Reflections in a Downpour

The skies have opened and the waters unleashed. Heavy rains and windy chills.

Kind of like what’s going on in lower Manhattan – and beyond.

It’s difficult not to find yourself entrenched in the debate on whether or not a mosque/Muslim Community Center (MCC) should be established in lower Manhattan, two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. On one hand, freedom of religious expression is an intrinsic part of our country’s foundation and to deny a safe space for people of a certain religion is in direct contrast to our most basic principles. On the other hand, people are asking why this establishment needs to be built so close to a sacred space where many people lost their loves ones in the name of this very religion. Isn’t that insensitive to 9/11 families?

I have thought about this a lot, coming to the conclusion that while it is the right of Muslims to build a Muslim Community Center where they currently pray, it would be a kind gesture if this group could change the location of the new and improved establishment to ease sensitivities and alleviate concerns. That is, of course, one opinion, and as the issue crystallizes day-by-day, new information comes to light. Things become more complex. Opinions are no longer black and white.

But this post is not about the mosque debate per se – that’s just where we begin.

As I became more interested in the ongoing mosque/community center debate, I began to think about how society as a whole responds to Islam as a religion. Specifically, I began to think about how Islam is portrayed in the news, and, globally, how women of Islam are portrayed.

Take a look:

A New York Times article, In Bold Display, Taliban Order Stoning Deaths , ran on August 16 reporting on the Taliban’s first public execution by stoning since their fall from power; this time the victims were a young couple who had eloped. According to the article, “the executions were the latest in a series of cases where the Taliban have imposed their harsh version of Shariah law for social crimes, reminiscent of their behavior during their decade of ruling the country.”

Nader Nadery, a senior commissioner on the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said, “we’ve seen a big increase in intimidation of women and more strict rules on women.”

Or what about the Afghan woman whose nose and ears were cut off by her Taliban husband - a decision dictated by a Taliban court - for running away from him and his abusive family. When that issue of Time magazine (note: graphic image) came out recently I immediately gasped, did a double take, felt nauseous and upset for the rest of the afternoon and got in touch with Women for Afghan Women to see how I could help with their efforts (there has been several email exchanges but next steps are pending).

And the crazy thing is that Bibi Aisha is a survivor. She is one of the women that made it. What about the others?

On May 30 The New York Times ran an article, Child Brides Escape Marriage, but Not Lashes which reported on two young wives that escaped their abusive husbands only to be returned by the police and publicly and brutally lashed under the surveillance of local mullahs and a former warlord. The article includes a quote from Mohammed Munir Khashi, an investigator with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, who says that he was “shocked” when he watched the video of the floggings. “I thought in the 21st century such a criminal incident could not happen in our country. It’s inhuman, anti-Islam and illegal.”

And so one picture of Islam is painted…

In Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn dedicate a chapter to the very question on many peoples’ minds: “Is Islam Misogynistic?” Of course, the simple answer the authors give, “Islam itself is not misogynistic,” is presented as part of a complex system that does hinder the status and role of woman through cultural practices and social norms. Above all, the explanation, while thorough, left me confused.

What do the women themselves think, which brings me back to the current debate in lower Manhattan:

Seeing Daisy Khan of the MCC project speak on This Week with Christiane Amanpour this past weekend helped me understand the larger goals behind the need for a Muslim Community Center similar to the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side – a safe place where people can worship, learn, play and enjoy one another’s company. When I watched this interview, I felt a little better. Did I feel at peace because Daisy was a woman, or because she spoke calmly and thoughtfully? Was it because she was sitting next to Rabbi Joy Levitt representing the JCC who was serving as her counsel in support of her project? Was it because it was a kind human face speaking about an oft misunderstood religion?

It was, I think, all of the above – but the fact that she was a woman who believed in this religion, a woman who found that it served her well was a real comfort to me. Of course, when I say “it,” I mean Islam, which inevitably has a different meaning in progressive countries like America than in countries in which women have no rights. Daisy Khan is coming from a modern perspective of Islam, not a traditional by-the-book perspective that seems to be accompanied by the low status of a woman, or a woman with fewer rights than a man. So it is hard to perceive Daisy as thriving in the Islamic world when that world takes different forms in different places, but hearing from Daisy, it sounds like this religion supports her, and she it.

And I believe that. I need to believe it, I want to believe it, because if the women of the world are to have faith in this religion and the culture it has created for women as a whole, then we need to know that the women themselves have faith in it.

And while Daisy is a start, we cannot just hear from those women at home. We need to hear from the woman abroad too.

In Muslim countries.

In Afghanistan.

We need to know that they are okay.