نیاکان ما: زنانی که درجوامع اسلامی حقوق خود را مطالبه کردند

by Farida Shaheed, فاطمه صادقی (Translator)

There is a widespread myth both outside and within Muslim contexts that women's struggles for rights is alien to those societies that embraced Islam and a misconception that the contemporary women's movement is exclusively rooted in Western concepts and struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Muslim contexts, this myth discredits women's rights advocates and their cause and, when taken as fact, discourages women's assertions for their rights and justice.
Great Ancestors explodes this myth by profiling women who defied and changed the contours of women's lives from the 8th century to the mid-1950s and provides a very different picture of the past. Far from the commonly held impression of silenced, cloistered and acquiescent women, these 'great ancestors' are strong, determined women, whether famous and powerful or not. These are women who fought for personal rights and bodily integrity, who extended solidarity to women and other downtrodden people, and who improved their societies as scholars, saints and political activists. Many of the 'great ancestors' led by example: by the live-choices they made for themselves, these women defied, and so challenged, existing structures and norms and in doing so, they provided an opening for other women (and men) to either follow in their footsteps or to emulate them by creating another path, another choice. Their lives are as inspiring today as they were in their lifetimes.

Genres: History

252 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Hamid · Rating 4 out of 5]

کار نویسنده در نگاه اول شاید بسادگی جمع آوری تعدادی داستان زندگی است از زنان تاثیرگذار و قدرتمند در جوامعی مردسالار و خفقان آور. اما اهمیت یا تفاوت این کتاب در روش و ذهن نویسنده است. فریده شهید که لقب نویسنده ی فمینیست پاکستانی را با خود حمل می کند در این کتاب نه فمنیست است و نه پاکستانی. همچنین از کلیشه های اوریانتالیسمی هم کاملا دور است. و با نگاهی مدرن (خارج از جنسیت و ملیت و رمانتیسیسم) کتاب را پیش می برد و روایتش را کامل می کند

[Sedighe Vazehi · Rating 4 out of 5]

فریده شهید در مقدمه‌ی کتاب میگه مخالفانِ امروزیِ برابری‌خواهی در جوامعِ مسلمان، اسطوره‌ای ساختن و دائم تبلیغش میکنن که "مبارزات زنان برای حقوقشان در جوامع اسلامی، با این جوامع نسبتی ندارد و زنانی که در این جوامع حقوق خود را مطالبه میکنند، افکار مسئله‌ساز و منفی را از جوامع و فرهنگ‌های بیگانه وام گرفته‌اند." شهید معتقده این باور که تمام جنبش‌های معاصر زنان "تنها" از مبارزات و اندیشه‌های زنان اروپا و آمریکای شمالی نشئت گرفته اشتباه و غیرتاریخیه و دامن زدن به این اسطوره ابزار موثری برای اعمال قدرت و سلطه است و "تقبیح دائمی و پرهیاهوی فعالان حقوق زنان با عنوان غربزده، تلاشی عامدانه از سوی نیروهای محافظه‌کار و ارتجاعی برای حفظ وضع موجود و ایجاد شکاف است."
نویسنده در هفت فصل مختلف (با تقسیم‌بندی زمانی) داستان‌ زندگی زنانی مسلمان از قرن هشتم(دوره‌های اولیه‌ی اسلام) تا نیمه‌ی نخست قرن بیستم رو روایت میکنه که بنا به شرایط جامعه و زمانه‌ای که در آن زیست می‌کردند درپی آزادی و کسب حقوق اولیه‌ی خودشون بودن. مواردی مثل ثبت شروط ضمن عقد -برای منع همسر از ازدواج مجدد-، دادخواهی از آزارگری همسران نزد دادگاه آن زمان، برداشتن حجاب، تلاش برای آموزش و تحصیل دختران و...
هرگز قصد نداره بگه زنان مسلمان از ابتدا فمینیست بودند و با معیارهای امروزی زندگی، آگاهی و شرایط تاریخی زنان رو نمیسنجه (اشتباهی که برخی از فعالان زنان امروزه مرتکب میشوند). در روایت‌های زنانِ دوره‌ی معاصر، خصوصا دوره‌ی استعمار و بعد در شکل‌گیری جنبش‌های ناسیونالیستی، بارها به روابط زنان مسلمان با جوامع غربی و روابط متقابل فعالان زن مسلمان با فعالان زن غربی اشاره میکنه.
از نکات مثبت کتاب اینه که محدود به جهان عرب نیست -محدودیتی که عموما در کار نویسندگان عرب شاهدش هستیم- و روایت‌هایی از چین و اندونزی و مالزی تا آسیای‌میانه و بعد ایران، هند و کشورهای عربی و آفریقایی در غرب جهان اسلام رو در برداره.
در خلال روایتها نکته‌ی قابل توجه برای من این بود که گویی تا حدود قرن ۱۶ عموما مشکلاتی از قبیل پرده نشینی (عدم حضور در مجامع عمومی و استفاده از روبنده) وجود نداشته و زنان براحتی برای شکایت به دادگاه میرفتن -و به‌خلاف باور امروزیِ عده‌ای می‌توانستند در دادگاه شهادت بدهند- یا اموال ی داشتند و خودشون مدیریتش می‌کردند - حدود ۴۰ درصد از اسناد وقفی حکومت عثمانی متعلق به زنان بوده-. اما کم‌کم اوضاع تغییر کرده تاجاییکه در قرن ۱۹ دغدغه و مسئله‌ی اصلی زنان مسلمان در استیفای حقوقشون پرده‌نشینی و آموزش بوده. کتاب زنان زیادی رو مثال میزنه که از خانواده‌های اهل علمی بودند و با حمایت مردان خانواده یا به تنهایی عمر خودشون رو صرف آموزش برای عموم زنان جامعه کردند.
همچنین از زنانی نام میبره که در طی قرون و در جوامع مختلفی تونستن به مقام سلطنت برسند (عموما در هند).
باوجودیکه نویسنده در مقدمه‌ تاکید میکنه درجستجوی زنانی بوده که برای حقوق زنان و عدالت اجتماعی مبارزه کرده‌اند، چه مشهور باشند و چه نباشند؛ اما بهرحال عموم روایت‌ها از افراد مشهور یا رده‌ی بالای اجتماعی در زمان خودشون هستند، چون متاسفانه تاریخ‌نگاران عموما زندگی چنین افرادی رو ثبت می‌کردند و دسترسی به افراد غیرمشهور در دوره‌های پیشین راحت نیست، مثلا نویسنده از یک مورد نسبتا معاصر در تبریز صحبت میکنه که سندی براش نیست و در داستان‌های شفاهی مادران و مادربزرگان تبریزی گفته شده، داستان بی‌بی زینب که در دوره‌ی تحریم توتون و تنباکو فرمانده‌ی گروهی از زنان در مبارزه علیه استعمار انگلستان بوده.
*از نظر نگارشی و چاپی چندجا ایراد داشت ولی در فهم محتوای کتاب خللی وارد نمیکرد*

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of biographical sketches of women in Muslim contexts who acted to bring equality to themselves as individuals and as a class. Loosely categorized and moving from one region to another and back again, the book is hard to get into as an absorbing narrative, but several sections stand out. The introductory essay is extremely good, delivering a staggering blow to cultural relativism and the Western feminists who embrace it. Being so careful to avoid implicating religion or culture, these feminists "overcompensate and make 'the Muslim woman' an exotic Other, whose life dimension must perforce be limited to the spaces defined for her by her religion." No where else would we categorize women solely by their religion.

Overall, the book is meant to show that women in Muslim contexts are following in the path of women from the first generations of Islam to demand education and legal rights; it is not influence from the liberal west that is prompting women to seek self-fulfillment. The authors occasionally fall into the trap of trying to make history fit their premise, but overall they have convincing examples.

[Umair Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oxford University Press, Lahore, invited Farida Shaheed, the co-author of Great Ancestors: Women Claiming Rights in Muslim Contexts, to talk about her book. The audience comprised students as well as seasoned scholars. Ateeb Gul, an editor at Oxford, did a good job moderating the session. Shaheed started by explaining how the initial idea was to prepare a training module for women working for their rights in Muslim societies and to mobilise new activists. The project was supported by the organisation, Women Living Under Muslim Laws.

Shaheed highlighted that there is a “misconception in Muslim societies that the struggle for women’s rights is confined, historically and geographically, to European and North American locations.” She explained how, as an academic and an activist, she was offended by this ‘myth’ every time she came across it. Yet, it enjoys credibility that women’s rights in Muslim societies are an alien idea and whoever works for them is promoting some ‘foreign’ agenda. The misconception is not only confined to Muslim societies but also to some people in non-Muslim cultures that see Muslim women as passive and silent victims. So prevalent is this misconception that any example of brave Muslim women resisting patriarchal values, whether in the past or present, is brushed aside as an exception. Shaheed emphasised that this ‘myth’ has been repeated so often, in public as well as in our private lives, that we consider it reality.

Calling it a “dangerous myth,” Shaheed stressed for it to be “challenged, debunked, and laid to rest.” It is promoted by the opponents of gender equality in Muslim societies, she said. Without completely shattering it, the majority of women will keep fearing to speak out for their rights, afraid of being treated as the ‘other’, as someone who has imported these ‘problematic’ and ‘negative’ ideas from foreign cultures.

The main thesis of Great Ancestors, Shaheed said, is that the women living in Muslim societies have struggled for a more just society in every era and every region. The book provides around some 500 examples from the eighth to the mid-20th century where women living in Muslim contexts strived either for their individual rights or struggled for better conditions for women as a whole.

Shaheed’s aim was to bring forth an alternate reality, a reality that has been completely erased from our history textbooks. She has tried to rediscover the narratives of expanding the rights and personal spaces of women from numerous historical moments. The lives of our great ancestors narrated in the book can be a catalyst for rethinking ‘Muslim womanhood’ as a socially and historically constructed identity. It is essential for women living in Muslim societies to read their history for themselves. As Fatima Mernissi points out in her book The Forgotten Queens of Islam, women cannot count on anyone to read their history for them. In the book Mernissi gave several examples of female queens in Arab history, to the surprise of many. However, unlike The Forgotten Queens of Islam, Great Ancestors brings forth the stories of not only queens and powerful women but of women from all walks of life including poets, scholars, sufis, rulers, artists, and rights activists.

The question-answer session brought further vibrancy to the debate when a member of the audience questioned the utility of historical examples when Islamic texts are used by most religious scholars to undermine the project of gender equality. In response, Shaheed qualified that her book “is not about theology or the religion of Islam or even women’s lives in relation to Islam.” The purpose of the book, she said, is “to elucidate examples of women who defied culturally defined gender norms to assert their right to be different and to change their society.”

This further engaged the audience in a discussion on what is more important for bringing about social change: presenting facts, countering the established norms or challenging the prevalent theories through abstract arguments. To this, Shaheed underlined the importance of historical narratives by stating that history is not merely a collection of stories: “By telling us who we have been, history defines for a people a sense of self that funnels into and guides a sense of potential tomorrows.”

source: http://www.dawn.com/news/1044445/rede...

[Rikker]

@first published 2005,Thai,Thailand,Thai language,language,etymology,non-fiction