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January
23, 2006
VOL.
44, NO. 2Oakland,
CA
Iraq’s
women debate impact
of Islamic law on their rights
BAGHDAD -- For nearly three years, Iraqi women have
inched toward greater freedom. In some cases, it has meant breaking from
traditional dress. In others, there have been leaps that once would have
been unthinkable: driving, taking a job outside the home, or even entering
marriage counseling.
However, these same women face new limitations later this month when the
Iraqi constitution is enacted. Under the charter approved in a nationwide
referendum last October, Islam will predominantly govern Iraqi law and
religious sects will decide issues involving marriage and inheritance.
Currently, those issues are resolved in civil courts.
While some women welcome the introduction of Islamic law, others fear
it will lead to restrictions on their personal freedom and civil rights
similar to the theocracy that rules in neighboring Iran.
“Muslim women are going to suffer if the civil courts are completely
abolished,” said Annam Al-Soltany, a lawyer and a member of the
Progressive Women’s League, an Iraqi group lobbying for constitutional
reforms benefiting women.
“The civil law offers women more protection, but Iraq is a very
religious society, and many people, including women, want Islamic laws
and Islamic courts.”
While it’s impossible to know how opinion splits on the issue, it
is not difficult to find women who want strict Islamic law and are willing
to speak out about it.
“Islamic law will give women far more protection than the civil
law,” said Boushra Hassan, a 31-year-old who founded Batool Cultural
House for Women in the Kadhimiya section of Baghdad. “Mankind created
the civil laws, but God created mankind and the Islamic laws, so it stands
to reason that the Islamic laws are superior.”
While most women at the center say they are devout Muslims and followers
of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the revered Shiite cleric with close
ties to Iran, they also want the new Iraqi government to include some
democratic reforms rather than simply adopt stringent Islamic society
like their eastern neighbor.
At the Iraq Women’s Union in the nearby Mansour neighborhood, women
draped in black abayas, the traditional billowing garment, and hajibs,
or headscarves, operate sewing machines to earn extra money for their
families, while others learn to read and write.
Najat Ahmed, 36, one of the women overseeing the union, said she embraces
Islamic law, but hopes for more freedoms in Iraq’s fledgling democracy.
“Women are precious, like pearls, and God wants to protect us, so
he commands we cover ourselves in the abaya like a shell around the pearl,”
Ahmed says. “But women must have the freedom to choose how they
want to dress according to their own beliefs -- no government should dictate
how they dress.”
Mauren Dowed, a 28-year-old Assyrian Christian who runs a supermarket
in central Baghdad and wears Western-style clothes, says it is difficult
for her to walk along the streets of the Iraqi capital without hearing
disparaging remarks from men.
She said she is less concerned about possible restrictions on dress and
more anxious about legislation limiting women in the workforce. “Wearing
a piece of fabric is not difficult, but it would be hard if I couldn’t
work in public,” Dowed said.
Al-Soltany, the lawyer with the Progressive Women’s League, argues
that a verse in the Quran clearly states women are inferior to men, and
that alone will make it nearly impossible for women to receive fair treatment
before a Muslim judge in an Islamic court.
