Dr Maroof Shah
Muslim Women aren’t organized even though a few of them may rise to the highest public posts. Their awareness about their own problems is so little. They are divided against one another even in the space of extended families. Even in small families it is women against women that is the rule. Mothers against daughters in law and the later against sisters in law and similar tangles are running domestic peace. It is rare to find a happy daughter in law. Women in Mohalla or larger levels aren’t united. Women aren’t educated in the skills of life. Muslim women teachers who are better educated are most pathological consumers spending their resources on such things as clothes, marriages and houses. Muslim women haven’t, in general, understood the wisdom of saving and investing or creating wealth. As such they can be classified as poor despite possessing money. Consuming time away in gossiping or plotting against one another, vast number of Muslim women don’t seem to know what to do with time especially as various works done in homes for livelihood have disappeared. Muslim women pass-outs from women madrasahs haven’t, in general, been able to be of great service to themselves or to community. The virtue of work hasn’t been learnt at mass scale by any group of Muslim women. Work and industry haven’t been the focus of Muslim women. As such they fail to be great productive force of economy. How do we address this problem is important and its redressal would do a great good do the lives to Muslim women.
Democracy or current political order is premised on the thesis that divergent ideological currents can coexist and work together for common ends and accept the fact of difference without letting it divide unity. Communicative dialogue and ijma of elected representatives coupled with recognition of different legal positions as equally legitimate in certain areas where common stakes/interests aren’t hurt as an instrument of consensus could be deployed to resolve certain nagging areas of conflict in the Muslim societies. Women representatives in Parliments need to be proactive in creating consensus on number of issues for implementing justice to women. Universal access to gender justice through special family courts for which some reputed members of civil society could be co-opted as well could be one option. Democracy at grassroots or more radical approaches to democracy could be deployed for evolving consensus and mobilizing resources to achieve needful on concrete problems faced by women.
Let us begin at the beginning. Muslim women begin organizing. Every woman must be connected to a self help group, a credit cooperative, a cooperative society, a community network that would facilitate access to as many services as possible or marketing for the product she is making. Units of fifty to hundred women would help resolve key issues besides providing fellowship or companionship and sharing of certain spaces that give meaning or fulfillment in life. Huge number of psycho-somatic cases – heath in general is largely in ruins for most women as we can see most are dependent on daily dose of number of medicines and once a month or two doctor needs to be seen – need to be addressed by comprehensive planning of lives gone awry.
There needs to be an agreement on the outlines of the Women’s Manifesto for Duties and Rights and awareness about it needs to be disseminated.
Number of problems of women including their financial ones can be addressed very effectively if women will the change they wish to see and do necessary collaboration with other women – their own friends, relatives, neighbours, colleagues. If nothing every woman can canvases to distribute fifty daily sadaqah boxes and make a unit of fifty and operate it for running certain programmes that would empower all. Annual income from fifty daily sadaqah boxes would be at least 50x10x365=182500 which would be used to link all of them in zero interest based credit cooperatives which would in turn enable them to get interest free loans upto one lac and double this amount as seed capital for business units.
Let us – all organizations speaking in the name of women, Imams, writers, departments for social/women’s welfare – target only 0.1 percent of around 9 crore Muslim women in India who would be able to save only Rs one to ten on daily basis and get hundred women in the loop for contributing as their daily charity similar amount, for the cause of women and we are able to get a sort of insurance for healthcare, free legal aid, free food for the needy, education support for the meritorious, platforms for awareness and activism for women’s causes at local levels, interest free loans for women entrepreneurs and other numerous institutions of welfare for women. If we count thousands of crores from zakat/ushr and sadaqat al fitr and will of only 0.01 percent women who choose to spend it on poor and needy women or women travelers and students we have enough resources for the key problems faced by women. We can create jobs for thousands even lacs of maids or domestic help for women who have primarily this issue that makes lives hell. Let women organize women to supply materials for needs for State/community events. Let women operate hotels and restaurants and many other facilities for women and we will see no woman is underpaid or idle in home. We can organize the poor and needy and they will themselves able to solve their problems. Local Imams and baitul amwal could as well be held accountable for resources they extract from community for helping the poor and needy. It is not hard to collect 9 crore on daily basis for interest free loans or one time aid to the poor and needy from sadaqa of one day per day that Islam enjoins on all.
Resolving economic problems is easy – linking women to professional charity collection and spending platforms and to interest free credit cooperatives and tying them with small local investors who have savings for local businesses they can monitor. Panchayats and local NGOs could chip in here as could local bait al-amwal. Mosque or Mohalla management committees could help execute creation of linkages and associations for access to number of services.
Legal Interventions
PILs would help kick-start number of little addressed issues including domestic violence, harassment in public places, boss pathologies etc. Legal luminaries or advocates would, on infaq basis, keep institutions on toes for redressing women’s problems. Necessary legal support for reimbursing necessary expenses on marriages, support for livelihood till one gets job, access to interest free loans for women entrepreneurs, access to separate basic housing of two rooms and a kitchen in in-laws, right to childcare facilities in offices, right to seat in public transport, guarantee for employment, minimum wages etc. needs to be created. The State and community need to generate awareness on legal rights and development of Apps for easy access to public services for women, home delivery for grocery, medicine and routine use items through women SHGs etc. Free legal support from infaq that may requires just one day free in a year for community would address numerous cases poor women face. The Quran has the idea of justice and God the Just as refrain. The task of Muslim theology is to stand for justice and against oppression. As such every form of injustice and oppression is unIslamic. As such it is the task of Muslim scholarship to identify and resist every form of oppression and we need to recall tyat the last sermon of the Prophet emphasized about treating women well and kindness to them and his last words included a clause “Look after the women.” Muslim scholarship on women should eternally question every power structure that contravenes justice even though it masquerades as tradition or faith. The rationalist streak in Islamic theology of Mu’tazilites, also called ahl al adl wal tawhid, had ample warrant to extol justice as the heart of Islamic idea of Divine. Dawood Rahbar’s work God of Justice: Study in the Ethical Doctrine of the Quran may be referred for seeing how justice is central to the God of Islam.
In order to counter perception of bias against women in male dominated religious or juristic scholarship, formulate women chapters of Madaris board (there is a chain of Madaris of women already) and fiqh academies that shall cater to women’s issues. They shall co-opt women professionals and scholars from other backgrounds who have something important to contribute to the discourse of women’s issues. Series of national level seminars and publications of proceedings in a year can give key solid documents for most if not all women to adopt and abide by for resolving their issues. We can propose a community of fifty women to be part of what we may designate a super-fifty group that would resolve key issues and create necessary momentum for change.
This article is an excerpt from a chapter in the book “Muslim Women: A Manifesto for Change”. The author can be reached at Marooof123@gmail.com
BOX 1
“Let us begin at the beginning. Muslim women must begin organizing. Every woman must be connected to a self-help group, a credit cooperative, a cooperative society, or a community network. Units of fifty to hundred women can help resolve key issues, provide companionship, and share meaningful spaces in life.”
BOX 2
“If every woman canvasses to distribute fifty daily sadaqah boxes, an annual fund of ₹1.82 lakh can be raised per group. This can be used to link them to zero-interest credit cooperatives, enabling interest-free loans and seed capital for business units—transforming charity into sustainable empowerment.”