Some are immigrants, from places ranging from sub-Saharan Africa to Indonesia, while many others are American-born; some American Muslim women were raised in Muslim homes, while others embraced Islam as adults. Some Muslim women cover their head only during prayer in the mosque; other Muslim women wear the hijab; still others may cover their head with a turban or a loosely draped scarf. Muslim women in the United States are actively engaged in this issue on every level, from academia to small grassroots groups.
Azizah al-Hibri, a professor of Law at the University of Richmond, notes that Islamic laws about humanity come from a compassionate God. In , President Barack Obama appointed her as a commissioner to the U.
Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri is one of many Muslim women in America assuming active leadership roles both within and outside of the Muslim community.
She is highly regarded as a scholar of Islam and as a Muslim scholar. Among many accomplishments, Dr. In , Amina Wadud, a black American female convert to Islam and a scholar of Islamic studies, led Friday prayers to a congregation of Muslim men and women in New York, breaking the tradition that reserves that role exclusively for men, and stirring a controversial debate about gender in Islam.
These women are but a few of the many American Muslim female leaders who are challenging misperceptions about gender equality in Islam. The article noted that American Muslim women have more authoritative positions in society particularly as compared to Muslim women in other countries, and also compared to American women of other religions. And yet, gender in Islam remains a frequent debate in America. Data from the survey also shows that over a third of American Muslim women cover their hair, by wearing hijab or otherwise, when they are in public.
These issues continue to fuel lively and important discussions throughout the country, particularly as more women express their own voices as community leaders. Many of these groups also work together to confront issues of prejudice toward women wearing the hijab in the workplace and public areas.
Some of these groups are independently organized by ordinary women trying to better understand their own faith on a practical level, while others take more academic approaches. Similarly, in all countries surveyed in the Middle East and North Africa, about three-quarters or more say the same.
Across Central Asia, most Muslims say that wives must obey their husbands, although views vary from country to country. In most of the Southern and Eastern European countries surveyed, fewer than half of Muslims believe a wife must always obey her spouse. Muslims in the countries surveyed are not united on whether women should have the right to terminate a marriage. In 12 of the 23 countries where the question was asked, at least half of Muslims say that sons and daughters should have equal inheritance rights.
In South Asia and Southeast Asia, opinion differs widely by country. Across the Middle East and North Africa, fewer than half of Muslims say sons and daughters should receive the same inheritance shares. Attitudes toward gender issues may be influenced by the social and political context in which Muslims live. For instance, levels of support for equal inheritance by sons and daughters is often more widespread in countries where laws do not specify that sons should receive greater shares.
Indeed, in most countries where laws do not mandate unequal inheritance for sons and daughters, a majority of Muslims support equal inheritance. In the remaining 11 countries, opinions of women and men do not differ significantly on this question. Similarly, when it comes to the issue of equal inheritance for sons and daughters, Muslim women in nine countries are more likely than Muslim men to support it.
But in the 14 other countries where the question was asked, the views of women and men are not significantly different. Attitudes of both Muslim women and men may reflect the prevailing cultural and legal norms of their society. Overall, the survey finds that Muslims who want sharia to be the law of the land in their country often, though not uniformly, are less likely to support equal rights for women and more likely to favor traditional gender roles.
Differences between those who want sharia to be the official law and those who do not are most pronounced when it comes to the role of wives. In 10 of the 23 countries where the question was asked, supporters of sharia as official law are more likely to say wives must always obey their husbands.
Muslims who favor an official role for sharia also tend to be less supportive of granting specific rights to women. For instance, in six countries, those who want Islamic law as the official law are less likely to say women should have the right to divorce, including in Russia percentage points , Morocco and Albania Additionally, in seven countries, supporters of sharia as the official law of the land are less likely to say sons and daughters should receive equal inheritance.
And in five countries, those who favor sharia as the official law are less likely to believe a woman should have the right to decide whether to wear a veil in public. See Quran Informed by certain hadith, however, all main legal schools of Islam madhhab mandate that women should veil.
See Siddiqui, Mona. See also Hasan, Usama. See Jawad, Haifaa A. See Gray, Doris H. See Sadiqi, Fatima.
0コメント