Week 10: Motherhood, Marriage and Divorce in Islam

Divorce trial in Indonesia. Photo: www.jawapos.com

Islam and modernity has always been an interesting topic in the Muslim world, especially among Muslim feminists. With the social and economic changes, Muslim feminists face challenges regarding several issues such as motherhood, marriage and divorce. In the chapters “Marriage, Money and Sex” and “Lesser Evils: Divorce in Islamic Ethics” in Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics and Islam, the position of women in Islam regarding marriage, money, sex and divorce is unpacked through the feminist lens by reflecting on the Qur’an, Hadith and jurisprudence. The most interesting part of this piece lies in the second chapter. I found it very appealing as Ali attempted to constantly present the challenges occur in the modern world. She did this for instance by describing the clashes that might happen with the civil system regarding divorce especially for Muslim people living in Western country such as the United States. At the end of the chapter, she expressed her optimism toward a better position of women in divorce by giving examples of the reforms to divorce laws that have been happening in the contemporary Muslim world while still admitting that in Islamic law divorce is a prerogative right entitled to men. She also invited us to rethink about divorce in Islam by positing questions such as “but are the verses on divorce meant to apply in every possible situation, or are they specific in some way to seventh-century Arabia? If they can be modified, on what basis should one do so, and how far can one go in altering specific rules?” (38). The piece shows how Islam is a multi interpretative religion and how it can try to adapt in modern time such as today.

            Meanwhile, the role of Muslim women as housewife and motherhood in the Iranian context is described in the piece “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran” by Afsaneh Najmabadi. The chapter showed how “the modern educational regimes, deeply gendered from the start, were central to the production of the woman of modernity through particular regulatory and emancipatory impulses” (91). In the article, the education rights for women are slowly gained by the changing role of housewife to the manager of household affairs and educator of the children. Therefore, the (male) children need to be raised by educated housewife to guarantee the progress of the nation. The notions of disciplinary and regulatory brought the “acceptable social space for freedom for modern woman” (113). This article displayed how Islam met some challenges in modern time and once again trying to compromise in finding its place in the contemporary world.

            As the world progresses so fast, Islam is often faced by several modernity challenges. What stood out for me the most in these two pieces and the documentary Divorce Iranian Style is how Islam as a religion that is often assumed as backward and rigid, can be so flexible in finding its way in modern world. I think these pieces did a good job in putting Islam in a different light other than as this backward and rigid religion that might not be suitable with modernity. I wonder what other things can be done outside the scholarship to enforce this. What can Muslim feminists in particular and feminists in general do in order to make people seeing Islam in a different light as an attempt to cope with Islamophobia? I also wonder if Muslim feminists may have a totally different approach in gaining their own definition of equality. The pieces also make me think about the Muslim marriage and divorce back in Indonesia. Since it is not a Islamic Republic, the Muslim marriage and divorce also shaped itself between Islamic law and the legal system inherited by the Dutch colonizer.