American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer

Notes

Notes Introduction 1 Amina Wadud was professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond until her retirement in 2007. 2 Although this book occasionally utilizes poetry such as the stanza by Suheir Hammad in the epigraph, American Muslim women’s fiction and poetry have not been included in my analysis for two reasons: the specific dynamics of the worlds of fiction and poetry production and the need to apply a kind of literary analysis, neither of which are within my academic training and knowledge. Thus instead of reading poetry and fiction as reflections of reality, I include them only on occasion and in the case of authors such as Mohja Kahf who have also produced nonfiction and/or scholarly texts. 3 Mamdani 2005. 4 Saba Mahmood writes about feminist theory and activism: “Feminism, therefore, offers both a diagnosis of women’s status across cultures and a prescription for changing the situation of women who are understood to be marginalized, subordinated , or oppressed” (2005b, 10; original emphasis). This same dynamic is at work in the intellectual contributions of many American Muslim women writers and scholars, regardless of whether they describe themselves as feminists. 5 See Asad 2003; and Saba Mahmood, “Interview with Talal Asad: Modern Power and the Reconfiguration of Religious Traditions,” February 1996, www.stanford .edu/group/SHR/5–1/text/asad.html (last accessed April 2, 2010). 6 Mahmood 2005b. 7 Mahmood 2005b, 86–91. Mahmood writes, “Hajja Faiza’s views on the subject of female circumcision and women’s leadership in prayers should not be taken as a sign of a ‘moderate position’ since her views vary widely in regard to women’s place within Islam. If anything, she consistently emphasizes the importance of following the logic of juristic debates and forms of reasoning, which makes her position on the question of gender relations within Islam quite unpredictable” (89–90). 8 Asad 1986, 14. 9 Mahmood 2005b, 115. 10 Hidayatullah 2009b, chap. 1, esp. 68–93. Aysha Hidayatullah is a professor of Islamic studies at the University of San Francisco. 11 I owe the formulation of this insight to a conversation with Ayesha Chaudhry. 210 Notes to pages 14–17 Chapter 1 1 I am indebted to Brittany Huckabee and Asra Nomani for sharing this footage of the event with me. Below I quote extensively from my transcription of parts of these video files. Watching the footage has allowed me to gain a significantly different perspective and much deeper understanding of the prayer event, and I am grateful for Brittany’s and Asra’s generosity. 2 The mediated nature of the prayer event is discussed further in chapter 7. 3 Photographs of the event can easily be found on the Internet. See, for example, several pictures taken and posted by Omar Sacirbey at http://aliciapatterson.org/ APF2202/Sacirbey/Sacirbey.html (last accessed January 12, 2011). 4 There are different segregation practices, but they usually involve physically separating men and women from each other. This can mean that women pray in separate rows behind the men or that women pray in a physically separate space, such as behind a curtain, screen, or wall. 5 This overview is based on Nomani’s description of the events in the 2006 edition of her book, Standing Alone; see 243–246, 308–324. Much of it is also chronicled in the 2009 documentary The Mosque in Morgantown, directed by Brittany Huckabee ; see www.themosqueinmorgantown.com. 6 References to Hagar (Hajar in Arabic) as a role model for contemporary Muslim women can be found in the writings of several Muslim women scholars and activists , among them Amina Wadud, Hibba Abugideiri, Azizah al-Hibri, and Riffat Hassan, as well as Asra Nomani. See Wadud 2006a, 120–157; Abugideiri 2001a; alHibri 2003a; and Hassan 2006. This focus on Hagar is discussed further in chapter 4. 7 Nomani 2006a, 324–330. 8 The Progressive Muslim Union (PMU) was founded in November 2004 by Sarah Eltantawi, Hussein Ibish, Omid Safi, and Ahmed Nassef (personal communication with Eltantawi, April 2010). MuslimWakeUp was founded by Ahmed Nassef and Jawad Ali; the web address was www.muslimwakeup.com. Parts of this oncevibrant site are still available; however, it has not been updated in several years. Its demise is also related to the disintegration of the PMU in late 2006. 9 This information was provided in an article posted on www.muslimwakeup.com, a website associated with the PMU and run by Ahmed Nassef, one of the organizers of the...