Prophet Muhammad the Feminist and the Haramness of Lucky Charms: My Changing Perception of Allah and Islam

By Sukayna Chaudhury

It was the first semester of my freshman year of college at the University of North Carolina, and I needed an 11:00 class to meet my non-western history requirement. The class was called "An Introduction to Islam" and taught by Professor Carl Ernst.

As soon as I arrived, Dr. Ernst asked, "So which class did YOU sign up for? I shyly mumbled "Um Islam?" and the whole class burst out laughing and explained that I was the only one who had done so. Growing up in a society that continuously associates the word Muslim with terrorism, no American in the class had dared to sign up for a class called "Islam". Everyone else had signed up for the "Buddhism in America" class but the cancellation of the latter, and simple politeness, had forced them to stay.

I looked at the syllabus and was amazed to see The Veil and the Male Elite by Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi. In all honesty, I had never read anything by a Muslim woman, and explained my wonder to Dr. Ernst. He laughed and said, "Well women just happen to be 50 percent of the world's population and we need their views too." (He was one of those "emo" professors and had that whole bearded Sufi image going on! Eh yeah that means I had a crush on him.)

What astonished me about the book was its assertive take on patriarchy--Mernissi points out what really prevents some Muslim women from enjoying full participation in all spheres of political and social affairs. "If women's rights are a problem to some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Koran nor the prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of a male elite," she writes in her introduction.

But my fascination with the class was combined with discomfort. I was the only Muslim and for some irrational reason, I felt I had to make up excuses for the "Ummah's" sexism to an "ignorant predominately white/Christian class." I remember explaining to an Islamic Studies professor we were web-conferencing with that the reason women get only half of their father's property (from a Qur'anic verse, which is out of historical context) is because men were supposed to financially provide for them. He looked at me funny and to my embarrassment said, "well a lot of Modern Muslim men I've talked to prefer to give equal shares to their sons and daughters."

Yes, I used to be a Muslim apologist. But could you blame me? Mernissi, the muckraker, was digging up some pretty embarrassing and sexist tradition straight from the--you guessed it--Hadith.

And the professor was not helping. He made the class take "thorny issues" from the Hadith and analyze them just for fun, which of course scared the hell out of me.

Check these out:

• "The Prophet said the woman, the dog, and the ass all interrupt prayer."
• "The Prophet said those who trust their affairs to a woman, will never know prosperity."

Mernissi's beef was with the transmitters of these Hadiths who were blatantly sexist/misogynistic. Some purposefully manipulated them to serve their interests.

According to Mernissi, in the first report, the Prophet is conversing with Aisha and Umm Salama about some Jews he talked to. He says, "The Jews believe that the woman, the dog, and the ass all interrupt prayer."

Mernissi also showed how hadith statements were manipulated by mentioning Aisha's own set of hadiths. Aisha in response to Abu Huraira said "You compare us to dogs and asses now…well I swear on the prophet's word that he prayed behind me when I was asleep on the bed in front of him."

Let me also say that some of those western Muslims were a lot more enlightened about the Qur'an than the so called "eastern" ones.

Amina Wadud, an African American Muslim theologian at Virginia Commonwealth University is one of the leading experts on Qur'anic hermeneutics (ways of interpreting a text). According to our class's sourcebook Liberal Islam (featuring an excerpt from her "Qur'an and Woman"), Wadud states,

"There is no term in the Qur'an which indicates that childbearing is 'primary' to a woman. No indication is given that mothering is her exclusive role. The capacity is essential to the continuation of human existence. This function becomes the primary only with regard to women since they are the only ones capable of doing so." (p. 133)

Me: Wait, you're telling me, my sole purpose in life, as a Muslim woman, is not to make babies? So, I'm not just "biology"? Awesome.

But what about that "qiwama" verse in the Qur'an that some scholars say means "Men are in charge of women"? Pray tell me what they are really in charge of?

Wadud:

"That verse establishes an ideal obligation for men with regard to women to create an ideal balanced and shared society. This responsibility is neither biological nor inherent, but it is valuable. Such a perspective on qiwama will allow men to truly fulfill their khilafa (trusteeship) on earth, as ordained by God upon human creation. Such an attitude will overcome the competitive and hierarchical thinking which destroys rather than nurtures " (p. 138)

Me: "Whoa, the Qur'an says that men are responsible for gender justice?

And the thing is, back then, I found all this ijtihad (original thinking on legal matters) stuff interesting in theory, but I couldn't find any actual Muslims who believed in it or did any "gender justice" stuff.

The closest connection I had to Muslims was my Bangladeshi roommate or the Muslim Student's Association we both joined, where we sometimes had all these boring and pointless debates about beef and cheese consumption--which was "halal" (permissible) and which was "haram"(prohibited). One guy at a meeting told us we should not hang out with Muslims who did not eat "zabiha" (ritually-slaughtered meat) or the ones who attended non-Muslim college parties.

The "Sisterhood" parties that I attended were far more interesting. Picture a mini harem-like scene of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Iranian and Indian Muslim women sprawled on the living room floor gulping down Coke and Papa John's pizza, but all the while entranced with the sight of a particular Indian woman before them. Her eyes are laced with ebony kohl, and she seductively dances to a choreographed Bollywood song known as "Lebura, Lebura , Lebura!"

In the back, another group of Turkish and Indian women discuss the importance of head covers, which some associated with religious piety.

All of a sudden, a sister suddenly chimes:

"Oh my gosh, you guys, I was eating Lucky Charms and suddenly realized it had MARSMALLOWS!" Aaah! So I spit it out, and called Proctor & Gamble and asked if the marshmallows had pork gelatin, and they said it did. Don't eat it people! It's HARAM!"

"Oh and Starburst is HARAM too!"

Though lemme tell ya, those conversations about wearing the veil were absolutely fascinating, and really got a dweeb like me thinking hard. (My thoughts are in parentheses.)

• "I cover solely for God not for my husband or men." (If that really is the case, and modesty is universal, then why do you not cover when you're only in front of women?)
• "The covering protects women from the immodest manly gazes! It prevents fitnah (sexual misconduct, or general mischief)!" (What are the sexist implications of saying it controls male sexuality? Are men human beings living in civil society or a bunch of primitive, uncontrollable sexual predators from the wild?)
• "I'm glad I sacrificed something I really valued for Allah." (Does the Qur'an consider covering your hair such a huge sacrifice?)
• "I'm just worried that I'll never get a good looking guy to marry me if I wear it." (hahahaha!)

Ramadan that year was also extremely intriguing because of a class assignment dealing with Sufis, Muslim mystics about whom I had lots of stereotypes. I was raised with the perception that Sufis weren't really Muslims, and a Turkish woman member of the MSA claimed the same thing. Many Muslims don't understand why many Sufis use the Qur'an, not simply as a law book, but as a spiritual, metaphorical, and symbolic guide in which the divine is seen in every being.

Well two of my classmates and I drove to a Sufi tarawih prayer (special ritual prayers exclusively for the month of fasting) near the university to observe their way of doing things. What I found astonished and relieved me simultaneously.

The place looked to be some sort of Middle Eastern carpet store, and the whole store was littered with exotic orientalish pillows and floor rugs. The atmosphere reeked of incense and we arrived to find Sharif Baba, the guru of the group. He came and kissed all three of us, which scared the hell outta me. Whoa, an imam who kisses the women? That was unheard of in regular mosques.

The other members, who looked to be a diverse group of Americans and Arabs, arrived soon, cheerfully greeted us, and lined up to do the prayers.

That's when I received my second awakening about Sufis. They practiced gender equality: the men and women prayed side by side. Dude, they even hugged each other after prayers! Whoa, no sexual tension unlike other mosques I had attended which had gender segregation.

Needless to say, I was enthralled with this bunch of Muslims and all their activities. After the prayers, they all gathered around on the floor to do a type of chant known as dhikr, or remembrance of Allah. They also sang extremely beautiful Turkish hymns about the Prophet's life. I was almost sorry to leave when one of my classmates prodded me.

So anyway, right around final exams, I was researching for my paper in Ernst's class and suddenly stumbled into this website called Zeeshan Hassan's Liberal Islamic Page. I had no clue that "liberal" Muslims existed, and here was a Muslim standing against the sexist practice of polygamy, defending women's rights with the Qur'an, and disproving illogical elements of "Islamic Law" using the Qur'an.

"If there is no compulsion in Islam, and law is based on compulsion, then there can be no Islamic Law," I read on the website.

Needless to say, I was enthralled with her writing and unabashedly asked her personal questions like how she planned to choose her marital partner and why she studied Theology.

The "she" burst out laughing in her reply and contested that "she" was actually a "he", a Bangladeshi graduate student of Middle Eastern religion at Harvard University.

I apologized out of complete mortification and promptly forgot about the matter during the winter break. Only next semester would I have my second awakening with a religion known as "Islam".