Juliane Hammer, Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts Against Domestic Violence

Abstract

American Religion 1, no. 2 (Spring 2020), pp. 145–147 Copyright © 2020, The Trustees of Indiana University • doi: 10.2979/amerreli.1.2.17 Book Review Juliane Hammer, Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts Against Domestic Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019) Merin Shobhana Xavier Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada Juliane Hammer’s new book, Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts Against Domestic Violence, employs various methods of data collection, including ethnography, semi-structured interviews, and media analysis, to discuss domestic violence (DV) in America, while centering the advocacy and policy work of American Muslim organizations against domestic violence. The first chapter situates the central story that catalyzed this project, and that is of Aasiya Zubair, whose brutal death at the hands of her husband received wide media attention in America. Zubair’s narrative is contrasted to Mildred Muhammad, an African-American Muslim woman and the ex-wife of the infamous John Allen Muhammad (the DC sniper) (whose story is unpacked further in chapter two) whose troubled relationship with her ex-husband did not elicit the same media attention as Zubair’s, likely due to her racialized identity. In centering the stories of these varyingly racialized Muslim women, Hammer questions the role that honor, in the context of culture, plays in some Muslim communities, while also critiquing how American media’s anti-Muslim sentiments implicated the ways these women’s stories were consumed by a popular audience. Having raised these central queries, chapter three shifts the analysis to consider the role of domestic violence awareness through education amongst Muslim American Religion 1:2 146 communities, particularly in terms of the resources and services that are made available. Chapter four further develops the need for education around domestic violence, while chapter five examines the work of American Muslim male prayer leaders (imams) and their efforts against domestic violence, especially in the context of mosques. Chapter six surveys some of the services that are available to Muslim victims and the survivors of domestic violence, such as FAITH (Foundation for Appropriate and Immediate Temporary Help) and Peaceful Families. This chapter utilizes the author’s interview material to create vignettes of individual service providers and advocates, be they Muslim woman lawyers or counselors, who have created organizations that support battered women across America. For instance, it provides some field note reflections of Hammer’s visit to a Muslim women’s group home, where she participated in group counseling and took part in a meal and prayers. Here the need for having a specific Muslim women -only group home that addresses the cultural and religious needs of Muslim women is highlighted. DV-support systems that serve Muslim victims are important resources, however their focus on Muslim clientele means that they are not eligible to receive funding from the federal and state level, because the services provided are not publicly available to non-Muslims. As such, many of the noted organizations that serve Muslim women are dependent on funding and patronage from Muslim communities and individual patrons. Yet, such support remains an issue, as some of the same communities have a difficult time acknowledging the existence of domestic violence and abuse as a problem. Further, even in the context of interfaith -based anti-DV organizations, Hammer found instances (i.e., workshops) that maintained racist or bigoted perceptions of Islam. Islam was treated as a unique threat to anti-DV work; much of this is because, as Hammer writes, “Muslims, as advocates, providers, and victims, are never disconnected from negative perceptions of their religion and communities, and are even affected by them if they themselves do not foreground being Muslims as their defining identity” (222). One of the consistent themes that appears throughout the study is the praxis of Qur’anic verse 4:34, and the challenge it poses to the idea of an Islam, at least scripturally, that is against domestic violence and abuse. Here the responses by Muslims, religious leaders, and anti-DV advocates and providers indicate how they navigate the realities of gender justice and equity and/or egalitarianism differently. For instance, Hammer found that many of her interlocutors constructed notions of “protective” or “benevolent patriarchy,” where some believed it is because of the God...