Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam by Ziba Mir-Hosseini

Author:Ziba Mir-Hosseini [Mir-Hosseini, Ziba]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780861543281
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2022-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

In early December 2010 I went to Rabat for another conference; I stayed a few days more to explore the possibility of holding Musawah’s first workshop on qiwamah and wilayah in Rabat. But we could not find a Moroccan women’s group willing to host such a meeting; they were hesitant and above all suspicious of ‘Islamic feminism’. I also met with Asma, and invited her to write a background paper for our project.

On the last day of my stay, Doris Gray called me to say that Fatima Mernissi wanted to see me. I had lost touch with her, but I knew she was no longer working on women’s issues. I went to see her at home, taking a selection of Musawah’s publications with me. She was still full of energy and plans, connecting people, wanting me to do collaborative work in Morocco on Islam and women, telling me that Musawah must come to Morocco. When I told her about the reluctance of women’s groups to host a meeting with us, she said, ‘Go and talk to Asma Lamrabet – she is incredible, read her books.’ I said, ‘I know her and her books, and she is going to write a paper for our Musawah project; she is one of your fans!’ Mernissi asked me to call her right there, which I did. This is how they first met, which led to a deep friendship.

The next time I was in Rabat, they were working together; they had formed a study group in which writers, researchers and intellectuals with different orientations met on a monthly basis to share their work. It was called Vivre Ensemble (Living Together), and in November 2013 Zainah and I were invited to talk about our work in Musawah. By then, Lamrabet had already participated in our meetings, as well as contributing a background paper for our project.

We were in Rabat for a consultative meeting that Musawah and the Rabita Centre for Women’s Studies had co-organized. The idea behind this meeting was for us to present our findings on the knowledge-building initiative on qiwamah and wilayah, and to begin a constructive dialogue with religious scholars. But it did not happen. Only two religious scholars from Rabita joined the meeting. Those we had approached from Al-Azhar in Egypt wanted a five-star hotel and business-class air travel, which we could not afford and was against our principles; we ended up with a Shaykh recommended by Egyptian friends who had heard him on TV and thought he sounded progressive. He came to the opening session in the morning, but after he realized that his presentation was scheduled for the second day he complained and disappeared for the whole day: we learned that he had gone shopping for his wife! He reappeared on the second day to present his paper, which was basically an attack on Musawah; he told us in a loud voice that we were not qualified to talk about Islam, and if we wanted to understand Shari‘a concepts we should have come to Al-Azhar .

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