congregations. For others, Ramadan under quarantine feels like more of the same.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139100/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Piela does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A survey of Muslim women finds many are frustrated by having a Islamic holy month in quarantine. But others say a ‘remote Ramadan’ is nothing new because child care duties often keep them home anyway.Anna Piela, Visiting Scholar in Religious Studies and Gender, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1373232020-04-29T15:43:27Z2020-04-29T15:43:27ZRamadan under lockdown is encouraging Muslims to talk about the way they worship<p>You’ve only got to consider the many names used to refer to Islam’s holiest month to see quite how diverse – and divided – the Islamic world can be. If you come from Saudi Arabia you are likely to refer to it as <em>Ramadan</em>. But equally people from India call it <em>Ramazan</em>. My parents, who hail from Sialkot in Punjabi Pakistan taught me to call the month <em>Rozay</em>. </p>
<p>There’s been an increased focus on Ramadan in 2020 as mosques have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/uk-muslims-embrace-technology-for-ramadan">shut down</a> thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that the month-long daytime fast experience has moved from being something institutionalised to an individual thing. For non-Muslims it’s a chance to see Islam less as a monolith and more as a diverse collection of people who are Muslims.</p>
<p>The fasting month is one of the central tenets of Islam – it is the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/culture-history/2019/05/ramadan-understanding-its-history-and-traditions">holiest month in the Islamic calendar</a>. It is a full month when the faithful are expected to fast from dawn till dusk, abstaining from food and drink. It is an act of worship that the divine scripture, the Qur’an, prescribes as an experience to draw closer to God. </p>
<p>It’s a month when <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/generous-donors-urged-to-give-safely-to-registered-charities-this-ramadan">Muslims give abundantly</a> and mosques are bustling – it’s seen as a refresher month for Muslims to keep up their regular prayers and do more in solitary or in congregation, including the extra congregational nightly prayers known as <em>tarawih</em>.</p>
<p>This year is very different, however – Muslims throughout the world are fasting in confinement as the coronavirus has altered the rhythm of the sacred month. These intense debates began when many governments took the difficult decision to close public spaces, including mosques, and have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/tarawih-coronavirus-scholars-call-home-ramadan-prayers-200422110654018.html">included discussions</a> on the permissibility of Friday congregational prayers to be conducted online.</p>
<h2>Islamic law</h2>
<p>Scholars from around the world have presented various theories and philosophies from the Islamic legal traditions to help make sense of these unusual times. Islam has a sophisticated jurisprudence tradition known as <em>fiqh</em>. In Ireland, one Imam, <a href="http://www.islamiccentre.ie/about/meet-the-imam/">Shaykh Umar al-Qadri</a> issued a <em>fatwa</em> (ruling on a point of Islamic law) in favour of online prayers. This was rejected by many who argued that Friday prayers need to be conducted in a physical congregation. Al-Qadri countered <a href="http://www.islamiccentre.ie/wp-content/uploads/Fatwa-on-Permissibility-of-Online-Jumuah-Taraweeh-during-Covid19-Islamic-Centre-of-Ireland-2.pdf">with the statement</a> that an “unprecedented situation requires an unprecedented solution”.</p>
<p>In an online Islamic studies discussion that I am part of, South African Islamic scholar <a href="http://www.religion.uct.ac.za/religion/staff/academicstaff/sadiyyashaikh">Sa'diyya Shaikh</a> told us about a women-only online Friday prayer where families join via Zoom: “Often living Muslim practice is ahead of the <em>fiqh</em>”, she wrote.</p>
<p>There have been similar agreements and disagreements on the validity of virtual <em>tarawih</em> – and the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/tarawih-coronavirus-scholars-call-home-ramadan-prayers-200422110654018.html">general opinion appears to be</a> that “virtual prayer” is not valid, as congregational prayers need to be held in the same physical space as the imam. But these majority-led ideals may inadvertantly deny the beliefs and wishes of anyone who doesn’t fit into this mainstream.</p>
<h2>Diverse faith, different practices</h2>
<p>It’s important to remember that Muslim experience of these sacred rituals at mosques is far from monolithic – especially for many women. A tweet from <a href="https://faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu/zahra-ayubi">Zahra Ayubi</a>, an Islamic scholar at Dartmouth College in the US, went viral before the month started as she called out the many Muslim men who were upset at not being able to pray in the mosque.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1240235905983614978"}"></div></p>
<p>The increasing visibility of some queer Muslims is also challenging stereotypes. One illustrative episode in popular culture came recently <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/jeff-goldblum-islam-rupaul-drag-race-jackie-cox-women-homosexuality-a9483536.html">on the show Drag Race</a>, when actor Jeff Goldblum questioned why Iranian-American drag queen Jackie Cox was wearing a star-spangled hijab, suggesting Islam was “anti-homosexuality and anti-woman”. Cox explained she had donned the outfit in response to the “Muslim ban” imposed by the US president, Donald Trump, and that, as an American of Iranian heritage, it was possible to be Muslim and gay.</p>
<p>Queer Muslims fight the double battle of Islamophobia and homophobia and for many the month of fasting is a triggering event because they don’t feel the same sense of community as others do. But moves are being made to rectify this, with more specifically queer-friendly mosque spaces being set up, such as <a href="https://masjidalrabia.org/">Masjid al-Rabia</a> in Chicago and <a href="http://inclusivemosque.org/">Inclusive Mosque Initiative</a> in London UK. These sites <a href="http://inclusivemosque.org/inclusive-ramadan-practice-in-quarantine/">offer advice and personal testimony</a> about how individual queer Muslims are navigating Ramadan in isolation.</p>
<p>Do any Muslims not fast? <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/remembering-mirza-ghalib-the-great-urdu-and-persian-poet/">Mirza Ghalib</a>, the prolific 19th-century Mughal poet who wrote much of his poetry <a href="https://dailytimes.com.pk/527591/remembering-mirza-ghalib-on-his-222nd-birth-anniversary/">while completely drunk</a>, was once summoned by his ruler, the last Mughal emperor <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41884390">Bahadur Shah Zafar</a>, and asked if he had fasted. His reply? “My Lord, I did not keep but one.” </p>
<p>It would be easy to dismiss Ghalib in our definitions of what counts as religion but it would be a huge shortcoming to overlook his unequalled masterpieces of devotion to God, similar to the life and work of Scotland’s irreverent bard, Robert Burns, who <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/holy_willies_prayer/">challenged the church with his poem Holy Willie’s Prayer</a>.</p>
<p>Muslim experience differs not just from mosque to mosque but Muslim to Muslim. The solitary act of devotion to God inevitably means that religious experience cannot be typified and replicated. This surely means we are free to experience the colours of Islam in our own way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanullah De Sondy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Islam is not a monolith and not all Muslims are experiencing lockdown in the same way.Amanullah De Sondy, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam, University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1360212020-04-10T19:13:40Z2020-04-10T19:13:40ZMuslim women who cover their faces find greater acceptance among coronavirus masks – ‘Nobody is giving me dirty looks’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327165/original/file-20200410-80234-i9sbdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4072%2C2694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman wearing a niqab and headscarf, with other shoppers in Istanbul, August 13, 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-wearing-a-niqab-holds-shopping-bags-as-she-walks-in-news-photo/1016425444?adppopup=true">YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans began donning face masks this week after <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover.html">federal</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-08/coronavirus-los-angeles-mandatory-face-covering-rules">local</a> officials <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/mask-misinformation-and-the-failure-of-the-elites">changed their position on whether face coverings</a> protect against coronavirus. </p>
<p>This is new terrain for many, who find themselves unable to recognize neighbors and are <a href="https://graphics.wsj.com/glider/mask-portraits-e62781e3-4980-4381-b70c-67472f433627">unsure how to engage socially</a> without using facial expressions.</p>
<p>But not for Muslim women who wear the niqab, or Islamic face veil. Suddenly, these women – who are often received in the West with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/fashion/13veil.html">open hostility</a> for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/america-asia-face-mask-coronavirus/609283/">covering their faces</a> – look a lot more like everyone else. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C4803%2C3123&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C4803%2C3123&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327022/original/file-20200409-69938-1ifsnle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many people are using cloth to cover their faces during the coronavirus outbreak, San Francisco, California, April, 1, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/restaurant-owner-lorena-zeruche-looks-on-wearing-a-bandana-news-photo/1208909845?adppopup=true">JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Targeted for their religious dress</h2>
<p>I interviewed 38 British and American niqab wearers for my upcoming <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wearing-Niqab-Muslim-Women-Cultures/dp/1350166030/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Anna+piela&qid=1586528684&sr=8-1">book on Muslim women who wear the niqab in the United States and United Kingdom</a>. Almost all of them were British and American citizens, but they came from all across the world and all walks of life. They were converts from Christianity, Judaism, former atheists, white, African American, African, Arab and South Asian women. </p>
<p>The niqab – a garment that is not required by Islam but is considered recommended in some interpretations – is usually worn with a loose, coat-like garment called an abaya and a hijab, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-muslim-women-wear-a-hijab-109717">headscarf</a>. Some women pair it with a long skirt and tunic to conceal the body shape.</p>
<p>All the women interviewed for the book felt the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article-abstract/87/2/512/5359458">spiritual benefits of niqab-wearing</a>, which makes them feel closer to God and deepens their practice of Islam. But wearing it in public often subjected them to Islamophobic, racist and sexist street harassment. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.pl/citations?user=ukMNMT4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Research</a> confirms that Muslim women who wear Islamic dress in non-Muslim majority countries are frequently subjected to abuse. In a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5406/womgenfamcol.5.1.0073.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aeb0e8e24d21fbd8aae566149dbe609b2">2017 American study of 40 Muslim women</a>, 85% reported verbal violence and 25% had experienced physical violence. </p>
<p>Wearing the niqab, the most conspicuous form of Islamic dress, is most dangerous. Eighty percent of British niqab wearers interviewed for a <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/uploads/f3d788ba-d494-4161-ac01-96ed39883fdd/behind-veil-20150401.pdf">2014 report by the human rights group Open Society Foundations</a> had experienced verbal or physical violence.</p>
<p>The perpetrators tend to perceive niqab-wearing women as oppressed, backward, foreign, socially separated or a threat. Attackers often excuse their actions by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VfDwAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=zempi&ots=MjYd9QrEJ7&sig=T3VyFNy2kxXV8AzrOiFG1G6aO2I#v=onepage&q=zempi&f=false">citing security and immigration concerns</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Everyone suddenly understands it!’</h2>
<p>Now, in an unexpected turn of events, people across the West are jogging in face masks and grocery shopping in bandannas tied across their mouths. That’s making public life in the niqab much more pleasant, say Muslim women.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327204/original/file-20200410-80234-12r1clc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Masked New Yorkers outside a grocery store, Brooklyn, New York, April 3, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/april-3-2020-people-wearing-face-masks-wait-in-line-outside-news-photo/1209435031?adppopup=true">Michael Nagle/Xinhua via Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“There’s a marked difference to the way I’m being perceived. Nobody is giving me dirty looks because of my gloves and the covered face,” said a woman I’ll call Afrah, from the the U.K., in a Facebook Messenger chat. “Everyone suddenly understands it!”</p>
<p>I use pseudonyms to protect the identify of the women in my research, as talking about niqab use is a sensitive issue.</p>
<p>“I was wearing a handcrafted niqab today and it was amazing,” Jameelah wrote to me from France, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/23/europe/france-niqab-ban-un-intl/index.html">where the niqab is legally banned in most public spaces</a>. “Because of the situation, I didn’t receive malicious glares.” </p>
<p>Fashion designers are even trying to make face coverings look stylish – an effort that has Muslim women long perceived a security threat <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjf6d6t5tvoAhWCLc0KHV8NCksQFjAAegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fnamirari%2Fstatus%2F1236761054753030149&usg=AOvVaw2hcxIVj6Kj97srjDgd0RUV">rolling their eyes</a> on <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=2ahUKEwjf6d6t5tvoAhWCLc0KHV8NCksQFjABegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fmehdirhasan%2Fstatus%2F1236849487198539777%3Flang%3Den&usg=AOvVaw1MYupRj_bpBDto03r4Zbmv">social media</a>.</p>
<p>Rumana, a Muslim from Croatia, told me that the growing acceptance of face covering has helped her overcome a reluctance to use the niqab. </p>
<p>“I am usually an anxious person who doesn’t like to attract attention so that was always the biggest issue. Now that face coverings are seen everywhere,” she says, “I have finally found the courage to wear it.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1236761054753030149"}"></div></p>
<p>Even some non-Muslims are interested in the niqab as a means of protecting against coronavirus. </p>
<p>Afrah, from the U.K., told me that her non-Muslim aunt wants to use a niqab now because she finds regular face masks uncomfortable. And Sajida, an American Muslim, spoke of a convert friend whose father – a vehement critic of Islam and believer in anti-Muslim conspiracy theories – now encourages his daughter to wear a niqab to prevent the spread of coronavirus.</p>
<p>The niqab alone <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/117087">is not sufficient protection</a> against influenza-like viruses because it is not airtight. Mosques are warning women who wear the niqab to additionally wear a mask underneath for more effective protection. However, the niqab, like any cloth face covering, is likely to <a href="https://health.clevelandclinic.org/unsure-about-actually-wearing-a-face-mask-heres-how-and-why-to-do-it/">protect others from the wearer’s sneezes</a> if worn snugly around the eyes, ears and nose. </p>
<h2>Experts in face covering</h2>
<p>The niqab-wearing women who commented for this story recognize that the improved perception of face covering comes at a time of crisis, when ordinary social norms and interactions are suspended. </p>
<p>“I’m wondering if this empathy will continue or will it disappear as soon as the pandemic’s over,” Afrah said via Facebook Messenger. “I wonder if people will keep this reflection, this need to protect oneself, no matter the reason.”</p>
<p>The same question holds within Muslim communities. </p>
<p>“I hope the sisters who were previously anti-niqab and then embraced it in a time of need and fear don’t return to their niqab-shunning ways,” Sajida said via email. </p>
<p>For now, niqab-wearing women say, they are in high demand as experts on face covering. </p>
<p>Muslim and non-Muslim friends donning the niqab for the first time need their help tying it securely, and ask whether it’s culturally appropriate to cover just the nose and the mouth – rather than the whole face except the eyes.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=420%2C0%2C3943%2C2430&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=420%2C0%2C3943%2C2430&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327027/original/file-20200409-92027-8wemye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The eyes can say a lot even when one’s mouth is covered.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/groups-of-muslim-women-wearing-the-niqab-attend-the-news-photo/1206443245?adppopup=true">Nacho Calonge/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women who wear the niqab can also speak from experience about communicating with a covered face. Many people unused to wearing masks find it difficult to convey emotions or pick up on social cues. </p>
<p>But niqab-wearing women know that face coverings <a href="https://www.theodysseyonline.com/does-niqab-impair-communication">don’t prevent effective communication</a>. </p>
<p>“Smile! Facial expression is easily and quickly noticeable because of the eyes,” Asma recommended. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200216184520.htm">Research</a> suggests that detecting human emotion requires looking at much more than facial expressions anyway. The niqab-wearing women I interviewed for my book “make an extra effort,” as they told me, to communicate. They wave, speak and use body language to connect.</p>
<p>“I have to be more outwardly chatty and friendly,” Soraya from Scotland said. “If I’m standing at a bus stop, I say ‘hi.’ You can see I am smiling because my eyes crinkle.” </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Piela does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As people everywhere don face masks, scarves and bandanas to protect against coronavirus, Muslim women who wear the niqab, or Islamic veil, are feeling a lot less conspicuous.Anna Piela, Visiting Scholar in Religious Studies and Gender, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1317942020-03-06T16:34:18Z2020-03-06T16:34:18ZThe forgotten women who helped to build British Islam<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318719/original/file-20200304-66056-ocq13e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C216%2C799%2C353&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Group photo outside the Memorial Hall at the Shah Jahan Mosque complex in Woking.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.wokingmuslim.org/photos/kh-early.htm">Woking Mission Photos Index</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The two first British mosques were established in 1889 in Liverpool and Woking, and women played a major contribution to the communities that helped to set up these mosques. But you wouldn’t necessarily know it. Indeed, women’s contributions throughout history are consistently forgotten – often lost so the past becomes “his story”. I hope <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/2/62">my new research</a> will play a part in changing this.</p>
<p>I used archive material linked to the two earliest British mosques to examine the everyday lives of women in these historical communities. This research presents a coherent and compelling narrative of women’s lives and roles as contributors and leaders of their communities.</p>
<p>Women in these communities were usually middle-class converts, who encountered Islam through travel, mosque publications or public lectures. They lived in an environment that viewed Islam and Muslims with suspicion and ridicule. British Muslims were perceived as <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/loyal-enemies/">“loyal enemies”</a> and <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-infidel-within/">“infidels within”</a> the society of that time.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318400/original/file-20200303-66106-mziqfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318400/original/file-20200303-66106-mziqfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318400/original/file-20200303-66106-mziqfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318400/original/file-20200303-66106-mziqfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318400/original/file-20200303-66106-mziqfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318400/original/file-20200303-66106-mziqfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318400/original/file-20200303-66106-mziqfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1258&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One woman, Jessie Ameena Davidson, wrote about her conversion in The Islamic Review in June 1926.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At both the Liverpool and Woking mosques, women were included in Eid celebrations, debates and other events. The women at the Liverpool mosque also ran a home for the city’s “destitute” children, which was established in January 1897. </p>
<p>Women wrote for mosque publications, which also celebrated women’s achievements. In January 1895, the Liverpool Mosque newsletter noted that Mrs Zubeida Ali Akbar had the honour of being presented to the Queen. On March 20 1895, it noted that Miss Teyba Bilgrami, “a young Mahommedan lady of Hyderabad”, had passed the first exam in the arts at Madras University. </p>
<h2>Refreshments and entertainment</h2>
<p>Women were nearly always in charge of refreshments and “entertainment” at mosque events, including an annual Christmas breakfast that the Liverpool Muslim Institute organised. Women were initially excluded from the literary and debating society – this being only for “young men”. Then in March 1896, for the first time a woman, Rosa Warren, gave a talk on the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318402/original/file-20200303-66106-1ezb4qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318402/original/file-20200303-66106-1ezb4qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318402/original/file-20200303-66106-1ezb4qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318402/original/file-20200303-66106-1ezb4qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318402/original/file-20200303-66106-1ezb4qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318402/original/file-20200303-66106-1ezb4qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318402/original/file-20200303-66106-1ezb4qe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this photograph from the Woking Mosque Archives, a few women sit at the back participating in the prayer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Articles in mosque publications, usually written by men, show how Muslim patriarchy of the time converged with that of Victorian society to marginalise women. For example, poetry published in the Liverpool Mosque newsletter derides “the New Woman” who: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>had studied mathematics … knew all about mythology … her mind was drilled in science … knew all the dates of history … Could talk with great loquacity on questions of capacity, but couldn’t sew a button on her little brother’s pants.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Trailblazing women</h2>
<p>Yet there were also women who challenged these patriarchies. As part of my research, I uncovered many interesting stories of women and their roles in the mosques. There was Mrs Nafeesa T Keep, for example, a convert to Islam who arrived in Liverpool from the United States. She gave talks on Islam and women’s rights, challenging both patriarchal understandings of Islam and stereotypes of Islam. She was appointed the assistant superintendent of the Medressah-i-iyyum-al-Sebbah, an institution aimed at educating young Muslims on religion. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318404/original/file-20200303-66052-8z7r8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318404/original/file-20200303-66052-8z7r8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318404/original/file-20200303-66052-8z7r8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318404/original/file-20200303-66052-8z7r8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318404/original/file-20200303-66052-8z7r8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318404/original/file-20200303-66052-8z7r8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318404/original/file-20200303-66052-8z7r8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zainab Cobbold (born Lady Evelyn Murray) was a Scottish diarist, traveller and noblewoman who was known for her conversion to Islam in the Victorian era.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was also Madame Teresa Griffin Viele (1831–1906), who took the Muslim name Sadika Hanoum. She was a news correspondent for the Liverpool Mosque, writing the “Resume of Political Events” in its journal from September 1894 to April 1895. And Lady Evelyn Zainab Cobbold, a high-profile convert from an aristocratic British family, who became one of the first European women to perform the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca. Extraordinarily for her time, she performed the pilgrimage on her own, in a motor car and then wrote a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Pilgrimage_to_Mecca.html?id=rBwuAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">best-selling book</a> in 1934 about her experiences. </p>
<p>Other women in this community include Fatima Cates, who was a key member and indeed founding treasurer of the Liverpool Muslim Institute, the body that itself founded Britain’s first mosque in the city. Meanwhile, another woman, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Muslim_Women_Reform_and_Princely_Patrona.html?id=y0a3AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Begum Shah Jahan</a> of Bhopal, India, funded Britain’s first purpose-built mosque in Woking. Women were therefore central to the foundation of the first mosques in Britain.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318406/original/file-20200303-66099-s7lkqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318406/original/file-20200303-66099-s7lkqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318406/original/file-20200303-66099-s7lkqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318406/original/file-20200303-66099-s7lkqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318406/original/file-20200303-66099-s7lkqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318406/original/file-20200303-66099-s7lkqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318406/original/file-20200303-66099-s7lkqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Shah Jahan Mosque in Oriental Road, Woking, England, is the first purpose-built mosque in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rewriting history</h2>
<p>Indeed, as my research shows, history puts women at the centre of the establishment of Islam in Britain. And in their own different ways, these women took on roles of leadership and representation. They lived at a time that was socially and culturally extremely different from that of contemporary British Muslims. Yet the issues these women encountered in their practice of Islam, their negotiations with multiple patriarchies, and their daily lives are not unlike the issues around gender and mosque leadership debated in contemporary Britain.</p>
<p>By shining a light on the history of Muslim women in Britain, contemporary issues seem less insurmountable. These women shaped the Muslim communities of their time and it is imperative that their stories are known.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust small grants scheme (grant number SG151945)</span></em></p>My new research highlights a little known story of women’s roles in British Muslim history.Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, Assistant Professor in Faith and Peaceful Relations at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1296022020-02-24T13:47:44Z2020-02-24T13:47:44ZIndian women protest new citizenship laws, joining a global ‘fourth wave’ feminist movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316652/original/file-20200221-92507-1jqxinr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5764%2C3831&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women in Delhi's Shaheen Bagh neighborhood are protesting a new Indian citizenship law that they say will discriminate against Muslims, women – and, particularly, Muslim women.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-protesters-raise-slogans-ahead-of-their-march-to-home-news-photo/1201747107?adppopup=true">Burhaan Kinu/Hindustan Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Women are among the strongest opponents of two new laws in India that <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/01/30/india-citizenship-act-caa-nrc-assam/">threaten the citizenship rights of vulnerable groups like Muslims</a>, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/04/india-citizenship-law-women/">poor women</a>, oppressed castes and LGBTQ people.</p>
<p>The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed in December 2019, fast-tracks Indian citizenship for <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-new-citizenship-act-legalizes-a-hindu-nation-129024">undocumented refugees from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan</a> – but only those who are non-Muslim. Another law - the National Register of Citizens – will require all residents in India to furnish extensive legal documentation to prove their citizenship as soon as 2021. </p>
<p>Critics see the two laws as part of the government’s efforts to redefine the <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-plan-to-identify-illegal-immigrants-could-get-some-muslims-declared-foreign-127652">meaning of belonging in India</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-prime-minister-modi-pursues-politics-of-hindu-nationalism-what-does-that-mean-117794">make this constitutionally secular country a Hindu nation</a>. </p>
<p>Since Dec. 4, 2019, Indians of all ages, ethnicities and religions have been <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/campus-attacks-nationalists-and-police-alarm-india-s-scientific-community">protesting the new citizenship initiatives</a> in scattered but complementary nationwide demonstrations. The uprisings have persisted through weeks of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/23/india-deadly-force-used-against-protesters">arrests, beatings and even killings</a> across India by the police.</p>
<p>But the most enduring pocket of resistance is an around-the-clock sit-in of mostly hijab-wearing women in a working-class Delhi neighborhood called Shaheen Bagh.</p>
<h2>Women take charge</h2>
<p>Since Dec. 15, 2019, women of all ages – from students to 90-year-old grandmothers – have abandoned their daily duties and braved <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50902909">near-freezing temperatures</a> to block a major highway in the Indian capital. </p>
<p>This is a striking act of resistance in a patriarchal country where women – but particularly <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/the-rise-of-the-new-indian-muslim-woman-analysis/story-NA2GeOguvZn9ETT1NtsDaJ.html">Muslim women</a> – have historically had <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-bust-the-patriarchy-masquedaring-as-religion-women-activists-shatter-taboos-about-female-sexuality/340784">their rights denied</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316486/original/file-20200220-92533-dcthsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Shaheen Bagh movement uses both novel and traditional forms of protests, including marches, silent sit-ins and musical performances.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-hold-placards-as-they-sit-during-a-silent-news-photo/1200296283?adppopup=true">Biplov Bhuyan/Hindustan Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Shaheen Bagh protests are as novel in their methods as they are in their makeup. Protesters are using <a href="https://scroll.in/article/948440/the-art-of-resistance-ringing-in-the-new-year-with-anti-caa-protesters-at-shaheen-bagh">artwork, book readings, lectures, poetry recitals, songs, interfaith prayers and communal cooking</a> to explain their resistance to citizenship laws that, they say, will discriminate against not just Muslims but also women, who usually don’t have state or property papers in their own names. </p>
<p>On Jan. 11, women in the Indian city of Kolkata performed a <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/m7qenq/the-rapist-is-you-women-sang-the-bengali-version-of-the-chilean-feminist-anthem-to-oppose-the-caa">Bengali-language</a> version of a Chilean feminist anthem called “The Rapist is You.” This choreographed public flash dance, first staged in Santiago, Chile in November 2019, calls out the police, judiciary and government for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rapist-is-you-why-a-viral-latin-american-feminist-anthem-spread-around-the-world-128488">violating women’s human rights</a>.</p>
<h2>A dangerous place for women</h2>
<p>India is the world’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/28/poll-ranks-india-most-dangerous-country-for-women">most dangerous</a> country for women, according to the <a href="http://news.trust.org/spotlight/the-worlds-most-dangerous-countries-for-women-2011">Thompson Reuters Foundation</a>. One-third of married women are <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/07/halting-blow-domestic-violence-india-160701121800822.html">physically abused</a>. Two-thirds of rapes <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/29/791734411/what-headlines-and-protests-get-wrong-about-rape-in-india">go unpunished</a>. </p>
<p>Gender discrimination is so pervasive that <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/UNFPA_Publication-39857.pdf">around 1 million</a> female fetuses are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20879612">aborted</a> each year. In some parts of India, there are <a href="https://wiki.ubc.ca/Sex_Selective_Abortion_in_India#Sex_Ratios">126 men for every 100 women</a>.</p>
<p>Indian women have <a href="https://theswaddle.com/a-brief-history-of-indian-women-protesting-gender-inequality/">come together in protest</a> before, to speak out against <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0719-03.htm">these and other issues</a>. But most <a href="https://www.academia.edu/24968867/Women_Are_Not_For_Burning_The_Anti-Dowry_Movement_in_Delhi_1">prior women’s protests</a> were limited in scope and geography. The 2012 <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/women-front-lines-india-citizenship-law-protests-191223061447173.html">brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old Delhi woman</a> – which sparked nationwide protests – was a watershed moment. All at once, the country witnessed the power of women’s rage. </p>
<p>The current women-led <a href="https://www.liberationnews.org/largest-ever-strike-indian-workers-show-strength-against-the-far-right-government/">anti-citizenship law demonstrations</a> are even greater in number and power. Beyond Shaheen Bagh, Indian women across caste, religion and ethnicity are putting their <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/india-women-rescued-friend-police-attack-viral-video-191216150934526.html">bodies</a> and reputations on the line. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e25KmRTb5RM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Shaheen Bagh protest song.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Female students are intervening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3wtJ8oHpFQ">shield fellow students</a> from <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/dozens-injured-india-police-storm-universities-191216033648272.html">police violence</a> at campus protests. <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/entertainment-news-swara-riteish-taapsee-shabana-azmi-and-other-bollywood-celebrities-react-to-jnu-violence/345266">Actresses</a> from <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/jnu-violence-attack-deepika-padukone-aishe-ghosh-chhapaak-6211979/">Bollywood</a>, India’s film industry, are <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/celebrities/story/priyanka-chopra-on-caa-protests-each-voice-will-work-towards-changing-india-1629553-2019-12-19">speaking out against gender violence</a>, too.</p>
<h2>Women’s secular agenda</h2>
<p>With their non-violent tactics and inclusive strategy, the Shaheen Bagh women are proving to be effective critics of the government’s <a href="https://www.boell.de/en/2014/02/26/patriarchal-politics-struggle-genuine-democracy-contemporary-india">Hindu-centric agenda</a>. Their leaderless epicenter of resistance raises up <a href="https://scroll.in/article/948440/the-art-of-resistance-ringing-in-the-new-year-with-anti-caa-protesters-at-shaheen-bagh">national symbols</a> like the Indian flag, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3J2i8l3AVY">the national anthem</a> and the Indian Constitution as reminders that India is secular and plural – a place where people can be both Muslim and Indian. </p>
<p>The Shaheen Bagh movement’s novel and enduring strategy has triggered activism <a href="https://www.siasat.com/every-place-shaheen-bagh-nandita-das-joins-caa-nrc-protest-1803853/">elsewhere in the country</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/shaheen-bagh-inspires-many-protests-across-the-country/cid/1736089">Thousands of women</a> in the northern Indian city of Lucknow started their own <a href="https://thewire.in/communalism/lucknow-women-anti-caa-sit-in-protest">sit-in</a> in late January. Similar “Shaheen Baghs” have sprung up since, in the cities of <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/shaheen-bagh-inspires-many-protests-across-the-country/cid/1736089">Patna</a> and even <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/inspired-by-shaheen-bagh-women-lead-protests-against-caa/article30832555.ece">Chennai</a>, which is located 1,500 miles from Delhi. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316481/original/file-20200220-92512-hass67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-citizenship law protests in India’s Assam State, Feb. 16, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-attend-a-protest-against-a-new-citizenship-news-photo/1201476342?adppopup=true">Anuwar Ali Hazarika/Barcroft Media via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Global women’s spring</h2>
<p>India’s Shaheen Bagh protests form part of a broader global trend in <a href="https://theconversation.com/urban-unrest-propels-global-wave-of-protests-126306">women’s movements</a>. Worldwide, female activists are combining attention to women’s issues with a wider call for social justice across gender, class and geographic borders. </p>
<p>In January 2019 alone, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/19/womens-march-london-against-austerity-protesters-worldwide">women in nearly 90 countries took to the streets</a> demanding equal pay, reproductive rights and the end of violence. Young women were also at the forefront of the 2019 <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3025146/protesttoo-women-forefront-hong-kongs-anti-government-movement">pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/08/lebanese-women-demand-new-rights-amid-political-turmoil">Lebanon</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/sudan-women-protesters-leading-pro-democracy-movement-190423134521604.html">Sudan</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/11/brazil-women-bolsonaro-haddad-election/574792/">Brazil</a> and <a href="https://colombiareports.com/women-take-the-lead-on-5th-day-of-colombias-anti-government-protests/">Colombia</a>.</p>
<p>As I write in my <a href="https://www.routledge.com/New-Feminisms-in-South-Asian-Social-Media-Film-and-Literature-Disrupting/Jha-Kurian/p/book/9781138668935">2017 book</a>, such inclusive activism is the defining characteristic of what’s called “fourth wave feminism.” </p>
<p>There <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">isn’t a common definition</a> of the first three feminist waves. In the United States, they generally refer to the early 20th century suffragette movement, the radical women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the more mainstream feminism of the 1990s and early 2000s. </p>
<p>Fourth wave feminism appears to be more universal. Today’s activists fully embrace the idea that women’s freedom means little if other groups are still oppressed. With its <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/national/west/caa-to-divert-peoples-attention-from-economic-crisis-793876.html">economic critique</a>, disavowal of <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/chandrashekhar-azad-shaheen-bagh-caa-nrc-protests-bhim-army-constitution-1639238-2020-01-22">caste oppression</a> and solidarity across <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/478570-protesting-women-in-india-are-uniting-muslims-hindus-and-religious">religious divides</a>, India’s Shaheen Bagh sit-in shares attributes with the women’s uprisings in Chile, Lebanon, Hong Kong and beyond. </p>
<p>The last time women came together in such numbers worldwide was the <a href="https://thewire.in/gender/metoo-campaign-brings-the-rise-of-fourth-wave-feminism-in-india">#MeToo movement</a>, a campaign against sexual harassment which <a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-campaign-brings-conversation-of-rape-to-the-mainstream-85875">emerged on social media in the United States in 2017</a> and quickly spread across the globe. </p>
<p>Shaheen Bagh and similarly far-reaching women’s uprisings underway in other countries take #MeToo to the next level, moving from a purely feminist agenda to a wider call for social justice. Women protesters want rights – not just for themselves, but human rights for all.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alka Kurian has been awarded the 2020-2021 Fulbright U.S. Scholar award.
She volunteers for Tasveer, a South Asian non-profit dedicated to social change through thought-provoking South Asian films, art and storytelling.</span></em></p>A round-the-clock strike of Muslim women in a working-class neighborhood of Delhi is India’s most enduring pocket of resistance to religious discrimination, inequality and gender violence.Alka Kurian, Senior Lecturer, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, BothellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1304602020-02-11T13:54:30Z2020-02-11T13:54:30ZWomen in Arab countries find themselves torn between opportunity and tradition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314580/original/file-20200210-109916-1bwnb7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4928%2C3275&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In an effort to increase tourism, Saudi Arabia recently eased its strict dress code for foreign women, allowing them to go without the body-shrouding abaya robe still mandatory for Saudi women. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/participants-attend-the-launch-of-the-new-tourism-visa-in-news-photo/1171500442?adppopup=true">FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Arab women, long relegated to the private sphere by law and social custom, are gaining new access to public life. </p>
<p>All countries of the Arab Gulf now have <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2825910">workforce “nationalization policies”</a> that aim to reduce dependency on migrant labor by getting more women into the workforce. <a href="https://vision2030.gov.sa/en">Saudi Arabia set a goal</a> of 30% female labor participation by 2030. In <a href="https://lmis.csb.gov.kw/En/default.aspx">Kuwait</a>, female citizens outnumber male citizens in the workforce. And across the <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/16121/degrees-of-difficulty-women-and-higher-education-in-the-persian-gulf">Gulf</a>, women outnumber men in higher education enrollment. </p>
<p>Women are making political inroads in the region, too. In <a href="https://mofa.gov.qa/en/qatar/history-of-qatar/qatari-women">Qatar</a>, four women have been <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/231456">appointed</a> to ministerial positions since 2003. Eleven women have held cabinet positions in <a href="https://www.albawaba.com/news/kuwaits-new-cabinet-has-three-women-ministers-1327658">Kuwait</a> since 2005, including health minister, transportation minister and <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/gcc/gulf-s-first-female-finance-minister-named-in-new-kuwait-government-1.952640">finance minister</a>. </p>
<p>Even Saudi Arabia, which notoriously restricts women’s rights, <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/8/3/20752864/saudi-arabia-guardianship-laws-women-travel-employment-mbs">reformed the guardianship system</a> that grants authority over women to their male relatives. Since August 2019, women may obtain passports, travel abroad and register marriages and births on their own. </p>
<p>These changes have real world benefits for Arab women, giving them greater economic independence and a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/04/lolwah-al-khater-qatar-foreign-policy-interview-074959">voice in domestic and international affairs</a>.</p>
<p>But Arab Muslim women in the Middle East still face substantial <a href="https://agsiw.org/the-personal-is-political-gender-identity-in-the-personal-status-laws-of-the-gulf-arab-states/">social and legal inequalities</a>. Even as governments in the region tout female advancement abroad, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7dMcuN0AAAAJ&hl=en">my research on women in the Arab Gulf</a> finds, at home they still enforce traditional gender roles. </p>
<h2>Women as symbols of Islam</h2>
<p>The discovery of oil in the Arab Gulf in the 1930s <a href="https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/06/21/how-oil-transformed-the-gulf">turned these Islamic monarchies into global players</a>. One result of this globalization was that Western leaders put <a href="https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/91831/CME-pub-PoliticalEconomy-050815.pdf?sequence=1">pressure on the region</a> to “modernize” their laws and customs. </p>
<p>Championing <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/gulf-women-long-190308131344342.html">women’s advancement</a> is one way Gulf rulers can present a positive international image. This helps maintain good political, military and trade relationships with Europe and the United States and allays <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/12/human-rights-in-the-gulf-under-renewed-scrutiny-ahead-of-gcc-summit/">criticisms</a> of human rights violations.</p>
<p>In recent years, Arab Gulf women have also <a href="https://theconversation.com/saudi-women-are-going-to-college-running-for-office-and-changing-the-conservative-country-109938">fought hard for their rights</a>. Saudi women successfully campaigned for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/world/middleeast/saudi-driving-ban-anniversary.html">right to drive</a>, which was granted in 2018. In Kuwait, activists are now pushing for <a href="http://abolish153.org/">better protections</a> against domestic violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314584/original/file-20200210-109935-1fgjarm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314584/original/file-20200210-109935-1fgjarm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314584/original/file-20200210-109935-1fgjarm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314584/original/file-20200210-109935-1fgjarm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314584/original/file-20200210-109935-1fgjarm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314584/original/file-20200210-109935-1fgjarm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314584/original/file-20200210-109935-1fgjarm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lolwah Rashid Al-Khater, of the Qatar’s foreign affairs ministry, is one of several Qatari women in high-profile political posts, Sept. 24, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lolwah-rashid-al-khater-spokesperson-of-the-ministry-of-news-photo/1176806473?adppopup=true">Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Concordia Summit</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Gulf rulers still need the support of conservative citizens and influential religious leaders, too. And these sectors of the population have repeatedly raised <a href="https://mepc.org/political-costs-qatars-western-orientation">fears of Westernization</a> threatening local language, dress styles, food and cultural traditions.</p>
<p>One way Gulf rulers manage this tension, I’ve found, is by promoting <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Most_Masculine_State/JmafWmVNJAAC?hl=en&gbpv=0">Quranic interpretations</a> that relegate women to traditional roles like <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6040123">bearing and raising children and caring for their families</a>. Celebrating women’s domesticity is an easy way to signal their government’s commitment to what they consider Islamic values.</p>
<p>In Qatar, for example, the <a href="https://www.gco.gov.qa/en/about-qatar/national-vision2030/">National Vision 2030</a> – an economic and social development blueprint – states that “Qatar has maintained its cultural and traditional values as an Arab and Islamic nation that considers the family to be the main pillar of society.” </p>
<p>And the Qataris propping up this pillar are women. </p>
<p>“Through their nurturing of language, codes of ethics, behavioural patterns, value systems and religious beliefs, women play an indispensable role in upholding traditional familial and cultural values,” reads a <a href="https://www.psa.gov.qa/en/nds1/pages/default.aspx">government document building on the proposals laid out in the National Vision 2030</a>.</p>
<h2>Religion and gender</h2>
<p>There are, of course, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/rise-islamic-feminists/">more gender-equal interpretations of the Quran</a>. Islam itself does not require repressing women. </p>
<p>But throughout history <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Women_and_Gender_in_Islam.html?id=U0Grq2BzaUgC&source=kp_book_description">male leaders in the Gulf</a> have associated patriarchal gender roles with religious purity. And clerics, who have significant <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/516a1378/bi-report-092319-cme-mbs-saudi.pdf">social and political influence</a> in the region, enforce <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46mwz6.5?refreqid=excelsior%3A73695d320b89c549f2d264978e14cf5b&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">conservative readings of Islamic law</a> that subordinate women. </p>
<p>For example, women in all of the <a href="https://agsiw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aldosari_ONLINE_updated.pdf">Gulf states</a> must receive the approval of a male guardian to marry. In <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2019/08/04/Qatar-remains-only-GCC-country-restricting-travel-for-women.html">Qatar</a>, single women under 25 require permission to travel abroad, and Qatari men can argue in court to stop their wives from traveling. In Saudi Arabia, men can file a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/loopholes-riddle-saudi-reforms-guardianship-women-report-191023062306285.html">“disobedience” complaint</a> against female relatives for leaving the house without permission. </p>
<p>In Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, a man can <a href="https://agsiw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aldosari_ONLINE_updated.pdf">stop his wife from working</a> if he feels her employment interferes with her domestic responsibilities or religious conduct.</p>
<p>As a result, women in Gulf countries find themselves <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/02/saudi-arabia-women-travel-consent-rights-feminist-movement">caught between two contradictory agendas</a> for the 21st century.</p>
<h2>What women want</h2>
<p>Many Qatari women I’ve interviewed say they struggle to balance the <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/jmews/article/15/3/344/140633/Gender-and-Nation-Building-in-QatarQatari-Women?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Gender%20and%20Nation%20Building%20in%20Qatar%3A%20Qatari%20Women%20Negotiate%20Modernity&utm_campaign=j-MEW_Top5of2019_Jan2020">conflicting expectations between domestic responsibilities and emerging professional opportunities</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4087%2C2990&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4087%2C2990&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314574/original/file-20200210-109887-x1p1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ice cream selfies in Doha, Qatar, Dec. 19, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/local-women-take-pictures-of-their-ice-creams-in-doha-qatar-news-photo/1189635066?adppopup=true">Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Sheikha, an unmarried Qatari in her late 20s who works as an academic adviser, told me she often wonders: “I have a job and future plans. Why should I marry?”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to say that marriage erases the dreams,” she said, “but sometimes with the family commitment you can’t do it.”</p>
<p>Qatari women like Sheikha tend to face significant <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/06_bdc_essay_winner.pdf">social pressure</a> to settle down and have children by a certain age and to make sure their education and career goals do not get in the way of domestic responsibilities. </p>
<p>Not all the pressure is external. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-016-0708-9">Many women</a> I met hold conservative views on marriage and the family, too.</p>
<p>“I started work when my last daughter got married,” Amina Al-Ansari, an associate professor at Qatar University, told me. “Before that, I took care of the house and kids.” </p>
<p>Al-Ansari, like all 15 Qatari women I interviewed, believes caring for the family is a woman’s religious duty.</p>
<h2>Still can’t have it all</h2>
<p>Conservative Qataris also view women working or <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780333638125">studying in a gender-mixed</a> environment as a violation of Islamic values and a sign of <a href="https://mepc.org/political-costs-qatars-western-orientation">Westernization</a>.</p>
<p>That’s why Amal Al-Shammari, a 32-year-old Qatari who now runs a cultural association for expatriates and tourists called <a href="http://www.embracedoha.net/">Embrace Doha</a>, attended Qatar University – the country’s only gender-segregated university. </p>
<p>“My parents wanted me to go there to keep a good reputation. Guys assume you have lots of relationships if you go to gender-mixed universities,” she told me. “My parents wanted me to stay with the conservative way.”</p>
<p>As political and religious leaders in the Gulf push their national agendas, women must find their own ways to balance newfound freedoms with existing social and religious pressures. </p>
<p>“There is always development, improvement, but always tradition, religion, and culture,” the professor, Al-Ansari, told me, summing up these tensions. </p>
<p>“We are living under the umbrella of religion.” </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alainna Liloia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, it’s now official policy that women should go to college and work outside the home. But cultural pressure to marry and have kids remains strong.Alainna Liloia, Ph.D. Student, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1278072019-12-02T18:14:03Z2019-12-02T18:14:03ZIslamophobic attacks mostly happen in public. Here’s what you can do if you see it or experience it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304617/original/file-20191202-79489-duwdj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C0%2C4299%2C3260&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Muhammad Ruqiyaddin/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The second <a href="https://www.isra.org.au/publications-1">Islamophobia in Australia Report</a> launched last month, in the same week a graphic video showing a pregnant Muslim woman being punched and stomped on circulated widely on social media. </p>
<p>Earlier in October another video went viral, showing two New South Wales police officers verbally abusing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/31/police-officers-abused-afghan-women-in-sydney-traffic-stop-watchdog-finds">two Muslim women</a>, threatening to falsely charge them as an accessory to murder.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/these-young-muslim-australians-want-to-meet-islamophobes-and-change-their-minds-and-its-working-127115">These young Muslim Australians want to meet Islamophobes and change their minds. And it's working</a>
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<p>In both cases, the victims were women and visibly Muslim, wearing a head covering (hijab), and the perpetrators were white men. These examples correlate with the report’s findings, where 71% of perpetrators were male and 72% of victims were female. </p>
<p>Alarmingly, most Islamophobic attacks occurred in public, and yet only 14% of bystanders got involved or intervened. And of those, only one in three defended the victim. The majority of witnesses simply passed by without paying attention. </p>
<h2>Islamophobic incidents recorded nationwide</h2>
<p>The second biennial Islamophobia in Australia report analysed 349 Islamophobic incidents reported to the <a href="https://www.islamophobia.com.au/">Islamophobia Register of Australia</a>, from 2016-2017. Combined with the previous report, 592 online and offline cases were recorded in the last four years. But this represents only the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1196317151918878720"}"></div></p>
<p>Both reports conclusively show Islamophobia in Australia does exist and is a persistent social issue, one that overwhelmingly targets women, a vulnerability that stems from being identifiably Muslim when wearing a hijab.</p>
<p>It is also alarming that the incidents in public spaces not only continued to occur regularly, but their prevalence increased since the previous report. </p>
<p>Guarded places, such as shopping centres, train stations and other crowded areas saw 60% more harassment than unguarded places – an increase of 30% since the previous report. Islamophobia in shopping centres was most common, accounting for 25% of reported incidents.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-is-still-raising-its-ugly-head-in-australia-80682">Islamophobia is still raising its ugly head in Australia</a>
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<p>This could be because public spaces give more opportunity for Islamophobic people to cross paths with Muslims. Yet, the presence of a crowd, CCTV cameras and guards didn’t appear to deter them.</p>
<h2>What you can do if you see an attack</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-03/hate-crimes-rarely-prosecuted-in-australia/11055938">Hate crimes</a> are rarely prosecuted in Australia, and together with the lack of bystander intervention and pervasive negative stereotypes of Muslims, perpetrators seem more emboldened.</p>
<p>But public opinion is where the most important opportunity to prevent Islamophobia lies. If witnesses to Islamophobic hate incidents intervene, it would strongly discourage perpetrators and others with similar sentiments. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304618/original/file-20191202-79446-l772q0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://alltogethernow.org.au">Infographic courtesy of All Together Now</a></span>
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<p>So, if you see an Islamophobic incident in a public, guarded place like a shopping centre, the first thing you can do is directly report to the security guards, who can take the perpetrator away. </p>
<p>Witnesses should also consider reporting the incidents to the Islamophobia Register and the police. In fact, witnesses reported 41% of all physical cases recorded in the report. </p>
<p>The second thing you can do is comfort the victims. Victims, who were often left in tears, say they felt traumatised, deeply disappointed, publicly ridiculed and, as a result, extremely distressed. </p>
<p>A smile or simply saying, “don’t worry, this is your country just like all other Australians”, would go a long way to alleviate the intense feeling of not being accepted.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-tackle-islamophobia-the-best-strategies-from-around-europe-106092">How to tackle Islamophobia – the best strategies from around Europe</a>
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<p>And third, witnesses should get involved. In one reported case, when a Muslim mother with her three children was severely abused, the support from surrounding people discouraged the perpetrator, who quickly left. </p>
<p>Here, the mother describes the support she received afterwards.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was really upset and crying and my kids were in shock […] Everyone was looking at us and the woman from Donut King came over and offered a seat, a cup of tea and some drinks for my kids. </p>
<p>Security moved us to the management office soon after that but not before a sister who I happened to sit next to said she had removed her hijab and abaya because she was tired of being harassed.</p>
<p>Another beautiful lady gave me a much-needed hug and some kind words only someone who knows discrimination could share and another wanted to buy my kids donuts. The staff in the management were very kind and gave my children colouring in. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In another case, high school students defended their Muslim friend, whose name was scribbled on a toilet door, calling her a terrorist.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Her friends scribbled over it and wrote if u knew her u wouldn’t say that about her.</p>
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<p>The presence and behaviour of the police is another key factor. Victims reported immense relief and trust in Australia and its institutions when they felt police showed understanding, even if the case couldn’t lead to a criminal charge.</p>
<p>But police attended only half of the 22% of the incidents reported to them. And in some cases, police explained to victims how there’s freedom of speech in Australia and they can’t do much.</p>
<p>In 11% of the cases where police became involved, they were constructive and comforted the victim. </p>
<h2>What you can do if you experience Islamophobia</h2>
<p>First – stay strong and know you’ve done nothing wrong just for being a Muslim. Remembering this can give you the courage to call for help from bystanders. </p>
<p>In the earlier case of the Muslim mother with three children, it was her firm and loud response to the abuser that attracted attention and led to people offering help.</p>
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<p>Victims should also report the cases to the police and to the third-party reporting platforms, such as <a href="https://www.islamophobia.com.au/report/">Islamophobia Register Australia</a>. </p>
<p>Even if the incident doesn’t fall into a crime category, it can still be helpful for police to monitor the perpetrator, while the register can provide advocacy and use the reported incidents to raise public awareness in its reports.</p>
<p>And victims should seek counselling from organisations in every state and territory designed to help victims, such as <a href="https://www.victimsservices.justice.nsw.gov.au/">Victim Services</a> in NSW. The <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/complaints">Australian Human Rights Commission</a> also receives complaints and provides advocacy services across Australia. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-muslim-women-wear-a-hijab-3-essential-reads-110933">Why Muslim women wear a hijab: 3 essential reads</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.islamophobia.com.au/speak/">Islamophobia Register Australia</a> page provides detailed information about where to report and <a href="https://alltogethernow.org.au/a-solution-to-racism/">All Together Now</a> gives instructive advice on tackling racism.</p>
<p>Mosques and Muslim organisations can also provide a safe space for victims to talk about their experiences. Even if you don’t feel the need for counselling, discussing the experience can help make sense of it all in a meaningful way. </p>
<p>Islamophobia in Australia is a social problem that affects a significant portion of society. Recognition of Islamophobia does not diminish the achievements of Australian society and the success of its multiculturalism. </p>
<p>It will merely highlight a social problem that cannot be ignored or downplayed any longer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derya Iner works for Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation, Charles Sturt University and she is affiliation with Islamophobia Register Australia and Islamic Science and Research Academy </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy of Australia. </span></em></p>592 online and offline Islamophobia incidents were recorded in the last four years. But this represents only the tip of the iceberg.Derya Iner, Senior Lecturer, Charles Sturt UniversityMehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1251002019-10-14T12:15:13Z2019-10-14T12:15:13ZKurds targeted in Turkish attack include thousands of female fighters who battled Islamic State<p>Kurdish fighters under attack by Turkey have described President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria as a “<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/trump-has-stabbed-us-in-the-back-over-us-troop-withdrawal-claim-kurds-7mb8w8ql6">stab in the back</a>.” </p>
<p>Since bombing began on Oct. 9, Turkish military operations against the Syrian Democratic Forces in northern Syria, Washington’s staunchest and most effective allies in the war against the Islamic State, has killed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50020829">at least 11 civilians</a> and an unconfirmed number of Kurdish fighters, with estimates ranging from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-turkey-usa/thousands-flee-hundreds-reported-dead-in-turkish-attack-on-us-allied-kurds-in-syria-idUSKBN1WP0VH">dozens</a> to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/turkey-military-operation-syria-latest-updates-191011060434166.html">hundreds</a>. </p>
<p>Kurdish fighters are key partners to the U.S. in the Middle East. From 2003 to 2017, they helped overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10896557/Iraq-crisis-al-Qaeda-inspired-forces-battle-Kurdish-fighters-on-the-frontline-of-a-new-war.html">battled al-Qaida</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/middleeast/kurdish-independent-state/index.html">pushed the Islamic State</a> out of northern Iraq and Syria. </p>
<p>Kurdish women <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/female_front_line">have fought on the front lines</a> in all these battles, as they have done since the 19th-century Kurdish commander Kara Fatma <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DAC18871114.2.56">led an Ottoman battalion</a> of 700 men and 43 women against the Russian Empire. </p>
<p>That was unusual for the period – but, then again, Kurdish women have long been exceptions in the mostly conservative Middle East.</p>
<h2>Who are the Kurds?</h2>
<p>Kurdistan, where I was born, is among the largest nations in the world without a state. Around 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous zone straddling Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Armenia. </p>
<p>The Kurds were first split up politically in the 17th century, when their territory was divided between the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/this-16th-century-battle-created-the-modern-middle-east/">Ottoman and Safavid empires</a>. Back then, the Roman scholar Pietro Della Valle traveled to the region and was surprised to find “Kurdish women commuting freely without hijab.” He noted in <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A65012.0001.001?view=toc">his 1667 travelogue</a> that “they engage with Kurdish men and foreigners without any problems.” </p>
<p>After World War I, a treaty between Britain and France, called the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement">Sykes-Picot Agreement</a>, drew arbitrary borders across the Middle East, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/kurdistan-independence-referendum/how-kurds-became-part-of-iraq">creating colonial protectorate states</a>. The partition again fragmented the Kurds, this time across four countries: modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p>The Kurds have been fighting for their sovereignty ever since. In recent decades, they have succeeded in establishing autonomously governed regions within <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/kurdistan-independence-referendum/history-of-britain-and-the-kurdish-people/">Iraq</a> and Syria. </p>
<p>But in Iran and Turkey, the Kurds continue their <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230513082_6">armed struggle</a>. Both countries to view this ethnic minority as a terrorist threat and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/">legally repress Kurdish populations</a>.</p>
<p>This setup has put Kurdistan – domestically a <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21587271-iraqi-kurds-haven-peace-being-buffeted-last-turmoil">rather peaceable, prosperous place with significant oil reserves</a> – squarely in the center of a geopolitical quagmire. </p>
<p>Until Trump’s recent turnaround, the U.S. had backed the Kurds in Syria, Iraq and Iran, where they were <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-kurds-land/">critical to defeating the Islamic State</a> and served as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/pentagon-wont-take-over-islamic-state-prisons-if-partner-forces-withdraw-officials-say/2019/10/08/32ba187e-e9d9-11e9-9c6d-436a0df4f31d_story.html">jailers to about 11,000 captured IS fighters</a>. </p>
<p>But Turkey – a U.S. ally – sees the armed Kurds in Syria as an extension of the rebel <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20971100">Kurdistan Workers’ Party</a>, or PKK, which has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey since the 1980s. </p>
<p>In May 2018, over 250 people were killed when Turkey <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43447624">bombed the Kurdish-majority Syrian city of Afrin</a>, which Turkish armed forces considers a “terrorist corridor.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296518/original/file-20191010-188814-vn0ny4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smoke billows from Syria, just across the Turkey’s southeastern border, during bombardment by Turkish forces, Oct. 10, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Turkey-US-Syria/089e0fb4fdc44d3c820608d92280a802/3/0">AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The feminists of the PKK</h2>
<p>The Marxist-Leninist PKK, founded in 1978, may be an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/21/how-competition-helped-then-hurt-kurds-in-turkey/">enemy of the Turkish state</a>, but it is also one of the most feminist movements in the Middle East. </p>
<p>The group held its first congress on women’s rights in 1987, in which PKK co-founder Sakine Cansiz – who was <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20968375">assassinated in 2013</a> – proposed that its “liberation for all” rhetoric must include women’s liberation, too. </p>
<p>Today the party’s political agenda explicitly recognizes <a href="http://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60907/to-make-a-world-part-iii-stateless-democracy/">religious minorities, dissidents and women as the crux of democracy</a>. </p>
<p>In the autonomous Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria, <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkish-attack-on-syria-endangers-a-remarkable-democratic-experiment-by-the-kurds-125105">women have the same legal rights as men</a>. Indeed, the Iraqi Kurdish regional government <a href="https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-women/">has a higher proportion of women</a> than the United Kingdom – 30% versus 20%. </p>
<p>The charter of the semi-autonomous Syrian Federation of Kurdistan, founded in 2012, requires that <a href="http://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60907/to-make-a-world-part-iii-stateless-democracy/">women must hold a minimum of 40% of all government posts</a>. Every Kurdish Syrian public institution must also have two co-presidents, one male and one female.</p>
<p>Women also make up <a href="https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-women/">30% of Kurdish fighters deployed across the Middle East</a>. More than 25,000 Kurdish women are deployed in Syria as the Women’s Protection Units, an all-female militia inspired by the KPP’s <a href="https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article37467">feminist liberation ideology</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast, about <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/24/us/military-women-glance/index.html">14% of U.S. military service members are women</a>. </p>
<p>Female Kurdish troops rescued <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/iraq-yazidis-living-fear-mount-sinjar-160726063155982.html">thousands of Yazidis trapped by the Islamic State on Iraq’s Mount Sinjar</a> in 2014 and helped <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/20/middleeast/raqqa-syria-isis-total-liberation/index.html">liberate the city of Raqqa from the Islamic State in 2017</a>. </p>
<h2>Equal in battle but not everywhere else</h2>
<p>Despite the relative freedom of women in Kurdistan compared to elsewhere in the Middle East, Kurdish society is not entirely gender equal. </p>
<p>In 2014, only <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/westminster/zeynep-n-kaya/women-in-post-conflict-iraqi-kurdistan">12 of 250 judges in Iraqi Kurdistan were female, and just one of 21 government ministers was</a>. Female genital mutilation, child marriage and honor killings – in which male family members murder women who are alleged to have disgraced their families – <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/world/middleeast/21honor.html">persist</a>, particularly in rural areas of Kurdistan. </p>
<p>And, in my experience, feminist debates like equal pay for women and #MeToo aren’t yet a topic of conversation in Kurdistan.</p>
<p>Historically, too, it’s noteworthy that many famous female Kurdish leaders succeeded only because their empowerment did not challenge the male establishment. </p>
<p>During World War I, Lady Adela Khanum, leader of the Kurdish region of Halabja, saved the lives of <a href="https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/famous-kurds/lady-adela-khanum/">numerous British army officers on the battlefield</a>, earning her the nickname “Princess of the Brave.” </p>
<p>But she originally rose to power because she inherited the position when her husband died. While ruling Halabja from 1909 to 1924, she did not push a women’s rights agenda.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kurdish leader Lady Adela commanded her own army in WWI, while women in England were still struggling to get the vote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Adela#/media/File:Lady_Adela.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The hard labor of freedom</h2>
<p>Kurdish women who were seen as threats to male authority have often been punished, sometimes with death. </p>
<p>That’s what happened to the very first woman to fight in the Kurdish army. Margaret George Malik quickly rose up among the all-male ranks in the 1960s to lead troops in the Kurdish war for independence from Iraq. </p>
<p>She was <a href="http://kurdishquestion.com/oldarticle.php?aid=beyond-kurdistan-remembering-those-who-lost-their-lives-for-the-kurds">murdered in 1969 under mysterious circumstances</a>. Some historians believe that Malik was killed by her lover because she rejected his marriage proposal. Others say she was assassinated by the Kurdish leadership, which feared her growing influence. </p>
<p>Either way, Malik’s murder speaks to the battles Kurdish women still fight today.</p>
<p>It’s meaningful that in the Kurdish language, the word for woman – “jin” – shares a root with the word for life: “jiyan.” And both jin and jiyan are related to the word “jan,” or labor pains. </p>
<p>In a region surrounded by threats – from Turkey’s attacks and Islamic State terrorism and patriarchy at home – the women of Kurdistan are fighting for their life and liberty. And the cost is hard, dangerous labor.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/kurdish-troops-fight-for-freedom-and-womens-equality-on-battlegrounds-across-middle-east-91364#comment_2040646">article</a> originally published March 19, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125100/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Haidar Khezri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kurdish women have fought on the front lines of military battles since the 19th century. A scholar explains the origins of Kurdistan’s relative gender equality in a mostly conservative Muslim region.Haidar Khezri, Assistant Professor, University of Central FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.