Book Review: Standing Alone in Mecca – A Pilgrimage into the Heart of Islam by Asra Q. Nomani

A thought right towards the end of the book ‘Your book is the kicking of the foetus in the belly of Islam’ summarizes this books journey aptly. This is the autobiographic extract of the Islamic journey of a Muslim woman of India origin raised in the US, a single unwed mother, friend of Daniel Pearl the slain Jewish journalist, who travels to Mecca and starts rediscovering her feminist Muslim identity and in the process starts raising a lot of pertinent questions from a feminine angle.

Many of her examples of the pro-feminist leanings of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) delight the mind and also raise despair at the hijacking (generally speaking) of almost all major religions by the male-lobby

Some examples

• …..the Prophet created a community that was built on feminist ideals…..the prophet was Islam’s first feminist…he accepted as his first love and first wife a woman who was savvier, wealthier and more successful in the world than he was…….the Qu’ran gave women rights of inheritance and divorce centuries before women gained such rights in the West……During the Prophets time and for some years thereafter, women prayed in the Prophet’s mosque with no partition between them and the men. Historians record women’s presence in the mosque and participation in education and in political and literary debates as well as in asking questions of the Prophet after his sermons, transmitting religious knowledge and providing social services. When the Prophet heard that some men were positioning themselves in the mosque to be closer to an attractive woman, his solution wasn’t to ban the women but to admonish the men………
  

• …feminist Muslim scholars say the Prophet vastly improved the rights of women at the time and encouraged their self-expression…..Aisha…the prophets favourite wife…..Today nearly half of the Islamic jurisprudence of the Hanafi school of thought, which is followed by 70 % of Muslims is based on the theology and jurisprudence communicated by Aisha to her students….She became a transmitter of the 4^th largest number of hadith, or sayings of the Prophet…..She also earned respect as a profound critical thinker and great expert in law, history, medicine, mathematics and astronomy
  
  
• A profound Iranian Muslim thinker, Ali Shariati, appreciated the feminist spirit of the Prophet and told his students:
  
  The Prophet of Islam who was such an elevated personality and one before whom history is humbled, when he entered his home was kind, lenient and gentle. When his wives quarreled with him, he left his home and made a place for himself in the storage area without showing any harsh reaction against them…….The Prophets behavior was so humane that it amazes us.
  

To my delight she also quotes frequently the writings of the religious scholar Karen Armstrong (some of whose books, esp. the ones on the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and the Buddha are classics)

‘The women of the first ummah in Medina took full part in its public life, and some, according to Arab custom, fought alongside the men in battle,’ wrote Karen Armstrong in Islam: A Short Hitory. ‘They did not seem to have experienced Islam as an oppressive religion, though later, as happened in Christianity, men would hijack the faith and bring it in line with the prevailing patriarchy.’

As is to be expected, given the current hostile environment she does not go the whole hog. For e.g. she raises a mild protest against the following quote in her book.

The Qu’ran allows Muslim men to marry Jewish and Christian women…... But non-Muslim men are forbidden to Muslim women. The Qu’ran (2.221) says: ‘Nor marry your girls to unbelievers until they believe. A man slave who believes is better than an unbeliever.’

Compare the current Christian era with the one that existed during the time of Galileo. In the recent past we had some high-up Christian priests in the UK saying that the Bible should be read metaphorically rather than factually. And the situation during the times of Galileo when his heliocentric model of the universe led to his house arrest by the Church since it was their opinion that it probably contradicted with their interpretation of the Bible. Times changes, religious leanings change. Islam was a tolerant religion during its Golden Age, and certainly much much more liberal than the other leading religions during that time. The wheel has turned a circle and today Islam is probably caught in the Saudi / Talibani grip. I am sure that the day is not far off when there will arise strong role models in the Islamic societies who will lead to a revival of the true and tolerant face of Islam with their moderate interpretations and moderating influence. But of course that could take centuries also. As applies to all other societies Democracy, education and globalization is the way forward.

This book though not a classic in terms of writing style, prose or tautness, is certainly a good read.