veiled4allah: veil of freedom

In an article called Veil of Freedom, the Cleveland Plain Dealer profiles the Women's Committee of the Islamic Center of Cleveland and their activism to improve the situation of women in their community, many of whom are held back by cultural traditions:

Feminist Muslims are not as narrowly focused as traditional Western feminism, which is characterized by its primary concerns with the status of women and gender equality in society, says Omid Safi, professor of Islamic Studies at Colgate University and editor of the book "Progressive Muslims." Instead, feminist Muslims use gender as a point of departure to address other social injustices particular to the global Muslim community. The activism of the women's committee at the Parma mosque, on both a local and international level, is part of a larger movement within Islam to foster a more progressive interpretation of the religion that has become increasingly misunderstood since the war on Iraq and the terrorist attacks of two years ago, Safi says.

"Feminism is the linchpin of any progressive understanding of Islam,"Safi says. Some Muslims still abide by traditions, such as female genital mutilation, the Taliban's practices and honor killings, which, Safi says, predate Islam and are not sanctioned by the Koran itself.

He says the holy text has been subject to misinterpretations that have led to the development of sexist or even misogynistic practices in parts of the Muslim world. Feminist Muslims try to illuminate these misinterpretations of the Koran in order to foster a more informed understanding of the holy text for both Muslims and outsiders.

"We have ended up living a misogynist reality," he says. "Over time, all that baggage has been incorporated into Islamic thought, and one of the tasks that Muslim feminists have is doing the work of unpacking their received package of Islam."

Here's a sample of what they do in their community:

Aziz stands at the head of the table and draws the group's attention to the success of their recent library project, which provided books, videos and DVDs on Islam to the Cleveland public libraries. In addition to interfaith dialogues about Islam with area churches and synagogues, the group's calendar is booked with work at soup kitchens, women's and children's shelters, food and clothing drives and rummage sales to benefit the poor. During the past year, the women's committee has been a driving force in the Islamic Society's partnership with the Catholic Charities migration and refugee services to help refugee families from Afghanistan, Iran and other countries assimilate to their new environment. The women collected donated household items, cooked food for the families and included them in social activities to help alleviate the emotional trauma of their uprooting.

Halabi remembers her first visits with a Bosnian family with 10 unschooled children, all living out of the same suitcase. When Halabi dropped by with a trunk full of clothes for the family, Halabi asked the mother if she thought they had brought enough. The mother tearfully replied in her native tongue, "These are the most clothes I've seen in all my life."

The committee members humbly impart stories of times they knew their activism had touched a soul, had improved the quality of one person's life and had better informed the outside world of the empowerment of Muslim women.

Zarina Siddiqi sits at the opposite end of the table with photos splayed about her. They're images of children in India, playing in a courtyard, eating lunch at picnic tables and sitting in classrooms. Since the age of 24, Siddiqi has been raising money in the United States for an impoverished school district in her native India.

"Women's freedom comes from education,"she says, "Some Muslim men want their women less educated so they can easily be controlled, and the uneducated continue living their lives by what they are told. These schoolchildren will one day grow to be women."

As she holds the photos while the other women peer over her shoulder, Siddiqi touches the cheek of one little girl's smiling image, with a tenderness as if it were her own daughter. Then she tucks the girl's grin into a folder with the others and holds the bundle, protectively, over her heart.

"Before we established the women's committee, there was that old-country mentality in some women, where they couldn't do things unless their husbands sanctioned it," Alawan says. "But now, the younger women are coming out, getting involved, becoming more aggressive and bringing their daughters up with those same ideals. Growing up thinking about their responsibilities, as Muslim women, to this world. About sisterhood."