Once upon a time, there was a Muslim woman and she was sad. She was sad because she was Muslim, sad because she dressed in a different way. She was sad because she wanted to be a person of faith and live according to Islamic principles but she didn’t know that religion had been debunked by science and the enlightenment. But the saddest part was that she didn’t even know that she was sad, and that being Muslim was the root of all her problems.
When war and poverty affected her country, didn’t she know that being Muslim was the problem? Or that when her voice was excluded from political and social participation, when she was discriminated against for a job, or had to face a lower pay grade, didn’t she know it had nothing to do with institutional discrimination but it was her religious identity that was the issue and that was her own fault?
But then she was liberated from her religion, stripped of her identity and when she was no longer Muslim, she lived happily ever after. The end.
This is a story that’s far too familiar. And it is repeated again and again. And just in case you missed my satirical tone, it’s because of how many times we have got stuck in a cycle of debating headscarves.
How many times have Muslim women been told that they think they are making independent and reasoned choices but really they are just too brainwashed to know they are being oppressed?
It’s depressing, demeaning and completely futile. It’s time for Muslim women to map out for ourselves what we want our future to hold.
Women over the centuries have been told what they should and shouldn’t want, and what will or won’t make us happy. The struggle for women to take control of what we want, no matter where we live or what our background, still continues and is still real. Muslim women are part of this struggle.
Not only does the “oppressed Muslim women” narrative trap up us in a never ending seventh circle of hell, but also our aspirations are squashed by the story that women’s rights and self-determination are antithetical to being Muslim, that the time is not right to assert our rights, that standing up for your own choices is unbecoming of a woman, and that to express yourself and fight for justice over your own body and own life is offensive.
We should content ourselves, this narrative goes, with the theory of rights granted by Islam, even if those claiming to know our lives better than we do have no idea that for many women these rights are as different as night and day from being their actual lived reality. This cycle too is perpetual and debate will not garner us an exit from the gatekeepers.
Every day I feel increasingly depressed and angry at the discussions about Muslim women. It’s time to grab back the narrative and get our future out of the cycle of doom by asking ourselves this question: what is the future of Muslim women?
We must determine for ourselves where we want our story to take us, and map our plans to get there. We must ignore the voices that speak over us, and create space for ourselves to make our own future.
Let’s rewrite for ourselves the stories I recounted above. Once upon a time there was a Muslim woman and she decided to ignore the war being fought for control over her body, mind and soul, and decide for herself. The beginning.
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www.spirit21.co.uk
