Written in rebuttal to Two Muslim Feminists by Nancy Morgan

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of traveling to Dubai. Dubai is a dynamic cosmopolitan city in the predominately Muslim Arab country of the United Arab Emirates. My tour guide was Mona, a humorous and feisty Emirati Muslim woman, who took her time showing me around this burgeoning area of the Middle East. With her teenage niece in tow, the three of us rode down the glamorous streets filled with malls, larger-than-life skyscrapers and elegant mosques. I don’t remember how the subject came up but her niece remarked, “I know what Americans think about Muslims. They think we are all bad people and that our men do nothing but beat and hurt us.” How could I deny her claim? As a Muslim American woman who wears her headscarf, I face the potential of being cast as a victim of some horrible man’s abuse.

It seems that in the American mainstream media, there’s just no room for the voices of articulate, devout Muslim women. As a writer, I use the pen to combat the prevalent stereotype of Muslim women as submissive doormats. While searching on the web I came across, yet again, another article about Muslim women and our lives of perpetual victimhood. Nancy Morgan places two controversial women, Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan, upon the revered pedestal of women’s rights activism. I can almost see the collective rolling of eyes of my Muslim sisters as we read another piece on how disempowered we are.

While Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, and Nancy Morgan are free to express their opinions, there are some serious assertions being made in her article without any proof. Wafa Sultan asserts that the religion of Islam is a ‘brainwashing machine’ for 1.3 billion people.” This statement is a gross assumption. Am I to understand that every single Muslim on the planet approaches Islamic practices the same way, irrespective of class, religious knowledge, political climate and social mores? If Sultan is correct, then why is there such a variety of schools of thought in Islam? Why are there Sunnis and Shias and Muslims who belong to Sufi orders? How does Sultan account for the Muslim countries that enforce veiling, like Saudi Arabia, or ban veiling, like Tunisia? What about most Muslim countries, like Lebanon, Pakistan and Malaysia, where women are given a choice to dress the way they please? Once again, Muslims are crafted in the image of the Borg. Despite the fact that Muslims come from different races, colors, and classes and live under different social and political systems, we all share a hive mentality, incapable of being critical thinkers.

Another assertion, made usually by the most right-wing elements of Evangelical Christianity, is that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was a sex fiend and pedophile. Morgan criticizes him for having many wives. She says nothing of the Biblical prophet and monarch King Solomon. According to the King James Version of the Bible in 1 Kings, chapter 11, verse 3, it says, “And he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines.” Muhammad is estimated to have had 12 wives. Another Biblical prophet and the father of Solomon, King David, according to 2 Samuel, chapter 5, verse 13 states, “And he took more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was called from Hebron.” Muhammad, David, and Solomon are all revered prophets in Islam. We also understand that during their respective times, polygamy was socially acceptable. Furthermore, while polygamy is practiced among some Muslims, monogamy is the norm in the Muslim world.

Morgan also states, quite perversely, that Muhammad was a pedophile because he married Aisha, his youngest wife, at six years old. Muslim scholars debate as to the actual age of Aisha at the time of their marriage and consummation of their union. Some argue that she was married at nine. Others say that she married young but the marriage had not been consummated until she was well into puberty. Some even claim that she married as an older teenager. While we understand this kind of union is not appropriate for our society, Morgan forgets that in most pre-modern cultures, girls were considered to be adult women upon the start of their menstrual cycles. In some religions, like Judaism, a boy comes of age of 13, baring the legal and moral responsibilities of an adult Jewish male. Once again, in our current times, most Muslims marry women after they’ve completed puberty.

After reading Morgan’s essay, I can’t help but sense racism and prejudice thinly veiled under the rubric of women’s rights. If she had only done the research, she would have discovered that Muslim women around the world are on the front lines of the war on gender oppression. We are doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, artists, activists, designers, writers and yes—loving, affectionate stay-at-home mothers. Activist Muslim women like Mukhtar Mai, Manal Omar, and Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi are fighting against sexism, poverty, and lack of access to education. Muslim women of royalty, like Queen Noor of Jordan and Shaykha Fatema bint Mubarak of the United Arab Emirates use their high status to promote education, business opportunities, disease prevention and the arts. Even in America, where Muslims number from 3 to 7 million, women hold high positions within Islamic organizations. The Islamic Society of North America, one of the largest Muslim organizations in the United States, elected Ingrid Mattson, a headscarf wearing professor of Hartford Seminary, to president in 2006. Tayyibah Taylor and Ayesha K. Mustafaa are editors of two widely read Muslim American publications, The Muslim Journal and Azizah Magazine, respectively. There are also a number of domestic violence shelters and women’s groups, all headed by practicing Muslim women, such as KARAMAH and the Peaceful Families Project. How can Nonie Darwish assert that Muslim women have no support systems in light of these facts?

Muslim women have a monumental task before us. We must somehow reeducate the Muslim masses on Islam’s concept of respect, equality, mercy and love while educating non-Muslims about the accuracy of our scripture and religious practices. Islam does not hinder us, it empowers us. Just like my Emirati tour guide, Islam didn’t stop her from pursuing a college degree and working part-time in the tourism industry. It didn’t stop me from obtaining my masters degree and pursuing a career in the arts. I am empowered by the words of the Prophet Muhammad, “Seeking knowledge is incumbent upon all of you, male and female.” The Qur’an, our holy book, says, “And their Lord has accepted of them and answered them, ‘Never will I suffer to be lost the work of any of you, male or female; you are members of one another.’” (Chapter 3, Verse 195). Morgan, Darwish and Sultan are entitled to their opinions. But casting them as the two lone bastions of light in the supposed darkness of the Muslim world is an insult to the women who are actively working within the Muslim community to bring about positive change and lasting progress.