White-Masks and Muslim Veils1: the Perplexing Case of the Muslim Feminist

Ali Harfouch

If there is one thing we can learn from the ways in which colonial-relations manifest themselves it is that the process of colonization and subversion is not necessarily a process in which an external agent/power subverts/colonizes a native Muslim quite the contrary it has increasingly becoming the case that Muslims perpetuate their own process of self-colonization. Mimicry at its finest albeit cloaked beneath the veneer of fancy discourses and ambiguity. An example of such is the recent plethora of feminist in Muslim communities across the West. For practical purposes, we are not interested in whether or not a re-conceptualization of feminism within an Islamic paradigm is possible or not . What we are interested in however are the Muslim feminist who wear white-masks and espouse a explicitly Western discourse whilst try to reconfigure Islam, through a dismal attempt at hermeneutics, so that Islam can conform to their liberal precepts. Worse yet, their academic credentials and ability to employ an advanced (as it appears to them) discourse puts them in an illusionary position of authority. The fallacy of the White -masked Muslim feminist is perplexing to say the least for the following reasons; 1) Subvert of Reify Patriarchal Power-Structures? Feminism presupposes that there exists patriarchal power-structure which subverts women to the power and authority of men. The origins of any power-structure, it goes without saying, is historical i.e. they are not created out of a vacuum and in most cases are created by men (to put it as simply as possible). And thus one is left asking; what is the value or benefit or seeking equality within the existing [intrinsically] Patriarchal power-structures? It would seem to be a far more fruitful endeavor if one sought to completely deconstruct and abolish those power-structures. Perhaps this is a lesson that our white-masked feminist can learn from the Prophetic method of change. Unfortunately this does not appear to be part of the defensive and reactionary campaign of individuals like M Francois-Cerrah who are more keen on apologetically reinterpreting (read; mutating) the Quran and condescendingly attacking members of the Muslim community. Secondly, when one speaks of womens rights this also presupposes a set of rights and subsequently a political system which grants those rights. Accordingly, what system? There are no universal ahistorical set of fundamental rights which the call for womens rights refers to therefore it is necessary that the call for womens rights is complemented with the delineation of a particular system to both grant and secure those rights. In the end, they paradoxically end up reifying the very same power-structures which produced the initial inequality they set out to condemn. 2) Universalizing Liberalism and Historicizing Islam? One of the explicit and unique features of revelation in Islam is its timelessness and its accessibility. It is timeless because it dealt with permanent features of man and society by providing permanent injunctions and it is accessible because revelation was embodied in the most explicit and manifest means-of-communication; language. The Quran itself draws on this feature repeatedly, for example Indeed, We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur'an that you might understand.2 Or A Book whose verses have been detailed, an Arabic Qur'an for a people who know3. Another property of the Quran, by virtue of its divine origins and authenticity, is its epistemic authority i.e. an authority which reigns over any temporal and subjective discourses, ideologies, and so forth. What is left of this timelessness, accessibility and epistemic authority if the most explicit of texts is denied in light of Modern socio -political and economic conditions? In other words, what is left of the Qurans claims to authenticity and authority if it is subverted to relative and contingen t realities? This is precisely what the White-masked Feminist commit through their fallacious hermeneutics. Take for example the recent statement
1

Adapted from Fanons Black Skins, White Masks in reference to Africans who sought to be fully human by wearing the masks of the oppressor. 2 Yusuf: 2 3 Al-Fussilat: 3

by M Francois-Cerrah who denied the manifest meaning the inheritance rights of women in Islam in the verse; They request from you a [legal] ruling. Say, " Allah gives you a ruling concerning one having neither descendants nor ascendants [as heirs]." If a man dies, leaving no child but [only] a sister, she will have half of what he left. And he inherits from her if she [dies and] has no child. But if there are two sisters [or more], they will have two-thirds of what he left. If there are both brothers and sisters, the male will have the share of two females. Allah makes clear to you [His law], lest you go astray. And Allah is Knowing of all things.All the while, she is claiming to do so on the basis of Maqasid ash-Sharia (the objectives of Shariah) but in reality her reinterpretation is based on Maqasid al-Liberaliyyah (the objectives of Liberalism). Consequently, she ends up universalizing liberalism whilst historicizing Islam despite the historically-sensitive origins of the former and the divine origins of the latter. If anything, her re-reading of the Quran is not to be seen as a creative exercise but rather an exercise in consumption and mimicry. On another note, we noted earlier that any claim to recapture womens rights must simultaneously point out the location of those rights (e.g. is it Modern society, the Quran, the periphery etc) however Francois-Cerrah paradoxically mystifies the real location of those rights by rejecting the possibility of a textual-location (the Quranic texts) and ambiguously drawing upon the Maqasid. Her act of negation and marginalization of authentic locat ions is merely an expression of the colonizeds tendency to re -center the West as the natural and fixated location of knowledge, legitimacy and rights. The paradox inherent in the process of universalization and historicization is two-fold; firstly the feminist binds the Muslim women into two powerstructures; the Patriarchal local power-structure and a more multi-faceted neo-liberal power-structure. The second paradox being; by trying to raise the issue of womens rights through feminist hermeneutics the y end up mystifying the real and authentic location of those rights. In both cases, it is a self-defeating and regressive exercise. Lastly and historically speaking, the question of womens rights in the Muslim world never emerged organically from the Muslim women themselves but emerged from intellectual circles (made up by men) who sought to fully Modern. Nadia Fadils work on Islamic feminism and decolonialism explains that the womens question did not emerge

due to the desire of women to be included as equal citizens (this is how it emerged in Europe); rather, it emerged as a project by Egyptian men to be included in modernity and as a way for them to assert themselves as political and modern subjects4
There are of course many dimensions and underlying paradoxes that ought-to be exposed in the discourse of the Whitemasked veiled feminist movement however we will leave these for future articles. In our next piece, insha Allaah, we will look at the discourse of womens rights as a subtle Trojan horse being dragged into the Muslim world.

http://neocolonialthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/the-emergence-of-the-muslim-woman-question-in-egypt/