Muslim Women, Stop Shielding Muslim Men and the Ummah

A Plea from a Muslim Man

Global Muslim Populations, Pew Research Center, 2014

The social media explosion earlier this year regarding sexual abuse suffered by Muslim women was a positive and overdue step forward in dealing with a longstanding problem within the Ummah. This movement was sparked originally by an anonymous post from a Pakistani woman about her own abuse during Hajj, consolidated into the hashtag #MosqueMeToo, and accelerated by Mona Eltahawy’s restatement of her own abuse (originally raised in a 1982 book). These statements from Muslim women on social media have mostly concentrated on abuse as it has occurred during either Hajj or attendance at houses of worship. So the next natural step would be to broaden the discussion by looking at cultural and religious factors that maintain patriarchy, misogyny, and chauvinism within the Ummah.

This article, however, is not about any of that, but rather about the still pervasive reaction against such Muslim truth telling from other Muslims, including and especially other Muslim women. The control and abuse of women’s bodies, as connected to the social and at times legal onus of “piety” that is disproportionately imposed on Muslim women, are a central feature of the Muslim communal fabric. This has been true historically and, but for a brief set of decades in the middle of the 20th Century, has continued to be stagnant or regress hitherto.

It is remarkable then how many Muslim women, likely victims of abuse at some point themselves, are still ardent defenders or denialists of Muslim male behavior and the debased state of the Ummah. This is made worse by these women claiming criticisms, even from other Muslim women, are co-optations of Western propaganda and Islamophobia. As a Muslim man who has always aspired to be decent in mind and action, I humbly ask you to please turn away from this disingenuous and self-destructive discourse.

Speaking personally as a Muslim man, let me say that decent Muslim men do not need and will never ask Muslim women to defend us against those with negative assumptions about us. We will and have challenged assumptions and generalizations by first and foremost simply being who we are. For those with further questions, Muslim men who are decent will also have an open mind and heart. We are willing to engage even and especially with individuals that are skeptical of what a Muslim man can be in a positive sense.

Rather than defend those that can defend themselves, Muslim women should laud those Muslim men who risk exclusion, alienation, and even their lives to speak the truth about the state of the community. One such example is Kamel Daoud of Algeria. Daoud was denounced by many peers from the global intelligentsia for boldly and correctly linking the disgusting New Year’s migrant assaults in Europe with the sexual dysfunction of the Muslim world. Daoud is the kind of Muslim man that is the ideal ally for the causes of Muslim women and yet, sadly, is labeled an enemy by many Muslim women and men nonetheless.

Muslim women must also stop using the catchall theme of Islamophobia in order to defend an Ummah that has done little to defend them. By Ummah, I am not referring just to the Muslim-majority world, but also to any place where Muslims form a community. I am directly prompted on this point by a recent article on Medium, written by a Libyan-American Muslim woman.

The origin of the article is profoundly devastating, as the author’s father shot her mother to death after years of spousal abuse. The author acknowledges that at no point did anyone in their Muslim community, even while at her mother’s funeral, blame her father for what he did, nor was there any introspection about the communal lived realities. The author is willing to blame “culture” but somehow wants to separate it from “religion” which is a fallacy in the case of many if not most adherents of Islam.

What is most stunning, however, is that despite some honest and accurate acknowledgments, the author’s main argument and conclusion is that Islamophobia prevented her mother from seeking the help of American law enforcement and social services authorities. Here, her use of the term Islamophobia (as in fear of Islam) is also a fallacy because she does not use it to imply that the authorities would not help her mother out of fear, but rather that the fear here actually rested with so many Muslim women who do not want to make the community look bad.

This is a pervasive attitude among Muslim men and women. It is a self-destructive amalgam of a “protect the tribe” mentality and a juvenile attitude of “everyone has to like us” entitlement. To all Muslims, I say that you cannot expect everyone to like you in this life and moreover, you cannot expect people to not fear or make assumptions about Islam given everything that has happened globally and locally. To do so is to be foolish and to only further increase suspicion among even reasonable non-Muslims who would otherwise have an open mind.

On that matter I will make my final point regarding civil society movement. Muslims cannot expect everyone to “come to them.” Every social grouping in the United States that has sought self-improvement and societal elevation has, of course, always needed social and political allies and coalitions. That said, social change in and for any grouping still has to commence and continue internally (historical exceptions like that of the slaves noted).

Muslim women must be honest and self-activated within their own community first before they can expect state authorities and non-Muslim lay groups to form partnerships with them. This will lead to painful tensions and exclusions, but that is the price to pay for substantive and sustained progress. It is telling that the author disallowed public comments on her story, a story where public discussion is so vital for any of it to be socially meaningful. I happen to believe Medium should require comments to be public in the first place, but that is a separate matter.

I have been immensely critical of this author’s perspective and the broader communal discourse behind it, but I am because I was raised by a fine Muslim woman that taught me the importance of respect for all people and most especially for women, a respect that must go hand in hand with honesty. Her family culture and broader Indonesian norms previously were relatively permissive by the standards of the Ummah and so I was fortunate enough to draw on that as my primordial example. Indonesia is now backsliding and most of the Ummah never knew such a permissive state in the first place. Thus, for those of us Muslims who are rational and thoughtful, we must apply that rationality and thoughtfulness with a large dose of honesty, even and especially when it applies to the embarrassing and shameful problems of the Ummah. Muslim women must make this an easy choice for themselves, for their fate depends on it most of all.