Week 10: Motherhood, Marriage and Divorce in Islam

In the first chapter of Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics and Islam, “Marriage, Money, and Sex”, she discusses how Muslim men and women engage in these topics, and “the gap between expressed doctrine and practice” in the US specifically. She goes into detail on the development of the dower and how it was not an Islam innovation, but an adoption from 17th century Arabic practices. Then, the dower was paid to the wife as a guarantee that her offspring would belong to the husband’s tribe rather than the relatives of the woman. Because of this perception of the dower as economic security for the wife, this notion has been used as “proof of Islam’s liberatory stance towards women.” The dower being looked at in this way, as the husband paying for his control over the relationship, leads to the explanation for divorce laws. The husband has more say over divorcing his wife than vice versa due to the power role given to the male. In the jurists logic, because of the monetary compensation supposedly given to the wife upon divorce, the power to choose divorce lies in the hands of the husband. This is due to the wife’s potential ability to allow the marriage to be consummated and then divorce solely for financial reasons. “Any attempt to modify the rules surrounding divorce but not these governing dower, as some advocates for women’s rights have proposed, would alter the marital dynamic significantly.” She also discusses sex and the lack of taboo it holds in the religion. She compares it to the contrasting approach in Christianity on sex and the way in which the religion highlights purity, versus the acknowledgement of sex as “a natural and desirable part of life” in Islam. She talks about the husband’s duty to fulfill his wife’s sexual desires but also acknowledges by quoting Al-Ghazali that this is moreso a matter of being the husband’s duty rather than the wife’s right, because the right of sex belongs to the man not the women. Although he may be responsible for her pleasure, the decisions surrounding sex are decided by the husband. She ends on a positive note that although there are challenges that arise with applying Islam to more contemporary views, there has been many

In the chapter “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran” of Remaking Women by Afsaneh Najmabadi, she talks about the shift of the viewpoint of women from “house” to “manager of the house.” Whereas traditionally women did not have much to do in terms of educating or the caretaking of their children, and the men were the educators, there was a shift onto women playing important educational roles. Tusi wrote in the 13th century that he “considered his ideal reader to be not a Muslim man in search of this-worldly and other-worldly perfection, but an Iranian man concerned with the fate of Iran. The perfect man had changed from a Muslim believer to an Iranian citizen.” In this approach, the woman became a necessary piece in the progress of Iran. Women’s need to become more educated developed as a response to realization of the role women played in children’s life. It was realized that the education of children would benefit the nation as a whole, and therefore the mothers would need to start this chain of events. She talks about one of the first writings that spread awareness of women’s education, a piece entitled the “Liberation of Women”, that was translated into Persian by Yusuf Ashtianti. He published the piece under a different name “Education of Women”, and changed a paragraph regarding the veil, but even with the changes, this was the first time full attention had been placed on the necessity of women’s education. This notion that the “progress of the nation was dependent on the education of women” changed the way in which mother’s and women’s roles were depicted in society.

In reading these chapters, it stood out to me that although the western perspective of some Muslim practices is negative, in what ways do our practices run parallel? In terms of money, sex, divorce, and women’s education, we may not agree with the way the matters are conducted, but what western version of the same thing are we condoning? In some of these topics, is one really any better than the other? Or are they undoubtedly accepted because they are rooted in our historical and political association?