"How Can You Possibly Be a Muslim Feminist?"

The Mark Steyn Show
May 25, 2017

https://www.steynonline.com/7851/how-can-you-possibly-be-a-muslim-feminist

This edition of The Mark Steyn Show was recorded before the bloodbath in Manchester, when a Soldier of Allah consciously targeted mothers and young girls for violent, savage murder. But we think you'll find this conversation on women and Islam interesting and timely. Mark talks to poet and Muslim activist Raheel Raza, about the proliferation of covered females in the west, the possibilities of Islamic reform and other topics - though, at the end of another grim week, what may resonate most is his question about whether, for westerners, Islam, reformed or not, is worth the effort. Click below to watch:

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10 Reader Comments

Steve Mumford • Jun 1, 2017 at 16:38

After sharing this interview on FB, I got into a back-and-forth with a Muslim friend over whether the Koran does indeed mandate the headscarf (see below). My friend convincingly argued that it does, and sited the verse to prove it. He went further and stated that the hadiths mandate beards for men.
I wish Ms Raza well but fear that she's fighting a losing battle against this profoundly flawed religion.

Sura an-Nur ayah 31
And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes, and to guard their private parts, and not to display their adornment except what is apparent of it, and to extend their headcoverings (khimars) to cover their bosoms (jaybs), and not to display their adornment except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their womenfolk, or what their right hands rule (slaves), or the followers from the men who do not feel sexual desire, or the small children to whom the nakedness of women is not apparent, and not to strike their feet (on the ground) so as to make known what they hide of their adornments. And turn in repentance to Allah together, O you the faithful, in order that you are successful

Jimi in Mich • May 31, 2017 at 12:55

Most interviews are soooo drab; Steyn & Ms. Raza kept my attention. Certainly, this radicalism is a "war of ideas", as was Communism, Nazism, and the American Revolution. A war of ideas becomes a war of weapons when persons or possessions are at stake. If our Western ways, whatever they are, are to remain for long, we will have to win the war of ideas, and possibly win some violence, as always. But if we know not what those Western ways are, or why we want them, we will fight very little. Multiculturalism is not the problem, but a symptom of a culture with no anchor. Two hundred years ago, we had some sort of rough agreement of equality of man under law, a mildly belligerent Protestant faith, a nascent, blooming economy, and some fighting spirit from tangling with the frontier and the natives. Eighty years ago, we came together when we got slapped at Pearl Harbor, and insulted by a German declaration of war. We are not of one mind yet as to what is important.

Michael H. • May 30, 2017 at 22:32

Watching and listening to the post I can appreciate Raheel Raza's battle with her own religion, why do we need to be dragged into this I don't agree with her assessment. The west does not need the middle easts oil. My only regret is that we were not able to save my friends parents who were slaughtered in their Coptic Church in Egypt last year or the little girls going to a pilgrimage with their Moms on that bus that was shredded by gun fire killing all those Innocent children and mothers last week because they would not submit to Islam The Yazidis that have been slaughtered because we (congress) did not act in time to save them. I agree with Raza that human rights are being violated. These women had human rights taken from them but you really can't take something they never had away from them, they never had human rights to begin with because of where they live or lived, not because they were Muslem but because they were not Muslem.

P. Gao • May 29, 2017 at 22:12

Again, I liked this interview and this kind of extended discussion.
Some thoughts - to paraphrase M. Mark's Toronto debate quote "A feminist of a certain culture." The comment 'To be home cooking for my husband, which won't happen in this lifetime' makes one chuckle.
Everyone in Pakistan and India have household staffs - cooks, nannies, laundry persons, cleaners, gardeners and drivers. Thus, it's practically unheard of for someone of her social caste and status to be actually cooking for the family. Even the staff has staff for their own modest households - they would have lots of child labor, usually poor village relatives. That's how so many Pakistani and Indian upper caste women can go to work, be doctors, lawyers, etc. And they'll blithely say things like 'master says' that make Westerners cringe, but it's normal for them. It's a whole 'nuther world (culture). There is lots of common ground - between unexpected patches of cultural quicksand.

One of the tactics of the radicals is to appeal to those lower classes, promise them better, more power, turn the tables on the traditional establishment that kept them down. Obviously, this is a huge threat to the status-quo upper classes and they're very very worried.

Denyse O'Leary • May 26, 2017 at 17:11

I mean no disrespect to Raheel Raza but she belongs to a religion that gives men the right to flog their wives and keep women as rape victims and sex slaves. There is no relationship possible between such a religion and feminism.

Feminism belongs to a religion where "There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28) That is how the idea of feminism got started in the first place. It will not survive that religion.

Denyse O'Leary • May 26, 2017 at 16:39

But Islam PRESCRIBES how a man is to flog his wife. What can that possibly have to do with equality? Could we get one thing straight? There is no equality between the flogger and the flog-ee.

I was once at dinner with bunch of anti-religious smartasses and challenged them, find any text in the New Testament that explicitly endorses wife abuse. They could not.

Muslim feminist? What does that mean? You give guys the right to batter you and then claim you are a feminist...?

How long will Western strictures against wife abuse last if many Muslims move here?

Mark D • May 26, 2017 at 12:53

What a truly wonderful and remarkable woman. It is programming like this that makes me very happy that I chose to become a club member.

Victor • May 26, 2017 at 04:44

Very impressive, engaging woman, Raheel Raza. More strength to her. But where does her moderate brand of Islam spring from? Its foundations seem entirely Western: View religion through the lens of Human Rights; Freedom of Speech is a core value, etc. Christianity hasn't managed to thrive in modern western society (and it invented the damned thing!), so I don't like the chances of a transplanted, semi-secularised version of Islam. I think Mark's mention of the west becoming a vacuum rather than a force for moderation is key - that's what's helping build an appetite for hard-line political Islam.

But maybe Islam and the West can get along: the Mullahs have declared Koranic Interpretation is settled - which will make a lovely matching set with our Global Warming Science.

P. Gao • May 26, 2017 at 01:14

Very nice interview, very glad to have had a chance to be introduced to her and hear what she's doing.
Very appreciate the time allotted to these interviews. The usual media is too rushed which jacks nervous tension and always shouting for the 'take away quote.' This format allows for the kind of interesting and calm conversation serious adults seek to be better informed.

Stephen Mumford • May 26, 2017 at 00:19

Thanks for this, Mark, this is great stuff.
I didn't know about the shutting down of "ishtihad" in the 17th century... you are providing a truly important public service by interviewing people like Ms Raza, a woman fighting what seems to be shaping up as the essential battle of the 21 century, the battle of ideas within Islam.
Please keep these coming - I enjoy getting into the weeds, as it were, on the subject of Islam.