This week, New York’s Robina Niaz was celebrated for her work helping Muslim women victims of domestic violence, a woman takes off her niqab to testify in Spanish court, Irshad Manji critiques a book for going soft on Islamic fundamentalist’s deplorable treatment of women, a 32-year old Malaysian woman may become the first woman to be caned in the country while the Ashaari sect in Malaysia starts a Polygamy Club to revive the practice.
New York’s Robina Niaz was profiled by CNN for her work helping female Muslim victims of domestic abuse. Her organization, Turning Point for Women and Families, was the first of its kind in New York. Niaz firmly believes that domestic violence is prohibited in Islam but acknowledges that one of the challenges in dealing with the issue in Muslim Communities is denial.
Fatima Hssini of Spain created controversy in Madrid when she originally refused to lift her niqab to testify in court in a case against terrorists. Hssini is the sister of man who was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq 2005. Eventually she and the judge reached a compromise and she lifted her niqab to testify but turned her face from public view.
In a New York Times book review of Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, outspoken Irshad Manji criticized the authors for failing to make a clearer case against sexist interpretations of Islam that further marginalize women. As Manji writes, because international security is directly related to terrorist group’s treatment of women, “Muslim women’s problems are everyone’s problems.”
In Malaysia, 32 year-old former model and nurse Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno’s caning sentence for dinking beer was upheld. Kartika plead guilty and her punishement was recently reviewed and upheld by Malaysia’s Shariah High Court. If Kartika’s caning is conducted, she will become the first woman to be caned in Malaysia.
Also in Malysia a project called the “Polygamy Club” was launched with the goal of reforming public perception of the practice while aiding single mothers, reformed prostitutes, and elder women remarry as a second, third, or fourth wife. Most of the club members belong to the Ashaari sect, which was banned in 1994 for its heretical teachings including that the family patriarch, 43-year-old Ikramullah Ashaari, could absolve people’s sins.
Rabea Chaudhry is Associate Editor of Altmuslimah.
