Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:13 Hello and Salaam. Thank you, Javier and saline for speaking with me on the history speaks podcast, it is a pleasure to honor to have this conversation on gender and Koran with you. For Muslims. As we know, could honestly direct speech of God and therefore sacred and infused with divine power for centuries, Muslim poured over the pages of the Koran to try and discern the various meanings of the text for the individual day-to-day life for their spiritual life or their social existence. How can saline as someone who specializes in the study of modern, medieval, chronic commentaries on gender issues, what do you find to be the main differences in the chronic commentaries in the modern period? Does anything really change?
Speaker 2 00:01:01 Thank you so much for having us on, you know, actually, so my inshallah upcoming book, rebellious wives, husbands, I look at this question through the lens of women and gender specifically. And what we find is that the historical context in the late 19th, early 20th century invest the question of women and gender with theoretical significance in a way that was not true pre-modernity. And therefore, what I found is that modern XOG it's are, are very much responding to this, this contemporaneous reality in which they find themselves. And in many ways, interestingly, the Tennesseean, the commentaries becomes sort of this dialectic where they are not only interpreting the words of the Qur'an, but they're also engaging with certain debates that are happening in their societies. In fact, I look at three different commentaries and what I find is that each one of them is responding to a very specific debate.
Speaker 2 00:01:54 So for example, you know, coauthors of tipsy Manati. They are responding to, in some ways, you know, Christian missionary and colonial criticism of Islam, his treatment of women on one hand. But interestingly, they're also in some ways critiquing Muslims themselves, right? And especially with Abdul, you see that he couldn't sort of internalizes that colonial gaze and says, you know what? We Juris Muslim jurors have made things difficult for women, and we need to reform, you know, push for certain reforms, but there is a dialectic happening in the Tufts here itself. And then like with, say it at the author of Feedly guide, and he is responding to the liberal secular Arab who has, in some ways internalized some of this colonial rhetoric of Islam being an obstacle to women's progress, you know, and that's probably a function of where he is in history as well. You know, he's writing, you know, after 1950, until 1966. And at this time, you know, the modern nation state has kind of fully developed. And, you know, there is this kind of liberal modernist agenda being pushed by indigenous Arabs. And so he's responding to them.
Speaker 2 00:03:10 who is also kind of mid 20th century at the time that he was writing a little bit after there is also a dialectic going on in terms of women and gender. But I find that it's more a response to that, to the classical tradition in some ways. And so he's very much in some ways, a guardian of the classical tradition, but he's also responding to it and, um, pointing out in very subtle ways where he thinks the classical tradition got it wrong in terms of women and gender. So in all three, we find the story of dielectric. And I think that's what I found to be very different than the medieval period where this question of women's rights and women's treatment and Islam were just a non-issue, it wasn't really something that you would invest any sort of stock in trying to defend
Speaker 3 00:03:55 Going off that question and just hearing you provide that window in time. It also makes me think about how the contemporary period is adding another layer, even onto the question of what is Tafsir because with this merger, especially coming out of the English language and other European languages, the merger between the academic study, which is where a lot of, uh, Muslim intellectuals have found a home and then more traditional modalities of tipsy, or there's a, a sort of blending of the commentary genre, you could say, maybe stretching. And the wonderful thing about that is that it allows for sort of not just new perspectives, but a new way of taking the quarter and not as much verse by verse, but more thematically. And so I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, where the future takes us in, in this regard and how well the commentaries that have been coming out of the academic tradition that are more thematic, how they'll eventually in terms of a wider Muslim audience, have some, uh, hopefully some staying power, like some of the more classical Tufts Cedar have been able to have staying power.
Speaker 1 00:05:15 Thank you, filling and party. I really like, I agree in the sense that there was a change that happened over time, which is the woman's question became a really important question, especially post-colonialism. And then what we have in the last two or three decades, this sort of change intercede for more like worse to worse to thematic. It is interesting in my own work, I look at two women exigence for a Tashman was a Sunni scholar and preacher and Russo, I mean, who is a sheer exegetical scholar. And it's interesting that they at least do not do the feminist line and they also do not apologize for, to do so. And they, interestingly enough, again, do not differ in the interpretation from male exergy, which is fascinating, but maybe it can be explained by how such a continuum is the initial price of being included and being considered as authorities. How would both of you situate your scholarship along the spectrum of Islamic feminism or Muslim theology, would you identify with either and why?
Speaker 3 00:06:25 For me coming out of, just to be honest, a convert background, I already have a Western frame of mind. That's how I've sort of been educated for most of my life. And so when I think about explicitly identifying as a feminist, I think it could cloud the reception of my scholarship among some of the audiences that I would like to reach. And this is on the one hand because feminism has, in some ways been entangled problematically with discourses of women's liberation that put Western women above other women above are women above south Asian women in a sort of cultural hierarchy. And so I'm very careful that especially when I am writing for an audience that is maybe recovering from colonial traumas, that identifying as feminist is problematic, it doesn't help my work and it could reinforce some of the ideas about Western women's superiority. And so for those reasons, while I think there's great benefit that feminist movements have brought in terms of thinking about women's solidarity and thinking about issues of justice as they impact the socially marginalized.
Speaker 3 00:07:45 And I, I do take inspiration from a number of feminist thinkers, bell hooks, who just recently passed away as someone who comes to mind, looking at how she really inserted herself into conversations and change the conversation because of not who she was as an, as an African-American woman scholar. And so there are so many ways in which I think we can be inspired by feminist thought, you know, as, as contemporary women, without necessarily letting the platform of feminism kind of overshadow her own work and our own desires to be nuanced in, in ways that if we're writing for a feminist audience, per se, there would be maybe boundaries to have to be more ideologically feminist. And maybe in, in cases, it wouldn't allow us to actually represent what the Koran was saying, for instance. And so that, that division is something that I've always had to tiptoe around a little bit. I also want my work to speak to an audience that cares about justice issues and that is embedded in a feminist perspective. And so I'm trying to appeal to both audiences without letting my voice get overshadowed by any, um, strong ideological perspective.
Speaker 2 00:09:15 Yeah, I see that actually seen very clearly in your book, women and gender. And I think you do a great job of sort of navigating that balance. I actually teach a little bit on a stomach feminism and I understand, and I sympathize with some of the Muslim, what would you call it, discomfort with feminism itself as a label. But I also think that to some extent there is a misunderstanding of what feminism is. And I think within the Muslim community, if I can sort of, you know, put that critical lens on is that there tends to be a lack of appreciation, I think for the evolving nature of feminism and the evolving nature of transnational feminism itself. So a transnational feminism itself has transformed in such a way to allow indigenous people in different parts of the world to claim for themselves what feminism would look like to claim for themselves, what the priorities should be for people who care about women's rights and gender justice and equality.
Speaker 2 00:10:21 And these are things that, in my opinion, are very much inherent to the grant itself. You know, the equality of all human beings, the idea of justice, you know, the idea of God as being the ultimate embodiment of justice, right? And so in my humble opinion, I feel like by shying away from feminism, we sort of concede that this is sort of a Western enterprise and that we as Muslims have nothing to say or contribute to this very important discursive framework. And therefore, I think transnational feminism gives us a gateway as Muslim women, as people who believe in the Qur'an and or invested in the Muslim tradition to say, you know what, our feminism Islamic feminism would look different if we do not believe religion, or let's say specifically Islam and feminism are mutually exclusive in any ways. And that we can articulate a form of feminism that is aligned with our religious beliefs and our priorities.
Speaker 2 00:11:13 And by the way, you know, these priorities may look very, very different as saline noted, then the priorities of Western feminists. And, you know, I, I note this all the time to my students. For example, when we look at Laura bushes address in 2001 about the plate of Afghan women, you know, when she's talking about how, you know, they're, they're not allowed to listen to music and they can't wear nail Polish. And I'm like, let's just think for a second. Like, do we really think those were the priorities for women who didn't have access to healthcare, who couldn't send their kids to school without fear of a bomb or a landmine or something killing their children on the way to school and, you know, for women in the west bank territories, for example, right? Political priorities are very much embedded in the feminist agenda. And I think if we are courageous and sort of claiming that and saying that is very much part of feminism is like the autonomy and independence of an anti-imperialist agenda of these Muslim communities. Maybe we can shift the discourse. Maybe we could actually like make a dent in what transnational feminism looks like for women in occupied parts of the world.
Speaker 1 00:12:19 Thank you, Javier and saline. I do sort of agree that lay Muslims have not been able to sort of acknowledge the evolving nature as you put it Javier off feminism and how that it can be continues to our own tradition. And we don't need to be stuck in its history, which was where colonizers appropriated feminism for their own cause. And that made it very problematic for Muslim women to take up the cause of feminism. But I think I also sort of think we need to take seriously what Celine was trying to say, which is that sometimes some forms of feminism can be divisive and they can create epistemological violence. I have a particular question for you, Javier, which is, I was thinking about that there is a plethora of literature in both academia and the media on worst 4 34, which is one of the main verses that you work on. And how do you approach this worst in your work? And what's something that you would tell your audience about the worst that hasn't been stated before, or hasn't been stated enough, or as we were talking, hasn't been stated from the Muslim feminist lens enough.
Speaker 2 00:13:26 So one area where I'm attempting to intervene is to sort of reclaim a space for the medieval Muslim commentary. So for any commentary is I feel like there's sort of been a trend in contemporary Quranic studies to some extent, to some extent, but specifically when it comes to women and gender and the grant to sort of dismiss the tradition, the Pranic tradition, and a lot of it is based on a priori assumptions that it's monolithically patriarchal, that it's misogynist and all of these different claims. And of course I'm not denying that patriarchy is very much there in many of the medieval commentaries, but I also would say that there's a lot that tradition can offer. And even when we look at, you know, verses that have spurred a lot of controversy, like verse 4 34, there seems to be, in my opinion, in my short reading of contemporary literature, this notion that throughout Muslim history, medieval commentators have all read this verse in a very literal, straightforward way.
Speaker 2 00:14:27 And it's only the modern period that we're like saying no to a straightforward reading of this first, which is really not true, it's it can't be substantiated by reading the medieval commentaries. We find that actually XOG displayed discomfort with the idea that a man could just hit his wife even as a third procedural step. Right? And we find that they imposed sort of limitations that even in the medieval commentaries, of course, this is not the norm. We can say, uh, you know, there were a few who just said, you know, based on the , we would say no, that this is not averse to be implemented right now. This is not a prescription. They read it in different ways that it's actually maybe perhaps a cut out here, like a something that's disliked by God. And that it takes a certain kind of sophisticated hermaneutic to understand the worst in that way.
Speaker 2 00:15:14 And one of the earliest manifested in and scholars to read it in that way was a from the second Slavic century in Mecca, who was a Muslim Becca, who literally said that this verse was misunderstood. And he's saying this in second century, Islamic saying that he felt his people around him were misunderstanding the verse. And he said that the husband could get angry at the wife, but could not hit the wife. And also you have based on this, for example, to be that Andalusian XG who takes that opinion and says, yes, you know, for this reason, imagine not hitting his wife regardless of her new shoes. And regardless of the first two procedures don't are not effective. And then you have, you know, of course in the contemporary period, you have an astral sort of taking this opinion as well, but even Festa Dean at Razi, you know, who was a chef, a scholar taking us a position that yes, it's preferred that a man never hit his wife regardless of the situation. And so what I find is that there's a lot within the medieval Muslim tradition to kind of build on in our current efforts to revive or find that galitary in ethos in the upper end. So I would say, you know, instead of completely dismissing this genre of tough, see, we should sort of try to dig for the treasures that we can find within.
Speaker 1 00:16:36 Yeah. Once I read your dissertation, I really started thinking about like the significance of how you are so critical in reading classical commentaries and trying to understand that, you know, all of them are not homogenous and maybe that some scholars would maybe not thinking of it in the terms of like Tums, we understand which is feminism, but at least they were trying to say that the literal is if something is literally permissible, that doesn't mean it's ethical or moral saline. I have a question for you, which is in your work, what would the different troops and teams that you uncovered in your research of moving in the Koran? What are the values that are constantly demonstrated throughout the use of female narratives? How central of women and girls in the stories of revelation that you thought about and wrote about
Speaker 3 00:17:26 Before we go there, just didn't note on 4 34. And I'm thinking about this from the practical context of working in communities, the way in which I often encounter people asking me as someone who studies the core and about 4 34 is actually that they heard about this verse, not necessarily from their own exploration of the Koran, but actually from polemics that are out there in the wider cultural context. So it, it goes to show something about Islamophobia that I wanted to sort of highlight and underscore. And, and that is to say that so much of the things that have been made problematic in our tradition, if we would take a traditionalist point of view, meaning if we would dig back and see our own intellectual history on it, it wouldn't, it wouldn't really be problematic. So it's points of the Qur'an that people who are coming without any background or expertise in Islamic studies have an idea that we just are non-thinking and taking things.
Speaker 3 00:18:32 Absolutely. Literally. And when you stop to say to, you know, maybe it's not a phobic audience, actually, we don't always read every verse. Literally some verses are read bitterly and others. Aren't just that level. And I've seen it because I've done so many, like asylum one-on-one programs, kind of faces glaze over, like, you know, they don't just reinforce her and, you know, completely, literally, and, and we've talked about how stereotypes can just be injusted. I think this is one of the problematic areas that if our young people aren't educated in their own tradition enough, they might actually have this come up as a crisis of faith sort of moment when it need, it need not be, that's just kind of illiteracy about our own tradition. That is not just among maybe non-Muslims or nonspecialists, but it's even in our own communities. Uh, but it's not sufficient.
Speaker 3 00:19:30 You will hear on, on 4 34 people explain this first to Muslim audiences and say something like, you know, it is a third step or, you know, these are sequential. And I think as Muslims who are embedded in temporary communities of practice, we have to be able to give more sophisticated answers, but they can't be so sophisticated that we lose the audience. How do we explain our scriptures in a way that is accessible to transition that into, you know, your question about my own project? That's part of what I set out to do in that project, because I realized there were so many rich resources for demonstrating how women's intelligence and spirituality and wisdom is in fact demonstrated in the quarter end. And I gravitate it to stories because that's an era that people can connect to easily. So I was thinking about my work, not just making a contribution to the academic studies of the quarter end, but I wanted it to be work that your everyday Muslim could pick up and could find something in there too, to reinforce their own spiritual kind of quest and in,
Speaker 1 00:20:48 Yeah, I mean, I have to say that with 4 34, if I'm being a hundred percent honest, it's it, it is as a practicing Muslim woman, something really hard to read and, uh, it's so deeply embedded in our culture. So from Pakistan, I feel like this is where some of the male attitudes come from because they find a particular kind of villains in the Koran. And I do think that a lot of work needs to be done before it can sort of dissolve and go away. And some of it has to be done from like, we're not reinventing the Koran, but it can be seen in many different ways and hair classical scholars. And there's, I think this is also a sort of reaction to colonialism where we really, we are very afraid of a break, right. And we like want things to be continuous, which I agree with for the most part,
Speaker 2 00:21:46 If I can just put a tag on and also add something that is so clean. I mean, I think to your point, you know, the idea of the rule of Islamophobia in kind of why we're paying so much attention to one verse out of over 6,000, you know, two verses of the crowd is definitely something worthy to mention, but I also find it a problem of how we understand the role of texts and Muslim societies that we want to sort of absolve humans of the, her behavior and blame things on their texts. Right? And we see this like with this question of violence in Islam, right? Or Muslims who perpetuate or inflict violence, right. Where we want to sort of look for that verse, that verse that we can blame for the terrorism of human beings who have decided, right. And to inflict the violence on other human beings.
Speaker 2 00:22:33 And, you know, human beings are really complex people that the idea that you could reduce the action of a human being to a single verse in a single passage and the text is really flawed. And I think it also equally applies to the problem of domestic violence. I mean, domestic violence, as we know, is a universal problem that women face, you know, and even men, um, you know, in all cultures and all religions in all geographies, but when it comes to Islam and Muslim communities, we somehow both, you know, within and without the community. We, we want to say that it's this passage in the Qur'an that somehow is playing a role instead of looking at the psychology, you know, and the social cultural context of these people, specifically the men who are perpetuating violence. Right. And trying to understand what are the other factors contributing to this violence, because it's very reductionist for us to say, you know, oh, it's their understanding of 4 34 that, that, you know, that's, I just wanted to kind of add that part to it.
Speaker 3 00:23:31 Oh, that's so important. And it's also, it's a reduction of the ethical tradition too, to not realize that any given verse or any piece, any headache fits in the context of a broad intellectual, right. And that's also a point of, of reduction almost. And I think sometimes too, the way we maybe encounter, we meaning people who have done Islamic studies in sort of a Western tradition, we sometimes encounter bits and pieces without having this holistic framework. So you might have a, an undergrad student let's, let's make her a woman who comes into a class on chronic interpretation, and you might have one lecture looking at 4 34, but maybe the student hasn't even really had a background in what is the assignment ethical tradition? How do all of these different sources of knowledge, you know, inform one another, you know, what, what is the relationship that living practicing Muslims have to a really vast, you know, commentary tradition as well, right?
Speaker 3 00:24:37 It's not that we read one piece of commentary on one verse, and that's why we're forced to kind of believe in the principles that we find in the commentaries too. So there's a lot of the way that I think our young people, I'm thinking, you know, specifically in kind of Western societies where a lot of people do go to college and take courses on Islam, especially as people who work in universities, you know, as Muslims really have to think about how the different aspects of the curriculum are introduced and when, and how to kind of these courses that are just really piecemeal courses. How, how do they come together to actually give someone a sense of what it means to be a member of their Muslim tradition, their Muslim community? What does it mean for them to be a part of reading these, you know, either whether they're ancient works or more contemporary works. And so that space is sometimes maybe that's the space of the chaplain or something at the university, but it's really, it might be something more thinking through with, with like more depth and rigor, like among, among particularly among Muslim academics.
Speaker 1 00:25:45 Definitely. I mean, I find even like in classrooms, especially with Muslim students, I find it even when you try and sort of give them the context, try to trace the history, try to complicate and nuance the understanding. I think a lot of young people are just, especially when they're women and now I think a lot of men do are left with this question. Why does it even exist? And I, I think that we need to like, speak about this. Like, why would God have such a worse, what are we supposed to understand about our agency? Again, I think something that I was trying to say that I think can be permissible, but is it ethical? Is it moral? And how should we think about our agency in such an ethical universe? Thank you so much, Celine and Javier. The next question I have for you both is how do you think your work informs the field of women's studies specifically as it pertains to Muslim women or women in the Muslim world?
Speaker 2 00:26:43 That's an important question. Um, like to one she fell in love with my book is out. I would be very open to any feedback readers have in terms of what could be improved and what could be changed. And I'm what I'm hoping to do is, you know, on, on multiple levels, of course there are various audiences I'm trying to address through both the book and obviously previous publications I've done, but one is to instill confidence, you know, in the average Muslim, um, in their own tradition, you know, trying to kind of, in some ways, give people the tools that they need to kind of begin to access this tradition. Right? So instead of it seeming like just a plethora of names, like, you know, uh, , I should even get the at, and, you know, for the average Muslims, like, you know, who are these people trying to, you know, give some sort of context, both historical context.
Speaker 2 00:27:31 And as Celine mentioned, you know, placing them within the intellectual tradition, where do they belong? Who are they trying to give people the tools they need to be able to read and access to tradition themselves and become sort of literate in the Muslim tradition itself as intellectual, this very rich pluralistic, intellectual tradition, you know, that I feel like we have as a resource and as an asset, to your point, Rashad, I love that you mentioned complexity because this is so true. And I think you both mentioned that the tradition is very complex and I wanted to also bring to attention the complexity within the Muslim tradition, that there hasn't been one single way of understanding any particular verse. There's been a plethora of ways. And a lot of it is based on the external sources that we are applying to read the texts. And so one thing I want to also add to this is one of the issues I'm very kind of concerned about is where does Andrew centralism, or where does patriarchy in medieval commentaries?
Speaker 2 00:28:31 Like where does it come from? What is the source, right? Like, is it coming from the brand itself or is it coming from somewhere else? And, you know, I've reached the conclusion that actually it's coming from, not from the Qur'an, but it's coming from commentaries on the Qur'an and it has to do with not patriarchy, but it has to do with a geneal logical tradition of commentaries where one commentary is responding to another. And by responding to that commentary, they're often repeating things that commentator said. And so, for example, what I found, which was actually new information to me, like Zen machete, for example, although he was a brilliant professor in many ways, because of his mastery of Arabic philology and philosophy, what he did is he actually introduces some really patriarchal interpretations of certain ions. And then I would find verbatim the exact same quotation in ed Razi and alibi Bowie, you know, which you both know are incredible giants in the field of Tufts.
Speaker 2 00:29:30 See it, and so very much well-read and using meant dresses, you know, Suniva dresses throughout the Muslim world historically. And so, you know, if they're repeating this, they're not repeating it because they necessarily believe it, but the repeating it, because that's the way the tradition work, you repeat it to, to reply to it. And so what I found is that sort of entrenches it, trenches those patriarchal interpretations in a way that might just be incidental. My hope is that would be my intervention that, you know, we begin to kind of distill and understand, you know, where are these patriarchal ideas coming from? They're not necessarily coming from the tradition as a whole. And I would argue they're definitely not coming from the grant itself. Um, but rather if we kind of understand the way the genre itself works, you know, historically and intellectually, then we can begin to untangle that patriarchy that we think is so embedded to the subsea tradition.
Speaker 3 00:30:22 Yeah. Just to build off that, to thinking about what contribution can our work make to women's studies as well, to gender studies, it's really thinking in nuanced ways about questions of authority. How can we, for instance, be able to say, you know, so-and-so was a phenomenal grammarian, but we cannot take their opinion as reliable when it comes to this or this. And the way that our tradition has worked is sort of putting people up on pedestals as amazing thinkers and polymath. And, you know, sometimes their work in, you know, as Sonic medicine was great, but their work on it was something else w was not. And so I think if we're able to take how the, our work is doing take what is good and what is beneficial and what is informative, and then allow ourselves to simply discard the things that are not worth repeating or taking into, you know, and, and education on, um, you know, Islamic ethics in terms of my own engagement with, with women's studies, it's been that ability to look at things and recognize certain biases and then be able to say, well, we're moving forward in a different way.
Speaker 3 00:31:37 And that's something that I think scares a lot of people who are just kind of your mainstream practicing Muslims, because so much of our intellectual heritage is about preservation, right? And that's like a framework and we, we don't want to lose anything. Uh, but there does come a point, especially when you're in sort of like an information age where so many things are so readily available to anyone, we really have to kind of come together as contemporary societies and say, no, this is what we're in fact taking forward. And we don't need to preserve things just for the sake of preserving them. Maybe you call it, you know, constructive Muslim theology or something, but we, we need to not simply categorize and classify. What has previously been. We need to be taking kind of ethical positions on, on what should and can be normative in our own age.
Speaker 1 00:32:29 Thank you, Celine. I also wanted to add, I really agree with you Javier, that the power of repetition build a reality, but in terms of how I see of you are most of us who are like women partaking in Islamic studies, what was happening previously was there was a critical mass right now we need, and there were no women involved in exegetical works. We have had these scholars, but we have not had up until the last three or four decades, female Muslim scholars who are looking at are providing us with exegesis. And I think that once we have the critical mass of women doing this, I think that we will be able to change and we'll build on each other's work and we will be able to change what could Onyx studies and tough sphere is. And saline, as you were speaking about authority, the question of authority is a huge question, right?
Speaker 1 00:33:22 Female authority in Muslim spaces. And I think it's slowly by many of us entering the field and asking for authority, we ask slowly changing the face off, like what the field looks like. So inshallah and, and humbling in the future. There will be a different understanding of these verses that we find kind of problematic because so many of us will have spoken on it to end the podcast. I wanted to say that your research, both of your research is unprecedented in many ways, and it's opening up a new John Ralph exergy says, what do you hope for in the future of studying women and gender in the current,
Speaker 3 00:34:04 I'm actually thinking a lot about masculinity studies these days. And part of that comes from realizing I, in some ways, reached a limit with what I could say about women in the quarter end without also doing robust work on depictions of, of men and masculinity in the, in the Koran. So that's where I'm personally kind of taking, taking my work these days idea. What, where are you looking for the future?
Speaker 2 00:34:33 Yeah. What you mentioned this idea of having more female voices. I mean, that in itself is a game changer in many ways. And I, when I, when I really, I recently read your manuscript, um, rethinking, um, it re remind me of a title again, were you thinking
Speaker 1 00:34:50 Sexual ethics and Islamic law? The case of temperament?
Speaker 2 00:34:55 Yeah. And I, what I, what I actually, what struck me about your, um, your book, your upcoming book is the fact that, you know, you are, for example, like reinstating Russia as an exegetical authority, you know, in a way in what you point out, you know, and, and it's very much true that yes, you know, they, they referenced her heady, but she wasn't necessarily, you know, really occupying the space, you know, as an exegetical authority. I think it's interesting that you do this, you know, the idea that, yeah, there have been female voices and history as well, you know, but we don't really label them as, uh, you, we didn't really label. I say, HSA, you know, um, male, love you, please with her, you know, as a, as a manifesto. Right. And then I, of course, you're looking at contemporary women as well, but I think just the, I just, the, the fact of women becoming today, you know, the 21st century having more female scholarly voices, I think that in itself is changing the field because now, especially even in traditional Muslim communities, men are kind of taking notice and needing to in many ways engage, they can't ignore it.
Speaker 2 00:36:05 And I think there's also, it's important to know that there is a, um, uh, what do I want to say? A diversity of male, Muslim voices as well within the community? Many of them are very much, yeah, many of them sort of welcome and embrace this change and, you know, bring us to the mosques for example, and bring us to these traditional spaces where women's voices, at least in the last few decades were sort of not really heard, you know, and I was really happy to see a saline also on a few webinars with very sort of traditional Muslim audiences as well, and very happy to see her work, uh, advocated. And I, that, that to me shows me that what's happening in academia in Western academia is also making an impact on Muslim communities. And I think as, as a Muslim academic, that is really what I would like to see. I'd like, I don't want S I don't want our scholarship to be sort of lost in these ivory towers, but to actually speak and engage with the communities, you know, that we are sort of writing about.
Speaker 1 00:37:04 And I do think, I do think that it does put a lot more pressure on us in the sense that not only do we have to do like, quote unquote, strictly academic work, we also have to make it meaningful because we have come to it from a different place than like, let's say vanilla academia. We've come to it from a place where we want these things to move something. And we feel like if women's voices are not included, then at least I speak for myself. When I look at people around me, maybe it's a class thing that I feel like religion or Islam could fall off the globe. Right. Because it's not like if we don't get involved in the conversation, something is going to break. And so that does put a lot of pressure on us, but maybe that's the blessing. That's what motivates us, keeps us motivated, which is different from being just in like, sort of a plain academic, Ivy Dava type space.
Speaker 3 00:37:58 Yeah. It's so powerful to, to think of the ways in which different contemporary Muslim academics, like in the U S and in other places that have this Western academic tradition, how are we allowed to occupy the space of both serious academics and, you know, people of, of deep spiritual commitments and deep ethical commitments as well. And I think as Muslim, you know, writers who are looking at women in gender, what we're doing is to be able to say, you know, like I am all whole person and I cannot be dissected out into, you know, this is the academic part of me. And this is, you know, the humanitarian part of me that actually those perspectives are informing each other. And that's so much of what I think feminist studies brought to the academy is to say, people write from embedded perspectives. And, but we have to, in many ways, struggle for that to be the case. And, you know, not all institutions are open to people who bring their whole selves to the teaching profession or the writing profession, the research profession. So it's still a struggle, I think, but there are more and more spaces that are open.
Speaker 1 00:39:18 Absolutely. I mean, I have always felt like even with the whole talk about diversity, Muslim scan, for example, asked for space to pray, but they dare not make truth claims, right? Those are two kind of different things. And what we are trying to do in academia is to like, vote, like make two claims, brings first Charlotte to the four and it's, it's hard again. And I think the solution is critical mass. When we have many of us, we are the first generation of Muslims entering PhD programs and now graduating and doing work, uh, which has not been the tradition in the west. So I have good hope for the future. Um,
Speaker 3 00:39:59 And I hope for other peoples probably terror,
Speaker 2 00:40:07 I think that's such a great point. Seleno and, you know, and I think in many ways your work actually helps create that precedent where others, uh, you know, like myself, you know, could write, you know, or, or, or feel like I could write more authentically, you know, and, and kind of bring awareness. What I think you called the privilege, like the kind of question of power and privilege and chronic studies, you know, which is, uh, a reality. But I think by kind of tackling the elephant in the room, you know, you make others of all, you know, faiths and stripes and colors, others aware of, you know, this, this is going on. What we want is we want authentic scholarship and we want people, like you said, to bring their full selves to their writing and their teaching, because I think we will have more to offer if we're allowed to do that.
Speaker 2 00:40:50 You know? And I, I also, um, you know, after reading your work started to think in terms of my book that I was writing at the time, like, am I, in some ways sort of stuck in this state of double consciousness where I am very much aware of the dominant, the way the dominant culture is going to judge my writing and in my, in some ways holding back or seeing certain things because of this sort of double consciousness that I'm bringing, you know, uh, decor, WB, Dubois. So trying to just be, be really authentic and true to who you are. And at the end of the day, you know what I mean, for all of us, we are both Muslim and Western at the same time. You know, I, I very much claim my Western identity. There's no hiding. I mean, I am not, my parents are from the middle east, but in terms of my cognitive framework and my socialization, it's very much in many ways, you know, it's both Western and Muslim. That's just the reality of what it is. And so I think we're also sort of disrupting this dichotomy of thinking of Western Muslim views as sort of diametrically opposed. And some of them
Speaker 1 00:42:00 Thank you, Celine and heartier. We are also grateful that you were able to speak to us and we wish you the best in your future endeavors. Thank you again for
Speaker 2 00:42:12 Doing this.
