Agreeing to Differ, Final Meeting

In Ziba Mir-Hosseini’s “ Agreeing to differ-Final Meeting with Payam-e Zan” she documents her final meeting/interview with Payam-e Zan. She interviews men of the islamic clergy and discusses the inequalities in the Feqh such as the view that women are deffective, unable to lead or be part of Tehad ,and the differences in blood money. When Mir-Hosseini goes on to question why women are made out to be defective, the clerics respond with “you’ve taken it as a definite, a priori that feqh perceives women as defective, inferior. dependent on and secondary to men and that is why it defines women duties differently from mens (174).” As the interview continues many of her questions seem to be unanswered, avoided or taken as an attack on the feqh and its practitioners. Who go on to say they have that they cannot think of a single principle that implies women are defective but rather need protection and support. However in the Sunni Feqh there is a principle that states blood money for women is half of mans because women are defective as well as can not assume a position of judge because of their emotionality and lower capacity for reasoning (175) . Mir-Hosseini questions womens economic value in comparison to men in which they respond to the issue of blood money and women receiving half of that of man and justifies it by saying that it is not based on the value of your own person but based on that duties that will be unfulfilled in your absence, and there are more duties assigned to men than to woman( 180) . She feels a bit frustrated because they could not see that this was an example of gender roles. 

The article was very interesting to read and to see how Mir-Hosseini posed her questions and how she defends what she stands for . As well as the perspectives of the men whom she interview which were at times frustrating.The justifications these men gave for the some of the questions Mir-Hosseini answered were direct examples of the very inequalities she was referring to which could have been frustrating but nevertheless she maintained her composure and i applaud her for that.