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“My Sisters Prayer” is a poem of strength and power. To be a committed religious woman is to surrender to the divine. There is both a patience and eagerness to meet and please the higher power.

In the first stanza a line reads, “bears witness five times a day” which speaks to the level of commitment and passion the woman has for Islam. Further, another line reads “She faces East.” At the beginning of this semester, I found myself questioning this line. What is the significance of direction here? According to further research, east is the direction the sun rises. It is a source of inspiration, of enlightenment. To face east, then, is to look towards the light. In later lines the author writes, “…and washes her body covers her human form-in preparation to meet the Most High.” In other words, by allowing the sunrise to enlighten the woman (in the poem), she is cleansing herself of darkness.

The third stanza is also incredibly important to this poem. There is acknowledgment of the “engaged surrender” that Islamic practicers engage with. Specifically, in the line “Humble and knowing she needs no defense…knowing angels will raise her back up.” The undoubted belief and confidence in that belief in conjunction with the significance of direction in stanza one constructs a narrative that represents a cleansing of the soul and the mind. There is embrace of light to the body and embrace of god to “raise her up.”

The fifth stanza also holds great significance in this poem. The lines, “Head to the ground-Even the floor she walks upon becomes sacred” speaks to the vastness of the woman’s prayers. Because of the steps (literally and metaphorically) the woman is taking in Islam, the ground she walks on is sacred. She herself is sacred for her acts of dedication.

This poem at the beginning of the semester was incredibly engaging. However, now, with the context of other readings and more general understandings of Islam is even more impactful. The value and sacredness of submitting to the divine, the cleansing of a being for embracing the light are all processes that make Islam what it is.

Coming in to this class I had minimal to no background in any religion. I had a passion for women and gender studies already, so my notions of Islam were very much shaped by the media I had consumed up to this point.

I suppose, after this class I want to strive to better understand different gender relations through the lens of Islam. From the book club I gained insight into this topic but I do hope to dive deeper.

I find myself most motivated by trans and intersex studies so I would hope to learn more about that. In the future I want to be an advocate for those people. And I hope I can use the studies we did in this class to help me do that.

At the beginning of this semester I came into this class with a very small amount of information on both Islam as a religion and Muslim people who practice it. Because I have been taking a feminism class alongside this one, I have been made so much more aware of the issue of the “white savior” and misunderstandings of practices in veiling. However, despite how intrigued I have been about veiling and polygamy, I have found myself incredibly interested in sabr and what that means for personal empowerment.

Over the course of the semester, I have made it a habit to write about all if not most of the readings assigned in class. I wanted to perfect my thoughts before sharing them. While I remain a perfectionist, I allow myself to misunderstand things and give myself the space to grow and reflect on those things. Very recently we were assigned the Mosque in Morgantown. After engaging in discussion with Professor Albert, I realized I did not pick up on the problematic aspects of the film. Something I could improve on is taking everything one step at a time. If I had watched this film and took all of it in without being so preoccupied with the response I was going to write, I may have picked up on the nuances of discussions going on in the film and the issues there were with it. I would like to rewrite that piece and may end up doing that for my expanded writing assignment. However, with my shortcomings in mind, I am very proud of the work and readings I have completed this semester and look forward to further engaging with the topics we covered in this class.

Long debated in feminist history, the presence of women in the work field is scrutinized for being either exploitative or emancipatory. To make matters even more controversial, when Islamic practice is introduced to the “women at work” debate the issue of Islam being oppressive in nature is also introduced.

First, the issue of passivity. A gender norm in and of itself for women, women are stereotyped as passive and submissive in their ways of going through the world. For example, rather than being active or resistant to the ways things can happen to a person, a woman may accept it without being responsive or explosive. The embodiment of this acceptance is referred to as sabir in Islam. Like the women-at-work-debate, a woman’s stereotyped silence can be understood as an inner strength or as weakness. There is strength in acceptance and perseverance, however, weakness in what is seen as inaction. Unlike men, women’s right to choice– in reaction, in hobby, in paid work– is being chosen for them. In other words, the act of debating the right way for a woman to act (in order for them to avoid oppression) is a form of oppression.

As described in the article, work is either deemed as patriarchy exploiting women or as an outlet for enacting agency. Issues of exploitation, interestingly enough, only seem to be brought up though when women seek to be compensated for their labor. For instance, women are most often the givers of care in relationships. In relationships, the labor or work you put into them is unpaid. Specifically, as mothers they nurture their children and feed and take care of their partner’s (based on norms). When a mother has a job on top of the relationships in her life, the mother (technically) is working a double shift. For example, following an eight hour work day a mother will come home and have housework–like feeding her children or doing laundry (again, stereotypically). In feminism there is the concept of the burden of care. The burden of care relates to the carer not receiving care. The woman carries the burden of caring for others without being recognized for doing so. For women to pursue acknowledgement outside of the home is an act against the oppression that puts them in the home. The eagerness of society to criticize the acts of women pursuing outside work, especially when they already face scrutiny within the home for unpaid care is unfair. Why should an outside party dictate what is or is not oppressive to a woman that is deemed equal to man, according to the Qu’ran?

Trigger/Content Warning: sex, consent, genitalia

Notable in this chapter was the discussion of how sex should be strictly for procreation rather than pleasure. What was particularly interesting about this topic was the connection it had back to the Mosque in Morgantown film. The female journalist noted how women were to be satisfied sexually, whereas in this book, it is the opposite. The ways in which interpretation and practices shift through time are incredibly vast. This chapter, for example, Kugle wrote that “premature withdrawal is a crime to a man’s people and an abomination to the land.” Justified through the argument of premature withdrawal being wasteful… what is it that makes it wasteful? While age is relevant to the effectiveness of sperm, men can generate millions of new sperm per day. And further, if the pleasure of either consenting party weren’t important, why would there be a clitoris or sensitivity on the foreskin?

(It would be helpful if there were more context around sex in Islam and practicing Muslims rather than just the criticism’s and mandates on sex in Islam.)

As related to care feminism, in this chapter there was a quote noting the importance of intention behind every action. For instance, in the films discussing polygamy that were assigned in class, each wife taken on by a man must be treated or given the same care as the other. In the context of pleasure and sex, what is the relationship between consent and reproduction? Pleasure is defined as a feeling of enjoyment. Without a feeling of enjoyment or happiness, what does that mean for consent? In present day, consent is defined as an enthusiastic agreement to something. If sex is strictly for reproductive purposes with the absence of pleasure, couldn’t sexual relations construct sexual relations as a form of prostitution or violence?

Prostitution is the exchange of sex for something in return, in this context, a baby. Violence is defined as a destructive force. An example of violence could be destructive sex that is non-pleasurable. The ways in which consent and pleasure construct sex and ultimately relationships becomes all the more complex when mingled with the intricacies religion.

• First: What is the controversy of the female journalist disagreeing with the practices done in the mosque and generally in Islam? Is it the approach?
• The most engaging moment of this film was the moment where the “preacher” (not sure the word) argued that “because women menstruate and men do not, they cannot be treated the same.” If anything, people who menstruate have the capacity to give life…why isn’t that respected or deemed as “above” man or opposite of a menstruating person?
• The ways in which the advocacy against domestic violence were misconstrued purposely to suggest discrimination against the speakers (men holding the preaching event) was almost comedic. How is that justified? What is wrong with wanting Islam to adapt to time? Isn’t that one of the values of Islam anyway? There needs to be growth over time.
• I am eager to hear the responses of everyone else in class.

This chapter of Kugle’s “Homosexuality in Islam” consists of the critiquing of the hadith. Most importantly from this part of the reading though, was the emphasis on the forgeries not being reflections of bad people. Rather, it is the opposite. In the reading the author describes how these forgeries criticizing homosexuality were reflections (usually) of people who thought they were furthering the word of the Prophet.

I am interested to read more on this, as I only read the first half of this chapter. Where I left off, however, was describing the 5 ways in which queer identities are condemned in Islam. I am eager to read more of these ways and hope that an accepted part of the hadith can be provided so I can compare the differences between the two. How blatant is forgery? And what gives one person the agency over another to determine forgery?

The criticism early on in this chapter was most interested in the LGBTQIA+ frustrations over who has the right to question a hadith’s legitimacy. That question and critique is something that motivates this reflection and moves me to question other methods of religion. What is it that determines legitimacy of sacred texts?

“How have the tropes of freedom, democracy, and gender equality facilitated the current Euro-American ambition to remake Muslims and Islam?”

A couple of things come to mind from this question: Missionary feminism uplifts western ideals of womanhood and dismisses Islamic practices as oppressive. This question also brings me back to the conflicts between radical libertarian feminism and radical cultural feminism. In both, there are defined rights and wrongs in being women. To engage with sex work is offensive in radical cultural but accepted in libertarian. Natural reproduction is not encouraged in Libertarian but is applauded by Cultural. The divisions between people purely based on choice, on how to live is particularly relevant to this question.

Freedom is subjective. Gender equality and how it looks societally is subjective. Constraining either term in the context of one world view goes against the promise of freedom and equality.

So, how have the tropes of freedom, democracy, and gender equality facilitated the current Euro-American ambition to remake Muslims and Islam? The ways in which these tropes are portrayed in media and society influence the outlooks of people living in the world. If you are always told and exposed to one ideal of gender–thats how gender equality and freedom look to you.

Most relevant to my reading of this chapter of Inside the Gender Jihad was the relevance of representation. The term symbolic legitimacy was the term used in the book, but seemed to suggest that there is power in a Muslim woman in a hijab speaking in front of audiences about Islam. To be seen publicly as not only an advocate but as an educated and capable woman inspires people. It shows people that people like them can become successful. However, despite the broad reach that being a public figure provides, there also seemed to be an element of tokenization. Being a Muslim woman there is the expectation you speak on your struggles as a Muslim woman. The feelings of isolation that can inhabit for being valued for one aspect of your identity is not small feat which leads to the quote written on page 171. ” Whether consciously or unconsciously, randomly intended me directly to confront racism, gender hegemony, and patriarchy sometimes by being who i am externally, and sometimes by symbolically erasing myself.”

Throughout our readings this semester we encountered readings on Sisters In Islam and polygamy and etc. Relevant to this reading is the idea that people practicing Islam interpret the Qu’ran in a way that perpetuates oppression. In other words, Islam is not oppressive, it’s the ways in which people engage with the values written in the Qu’ran that can make Islam oppressive.

Described various times in the reading, there are specific stories that are taken out of context deliberately to suggest that homosexuality is not accepted in Islam. For instance, a story that was ultimately about not approving of violent sexual acts and adultery but was twisted to disapprove of sodomy. Another reason homosexuality is twisted to be unaccepted in Islam is in accordance with norms. For instance, mid-chapter two, Kugle describes how both Christian and Jewish values were not the most receptive to same-sex relationships so in turn, interpretations of the Qu’ran were going against homosexuality. The ways in which public opinion can skew how minority groups are treated in society is quite frightening. Especially when you consider the life-threatening violence and torment these individuals will face as a result of these beliefs or preaching. Further, I have been and continue to be intrigued by the legitimate values of the Qu’ran and the actual practices of Islam. How are the deviations from these preachings mediated? Are they mediated at all? Are the opinions held on gay and gender non-conforming individuals a result of religion or a majorities peer pressure?