By Dr. John Andrew Morrow
Full Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana
Abstract
Although they need no introduction in Spain, the works of the Waleed Saleh, the Iraqi-born professor of Arabic and Islamic studies, are little known outside of the Iberian Peninsula. The author of numerous works on Arabic and political Islam, his most recent study focuses on the feminine, namely, Feminism and Islam: An Impossible Equation, which was published in 2022. The current study proposes a presentation and critique of his positions on Islamic feminism as expressed in his most recent book and the series of interviews that he has given about it. While the views of Islamic feminists merit a podium, the views of secular, universal, feminists like Waleed Salah also deserve a platform. Hence, this review article.
Introduction
Authored by the Iraqi-born Waleed Saleh (b. 1951), who has a doctorate in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the UAM, the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he serves as an Honorary Full Professor, Feminism and Islam: An Impossible Equation, consists of a prologue by Francisco Delgado Ruíz (b. 1949), a Spanish politician, trade unionist, activist, writer, defender of secularism, and president of Europa Laica [Secular Europe], an introduction, six short chapters, and an epilogue by Lidia Falcón (b. 1935), one of Spain’s most famous feminists, as well as a bibliography which includes Arabic and Spanish sources. While works on Islamic feminism are in vogue, and have developed a market, Saleh’s study swims upstream by opposing it. Irrespective of one’s stance on the subject, the work of this Iraqi scholar, based in Spain, merit attention.
Analysis
The first chapter, “Women and the Foundation Texts of Islam: the Qur’an and the Sunnah,” provides a cold hard look at the primary sources of the Muslim faith. Saleh acknowledges that there are a few verses, such as 2:228 and 4:19, that supposedly present women in a favorable light (28). As he points out, however, they are taken out of context and “contradict many verses that encourage men to view women with contempt and mistreat them: confining them to their bedrooms, hitting them, marrying multiple women, buying sex slaves, and divorcing them whenever they want and without reason” (28). As the author notes, the advocates of Qur’anic gender equality also invoke verses like 49:13 and 9:71 as if they were a veritable feminist victory (29). However, as Saleh notes, they ignore dozens of other verses that degrade women (28). To put it plainly, “the vaunted equality between men and women in Islam does not resist the slightest criticism, nor does it align with historical and social reality” (29).
Drawing from the Qur’an, the hadith literature, Islamic jurisprudence, as well as history, Saleh provides a devastating critique of the treatment of women in Islam that are painful to reproduce. After surveying the status of women in the foundational texts of Islam, he provides the following summary: They are confined to their homes, deprived of education, dependent on their husbands who are free to use corporal punishment to discipline them, and destined to bare and raise children and be stay-at-home spouses. While they are expected to remain chaste and faithful, their husbands have the right to marry multiple women and have sex with enslaved women. Finally, while their husbands have access to education and personal growth, women themselves are to remain illiterate (59).
The portrait that Saleh paints is brutal, but honest, and a faithful representation of mainstream Muslim sources on the subject. The problem, however, is that he treats the Islamic tradition as if it were a stagnant and monolithic mass. He sees the forest; however, he fails to see its biodiversity. There is no doubt whatsoever that most Muslim scholars were, and are, misogynistic; and that the Islamic tradition is profoundly patriarchal and sexist. However, this applies to most world religions, as well. They are products of their period. The peril is to treat their teachings as applicable to all times and places. What is lacking in Saleh’s work is an appreciation for the spectrum of opinion that is found without the Islamic tradition. If revived, these minority views, which are unknown, suppressed, marginalized, or anathematized, remain Islam’s only saving grace. Otherwise, it is doomed to obsolescence.
The second chapter, “The Official Status of Women,” demonstrates that the apple does not fall far from the tree. In other words, the practice of Islam reflects its theory. Saleh’s critique is as breathtaking in its honesty as it is blistering:
The representatives of official Islam view and treat women with disdain and contempt. For them, women are objects, disposable commodities, and baby-making machines. They trample upon their dignity and denigrate their humanity. Classical and modern political and religious leaders insist on marginalizing, dominating, and using them. When it comes to the hatred of women, Islam has a rich legacy. Jurists, imams, clerics, and ordinary Muslims repeat their condemnations of women in their conversations, speeches, sermons, and books. They hate and despise them in public, but they love them in private, in bed. (57)
From classical to contemporary times, the image and condition of women in Islam has remained the same. Saleh presents the case of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111). Widely praised and admired, Muslims present him as a proponent and embodiment of moderate Islam. This man, however, had no compunction when it came to comparing women to animals. In fact, he argued that “the race of women consists of ten species: the first resembles the pig… the second, the ape… the third, the dog, the fourth, the snake, the fifth, the mule, and sixth, the scorpion, the seventh, the mouse, the eighth, the pigeon, the ninth, the fox, and the tenth, the sheep” (59). In his misogynistic mind, the only type of woman that was good was the last one since she was submissive and exploitable. Saleh then proceeds to present a selection of sexist and sickening rulings by Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200), Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 1350), al-Tha‘labi al- Nisaburi (d. 1035), along with those of modern, popular, hatemongers, including the likes of ‘A’id al-Qarni (b. 1959) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi (d. 2022), the last of which was a defender of female genital mutilation (60-66).
Not only does Saleh lambast Sunni sexists and misogynists, but he also excoriates the leading religious authorities of the Shiites, including both Khomeini (d. 1989) and Sistani (b. 1930), for passing rulings permitting men to marry and copulate with nine-year-old girls, vaginally and anally, but also allowing them to marry breast-feeding babies and molest them sexually, permitting everything but penetration (67, 70). For Saleh, Sistani should be placed on trial on charges of pedophilia (70). As the author notes, both Khomeini and Sistani, like other Shiite and Sunni jurists, grant husbands the power to divorce their wives without their knowledge (67). To make matters worse for women, Shiite clerics permit temporary pleasure marriages which, as Saleh notes, are nothing more than a camouflaged form of prostitution which victimizes women (75). Prohibited in Iran during the time of the Shah, it was reintroduced after the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979 and has spread throughout the world (75-76, 101).
Frank and fearless, Saleh condemns the Islamic Republic’s repression of women, including their brutal and skull-cracking imposition of obligatory and coerced hijab. He notes, and rightly so, that the hijab in Iran is not simply socio-religious: it is political (68). As Saleh documents, the Iranian regime has introduced a series of measures and norms that clearly violate the rights of women. They include prohibiting women from raising their voices in public, singing, dancing, whistling, laughing aloud, telling jokes, going up stairwells, riding bicycles or even touching bananas and cucumbers (69). He could also have included bans on watching soccer games. As Saleh notes, it was not Islam or Islamic feminism that liberated women in the Muslim world: it was secularism. In fact, women in the Arab and Muslim world had far greater rights in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, than they have had since the rise of radical Islamism in the 1980s to the present day. Prior to that time, Muslim women in North Africa and the Middle East had flowing hair, wore Western clothing, showed cleavage, and went to the beach in bikinis. Now, due to the pressure placed upon them by radical Islamists, and burkini-wearing sea monsters, free and liberated women are hard to find.
Rather than establish a genuine democracy in Iraq after the disastrous American invasion, notes Saleh, ‘Ali al-Sistani insisted that no laws could contradict Islamic law. In so doing, explains the author, Iraq, like Iran, fell under a form of wilayat al-faqih, namely, the dictatorship of the jurist, which has resulted in the reintroduction of noxious religious practices, like temporary pleasure marriages, which were unheard of in Iraq (75). As the author observes, the withdrawal of secularism in Iraq created a void that religious fundamentalism filled (72-73). Hence, rather than progressing, the nation has been retrogressing, and the situation of women is both notorious and alarming (70). The rights of Iraqi women, who were among the most liberal, progressive, and independent in the region, regressed, not only decades, but centuries, to the darkest period in their history (76-77). As Saleh states, “the position of Islamist parties toward women is, without exception, contemptuous and disdainful” (77). As Saleh shows, the same situation applies to the Arab world, from Morocco to Egypt, from Tunisia to Lebanon, and from Syria to Sudan (77-95).
The picture that Saleh paints of Islamist ideologues and their views on women packs a painful punch. His summary of the laws pertaining to women throughout the Muslim world tells a sordid story. Far from violating the Qur’an, the hadith, and shari‘ah law, Saleh argues that the unjust and discriminatory laws that apply to women in the Muslim world are in complete accordance with them. They most certainly are if we speak of Islam as intractably indivisible and uniform. However, as Saleh knows full well, the Islamic tradition consists of scores of sects which are subdivided into schools of thought, law, theology, tradition, exegesis, and spirituality. A Salafi-Wahhabi-Takfiri is not like a Sufi. The Shiites are not like the Sunnis. An Usuli Shiite is not like an Akbari Shiite. The fundamentalists are not like the rationalists. The jurists are not like the philosophers. The extremists are not like the moderates. The Ibadis, the Qarmatians, the Alevis, the Bektashis, and the Alawites all represent radically different Islamic traditions.
If we reject all of Islam, in its myriad manifestations, we place Muslims in quite a predicament. The only choices that Saleh offers them are religious fundamentalism or secularism. No room is left for reform. For Saleh, faith and reason are mutually exclusive and incompatible. Considering the divided house that is Islamic feminism, one in which both terms negate one another and become meaningless, and the fact that many Muslims, from traditionalists to radical extremists believe that they are fundamentally contradictory and irreconcilable, the prospect of success for those who seek rights for women within Islam are slim. If secularism is the solution, it has little to show for itself in the Muslim world. Secularism was spread throughout the Arab and Persian world from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. While Muslim women had more rights under the secularists than they did under the Islamists, secularism failed because it failed to deliver. Most of the sexist laws drawn from the Qur’an, the sunnah, and the shari‘ah, as well as colonial codes, remained in place and many misogynistic cultural practices continued unabated. While the death of secularism in the Muslim world has been the subject of much study, it owes, in large part to the fact that it was secularism devoid of democracy and human rights. With the failure of secularism, many Muslims opted for Islamism to their dire regret. Secularism, it would seem, is being raised from the dead and resurrected.
The third chapter, “Women as the Object of Fatwas” highlights the absurdity and asininity of Muslim clerics from all sides of the sectarian spectrum. Thanks to the funding from petrodollars, satellite stations, the internet, and social media, cyber clerics have inundated the Muslim world with the most ridiculous of religious rulings aimed at women. They have banned women from driving, playing soccer, defending themselves when their husbands beat them, and even sitting on chairs and couches (99-103). Certain Sunni scholars have issued edicts that allow husbands to copulate with their deceased wives or even the corpses of other women, so long as they pay a dowry to the family (102-103). Other clerics have revived the practice of adult suckling, namely, having a man breast-feed from a woman so that he becomes a family member with whom marriage is permanently unlawful (103). Since unrelated men and women cannot work together, or be alone together, the problem can be remedied by having men suckle the breasts of their female co-workers on five or more occasions. For certain Muslim scholars, this is the solution to gender-mixed colleges and workplaces!
As Saleh explains, Sunni clerics have banned the wearing of bras for women, shoes with heels, watching television and movies, and taking photographs (104-105). Others have proposed that menstruating women dress in red (104). That way, religious vigilantes will not beat them if they fail to head to prayers (104). Scholars and jurists have prohibited men from sitting on a chair that a woman just sat on as the warmth she leaves behind might sexually arouse them (104). Other clerics have prohibited women from riding in taxis or with private chauffeurs unless accompanied by a male relative (104). As if this were not enough, one Salafi cleric ruled that a husband should not try to save his wife from rape if this could endanger his life. According to his reasoning, one disgrace is better than two (105).
Other idiotic edicts include permitting Muslims to eat genies, prohibiting them from wishing happy holidays to Christians, and outlawing sex with one’s spouse while in the nude (106). To top it all off, Muslim jurists, both Sunni and Shiite, have reiterated the Islamic rulings that allow men to beat their wives and copulate with sex slaves (105). Most of these edicts, notes Saleh, rely on dubious historical sources (107). Notwithstanding this fact, these rulings have turned into social customs (107). As Saleh cautions, Muslim fundamentalists view any rejection of these rulings as an attack on the sanctity of the Islamic religion with punishments going as far as execution (107). Consequently, they continue to impact Muslim women. If anything, these rulings demonstrate that Muslim clerics and authorities, like those of other religions, are sexually obsessed perverts (107). As risible and ludicrous as these rulings may be, confronting them remains a real and perilous problem.
What Saleh fails to acknowledge is the minority counter-tradition, namely, the rulings of Muslim rationalists, modernists, reformists, and Qur’anists, which are perfectly compatible with universal secular human rights. Rather than stand with and support these scholars, all of whom oppose the abominations exposed by Saleh, including the mandatory hijab, the Western world, as if it had a death wish, has decided to side with the Islamists and Muslim fundamentalists, to the trauma, and dismay of Muslims who fled from them. They managed to escape from the Islamists in Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere, seeking out Western secular, liberal, democracies, only to find the politicians of those nations befriending and empowering them. Many Muslim refugees and immigrants are shocked when they find Western mosques and madrasas under the domination of radical Islamist ideologues who have mastered the deceptive art of “public relations” and “interfaith dialogue.”
The fourth chapter provides tantalizing tidbits of information regarding “The Struggle of Women against the Islamic Tradition.” As Saleh points out, many women with origins in the Muslim-majority world are acutely aware of the injustices that are inherent to the Islamic tradition. Sophie Bessis (b. 1947), the Tunisian French feminist writer, wonders “How can we free ourselves from a religious tradition that asphyxiates both men and women? How can we free ourselves from a God who, over the course of the centuries, has been turned into the meticulous author of lamentable prohibitions?” (108-109). She courageous denounces the return of the hijab along with the “televangelists of Allah” who “reformulate and update dogmas to justify their male domination” (109).
Saleh also presents a profile of the Lebanese journalist, Dalal al-Bazri. A staunch opponent of Salafists, Jihadists, and the Muslim Brotherhood, she stresses that they are determined to deprive women of the few rights they attained prior to the “Arab Spring.” At the heart of these groups, she notes, is a patriarchal ideology that foments polygyny, female genital mutilation, sexual segregation, and the acquisition of concubines and sex slaves (109). Saleh also draws the attention of the reader to the thoughts of the Tunisian academic, Olfa Yousef (1964), who rails at the fact that Islam has become synonymous with extremism and backwardness (110-111), and the Yemeni scholar, Elham Manea (b. 1966), who wonders how Islam can be described as a tolerant religion when it permits Muslims to enslave the women of their enemies, allows men to marry pre-pubescent girls, and condemns non-Muslims to be burned in hell (111-112). Saleh also provides glimpses into the thoughts of the Egyptian author, Nawal al-Saadawi (d. 2021), who spent her life denouncing the horrors to which Muslim women are subjected (112-115). The author also offers a brief peak at the views of Mona el-Tahawy (b. 1967), the Egyptian American journalist and feminist, who calls for people to blaspheme against the toxic mix of religion and culture that poisons the Muslim world (116-117).
While Saleh plays a key role in amplifying the voices of secular Muslim feminists — and opposing Islamist feminists — there are many other writers and thinkers who deserve to be better known but whom, tragically, have been largely ignored, marginalized, and deplatformed. They include Tahar Haddad, Amir Hossein Torkashvand, Hassan Eshkevari, Ahmad Ghabal, Abul-Ghasem Fanaei, Mohsen Kadivar, Moslem Khalafi, Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Mohamed al-Talbi, Joseph A. Islam, Lafif Lakhdar, Kassim Ahmad, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Tareq Oubrou, Hannibal Genseric, Salah Horchani, Edip Yuksel, Ghaleb Bencheikh, Cyrille Moreno al-‘Ajami, and Naëm Bestandji. They also include Riffat Hassan, Hélé Béji, Yasmi Alibhai-Brown, Fatima Houda-Pepin, Chahla Chafiq, Razika Adnani, Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, Leila Lesbet, Nadia El-Mabrouk, Serenade Chafi, Chahdortt Djavann, Djemila Benhabib, Malika Boussou, Leïla Babès, Zineb El Rhazoui, Yağmur Uygarkizi, Fatemeh Sadequi, and Mimunt Hamido Yahia.
Although they remain a minority, these scholars, thinkers, writers, and academics form an important aspirational movement in which hope should be placed and resources allocated. The future of Islam, if it has one, and the governance of the Muslim world, could rely on their ideas. Replacing authoritarian regimes with Islamists ones is like going from Islamabad to Islamaworse. Could a secular, liberal, modern, tolerant, ethical, and spiritual Islam be the solution? An Islam without Islamic law? An Islam of tolerance instead of intolerance? Maybe but maybe not. Mixing Islam with politics is like opening Pandora’s, or better yet, ‘A’ishah’s box. When politics and religion are combined, they corrupt each other and form a toxic mix. If Islam is a source of law, politicians and clerics can always return to the most radical and extreme of rulings. As Saleh stated in a 2022 interview with El Independiente,
Without a doubt. Half solutions are not worth it. The basic problem must be solved. As long as we continue clinging to tradition, to the foundational books, we are not going to do absolutely anything. We will find small solutions that do not address the severe problem suffered by women in Arab and Muslim countries. From laws, family codes, what has to do with divorce, marriage, inheritances, the value of women’s testimony, their public presence… It covers everything.
Saleh may be right when he states that secularism is the sole solution and religion should be confined to the home, and not imposed in the public sphere. In other words, the limits of religion are the limits of the law, a concept understood by Jewish rabbis who ruled that “the law of the land is the law.” While it is used to espouse religious rule, the Qur’an also contains a similar concept: “Obey… the holders of authority” (4:59). Be that as it may, the separation of Mosque and State is an essential precondition for peace and prosperity in the Muslim world.
The fifth chapter, “The Prison of Feminism or the Misrepresentation of Feminism,” exposes the oxymoron that is Islamic feminism. As the author explains, the women behind this movement may have a general understanding of Islam; however, they lack any profound knowledge or mastery of Islamic jurisprudence or the Arabic language (118). They distort or discard certain Qur’anic terms only to replace them with others aligned with their ideology (118). Rather than recognize the sexist nature of certain Qur’anic verses and sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, they blame exegetes for their “erroneous” interpretations (118). They claim that feminism is a prison, from which only Islam frees them, when it is the other way around.
For Saleh, the misogynistic nature of 4:34 is inescapable: “Men have authority over women in virtue of the fact that God made the ones excel the others, and because of the property that they spend. Virtuous women are obedient, guarding in secret that which God has ordered them go guard. Admonish those from whom you fear rebellion, banish them alone to their beds, and beat them! If they obey you, seek not a way against them. God is Exalted, Great” (119).
As Saleh summarizes, “This is an entirely misogynistic verse. Even so, dozens of women have taken pains to attribute more benevolent meanings to each of the words it contains. It turns out then, and according to these new exegetes, that ‘having authority’ does not mean what the Arabs have understood for over fourteen hundred years, nor what the commentators of the Qur’an have explained throughout history. They also do not accept the explanations given by Arabic dictionaries of the terms that appear in the text. They consider their own interpretation to be the most accurate and correct” (119). “According to them,” continue Saleh,
neither “rebel,” nor “banish them alone to their beds,” or “beat them,” mean what the Arabs have always understood these words to mean. Their only argument is that the Qur’an represents justice, dignity, and equality and cannot contain verses that deviate from these principles. They also take refuge in what is known in Islam as the causes of revelation, of each verse or each surah. They then explain and expand upon the peculiar reasons behind each text, alleging social, cultural, or historical reasons. But, at the same time, they repeat that the Qur’an is the Constitution of Islam and that it is valid for all times and places. (119)
As sad as it is to say, Saleh is completely correct when he claims that 4:34, the wife-beating verse, is supremely sexist and misogynistic. As I acknowledge in The Most Controversial Qur’anic Verse: Why 4:34 Does Not Promote Violence Against Women (2020), it has been the consensus of Muslim scholars over the past fourteen hundred years that husbands have the right to strike their wives (4, 286). They only disagreed on the extent of the beating. The dawn of the twenty-first century has seen a flurry of scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who have attempted to redeem this morally objectionable imperative. The fact remains that, with only a few exceptions, including Qushayri, Zamakhshari, and Raghib al-Isbahani, Muslim jurists from all sects universally agreed that the imperative idribuhunna signifies “beat them.” Even those who interpreted it as “to have sex with them,” or another one of the verb’s sixty different meanings, recognized that it could also mean “beat them” (Morrow 85-86, 213).
The Qur’an may claim to be clear, (2:242: 3:7; 11:1; 12:1-2; 15:1; 16:89; 24:28; 26: 1-2; 27:1; 28”1-2; 41:3; 43: 1-2; 44:1-2…), however, the precise meaning of daraba in 4:34 lacks clarity due to its polysemy. If the Qur’an is eternal, uncreated, atemporal, and timeless, as most Muslims believe, this problematic word-choice, with its dominant violent implication, will persist. The consensus of a thousand and a half years, and one that continues to be shared by most Muslim scholars to this day, including the self-described traditional and moderate ones, cannot be changed by a dozen twenty-first century dissidents, including myself. Despite the subtitle that was placed on my book, against my objections, 4:34 does indeed promote violence against women. If God is the author of the Qur’an, and God is All-Knowing, then God knew that idribuhunna would be interpreted by most readers and exegetes as “beat them.” If the Qur’an is the Word of Man, then the man or the men who composed it knew this as well. Anyone who wanted to avoid that meaning could have selected a more precise term; namely, a verb with a single, indisputable, sense.
As well-intentioned as they may be in their attempt to address and attenuate domestic violence by reinterpreting the Qur’an, the fact remains that these very same Muslim academics believe in its centrality and universality. They are incapable of accepting that it is a product from seventh century Arabia and that people living in other times and places should not be relying upon it to create laws and rules. Blaming patriarchal, sexist, and misogynistic men for purportedly misinterpreting the Qur’an evades the real issue. Are the interpreters to blame or is the text itself? Even if we assume that the verse does not mean “beat them,” but one of its other interpretations, which does not change the fact that women have been battered on its basis for over fourteen centuries and that Muslims have some of the highest rates of wife-beating in the world.
While violence against women has many causes, studies demonstrate a clear correlation between support for shari‘ah law and rates of domestic violence (Morrow 43-44, Table 1.5). In Afghanistan, where 99% of the population supports shari‘ah law, the rate of domestic violence reaches 87%.In Iraq, where 91% of people back Islamic law, 42.8% of women are battered. In Pakistan, there 84% of the population backs the shari‘ah, up to 99% of women are beaten by their husbands (Morrow 43: Table 1.5). When a scripture commands husbands to beat their disobedient wives, as does Qur’an 4:34, there are real social consequences. Considering the plight of Muslim women, Saleh asks the crucial question:
Why don’t they leave the Qur’an alone and try to defend their rights separate from that text? What need do they have to look for references in a society, the Muslim one, from thousands of years ago, when everything was different? Why do they remain anchored in that remote past that could give few lessons to the humanity of our time? (130)
As he explains in some of his lectures, societies change and evolve. Considering that there are numerous modern socio-political and economic ideologies, and scores of contemporary legal codes, what need to Muslim women of medieval Islamic law? Why not defend their rights based on secularism, humanism, and Universal Human Rights?
As much as Islamic feminists call for a return to ijtihad, namely, independent reasoning to derive legal rulings, and frequently cite Muhammad ‘Abduh, who was critical of polygamy, Saleh notes that that the character in question failed to propose any concrete reforms, lauded the “glorious” Arabic and Islamic past, while failing to recognize that it was the cause of the backwardness of present-day Muslims. What is more, he failed to take any concrete action to improve the rights of Muslim women. Saleh’s criticism extends to Amina Wadud, the author of the booklet, Qur’an and Woman, for “making a superhuman effort to embellish the Qur’anic text and soften its severe sentences against women.” (120-121)
Saleh notes that Islamic feminism first surfaced in Khomeini’s Iran (121). In fact, in one of his speeches, he traces the first use of the term to Zanan, a women’s magazine that appeared in the Islamic Republic in the early 1990s. In other words, it was an Islamist invention. As Saleh argues, Islamic feminism is a closed, biased, self-centered system that operates within the confines of Islamic law, and which rejects Western feminism (121). Saleh is stunned at Islamic feminists who claim that Islam is not a patriarchal religion. How has Islam changed in theory and practice? Do they ignore the Family Law codes that prevail in Muslim countries? Are they oblivious to the laws and norms that discriminate against women and treat them as minors for life (121). For Saleh, Islamic feminism falsifies the foundations of the Islamic faith and endows it with elements that are foreign to its original configuration (121). Rather than recognize that Islamic gender discrimination is wrong, Islamic feminists defend it by claiming that men and women are distinct but equal (121).
Why, Saleh asks, must women try to reinterpret the Qur’an and Islam to obtain their rights? (125) Were Western women required to reinterpret the Bible and Christianity to emancipate themselves? (125). Rather than try to reform them, they decided to ignore them. Saleh proposes that Muslim women do the same, namely, “break the chains that bind them to a misogynistic and sexist ideology” (125). As Saleh notes, this is precisely what they are doing. According to studies and statistics, both secularism and atheism are on the rise in the Muslim world. In fact, there are more atheists in the Arab world today than there are in the United States. Not only are young people rejecting radical Islam and religious fundamentalism, and embracing secularism, many are becoming agnostics or atheists. They have concluded that Islam cannot be reformed and is beyond redemption.
Saleh holds no punches when battering Margot Badran’s (b.1936) Feminism in Islam and her claim that Islamic feminism helps people, the state, and society (126-127). As he argues, the developed world never needed the Qur’an and Islamic feminism to secure the rights of women (127). As Saleh stresses, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the highest expression of rights and equalities for women and men, did not rely on either the Bible or the Qur’an” (127). For the author, Islamic feminists like Badran long to retrieve and revive an egalitarian and pluralistic ummah or community. However, as he asks, did such a utopia ever exist? Or it is merely the product of a nostalgic imagination? (127). To achieve their objectives, explains Saleh, Islamic feminists manipulate Qur’anic commentaries and the hadiths of the Prophet, inverting their original meaning, to draw conclusions that contradict the spirit of Islamic jurisprudence (127). Who, asks Saleh, is responsible for falsifying and altering the sources of Islam? The great classical scholars of Islam and the experts in the Arabic language? (127) Or the defenders of Islamic feminism that he denounced as Pharisees in a 2024 interview in M’Sur? (Topper).
Despite its many strong-points, one of the shortcomings of Saleh’s work is that he treats Islamic feminists as if they were all the same. The term Islamic feminism is thrown around by hardline Islamist women, including members and supporters of Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the Shiite side, as well as members and supporters of other extremist entities on the Sunni spectrum of Islam, such as Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others. The term is also used by women who are Sufis, secularists, left-wing, right-wing, and reformists. It is invoked by women who defend mandatory hijab, those that oppose it, and those that believe it should be a free choice.
Some Islamic feminists seek to defend, tooth and nail, the injunctions of the shari‘ah as it exists, including all its inequities against women. Others seek to create an imaginary, utopic, Islam, which supports LGBTQ-rights. And yet others are partisans of the MEK and advocate a form of Islamist Marxism. Among the leading academics who advocate Islamic feminism, one finds both Islamists and secularists. While some are observant, others are not, and some have admitted to me, in private, that they are no longer Muslims. Islamic feminism is a movement that is as diverse as the political left or the political right. Some use feminism to move Muslim women toward Islamism. Others use feminism to move Muslim women toward secularism. Some Islamic feminists appear to be independent, non-aligned, actors; however, others show every indication of being operatives that are funded directly or indirectly by policymakers and shapers, think tanks, and intelligence agencies. They include women who espouse gender egalitarianism as well as rabid misandrists.
As much as feminism should be universal, and focused on the rights of women worldwide, the fact remains that the feminist movement, like the Islamic feminist one, consists of a series of waves. In the case of Western feminism, one speaks of the first, second, third, and fourth wave. It should be noted that the positions taken by third and fourth wave feminists have so disillusioned second wave feminists like Phyllis Chesler (b. 1940), for example, that they speak of the death of feminism, no longer identify as feminists, and prefer to state that they support women’s rights. There is also a sharp divide between Islamist feminists, intersectional Muslim feminists, and those who support secular and universal feminism.
As for the claim of Islamic feminists that the Qur’an and the Sunnah have been decontextualized, Saleh does not mince his words. As he explained in an interview conducted by El Independiente in 2022,
They are arguments absolutely lacking foundation and truth. People who say this start from two positions. One is the lack of knowledge of the Qur’an, of the life of the Prophet, of his biography… In the book I barely say anything from my own point of view. I refer to the most important sources of Islam, the Qur’an, the sunnah, the history of Islam, and its great scholars. Talking about Islam, Christianity, or any religion without returning to the fundamental sources produces empty arguments that are far from reality. The other position is manipulation. Some, but very few, know the facts; however, they are interested in the topic of Islamic feminism because it sells a lot in the West. It is a trend, as if it were the magic wand to solve the problem of women in Islam and the Arab world. And it is false: there is a saying in Arabic that says, “you escape the heat and take refuge in the fire.” It’s absurd. Women’s freedom must be sought in other ideologies.
Feminism is a secular, liberal, and universal movement. It is universal. We cannot use adjectives or labels. People speak of Islamic feminism, Black feminism, and Christian feminism… It is like democracy, it is indivisible. Democracy in Europe, in Japan, in China or in Pakistan must be the same. If someone starts saying that their democracy must be different, then democracy is damaged, society is damaged… Since culture cannot be unique for all humanity, including democracy and feminism, they take refuge in absurd arguments such as those of cultural relativism. In so doing, unjustifiable things are justified.
Like a dexterous swordsman, Saleh slices and dices through the arguments made by Amina Wadud and Asma Lamrabet (b. 1961), criticizing what he views as the vacuity and intellectual dishonesty of their arguments, their blind and unconditional faith, their distortion of Islamic sources, and their refusal to face hard textual facts (138-143). As centuries of inaction has shown, calls for tajdid, or the renewal and reform of Islam, ring hollow (144). For Saleh, Lamrabet’s claim that the shari‘ah is an ethical code, as opposed to a penal one, is preposterous. How, then, does she explain the fact that shari‘ahlaw has enshrined slavery, the amputation of limbs, stoning to death, and the execution of apostates, for the past fourteen hundred years? (144). As Saleh puts it plainly, “It is false that there has been a sexist and patriarchal reading of the Qur’an. The Qur’an is all this; we simply lack the courage to recognize it” (133). As he stated bluntly in an interview in Asturias Laica in 2023, “Unless we set the Qur’an aside, we will never advance.”
For most Muslims, however, calling upon them to reject their religion is too much to ask. According to Islamic feminists, encouraging internal reform is far more reasonable. As Saleh notes in a 2022 interview in El Confidencial, the question begs to be asked: if the Qur’an, and the Sunnah, have been misinterpreted, why does this only apply to matters related to women? He is completely correct. If the Qur’an was misappropriated, prophetic traditions were fabricated, the shari‘ah was adulterated, and Islam was corrupted, then the damage that was done extends far beyond the rights of women. Apart from the Qur’anists, who reject Islamic jurisprudence, and toss out the false prophetic traditions upon which it was built, Islamic feminists are unwilling or unable to deconstruct and reconstruct Islam. For real feminists, who place women first and foremost, Islam is not the solution: liberal, democratic, secularism is.
Disillusioned with the horrors of radicalism, the support for political Islam is in free fall. Paradoxically, while the Persians and Arabs are running from it, many Muslims in the West are running to it. Islamism has discredited itself in the Muslim world. However, its flames have been fanned by weak , cowardly, Western democracies. There are now more radical Islamists in Europe and North America than there are in the Muslim world. Suppressed by sound security measures in their countries of origin, Islamists from North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia were warmly welcomed by Western democracies where they have established their bases of operation, created parallel communities in what they view as conquered territory, and act at the advance troops of an Islamic invasion. Secular Western citizens, both non-Muslim and Muslim, suffer the consequences. In Europe, in particular, some of the greatest victims of the Islamists are moderate, traditional, Muslims who reject the radical Islamism of the Salafis, Wahhabis, and Jihadis, who seek to impose Shari‘ah law upon them. In many parts of Europe, where radicals have taken root, Muslim girls and women are coerced into wearing hijab; otherwise, they face relentless harassment, bullying, and violence, not to mention cases of punitive gang rapes and murders. Hence, Muslims who embrace universal values are victimized by Islamic fundamentalists.
The sixth chapter, “Cultural Relativism and the Damage to Women’s Rights,” criticizes cultural relativism, which claims that universal ethical norms are non-existent, as well as multiculturalism, which pretends that all cultures are equal (145-146). As a defender of universal ethical principles, Saleh denounces the dangers that certain cultures, religions, and ideologies pose to women. In the case of Islam, the author dismisses the claim that it contains its own democratic process, that of shura, when it merely involves the seeking of counsel on the part of a leader while failing to consider the will of the people, who remain marginalized (147-148). In other words, the consultation referred to in the Qur’an was one that was typical of princes and kings. It is a concept far removed from the modern democratic process as we understand it. For thinkers like Saleh, Islamic democracy, like Islamic feminism, is a contradiction in terms.
Relying on the writings of Mona El-Tahawy, Saleh demonstrates how both the political right, and the political left, are allies of the Islamists in their misogyny and hatred of women (148-149). In similar fashion, the author invokes Wassyla Tamzali (b. 1941), the Algerian attorney, author, and feminist, who condemns the complicity of Western intellectuals and politicians with radical Islamic positions that discriminate against women (149-151). They defend the hijab to obtain votes without showing any concern for its patriarchal and discriminatory origin that is an affront to the dignity of women. For such politicians, supporting the hijab proves that they support diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as multiculturalism (151). As Saleh stated in a 2022 interview with El Diario, “Left-wing parties should know that the hijab is not just any garment, but the patriarchal symbol par excellence.” As far as the author is concerned, human rights are, and should be, universal. Hence, no religion or culture should infringe upon them (152). However, as Saleh notes in a 2022 article El Independiente, “Political Islam has brought many evils to Muslim-majority countries and the West has supported them.”
Conclusions
Waleed Saleh’s work is clear and concise, well-documented and referenced. It is affordable and accessible. It appeals to both academics and lay readers. It tackles a topic of paramount importance in and outside of the Muslim world, that of the rights of women, or the lack thereof, and exposes the paradox that is Islamic feminism. While this compact review and summary does not do justice to all the arguments and evidence presented by Saleh in his 167-page work, it is hoped that this tasting will encourage Spanish-language readers to partake in the full dish and encourage translators to make more Spanish, French, and Arabic-language secular, liberal, and universal feminist scholarship available in the English language.
It is unfortunate, and truly tragic to the rights of women, that the works of people like Waleed Saleh, Wassyla Tamzali, Razika Adnani, Naëm Bestandji, Hélé Béji, Mimunt Hamido Yahia, and other universal secular feminists, are largely unknown to English-language readers while the works of Islamist feminists are widely circulated. In fact, many of these secular feminists are banned and censored from social media. According to the globalist elites behind these multinational corporations, criticizing patriarchy, polygamy, scripturally sanctioned wife-beating, female genital mutilation, child marriage, sexual slavery, and mandatory hijab is inherently Islamophobic. In so doing, they muffle moderate, secular, progressive, and feminist voices, allowing the fundamentalists and extremists to dominate the social media terrain and shape the Muslim mind. The only way to help remedy this situation is to read, cite, and spread the works of critical and constructive scholars.
Bibliography
Morrow, J.A. 2020. The Most Controversial Qur’anic Verse: Why 4:34 Does Not Promote Violence Against Women. Lanham: Hamilton Books.
Saleh, W. 2023. Waleed Saleh: ‘El hiyab es el símbolo patriarcal por excelencia.’ Entrevista al autor de Feminismo e islam. Una ecuación imposible. Asturias Laica. Retrieved 7/18/2024: Internet: http://www.asturiaslaica.com/2023/09/12/waleed-saleh-el-hiyab-es-el-simbolo-patriarcal-por-excelencia/
Saleh, W. 2022. Feminismo e islam: una ecuación imposible. Sevilla: El Paseo.
Saleh, W. 2022. Entrevista: Waleed Saleh, autor de Femenismo e islam: una ecuación imposible. El Independiente. Retrieved 7/18/2024: http://www.elindependiente.com/internacional/2022/07/16/ entrevista-waleed-saleh-feminismo-islam-una-ecuacion-imposible/
Saleh, W. 2022. ‘Los partidos de izquierda deberían saber que el hiyab no es una prenda cualquiera, sino el símbolo patriarcal por excelencia.’ El Diario. Retrieved 7/18/2024: http://www.eldiario.es/andalucia/lacajanegra/libros/waleed-saleh-partidos-izquierda-deberian-hiyab-no-prenda-simbolo-patriarcal-excelencia_1_9281847.html
Saleh, W. 2022. Un profesor iraquí contra el feminismo islámico: ‘Es un movimiento conservador.’ El Confidencial. Retrieved 7/18/2024: https://www.elconfidencial.com/cultura/ 2022-07-16/profesor-irani-contra-feminismo-islamico_3461598/
Topper, I. 2024. Contra las fariseas. M’Sur. Retrieved 7/18/2024: http://www.msur.es/actualidad/contra-las-fariseas/
Dr. John Andrew Morrow 