Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought

1 Muslim Marriage

1 Muslim Marriage A Womanist Perspective on Troubling U.S. Traditions Debra Majeed The social and theological dynamics peculiar to the reality of African American Muslims continue to influence how they marry and organize their households. Indeed, the peculiarities of black life in America have historically distinguished the lived experiences of these Muslims from other practitioners of Islam regardless of their nationality or citizenship. That is, the absence of marriageable men (e.g., single, heterosexual, legitimately employed, living outside of prison walls, and free from drugs) within black America and the higher status routinely afforded married women have led some African American Muslim women to accept plural marriage.1Moreover, the educational and, often, financial strides that black females have achieved have created a related reality: Muslim women who prefer to knowingly share their husbands, regardless of the knowledge or consent of their husbands’ other wives. Whether practiced within a Muslimmajority nation or non-Muslim state, this form of nontraditional marriage is contentious. Though few in number compared to the overwhelming number of heterosexual monogamous unions, plural marriage among the single largest group of American Muslims offers a fascinating, complex, underexplored, and often misunderstood teachable moment about Muslim marriage.2 Polygyny and African American Muslims3 Plural marriage in Islam is equated with polygyny, the practice of a husband being married to up to four wives at the same time.4 Unlike polygamy, which refers to more than one spouse—husband or wife—and thus is un-Islamic, polygyny is permitted by the Qur’an, the primary authority of the world’s 35 estimated 1.82 billion followers of Islam.5 The guiding Qur’anic perspective on plural marriage, Al Nisa3, attempted to address an inequity concerning the rights and maintenance of women and children, and the existing customary practice that both became the property of men when they married in preIslamic Arabia.6 While examinations of Islamic legal materials routinely promote this verse as a divinely inspired reform in Arab history that served to repudiate one expression of patriarchy and protect women and children from abuse and destitution, no consensus exists about how, where, or when Al Nisa 3 should be invoked today. Indeed, opponents of polygyny have declared that “the love between a husband and wife should not be divided.”7 Debate also surrounds the question of whether the intent of this “Qur’anic reform” was to “raise the status of women” and, if it did, what that means in the twentyfirst century.8 Indeed, both supporters and opponents of the practice within African American Muslim communities defend their positions with divergent interpretations of this verse. Even so, both sides agree that this verse addresses a personal and/or family matter that should be adjudicated in a way that privileges the Islamic legal position on marriage. Al Nisa 3 was revealed following the deaths of about seventy Muslim men in the seventh century “as a concession to the prevailing social conditions” when “equal justice and impartiality were guaranteed.”9 It was, as Michele Alexandre has observed, “innovative and radical at the time, especially considering the laissez faire state of polygamy before the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet. [He] was concerned that, in a time of great wars, wives not be left widowed and destitute and children not be left orphaned and homeless.”10 A popular English translation of this verse reads, “If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.” In seventh-century Arabia’s patriarchal, misogynistic society, the physical survival of women often necessitated depending upon provision from the men in their lives, through whom women also negotiated their legitimacy and social honor. Without recognition as autonomous moral agents, women who outlived their “protectors” could traverse few avenues to secure their own survival or the survival of their children. That is to say, women displaced by war without a husband or male relative were suddenly on their own “in a society that confused value with material wealth.” Widows also were undervalued in a male-privileging society that not long before murdered female infants at birth. With the advent of the Qur’an, Muslim men were instructed to marry no more 36 | Ain't I...