Women and Peace in the Islamic World by Yasmin Saikia;Chad Haines;

Author:Yasmin Saikia;Chad Haines;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857737250
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

Conclusion

Increasingly, the diverse roles played by Muslim women in building long-term peace are being recognized internationally and locally. While recognizing the diversity of their contexts, opinions, priorities and needs, this paper argued that various distinct characteristics of peace-building efforts of women in the Muslim world can be identified. In addition to exploring these characteristics, the chapter also examined various challenges they face.

This chapter showed that, in their efforts, Muslim women are inspired by their faith and have found a set of Islamic values and principles that affirm and encourage them to resolve conflict and build sustainable peace. While these Islamic values and principles inform their peace-building efforts, local realities and their specific contexts push Muslim women to address real-life challenges in new and creative ways. The majority of the women’s involvement in peace-building is informal and ad hoc, although there have been occasions in which Muslim women participated in official and formal peace-building processes. Women have been involved in diverse activities ranging from mediation, observation and advocacy; however the majority of their peace-building efforts focus on relationship building.

The chapter also discussed various challenges women face and concludes that locating their peace-building initiatives within the context of religio–cultural texts, traditions and history helps Muslim women overcome many challenges in their communities. Women creatively engage in a process of rediscovery in which they find new meanings within Islamic tradition and new ways of perceiving historical or archetypal Muslim women figures whose stories inspire courage in modern-day peacemakers. Positioning their peace discourse and initiatives within the Islamic religious sources and history provides Muslim women with the necessary legitimacy that makes it easier to be accepted by more conservative segments of the society. Drawing on these textual and historical experiences empowers them to stand up against patriarchal interpretations and gives them a sense of ownership that is so critical for the sustainability of their efforts. By critically engaging religious texts and traditions, Muslim women such as Asha Hagi Elmi, Sakena Yacoobi, Soraya Jamjuree, Dekha Ibrahim Abdi and many others are attempting to redefine what it means to be a Muslim woman in a conflict situation. By invoking Islam as a mandate for gender equality and peacemaking, they are stepping beyond more discrete ways of influence behind the scenes such as using informal networks to relay information and attempting to persuade male members of the household to support and join peacemaking efforts. In the process, they are drawing upon and extending the range of resources within Islam for peacemaking and adding new examples of empowered women to those provided in Muslim history. Their experiences move us away from the stereotypical image of the Muslim woman and help us understand the diverse roles they play, and the contributions they make as powerful, creative, proactive agents of social transformation and peace-building.

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