Woman re-interprets Koran with feminist view

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Woman re-interprets Koran with feminist view

by Manuela Badawy

Reuters

March 22, 2007

Ordinarily this would not merit much attention. However, this translation coming at this particular time is indicative of much more happening beneath the surface than hits the mainstream press.

Granted, Islam only recognizes the sacredness of the Qur'an's text in Arabic, but once an interpretation of a word with double meaning in Arabic has been challenged for translation to another language based on a moral reason, it is only a matter of time before it is likewise challenged in the original Arabic. From the article:

In the new book, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, a former lecturer on Islam at the University of Chicago, challenges the translation of the Arab word "idrib," traditionally translated as "beat," which feminists say has been used to justify abuse of women.

"Why choose to interpret the word as 'to beat' when it can also mean 'to go away'," she writes in the introduction to the new book.

What I see happening is a seed of women's rights being planted right in the heart of the same sacred text that has been used to justify abusing women. I see a crack (albeit a small one) in the rigidity of the fundamentalist hold on the meaning of the sacred text. I see a start here on a specific crucial issue for moderate Muslims and it will only grow. Part of my evaluation of the impact comes from the fact that the book will be published by Kazi Publications, a USA publisher of all things Islam that is well-respected in the Muslim world.

This is only a small sign of change from within the Islamic culture. At another time in history, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar would have been stoned to death. So it's a good sign.

Michael

[Fran]

At another time in history, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar would have been stoned to death. So it's a good sign.

Tragically she may still be killed by Muslims who are none too happy with this interpretation. I agree though that it is possibly sowing a seed for liberation.

Here's hoping things start to improve.

[Robert Jones]

[. At another time in history, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar would have been stoned to death. So it's a good sign.

Michael

This part of your post, sadly, is wishful thinking. It is just a matter of time before the fatwa is issued, and the lime pits are dug. If she becomes famous, what happened to Rushdie will happen to her.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tragically she may still be killed by Muslims who are none too happy with this interpretation.

It is just a matter of time before the fatwa is issued, and the lime pits are dug. If she becomes famous, what happened to Rushdie will happen to her.

You folks really think this? The lady is a highly regarded Muslim and has taught Islam at the University of Chicago. She is being published by an official Islamic publisher.

Do you know of other people with similar credentials, say, any other authors of Kazi who have been killed or had fatwas issued against them? Take a look at their catalog and see where she is being published. That house would not publish a book if they thought it was blasphemy.

Rushdie is a whole other animal to the Islamic culture. He is an outsider.

Michael

[Fran]

Tragically she may still be killed by Muslims who are none too happy with this interpretation.

It is just a matter of time before the fatwa is issued, and the lime pits are dug. If she becomes famous, what happened to Rushdie will happen to her.

You folks really think this? The lady is a highly regarded Muslim and has taught Islam at the University of Chicago. She is being published by an official Islamic publisher.

Do you know of other people with similar credentials, say, any other authors of Kazi who have been killed or had fatwas issued against them? Take a look at their catalog and see where she is being published. That house would not publish a book if they thought it was blasphemy.

Rushdie is a whole other animal to the Islamic culture. He is an outsider.

Michael

Great. That is good news and leaves me hopeful.

[Robert Jones]

Tragically she may still be killed by Muslims who are none too happy with this interpretation.

It is just a matter of time before the fatwa is issued, and the lime pits are dug. If she becomes famous, what happened to Rushdie will happen to her.

You folks really think this? The lady is a highly regarded Muslim and has taught Islam at the University of Chicago. She is being published by an official Islamic publisher.

Do you know of other people with similar credentials, say, any other authors of Kazi who have been killed or had fatwas issued against them? Take a look at their catalog and see where she is being published. That house would not publish a book if they thought it was blasphemy.

Rushdie is a whole other animal to the Islamic culture. He is an outsider.

Michael

What I am getting at is this: Despite who her publisher is (and the U Chicago connection is irrelevant), IF this woman's word catch fire to a significant degree, AND if she becomes part of the true moderation movement, exemplified by the likes of Rushdie, Irshad Manji and Kamal Nawash, she is living on borrowed time.

Other than that, yes, this is a good sign, but I am NOT convinced that it is a sign of anything beyond what it is. These people are zealots: If Mohammed said so, it passes muster; if Mohammed said no, you are punished to death. This woman falls under the third category called "If Mohammed was unclear." In that case, she is allowed the short leash of interpretation.

The fourth category, "where Mohammed was silent" can be used to account for the bizarre phenomenon in Iran of homosexuality being severely punished, yet since Mohammed was silent on the subject of sex change operations (which, obviously, he could not have fathomed the possibility of) has created a loophole for homosexuals to get sex "changes," and then engage in their sexual preferences, which, thanks to the miracle of the knife and hormone treatments, has magically been rendered heteroseuxal.

On the subject of Salman Rushdie's atheism: He is not an outsider the way you and I would be for choosing not to believe in God (for the record, I DO believe in God, but believe He had the good taste to be Roman Catholic). Rushdie was born into a Moslem family, and thus his renunciation of Allah and all that goes with, has made him an outsider of the most hated variety; Rejecting God in the Moslem world is akin to renouncing La Cosa Nostra: In for a penny, in for a pound -- there's no getting out.

Edited March 29, 2007 by Robert Jones

[BaalChatzaf]

[. At another time in history, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar would have been stoned to death. So it's a good sign.

Michael

This part of your post, sadly, is wishful thinking. It is just a matter of time before the fatwa is issued, and the lime pits are dug. If she becomes famous, what happened to Rushdie will happen to her.

Rushdie is still alive. However he leads a guarded existence.

Laleh Bakhtiar's experience indicates there may be a "protestant reformation" of Islam in a thousand years. Perhaps even eight hundred years. One can always hope.

Yodah says: Hold not your breath until reforms itself Islam does, else blue turn you will.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

Ba al,

I think you are right.

Michael, You might look at your recent post about the trouble the President of Iran is in.

Edited May 3, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

Thank goodness Iran is not the only expression of Islam. But you are right. That is what happens with a fundamentalist approach. The tactics and whole approach, although official, are very similar to the ones used in the past by the KKK's brand of fundamentalist Christianity.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

To keep things in perspective, a fatwa is simply a formal opinion about Islamic law issued by some Islamic cleric.

Any Islamic cleric can issue one. There's no higher court that can reverse any of them.

And the vast majority of them are neither death sentences, nor licenses to kill.

The license-to-kill fatwa against Salman Rushdie carried so much weight because it was issued by the world's most prominent Shi'ite cleric, who also happened to be the dictator of Iran at the time.

While Laleh Bakhtiar is relatively safe, because she lives in the United States, she would be ill-advised to neglect her security. If Naguib Mahfouz could be stabbed in the neck for the sin of writing novels, she could certainly be targeted for heresy. A woman daring to challenge established interpretations of the Qur'an will be viewed as a bigger threat in many circles than a man who presumes to indulge in secular literature.

Besides, any cleric can issue a fatwa. People like Osama bin Laden keep pet imams around so they can obtain whatever fatwa they deem politically expedient. If Laleh Bakhtiar gains traction in the Islamic community, she will be condemned by some cleric somewhere. 100% for sure. That doesn't mean her efforts will be in vain. It does mean she'd better watch her back.

I agree with Robert Jones that Salman Rushdie is not at all like the Danish cartoonists who lampooned Muhammad. They were raised as infidels, in a non-Islamic religion or in none at all. Rushdie was raised Islamic, which makes him an apostate. For the Islamic imperialists, that's already sufficient reason to kill him. I recall, too, that after the book came out, a psychologist I knew who was born in Pakistan commented that Rushdie knew exactly which buttons to push in The Satanic Verses. A true outsider would have been unlikely to know where all the sensitivities lay.

Robert Campbell