non-Muslim Women Research Articles

Religious identity and ‘secular’ employment: a case study of young Muslim women graduates in the Sydney workforce

Information obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that Muslim women attend Australian universities in greater proportion than non-Muslim women. They are graduating with qualifications that equip them for employment in the professional workforce. While some elect to work within what might be viewed as a ‘protected’ environment in Muslim-run or Muslim-focused businesses or organisations, many others enter the general workforce. This paper explores the major issues and concerns for Muslim women especially within a secular workplace, and raises questions about the ways in which they can maintain a strong Muslim identity within the challenges presented by that workplace.

Multiculturalism, Gender and Violence

This article examines the debate between feminism and multiculturalism, critiquing the term multiculturalism by investigating men's violence against women. It shows that without such a critique the term multiculturalism becomes meaningless, providing a way for government and policy makers to avoid engaging with difficult issues. The position of Muslim women is an intersection of many social justice issues, illustrating the status and treatment of both Muslim and non-Muslim women. Majority community members often erroneously consider men's violence against women within ethnic minority communities as a part of their religion and culture, while pathologising the same acts of violence as deviant behaviour within their own culture. This dichotomy fails to address violence against women as a universal phenomenon, requiring shared strategies to confront forces of subordination at work in areas such as gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, transnational economic inequalities, ageism, sexism, dis/ability, religious discrimination and homophobia, all of which illustrate intersections of discrimination.

Women's rights in the muslim world: reform or reconstruction?

The issue of gender inequality is an acute problem in countries where women's lives are governed by laws, and configured by customs and traditions, said to derive from Islam. In the second half of the 20th century, two Muslim feminist paradigms have emerged in response to this malaise. Islamic feminists aim to establish women's rights within the Islamic framework by re-interpreting Islam's holy sources. In contrast, secular feminists challenge the particularistic nature of the Islamic framework and advocate the application of a set of standard universal rights for Muslim and non-Muslim women. This article focuses on the writings of the Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi, tracing her evolution from advocating secular reconstruction of Muslim societies to a position that resembles Islamic reformism.

Beyond the exotic: women's histories in Islamic societies

This volume introduces new sources for the study of the past and present life of Muslim women that challenge paradigms about the ways in which they have been studied in the past. Most research has treated stereotypical images of Muslim women's outward manifestations, such as veiling, as passive and oppressive - women were depicted as different. Exoticizing (orientalizing) Muslim women - or Islamic society in general - has meant that they are dealt with outside of general women's history and thus have little to contribute to the writing of world history or to the life of their sisters worldwide. By approaching widely used sources with different questions and methodologies, and by using new or little-used research (with much primary research), this book redresses these deficiencies. Amira El-Azhary Sonbol and the contributors deconstruct the past and offer fresh new perspectives. Authors revisit and reevaluate scripture and scriptural interpretation; church records involving non-Muslim women of the Arab world; archival court records dating from the present back to the Ottoman period; and the oral and material culture and its written record, including art and architecture, oral history, textbooks, sufi practices, and the politics of dress.

The Thirty-fourth AMSS Annual Conference

This conference, held from Sept. 30 – Oct. 2, 2005 and co-sponsored byTemple University (Philadelphia), represented a homecoming for theAssociation of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS), for its source of inspiration,Dr. Isma`il al-Faruqi, taught religion there from 1968-1986. Elevenpanels addressed the theme, “Muslims and Islam in the Chaotic ModernWorld: Relations of Muslims among Themselves and with Others,” by coveringa wide range of topics, from Muslim minority groups, mutual understanding,and women, to modernity, family law, legal theory, education, andjust war. Due to space constraints, only a few of them will be covered here.After the welcoming and introductory remarks by Program ChairKhalid Blankinship (Temple University) and Rafik Beekun (University ofNevada), Abdul Mutualo (American University in Cairo) began the proceedingsby discussing the history of Islam as an “imported” religion in his nativeMozambique. Heol Choul Kim (Temple University) spoke on KoreanMuslims’ problems due to cultural traditions (e.g., ancestor worship) and thelack of an indigenous Muslim community. Robert Riggs (University ofPennsylvania) discussed how the White Fathers gave Algeria’s KabyleBerers a sense of national self-consciousness and how many of them, livingin small Christian communities, left Algeria after independence.The banquet’s keynote speaker, Abdullah Schleifer (American Universityin Cairo), reflected on his many years as a news reporter and producerin the Middle East. His talk received such an enthusiastic response that wehave included it in our “Forum” section. The winners of the AMSS BestGraduate Paper Awards were also announced: Zareena Grewal (first place),Maleeha Aslam (second place), and Kamran Hashimi (third place).Panel 4A featured, among others, Helena J. Kaler (George WashingtonUniversity), who revealed, probably to the surprise of many, commonalitiesbetween Ayman al-Zawahiri’s and Farid Esack’s responses to modernity.She said that while al-Zawahiri bases his worldview on grievances, Esack ...

Shattering the Stereotypes

Ever since the West’s initial contact with the East, Muslim women haveoccupied center stage as highly politicized subjects who the West hasclaimed to liberate from the oppressive East and who the East has claimedto protect from the hedonistic West. Despite their central role as pawns inthis political struggle, women have been strikingly silent subjects. Thisbook belongs to an emerging collection of books that seek to give voice tothese silent subjects. Nawal El Saadawi, in her emotionally charged“Foreword,” captures the book’s tone quite well in her expression that “thepersonal is political” (p. x). Through personal stories, this anthology seeksto dissociate Islam from both terrorism and the oppression of women.Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s anecdotal introduction reveals that her goal istwofold: first, to connect various strands of conversation between MuslimAmerican women from different backgrounds since 9/11, and, second, toenlighten both Muslim and non-Muslim readers of the varied realities of the“Muslim Woman.”This anthology is divided into six sections. Section 1, “Non-Fiction,”contains several personal accounts of Muslim American women’s encounterswith 9/11. In her piece “Unholy Alliances,” Afzal-Khan vents her frustrationon several targets, including Israel, American foreign policy, SalmanRushdie, women who choose to wear the hijab, as well as the MontclairUniversity Muslim Students’ Association and the Global Studies Institute.Nadia Ali Maiwandi, Zohra Saed, and Wajma Ahmady reflect on theresponses they encountered and experienced amidst the Afghan-Americancommunity in the aftermath of 9/11. Eisa Nefertari Ulen’s genuinely tolerantarticle encourages Muslim and non-Muslim women to work together.Writing from her perspective as an African-American convert, she identifiesissues of gender and religion as mere smokescreens used by the “oppressor”to separate women (p. 50). Humera Afridi’s witty and refreshing work functionsas a social commentary on the climate of New York City after the 9/11attacks. One of the most edifying pieces is Rabab Abdulhadi’s “Where isHome?” This piece, written as a series of journal entries, captures the strugglesof identity faced by an exiled Palestinian woman as she tries to make ahome in New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 ...

Can the Islamic Device of Khul' Provide a Remedy for non-Muslim Women in Egypt?

Can the Islamic Device of Khul' Provide a Remedy for non-Muslim Women in Egypt?

Fertility and its proximate determinants in Bangladesh: Evidence from the 1993/94 demographic and health survey

This study examined determinants of fertility in Bangladesh. Data were obtained from the 1993-94 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey among a nationally representative 2-stage sample of 9640 ever-married females aged 10-49 years. Findings indicate that the age-specific marital fertility rate was highest among women aged 15-19 years. The total fertility rate was 3.44 births/woman in 1993-94 and 5.12 births/woman in 1989. The interval between marriage and first birth declined more for younger cohorts. The proportion of women who had a child within 5 years increased. Over 60% were married under the age of 14 years. The proportion currently married has remained stable since 1981. The number of those never married has increased, especially among women aged 15-19 years. 44.6% of currently married women used family planning; 36.2% used modern methods and 8.4% used traditional ones. Prevalence was highest for the pill, followed by female sterilization. 48% of infants were breast-fed on the first day. Breast-feeding duration averaged 30 months. Duration of postpartum amenorrhea averaged 12 months. 0.5% reported induced abortion. Analysis of proximate determinants indicates that contraception accounted for 39.0% of fertility decline; lactational infecundability accounted for 34.7%. Marriage patterns accounted for 23.9%. The fertility inhibition of contraception varied by religion. Contraception had the highest impact among higher educated, upper class, urban, and non-Muslim women. Lactational infecundability had the highest impact among poor, nonworking, illiterate, and non-Muslim women.

Breast-feeding in Bangladesh: Patterns and impact on fertility

Data from the 1989 Bangladesh Fertility Survey and actuarial life table methods are used to estimate breast feeding differences by other socioeconomic, health, and demographic characteristics. Findings indicate that the average breast feeding duration for surviving children was 28.2 months (27.1 months for urban women and 28.6 months for rural women). Breast feeding duration was longer among mothers with no schooling compared to mothers or fathers with a higher education. Older mothers had different breast feeding patterns than younger mothers. Muslim women breast fed for 28.1 months; non-Muslim women did so for 18.8 months. Working women breast fed for 19.0 months compared to 28.1 months among non-working women. Duration of breast feeding increased with increased parity. Breast feeding duration averaged 17.5 months among wives of service workers and business men, 28.3 months among wives of production workers, and 29.0 and 27.9, respectively, for wives of farmers and land-owners. Contraceptive use was unrelated to breast feeding duration. Women who possessed specific household items had a shorter breast feeding period. Women who were visited by health workers had a longer breast feeding duration. There were only marginal differences between durations by whether husbands controlled health decision making or whether there was joint decision making. Gender was unrelated to duration. Differences in the significance between variables and survival are reported. Multivariate findings among women who ceased breast feeding indicate that breast feeding had a positive significant effect on amenorrhea and directly determined both closed and open birth intervals. The effect of breast feeding on amenorrhea was stronger in the closed interval. Breast feeding explained 18.9% of variation in postpartum amenorrhea (9.8% in the current open interval). 86.9% of the variance was explained by place of residence, maternal education and age, parity, maternal work status, and every use of contraception.

Access to Family Planning Workers Facilitates Choice Of Modern over Traditional Methods in Bangladesh

Analysis of data collected as part of the 1989 Bangladesh Fertility Study which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 11906 ever-married women under 50 years of age indicated that 31% were current contraceptive users. 23% were using a modern method. Variables associated with above-average rates of modern method use were urban residence (39%) higher education on the part of the wife (38%) or husband (30%) electricity in the home (34%) family size of 3-4 children (31%) marriage duration of 10-19 years (31%) 25-34 year age group (30%) children of both sexes (29%) and visits from a family planning worker (29%). In contrast the use of traditional methods was strongly associated with wanting no more children (13%) an upper primary education (13%) non-Muslim religious affiliation (12%) the 35-49 year age group (11%) and a marriage duration of 20 years or more (11%). Linear logistic regression analysis of the impact of 15 such variables on contraceptive method chosen revealed that duration of marriage exerted a strong independent effect as did contact with a family planning worker religion electricity in the home number of living children and spousal discussions about family planning. Women who said family planning decisions were made jointly were 50% more likely to use a modern method than those whose husbands made this decision. These findings suggest that increased contact with family planning workers especially among non-Muslim women and wives of poorly educated men could enhance use of modern contraceptive methods. Also important are interventions such as income generation that increase womens status and likelihood of participating in family planning decision making.

The use of modern and traditional methods of fertility control in Bangladesh: A multivariate analysis

An attempt has been made to study the use pattern of traditional and modern methods of fertility control among currently married women of reproductive ages utilizing the 1989 BFS data. Bivariate analysis has been employed to study the differentials in the use pattern by some selected demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Also, multivariate logistic regression analysis has been used to identify independent contributions of each selected covariate. It has been observed, however, that there is universality of knowledge about contraceptive methods. Of the total 31 percent, about 23 percent were using modern methods and the rest, 8 percent, traditional methods. Analysis using a logistic regression model showed that visits of family planning workers have very strong and positive influence on the current use of modern contraceptives as compared to traditional methods. Duration of effective marriage also emerged as a strong determinant of modern versus traditional methods use but it influenced modern methods use negatively. Also, administrative division is an important variable. Residents of Rajshahi division were significantly more (relative odds of 2.5) likely to be using modern methods than residents of Chittagong division. The likelihood of women having electricity in their household of being a current user of modern contraceptives is almost 2 times higher compared to women without electricity in their households. Education and occupation of husbands also exerts effect on current use of modern contraceptives. The odds of current use of modern methods among women whose husbands have secondary and higher level of education is one-and-a-half times higher than that of women with husbands having no formal education. However, wives of landowners were less (relative odds of 0.72) likely to use these methods as compared to traditional methods than wives of labourers or farmers. The probability of current use of modern contraceptives was higher (relative odds of 1.5) among women who discussed family planning with their husbands than those who did not.

Differential fertility in Bangladesh: A path analysis

Previous studies of fertility in Bangladesh have mostly used crosstabular and multivariate analyses revealing the direct effect of selected socioeconomic and background variables. The indirect effects are relatively unknown. Analysis of data from the 1975-1976 Bangladesh Fertility Survey seeks to identify variables that significantly affect the cumulative fertility of both urban and rural women and to construct causal models to clarify the complex set of relationships. Path analysis is used on 8 variables: fertility index (number of children ever born to ever married women aged 9-49, age of wife (respondent), age at marriage, religion, childhood background of wife and husband, and educational attainment of both wife and husband. Data obtained from a sample of 4875 rural and 1403 urban women are used. Causal ordering of the variables began with the 4 exogenous variables: age, religion, and childhood backgrounds of the wife and husband. Education of husband and wife are placed next in sequence, followed by age at marriage and the fertility index. Path coefficients are estimated by applying ordinary least squares regression to the equations. "Children ever born" is regressed on all other variables for urban and rural areas. The 2 sets of coefficients are not equivalent and urban and rural data are analyzed separately. 13 paths are significant in the urban model and 11 in the rural model. The coefficients are small suggesting that other variables not included in the study effect fertility. In the urban model, 5 variables were found to have a statistically significant effect on fertility: age, religion, education for both husband and wife, and age at marriage. The indirect effect of religion operating through a network of compound paths suggests that Muslim affiliation tends to depress wife's and husband's education and age at marriage. Holding other variables constant, Muslim women tend to have more children than non-Muslim women. Wife's age at marriage negatively effects fertility. Wife's education has a negative effect on cumulative fertility, husband's education has a positive effect. Childhood backgrounds have insignificant effects, probably due to few childhoods being spent in urban areas; however, wife's childhood in an urban residence has a noticable effect through education and age at marriage. 3 variables in the rural model have significant direct effects: age, religon, and age at marriage. Religion's indirect effect through wife's education and age at marriage indicates that for Muslim women, education is lower, and hence age at marriage is lower and ultimately number of children ever born is higher. Wife's age at marriage has a negative direct effect. Neither wife's nor husband's education have a significant direct effect, unlike the urban model, probalby due to a relative lack of education in rural areas. The effects of religion in both models operate indirectly through age at marriage. Religion may affect fertility through other variables as well, e.g., perception of sexuality, preference for sons, contraceptives, and ritual abstinence. The positive effect of spouse's education in urban areas may be due to the effects of permanent household income and may reflect a lowering of the perceived financial burden of children, increased fecundity of his wife through improved nutrition and early weaning of children, decrease duration and frequency of occupational absences, and prevention of his wife from working outside the home. The negative effect of wife's education may be due to later marriage, increased independence, ability to accumulate resources for old age, and a desire to provide medical care for her children. These characteristics are likely to induce limited fertility through contraceptive usage. Given the universality of marriage, the tendency to marry at younger ages, and ineffective contraceptive practices, raising the age of marriage through governmental laws can lower fertility.

Hausa Women and Islam

The impact of Islamization on the role of Hausa women in Nigeria was investigated by comparing the role and status of women in 2 Hausa subcultures. One group was heavily influenced by Islamic traditions while the other group was not. The major difference between the women in the two groups was not the lower status of the women in the Muslim group but rather the marked separation between the sexes and the solidarity among women in the Muslim group as compared with those in the non-Muslim group. In the Muslim group the women were secluded and expected to show deference and obedience to men; however as a result of seclusion the women are not permitted to engage in agricultural labor and are relatively free of family economic responsibilities. They have time to produce and sell craft objects and most of the money derived from these pursuits is considered their own. Much of their income is spent on ceremonials gifts and clothing all of which helps to increase their status among other women. The social cohesion among the women is apparent in their social gatherings and is symbolized by their ribald behavior at these gatherings. In the non-Muslim group the relationship between the sexes is somewhat more relaxed the men speak about the women more respectfully and the women have a role in the religious life of the community; however the women are expected to shoulder heavy economic responsibilities and must do a considerable amount of agricultural work. Thus in some areas of life the Muslim women have more freedom and in other areas the non-Muslim women are freer.