Articles

CHALLENGING STEREOTYPES OF MUSLIMS

by Maura Hanrahan

Zarqa Nawaz is one of the creators of "Little Mosque on the Prairie."

Recently on the hit TV show Little Mosque on the Prairie, a mysterious veiled woman showed up in Mercy. The ideological Baber was immediately smitten with her modesty.

"You know what made me fall in love with her?"
he earnestly asks the cool, young imam.
"Hmmm," he responds. "Her eyes?"
"How did you know?" Baber says, incredulous.
The imam smiles. "Just a guess," he says.

     Meanwhile the citizens of Mercy, most of whom are nominally Christian, get up in arms about the newcomer. Led by Sheila, they resurrect an old municipal by-law that forbids face coverings. For the next 22 minutes, the Little Mosque on the Prairie writers and actors fearlessly expose the eccentricities and hypocrisies to which both Muslims and Christians are prone.

     It's not hard to look around us these days and recognize Baber's narrow mindedness and Sheila's paranoia. The all-white town of Hérouxville, Quebec comes to mind. Earlier this year Hérouxville issued a "Publication of Standards," which read, in part: "You may not hide your face as to be able to identify you while you are in public. The only time you may mask or cover your face is during Halloween." The document, which also forbade stonings, was obviously aimed at Muslims, although there are none in the town --and there sure won't be now. Lest we think this kind of stereotyped thinking is unique to Quebec, the mayor of Hérouxville says he was bolstered by the support he got from all over Canada, especially from the Western provinces.

     What is it about Muslim women and their clothing that upsets us so? I suppose the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said would have said veiled female Muslims are unmistakably "the Other." And, in spite of our multicultural ideals, we in Canada are not yet comfortable with differences.

     As October drew to a close, Memorial University and the Masjid Al-Noor Mosque in St. John's sponsored a public education session on women and Islam. We learned that, through revelations from God, the Prophet Muhammad was able to improve the status of women in what is now Saudi Arabia. Before the dawn of Islam in the sixth-century, baby girls were often buried alive. Islam put a stop to this. There was also unrestricted polygamy. This was something Islam sought not to abolish but to control with restrictions, such as a limit of four wives. Today, however, polygamy is the exception rather than the rule. The Prophet himself practiced monogamy for 25 years until he became head of state and made political alliances through marriage. Women could not inherit and Islam changed that, too --centuries before Western women enjoyed property rights.

     Under Islam, women have the right to education and employment (the Taliban must have overlooked it but the Qur'an says, "It is incumbent on each Muslim, male and female, to get an education"). Muslim women can choose their spouse and engage in business transactions. The new religion gave them political and legal rights. Under Islam, it is immoral to pay a woman less than a man, whereas equal pay involved a long and hard fight in the West. Equal pay is the law throughout the Muslim world.

     One of the legacies of the Old Testament is the stigma attached to Eve in Genesis. Much of the Old Testament is absorbed into Islam, with Moses appearing in the Qur'an more often than any other figure. Adam and Eve are there, too, but as equals, made of the same flesh and blood; there are no spare ribs involved. It isn't specified who was created first and there is no mention of Eve tempting Adam. In fact, three times it says Adam ate from the tree and once it says they both did. There is always a way to repent and return to the Garden, and each child is born free; Islam has no concept of original sin.

     Mary, called Miriam, is revered in Islam: "O Miriam! Allah has chosen and purified and chosen you above the women of all nations" (3:42). Mary received God's revelation and, because of her deep faith, accepted it without demanding proof --in contrast to some of the men who appear in the Bible and Qur'an. The Queen of Sheba is a figure of wisdom in the Islamic holy book. Showing good leadership, she asks for advice and then discerns. Again, this contrasts to some men who take an altogether different approach. "Thus, there is no theological foundation for treating women in an inferior manner," says the Al-Noor imam, Dr. Mahmoud Haddara.

     Muslim men and women are both supposed to dress modestly and the veil is noted in the Qu'ran. Some Muslim women wear a veil, and others go so far as to cover their faces; this partly depends on their cultural, rather than religious, roots. Women making the Haj, the pilgrim to Mecca, are not allowed to cover their face. One purpose of this is to stress that covering the face is not part of the religion, and certainly not mandated by Islamic teaching. But, as we've seen, the veil has become something of a lightening rod in the West, as well as in the East. Stephen Harper, Stéphan Dion, and Jack Layton agree on one thing: Women voters should not cover their faces. Something about security, they mumble, but what does that mean exactly?

     Why is this an issue? Haddara says, "Covering the face is being used as a scapegoat for other things. Islam has always been a threat to the West. We need to reconcile this." Indeed, there are 750,000 Muslims in Canada and Islam is the world's fastest growing religion. As we all know, the terrorists who carried out 9/11 and the London and Madrid bombings claimed to be dedicated Muslims. But how could they be? Peace is central to Islam. One of the Prophet's sayings was "A Muslim is a person who does not assault people verbally or physically." Thus, CNN and CBC are wrong to refer to bin Laden et al as "Islamic terrorists," as they continue to do. Not everyone who professes a religion actually practices it; we Christians should know that.

     Is Islam free of sexism? I doubt it; there has never been an institution in the history of the world that was gender-neutral. I suspect that, among serious people, Islam is vulnerable to charges of sexism based on its continuing sanction of polygamy. Many Muslims do not agree with polygamy, but it remains "on the books" and has been proven to be associated with low status of women. There is also the notion of equity versus equality. Islam uses the former and this can be easily interpreted in ways not favourable to women. But we in the Catholic Church are certainly in a glass house here. Rather than throw rocks, we should look in the mirror and ask ourselves how it passes for normal that women cannot be priests, and that women still suffer from the Genesis legacy --women who are singled out by Jesus as "Daughters of Abraham."

     In the West, we are stereotyping Muslims based on extremists intent on hijacking the religion. As the inheritors of the Judeo-Christian tradition and as Canadians committed to multiculturalism, it is incumbent on us not to do this and to challenge those among us who do.

Maura Hanrahan is a regular contributor to The Social Edge. Her latest book is The Alphabet Fleet: the Pride of the Newfoundland Coastal.