There’s much in Islam that favors women, says this scholar. As sisters in faith Muslim and Catholic women can seek out such traditions together.

The editors interview Syafa Almirzanah

Syafa Almirzanah, a professor of comparative religion at Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, could have continued her studies anywhere in the Muslim world, but she chose Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Last spring she became the first Muslim to earn a doctorate from the school.

“Dialogue is, for me, a must,” she says. “In my tradition it is the obligation of Muslims to learn from others, to get knowledge from everywhere.”

Almirzanah has been active in interreligious dialogue in both her home country of Indonesia and in the United States. She feels comfortable with Catholicism, she says, because of the many similarities between it and Islam.

One unfortunate similarity is the way scholars from both traditions have misused faith to repress women. Almirzanah hopes that by learning about the history and theology of Islam—and by participating in interreligious dialogue—Muslims will embrace more female-friendly interpretations of the religion.

“I think one of the most important things in dialogue is having the courage to criticize our own tradition. We must learn from others, then come back and look at our tradition with a new horizon,” Almirzanah says. “Learning from others enriches our traditions. We can be better Muslims and better Christians.”

What does the Qur’an have to say about women?
The Qur’an is very positive about women. In the story of Creation, women and men are created from the same cells, so usually scholars say that means that men and women are the same before God.

The problem is that different Muslims understand the Qur’an in different ways. Islam is not the monolithic religion people think it is, just as Christianity is not monolithic.

If you read the Bible, you cannot ignore the context. When God revealed himself, it was not in a vacuum. People who receive the revelation of God have different backgrounds, experiences, and contexts, so they respond to it differently.

The same is true in Islamic tradition. Some more traditional Muslims only focus on what’s written in the text and don’t pay attention to the context of the verses; other more modern Muslims look at why God revealed a particular verse and how the community at that time understood it.

The verse on polygamy, for example, says that you can marry one or two or three or four women. More fundamentalist or traditional Muslims use this verse to justify having more than one wife, but actually the verse does not stop there. It continues: “If you cannot do justice, just marry one.” They ignore that crucial part of the verse. This verse was revealed after a war, and there were a lot of widows and orphans, so men were allowed to marry multiple women in order to take care of them.

You also must look at verses in relation to other verses. The Qur’an says elsewhere that even if you wanted to, you could not do justice to more than one wife. So actually Islam and the Qur’an ban polygamy. It says if you cannot do justice, just marry one woman, but it also says you can never really do justice to more than one wife.

How were women treated during the seventh century in the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad?
This is also debatable. Scholars usually compare what it was like for women before Islam and after Islam.

Most scholars say that pre-Islamic times were worse for women. They say that before Islam men could marry more than four women. A Muslim scholar will argue that Muhammad limited polygamy and advocated the ideal marriage of one man and one woman. This is progress because some say that husbands could even sell women before Islam.

But there are also many scholars who write that before Islam women’s conditions were not really bad because they were free and had rights. One author says that before Islam a lot of women were involved in war and managed businesses. There is evidence of cultures where husbands came into their wives’ homes when they married, and the children would belong to the women’s tribe. Our Prophet’s first wife was a businesswoman, and she came from a very noble tribe, though she may be the exception.

I personally think it was almost like it is today. In certain communities where people are poor and have no access to education, of course women may not have the same opportunities as women who have rich families and live in an urban society. I can say that there were some good attitudes toward women before Islam, but Islam increased those good attitudes.

How did Muhammad treat his wives?
The first wife of the Prophet was a businesswoman. His youngest wife, Aisha, was a scholar and one of the interpreters of what the Prophet was saying. Because she was very close to the Prophet, a lot of people asked Aisha about what they should do in matters of love or matters of Sharia, or Muslim law. She also was involved in battle.

The Prophet didn’t teach that women should just stay at home. These rules were introduced by the Prophet’s companions after his death. The Qur’an gives women the right to pursue an education and be involved in worldly matters.