Today, I woke up an hour earlier than usual because we had a quiz in Arabic class today. I went over all of the notes because the quiz was on everything we learned so far. So it covered the alphabet, connecting letters, greetings, personal pronouns and numbers. I felt that I had no problem reading the words, but when it came to writing down a word, it was sometimes hard to know exactly how the word should be formulated. For example, if there’s an “ee” sound at the end of the word, does that mean that there will be a “yeh” or that there will be a “kasrah” on the last letter?
When we began Arabic class, the students expressed their worries that they did not feel they were prepared for a quiz so our teacher, Hasnaa, turned the quiz into a practice review instead, which I think was a great idea. We took the quiz by ourselves first to assess how much we knew, and Hasnaa went around helping those who needed it. When we finished the quiz, we went over it and fixed our errors and asked further questions.
As for the day’s lesson, we learned the possessive pronouns for regular words and then for words that end in an “tehmerboota.” At first, the idea of the “tehmerboota” was very confusing for me, but eventually I understood that a tehmerboota is just used when there’s a feminine word, similarly to the feminine article “la” in Spanish. After we went over the personal pronouns, we went over to El Shabrawy for lunch. I ordered shawerma sandwich, which I’d been meaning to try since I got here. It was sort of like the gyros that are sold in New York, except that the shawerma was not in a pita, but in a hero sandwich form. It also didn’t have as many vegetables as a gyro nor as much sauce.
In the afternoon, we went over to Leslie’s apartment to listen to Dr. Riham Bahi’s lecture on Islamic Femininsm. First, several of us mentioned some common stereotypes about women in Islam, such as the idea that Islam oppresses women because of hijab. Riham mentioned that people pick, choose, and distort verses from the Quran. For example, a verse in the Quran says that the distinguishing feature between men and women is piety. This shows no preference between any gender, but people say this verse shows that men are a degree above. However, this verse is saying that relations is based on equal law.
Another stereotype is that Islam sanctions patriarchy. The Quran says sovereignty belongs to God only and that males and females are BOTH under God and EQUAL to each other. Some say men are a degree above women, but this is a form of Shirk because women are supposed to obey Allah only. The idea of the khilafa is that humans are the agents of God and men and women are mutually responsible for this agency. No one gender is in charge of the other.
I will mention one last stereotype that God preferred men when it came to divorce and inheritance. This verse is cited most often to support male superiority. The Quran said men are financial maintainers because they inherit more to support their family. So in this case, women actually have more rights because they can work and keep their money and if they give their earned money to their family, they will be rewarded as if they had given charity. Men can’t do that—they have to share their earnings with their family.
So many times, I have wanted to explain to my non-Muslim friends how the Quran is not saying that men and women are equal, nor is it saying that men are preferred over women. But I have not been able to explain this until now. Riham said it just perfectly—it’s not about gender equality, but about gender justice. That is the difference between Western feminism, which preaches gender equality, and Islamic feminism, which preaches gender justice.
Before this lecture, I was really interested in further learning about Islamic feminism and I’m really glad that a lot of my questions about women’s status in Islam were answered during this lecture. The most important idea I came away with during this lecture is that Islam is not saying that that there should be gender equality, but that there should be gender justice.
Dr. Riham Bahi's lecture on Islamic feminism
When we began Arabic class, the students expressed their worries that they did not feel they were prepared for a quiz so our teacher, Hasnaa, turned the quiz into a practice review instead, which I think was a great idea. We took the quiz by ourselves first to assess how much we knew, and Hasnaa went around helping those who needed it. When we finished the quiz, we went over it and fixed our errors and asked further questions.
As for the day’s lesson, we learned the possessive pronouns for regular words and then for words that end in an “tehmerboota.” At first, the idea of the “tehmerboota” was very confusing for me, but eventually I understood that a tehmerboota is just used when there’s a feminine word, similarly to the feminine article “la” in Spanish. After we went over the personal pronouns, we went over to El Shabrawy for lunch. I ordered shawerma sandwich, which I’d been meaning to try since I got here. It was sort of like the gyros that are sold in New York, except that the shawerma was not in a pita, but in a hero sandwich form. It also didn’t have as many vegetables as a gyro nor as much sauce.
In the afternoon, we went over to Leslie’s apartment to listen to Dr. Riham Bahi’s lecture on Islamic Femininsm. First, several of us mentioned some common stereotypes about women in Islam, such as the idea that Islam oppresses women because of hijab. Riham mentioned that people pick, choose, and distort verses from the Quran. For example, a verse in the Quran says that the distinguishing feature between men and women is piety. This shows no preference between any gender, but people say this verse shows that men are a degree above. However, this verse is saying that relations is based on equal law.
Another stereotype is that Islam sanctions patriarchy. The Quran says sovereignty belongs to God only and that males and females are BOTH under God and EQUAL to each other. Some say men are a degree above women, but this is a form of Shirk because women are supposed to obey Allah only. The idea of the khilafa is that humans are the agents of God and men and women are mutually responsible for this agency. No one gender is in charge of the other.
I will mention one last stereotype that God preferred men when it came to divorce and inheritance. This verse is cited most often to support male superiority. The Quran said men are financial maintainers because they inherit more to support their family. So in this case, women actually have more rights because they can work and keep their money and if they give their earned money to their family, they will be rewarded as if they had given charity. Men can’t do that—they have to share their earnings with their family.
So many times, I have wanted to explain to my non-Muslim friends how the Quran is not saying that men and women are equal, nor is it saying that men are preferred over women. But I have not been able to explain this until now. Riham said it just perfectly—it’s not about gender equality, but about gender justice. That is the difference between Western feminism, which preaches gender equality, and Islamic feminism, which preaches gender justice.
Before this lecture, I was really interested in further learning about Islamic feminism and I’m really glad that a lot of my questions about women’s status in Islam were answered during this lecture. The most important idea I came away with during this lecture is that Islam is not saying that that there should be gender equality, but that there should be gender justice.
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