Magda Fahsi/Human Rights Tribune, Brussels - « It has become banal to present Islam as one of the main brakes on modern day life, on women’s rights. The result is that we Muslim women spend our time justifying ourselves and covering ourselves in confusion about the situation of Muslim women whether in Nigeria, Sudan or Afghanistan”. Asma Lamrabet, doctor in the children’s hospital in Rabat, Morocco, co coordinator of a group of research and reflection on Muslim women and author of books on this issue willingly criticises the “simplistic media political” debate of some in the West, prompt to call Islam “retrograde” and to say that “the Muslim woman has become a cultural icon of oppression in the name of religion”.

If she freely admits that the situation of Muslim women is far from being ideal, it is not, she believes, the religious texts which are responsible. “No where in the Koran does it say that men are superior to women”. A belief that Azizah al Hibri, professor of law at the university of Richmond in Virginia in the United States and president of the Karamah Association of Muslim human rights lawyers. The Koran says that “men and women were created from the same soul and have the same spiritual and human nature. The prophet himself said that women were half of man. You see that is far from the vision of Eve created from the rib of Adam!”

According to Azizah al Hibri, the Koran recognises a series of women’s rights. She says it is “wrong to say that they can not work. The Prophet for example regularly consulted women on affairs of State and he intended that they should play a major role in the community as well as in the family” As for female genital mutilation, honour crimes and forced marriages, they have nothing to do with Islam. “No marriage is valid in Islam without the free and clearly expressed will of the couple. Honour crimes are considered crimes”

Asma Lamrabet and Azizah al Hibri have never met (the interviews were done separately). One is from Morocco, the other is a Lebanese American. One wears a scarf, the other not. But they do have many similar views. For them, the problem stems from the fact that the first lawyers interpreted the religious texts in the context of the patriarchal and traditional society that they lived in. “These interpretations have been taken up by successive generations of lawyers and have ended up by becoming immutable laws” explains Asma Lamrabet. “You have to distinguish between the religious jurisprudence texts. It is this ossified case law that has not evolved for centuries where you find the worst discrimination against women”

As time passed, the gap between the spiritual message and reality widened. It is like this says Azizah al Hibri “that over the centuries a patriarchal culture created around the religious texts a framework of truncated interpretations which reduce the status of the Muslim woman to that of an inferior being”.

Bearing testament to the current flourishing interest in Islam, the two experts are examples of a growing trend that tries to find a third way between conservative rigour and what Asma Lamrabet calls the “nihilist vision” of certain modernisers who want to sweep under the table Islamic tradition. This third way is leading to a current contextualised reinterpretation of the religious texts.

In other words in order to fight the internalised beliefs of the supposed superiority of man and to free Muslim women from their crutches, you must, says Azizah al Hibri « go back to the original texts and rediscover what Islam teaches on these issues ». Asma Lamrabet adds that “loyalty to the Koran is just about knowing how to read it in context and with renewed inspiration”.

Translated from French by Claire Doole