The following is an edited excerpt from a letter that I received recently from someone in Europe:
Dear Professor Essack, as-salâm ualaikum,
”We would like you to contribute as a plenary speaker to our conference on theological arguments from the Islamic tradition in support of the human rights as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
For instance, in our discussion with Prof. […] last Sunday, he argued that the Qur’an does not contain an injunction to institute slavery where it is not there, but that slavery was a matter of fact when the Prophet (saw) embarked upon his mission, and that he humanised and improved relations to the extent possible under the circumstances.
Similar arguments might be brought forward in other areas, without having received sufficient expression from those believing in non-contextual theology, presenting the sharîca as the only possible expression of Islamic values and norms in law.
In fact, we even wonder if it is possible to give Islamic references to each article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and each paragraph of its preamble …”
Now, I do believe in the declaration, notwithstanding its Western origins or its anthropocentric bias. The document, for all citizens of the world, including Muslims, is one of the most significant foundations for co-existence and pluralism. Muslims cannot have their cake and eat it. The one option is to embrace this document as the basis for both our claims against those who are withholding our rights from us as well as the basis to correct our own wrongs against all those on the edges of Muslim societies — the impoverished, political dissidents, women, ethnic, linguistic and sexual minorities and so on.
The other option is to abandon international instruments of rights and obligation, carve out our own space wherein our God whispers confidential stuff to us … And we end up walking over the lands and lives of others — ethnic or gendered others — because of those Divine whisperings and promises, the kind of thing that we have seen in Palestine under Zionist occupation for more than 50 years and in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
So, here I am, an African scholar of Islam and — because of my credentials as a veteran of the struggle — regularly being called upon do my thing on ”Human Rights and Islam”.
How do I ensure that my deeply authentic experience as part of the oppressed, my sincere belief that Islam spoke to my existence under apartheid and my understanding of Islam as a faith that sustained resistance to it are not sold to the highest bidder?
Let me use the story of Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani survivor of gang rape who has so courageously used her ordeal to focus on the oppression of women in her society.
Using that story I want to illustrate some of the challenges Muslims face in this flurry of ”Islam and human rights are really two sides of the same coin” activity.
Mai, in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, said: ”I had three choices; either to commit suicide by jumping in a well or shed tears all my life like any other victim in such cases, or challenge the cruel feudal and tribal system and harsh attitudes of society.”
Now, suppose she is being called on to speak at women’s rights rallies in the United States. And suppose that these rallies are sponsored by a cosmetic company desperate to push the right of women to use any of their 300 shades of lipstick.
Somewhere there is a connection between the right of women to use any kind of lipstick — and, indeed, the freedom of men also to do so — on the one hand, and the right of women to not have their bodily integrity violated.
If I were Mai, I would not be so sure if the struggle to let a thousand shades of lipstick or nail polish bloom would be where my energies are best invested.
Question one: Where are the priorities for Mai and those who genuinely identify with her in this struggle for human rights? Actual engagement with people on the edges of society, or with those who are pretty comfortable and only trying to get more comfortable?
But suppose, further, that the cosmetic company promises Mai a substantial honorarium — even better, a share in their profits — if she spoke at the ”freedom for women” rallies that they are sponsoring or if she wrote an article in defence of women’s rights to use lipstick and singling out the ”Muslim fundamentalists” as the enemy because they oppose these rights?
Question two: Do we have a responsibility to critique our underlying motives for accepting the invitation or do we gloss over them in the deliberately hasty conclusion that ”it is good for Muslims to be seen out there defending human rights”?
More directly, how much of all of this ”Islam is compatible with human rights” stuff is really about Islam and human rights and how much of it about the Muslim middle classes struggling to find a lucrative space at the banquet of power?
Finally, to wind up my conjectural dilemmas, suppose that same company:
a) is engaged in unethical experimentation with animals to research the beauty enhancement products;
b) has a record of opposing women’s rights in some situations when it turns out that the newly liberated women decided to buy lipstick from another company or not to use lipstick at all; and
c) in some well-documented situations was, and continues to be, the chief instigator of gang rape?
Question three: Where is our Islam in all of this when the only matter worthy of consideration to us is whether the kickbacks that we get from the company will help advance us in life and, worse, when, in pursuit of this advancement, we are prepared to collaborate with those whose historical and current record is a war against an Islamic value system that places people before profit?
I do not wish to trivialise the universality of human rights, nor rubbish all forms of beauty enhancement. All of my life I have fought for a society founded on the principles of justice, freedom and equality.
Perhaps I regard human rights as too sacred to be messed around with by those who created Guantanamo Bay and their lackeys in the Muslim world who are silent about it.
Perhaps I value gender justice too much too allow its agenda to be hijacked by those who are destroying women’s rights locally, by those who preach peace for Muslims while they arrogate violence, state terrorism and war to themselves.
There is indeed something that binds all of humankind together. This is a sacredness originating in the breath of God blown into us at the time of creation.
Like all the preceding generations we struggle to realise the various implications of what this means in contemporary terms. An earthquake strikes in Kashmir and we raise funds in Cairo or Cape Town. A dissident is imprisoned in Iran and we write letters of protest to that government.
One of the words to describe this commonness is ”universal”, as in the ”Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. Part of our struggle for universality is to ensure that it does not become mere code for the empire in the way that ”international opinion” has become code for the policies of any current United States administration and its allies in Europe.
After Mai’s courage became well known and she became a bit of a celebrity, she even got the attention of some of the men in her country with, to put it mildly, rare offers — of their willingness to marry her, a survivor of gang rape.
”But most of them,” she says, ”were probably under the impression that I was awash with dollars … I could see dollars flashing in their eyes. I tell them if you want to marry me then live with me in the village and serve the people. Then they don’t return.”
In the context of this battle for the souls of Muslims, this is our challenge; to pursue a relentless struggle for freedom (including the freedom to use or not to use lipstick) and justice, to incessantly critique our own motives and to embrace an uncompromising suspicion of the powerful.