ARTICULATING AN AMERICAN VOICE OF ISLAM AND JUSTICE: ANSWERING MUKHTARAN MAI
Is it possible for a strong Islamic voice condemning violence against women to get serious attention by the American public? That’s what several American Muslim organizations and individuals are trying to do in the case of Mukhtar Mai and her visit to the United States this week to be honored as Woman of the YearӔ for Glamour Magazine. She plans to dedicate a portion of the $20,000 award to relief for victims of the recent devastating earthquake, as well as solicit more relief during her several speaking engagements raising awareness about the needs of women in Pakistan. Mukhtar Mai, it will be remembered, was subjected to a gang rape upon the orders of a tribal council in retaliation for alleged indiscretions by her brother. The six accused perpetrators were convicted and sentenced to death in 2002, then acquitted in March of 2005, then re-arrested days later, and now remain in custody pending an appeal before the Pakistani Supreme Court.
Yet despite this horrific incident and still waiting for justice, Mukhtar Bibi, as she is known, has emerged as a true grass roots activist for women in rural communities very much like the one she still lives in today, in a one-room home which often shelters others in need of help. She is now an iconic figure in Pakistan, working for the betterment of her people and, in particular, struggling for the rights and security of women, especially the poor and disempowered. In recognizing that what happened to her was due to ignorance and lack of educationӔ she established the Mai Mukhtaran School in her village, and includes classes from a woman scholar of Islam as part of the curriculum. She has reached out to victims of sexual violence providing them with essential support and consolation and called on her government to establish institutions where women can go to for help. Now with her visit to the United States, her struggle has acquired a broader audience.
What does this have to do with American Muslims? Everything. Mukhtar Mai has been a regular news story in every major American newspaper for years, and again made news this past summer when she was scheduled to visit the United States to speak in several venues about her experience. When President Musharraf stopped her from leaving the country, several human rights and women’s groups understandably condemned this restriction on her freedoms. The resulting American public discourse on the story included major misunderstandings of what Islam has to say about rape and violence against women. This prompted some individuals from the San Francisco Bay Area Muslim community to wonder if there was anything we could and should do. Our answer? Yes. First, we took steps to invite Mukhtar Mai to our local communities to raise internal Muslim consciousness about her story. But we also were acutely aware of the prevailing American image of Islam as inherently bad for women and society. If Mukhtar Mais visit is welcomed only by secular groups and no Muslims welcome or stand with her in support, then the unwritten message is: secular human rights groups help and seek justice for rape victims; Muslims hurt them or stand by silently. We recognized the glaring need for something much more public - a loud and clear Muslim-voiced condemnation of the gang rape, basing our position specifically on the tenets of Islam. Without a powerful and public statement in solidarity with her because of IslamҒs intolerance for such sexual violence against women, Mukhtar Mais story may stand for nothing else in the American memory but one more reason to fear Islam and Muslims.
Keeping this in mind, Muslim activists and organizations drafted a Statement in Support of Mukhtar Mai. The Statement affirms that sexual violence against women is a horrible crime in Islam and that our religion requires us to stand firmly behind rape victims and to seek justice when such crimes occur. We are continually encouraged by the variety of groups that have endorsed our Statement, including several major mosques from California to New York, and local and national American Muslim organizations such as ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council), NISA (North-American Islamic Shelter for the Abused), CAIR(Council on American-Islamic Relations)-SFBA, AMILA (American Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism) and others. We are still gathering signatures from American Muslim organizations, large and small. (The full text of the statement, and a link for those wishing to endorse the effort, is available at www.muslims4mukhtaran.halalfire.com
Some Muslims might be inclined not to support this project. Perhaps they doubt that the rape ever happened. We considered this, and after considerable research we realized that this would contradict the overwhelming consensus of the world’s preeminent human rights organizations, news reports, and even the Pakistani Attorney General currently prosecuting the appeal. Besides western newspapers, major Pakistani publications such as Dawn and The News, as well as reputed Pakistani columnists like Ardeshir Cowasjee and Irfan Husain have for three years accepted that Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped and have accepted her version of what transpired on June 22, 2002. Given all this, we were confident that Mukhtar Mai’s story was the more credible. Some Muslims might not support our project because they are suspicious of internal Pakistani politics that seem to be using the case to their advantage. Whatever truth there may be in that, we believe it undeniable that if one believes that a rape did occur, a prosecution must go forward. The Muslim public must demand that crucial questions of justice be separated from political fights Җ both in the courtroom and in the media. And we should not fall into the trap of refusing justice to someone only because of those who choose to affiliate themselves with her case. If that can be done, we might be able to create a world where sexual violence against women is simply off-limits as a political tool.
We are proud of American Muslim contributions to the earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan and recognize that the recent disaster has admirably united the Pakistani nation in a tremendous spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood as demanded by our religion. We call on our community to once again voice their support for our Pakistani sister, Mukhtar Mai.
Muslims in the United States must also remain cognizant of our unique position in the American discourse, and the imperative which that presents in high profile cases. Often, the public has already made up its mind long before the final verdict. That is going on here. Regardless of who ultimately wins the Pakistani litigation, the American court of public opinion in the United States may have already decided that Mukhtar Mai represents yet another example of the travesty of Muslim justice that must be fought. We American Muslims can start to change that opinion, but our work is not in the courts of Pakistan, nor in its political debates. That is best shepherded by Pakistanis. We are, rather, responsible for presenting a clear, articulate American voice of justice in Islam. If we do that well, we might very well change the world. InshaAllah.
Asifa Quraishi
Shirin Sinnar
Farhan Memon
Asif Shaikh
Uzma Siddiqui
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FULL TEXT OF STATEMENT:
AMERICAN MUSLIMS SUPPORT MUKHTARAN MAI
We, the undersigned Muslim organizations, recognize and wholly support the struggle of Mukhtaran Mai, a Pakistani woman, to obtain justice for the wrongs committed against her.
According to domestic and international news reports, including the New York Times and Dawn, in 2002 in Meerwala, Punjab, Mukhtaran Mai, a Quran teacher, was ordered by a local village council to be subjected to ғrevenge rape for a crime her younger brother allegedly committed. In accordance with this order, Mukhtaran Bibi was gang raped by several men in public, then forced to walk nearly naked through the streets of her village.
This sentence violated all norms of human decency, including Islamic law. Sexual violence is not, nor has ever been, a legitimate means of punishment in Islam. To the contrary, classical Muslim jurists treated rape as one of the most serious crimes, requiring severe punishment of those responsible. Moreover, Mukhtaran MaiԒs sentence violated the basic principle of Islamic due process that no one is liable for the actions of another, a principle grounded in the Quran itself.
Nevertheless, there was insufficient recognition of these Islamic principles in the official treatment of Mukhtaran Mai by the legal and political system in Pakistan, a country that purports to uphold Islamic law in its constitution. The perpetrators of the rape were indeed tried and convicted, but then released after a shocking acquittal by a second court. In June 2005, a last minute intervention, largely a result of the international press attention, brought the case to a final appeal to the Pakistan Supreme Court.
We applaud and support Mukhtaran Mai’s refusal to be silent and her willingness to stand up for justice in the spirit of the QurҒanic exhortation to stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor.Ӕ (Holy Quran 4:135). We support her struggle to draw attention not just to herself, but to any and all victims of sexual violence.
Every year, thousands of women in Muslim countries and communities around the world are subjected to sexual violence under the pretense of legal or political justifications. Many of these women never obtain justice because of cultural norms that promote shame and silence or because of legal systems that are unwilling to, or ineffective in, responding to sexual violence. We challenge our communities to recognize the reality of sexual violence and to speak out against it, and to create legal structures that bring justice and accountability to those responsible.
No one should interpret this statement against sexual violence and for human dignity as a statement to malign Islam or the state of Pakistan. It is precisely for Islam and for legitimate, accountable Muslim government that we urge that such atrocities be met with swift justice by Muslim authorities whenever they occur in Muslim lands.
We believe that, without Muslim-led condemnation of injustice occurring in Muslim countries, the global Muslim community leaves itself vulnerable to the charge that Muslims are unable to correct their own wrongs without prodding by external secular pressure. This statement for Mukhtaran Mai stands in opposition to that charge, and is our effort to live by the QurҒanic exhortation to stand out firmly for justice (4:135), even when those responsible for the injustice are Muslims.
We also recognize and support the individuals and civil society organizations around the world that have become involved in Mukhtaran Mais struggle directly or through spreading awareness about her case. In particular, we note the efforts of Moulvi Abdul Razzaq, the local imam who called for justice for Mukhtaran Mai during a Friday sermon in Meerwala. We also note the contributions of Pakistani human rights organizations, international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Asian American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights, and journalists such as Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times.
More specifically, we join this chorus as a coalition of American Muslim organizations to emphasize that we share the concerns of so many that have spoken out about this issue. It is as Muslims that we oppose sexual abuse of women in any form and that we stand in solidarity with our Pakistani sister, Mukhtaran Mai. She is welcome in any of our communities to raise awareness for her struggle. May God continue to give her strength.
To see the full list of signatories and to add your name to the statement go to http://www.muslims4mukhtaran.halalfire.com/