Sometimes their prevailing identity is European, sometimes, the Moslem, inherited from their parents.
The choice must be made several times every day. Myself, when at home preparing dinner for the family, I have to choose between spaghetti with tomato sauce and, pilaf rice with meat and vegetables; at a restaurant, the option is between non-alcoholic beer and red wine; in front of the mirror, between miniskirts and wide trousers; switching on the stereo, the choice is between Persian music and Vasco Rossi.
If I were a practicing Moslem, some choices would not even be necessary because I would naturally avoid them for religious reasons, e.g. alcohol and miniskirts. For many hybrids such decisions can be difficult and imply a waste of energy. In this context, Islam can be of great help because - just like other religions – it tells the faithful observer what to eat, drink, wear and listen to. Religion makes the choice for you and in a certain sense, makes life easier.
The attitude of the immigrants towards religion and, in particular, their eventual intransigence, directly interests the European governments. In fact, who of us can forget Muhammad Atta, the head of the September 11th attack in 2001? He was a son of a known Egyptian lawyer, an engineering graduate, resident in Hamburg and apparently integrated into the German society. In his case, to trigger such homicidal folly had not resulted from any sort of deprivation, but rather a gradual realization of personal involvement and responsibility. The same might be said of the March 11th attack in 2004: to blow up a commuter train in the Madrid station of Atocha, were Moroccans of second generation.
In the first place, we must keep clearly in mind how some decisions of the European governments can appear irreconcilable with the Moslem way of life. Let us think, as an example, of homosexual marriages in Spain, unions which are inconceivable in the Islamic States. Egypt, for instance, puts homosexuals in gaol. On the other hand, there can be Moslem citizens living in European countries who are favourable to the promulgation of laws which recognize polygamy.
Having made this premise concerning the Moslem presence in Europe, let us now look at the condition of the woman in the Islamic countries. The differences are many and depend principally on the social class and of the milieu, urban or rural, and of the cultural level. The ladies of the upper-classes of Casablanca and Teheran, for this very reason, share much more between themselves in this environment than they could share with their contemporaries living in the Moroccan or Iranian countryside. Another important fact is the level of education: in a family where both parents have graduated, much more attention will be given to providing a higher education for all the offspring, both male and female.
There are about one billion and two hundred million Moslems. If the women are about half of this population, i.e. six hundred million, we cannot consider them an homogenous component of society.
Furthermore, the Arab world represents only 15 % of the Moslem universe, even if Arabic is the language in which the Koran was revealed.
Some could advance the hypothesis that the Moslem religion and culture constitute a common denominator, but this statement is not confirmed in reality: there is not a unique Islam; on certain themes, the interpretation of the Koran finds different applications from country to country.
The veil is a clear example of the existing differences in the Moslem world. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”: In Tunisia and Turkey the veil is forbidden in public places; In Iran, the Ayatollah have imposed a uniform made of long trousers, an overcoat and a foulard that leaves only the face and hands uncovered; in the Gulf countries, women let only their eyes be seen; in Taliban Afghanistan, as in the Pakistani town of Peshawar, the burke is the imposed dress for all women who wish to go outside of their houses, in a society where only the ancient tribal laws prevail.
Other substantial differences can be found in the family rights.Let us begin from the right to divorce: a subject which is in continual evolution, as the Mudawana demonstrates. This means to say that the reform put into effect in Morocco in February 2004, to guarantee more rights to women and to hinder polygamy, is now permitted only with the authorization of the first wife. Marriages of young women under the age of 18 are no longer permitted, husbands must appeal to tribunals if they want to reject the wives; also women can ask for divorce and are no longer legally obliged to obey their husbands.
The family rights reform in Morocco has had direct beneficial consequences for minors because it concedes the family habitation to the consort who obtains, from the judge, the custody of the children. Criticised by the conservative clergy for the new legislation, King Mohammed VI replied by explaining that the new legislation is in line with the Koran principles. For a true reform, it will be necessary, however, to amend the penal code, according to which, women are still considered, in the eyes of the law, at the same level as minors.
The variety in the legislations of the Islamic countries are partially a consequence of colonialism: after independence in 1956, in Tunisia, the President Habib Bourguiba, married to a French woman and in power for 30 years until 1987, borrowed the constitution and the civil code from those of the colonizers. Modernity was a priority and the improvements in the conditions of women was an important step ahead. For this reason, today, the women of this country of Maghreb can have abortions at their discretion, even against the husband’s will (1) .
Unfortunately, Moslem women are victims of stereotypes. In the eyes of the West, they have no political rights, neither can they study or work. The reality is not so gloomy: with reference to political rights in Iran, a country which is so criticized and included, by G.W. Bush, in the ‘evil’ axis, the women have had the right to vote since 1963. Much ahead of Switzerland where, in some cantons, the women could go to the polls, only 11 years later in 1974.
Regarding studies; statistics show a growing rate of literacy in the greater number of the Islamic countries, while work is not a free choice for many Moslems, as it is for women of other religions or laywomen, but a duty to keep themselves and their families.
In the Italian public opinion, stereotypes have recently been reinforced, following the publication of the volume “Non sottomessa” (Not subjugated) (Einaudi 2005), by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to whom is also owed the film “Submission”, of the Dutch director, Theo Van Gogh, assassinated last November by a Moroccan man, naturalized in Holland. More than the assassination, the woman’s tortured body with whip lashes and Koranic verses imprinted on the skin, has offended many believers, also in Italy. Among those, the once Tunisian model Afef Tronchetti Provera and the Palestinian television announcer, Rula Jebreal, have expressed their disgust in the Corriere della Sera and in the TV show Porta a Porta, directed by the RAI journalist, Bruno Vespa. Both women stated that they were not practicing Moslems.
Born in Somalia, Hirsi Ali emigrated with the family to Saudi Arabia. An absent father, a mother cold and detached. She suffers the female genital mutilation, is given in marriage against her will and rebels and flees to Holland. A dramatic story, manipulated in Italy by part of the political right to distort the message that the Dutch member of parliament had tried to diffuse: in her articles, Hirsi Ali denounced the bad treatment suffered by the Moslem women in their land and in countries of emigration, but the “Lega” used the film “Submission” to throw mud on Islam and on the immigrants of Moslem faith.

Hirsi Ali has a terrible personal story, but she must not become a symbol and not even the thirteen million Afghani women (the total Afghani population is 26 million) compelled to cover themselves with the ‘burka’, must become a symbol. Not all Moslem women are treated badly and, as the Amnesty International reports demonstrate, violence against women is not only a prerogative of the Islam religion. In Spain, for instance, that organization for the defence of human rights, estimates that about two million women are victims of domestic violence, but less than 2% have the courage to denounce their aggressors (2) .
Violence against women is a phenomenon shared also by the Moslem world, where the problem is aggravated by the lack of adequate sanctions that could act as a deterrent.
However, there exist positive examples also in the Moslem world; women who have had or still have, prominent positions in politics: the Pakistani Benazir Ali Butto, fifty-two years old, has been the first lady to have been the Premier in a Moslem country, from 1988 to 1990 and then from 1993 till 1996. In July 2001, the Indonesian Parliament dismissed President Wahid, accused of corruption and incompetence, to replace him with the vice-president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, a woman in charge until 2004, when former General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won the second turn of the presidential elections, in what is, with 225,3 million inhabitants, the third most numerous democracy in the world.
Moslem women have prominent roles also in the civil society of their countries. The Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel prize for Peace, the 10th of October 2003. Hers is not an isolated case and, in fact, her colleague Mahrangiz Kar, two years before, obtained the nomination as finalist for the prize ‘woman of the year’, granted by the Val d’Aosta Region, in cooperation with the Foreign Press Association. Other feminine figures serve in the area of the publishing industry and Shahla Laheji is a prominent representative on the literary scene in Teheran and to her is owed, among other things, the publication, in the Persian language, of the works of Pirandello.
Having said this, Moslem women have, however, a series of problems due to both the economic difficulties and to the imposition of the sharia (Islamic law) in some countries, above all, regarding family rights, on which I should like to dwell for a moment.
In Islam, the family is the only group based on blood relationship recognized by the Islamic laws, in an attempt to remove the question far from the tribal solidarity diffused on the peninsula at the time of Mohammed. Matrimony is a contract recognized by civil law and reveals traces of the ancient custom of buying a wife: the bridegroom concludes the contract with the woman’s legal guardian and commits himself to pay the mahr (nuptial gift, dowry or price of the bride) directly to the future wife instead of to the guardian ,as was the custom in the pre-Islamic epoch.
Two witnesses are necessary to marry. The guardian (wali) is the nearest male relative. He can give the woman in marriage against her will, if she is under-age, but when she becomes of age, she has the right of withdrawing from the marriage.
Some scholars affirm, however, that this right of recession is denied if she was given in marriage by her father or grandfather. The mahr can be a deterrent to divorce if it is not paid at the moment of the stipulated contract. The Koran lists the persons mahran with whom one has blood ties (or ties of receiving the same breast milk, when one has shared the same wet-nurse) and, consequently, with whom marriage is not permitted. Furthermore, the Koran sanctions polygamy: a man can marry up to four women, concubines aside. Under certain conditions, in Iran, it is, furthermore, lawful to stipulate temporary marriages.
Regarding the family relations, the husband’s power is ample and includes a limited right to correction. He can forbid the wife to leave the house and even limit her contacts with her relatives. The disobedient wife can loose the right to her maintenance. Women have the right to refuse to accompany her husband on a journey and to also deny permission to her sons. The Koran obliges the spouse to accomplish her conjugal duties and the husband to keep the wife according to the social status.
In Islam, the shared ownership of property within a marriage does not exist, in the western sense. If the wife has her own wealth, as inherited from her father, for example, or her income from work, she is not obliged to share it with the husband. But the Koran recites:” If the wife wants you to participate in her wealth, rejoice in it with pleasure”. As previously stated, keeping in mind that the majority of the Moslem states are Third World countries, for the women is not an option, but a duty.
In Islam, divorce is a male prerogative which man exercises by rejection. The Koran envisages a deterrent in case of abuse of this practice: if the husband rejects the wife three times, he will be able to reconcile with her only after she has got married to another man and the marriage has been consummated. The woman can ask for divorce if the husband is ill, impotent or unable to keep her. After divorce, the woman must respect the ‘idda , which means a period of legal retirement before she can marry again: four months and ten days for a free woman, half this if she is a slave, or until the birth of the child, if she is pregnant.
The daughter inherits half of the wealth that a son would inherit, but if she is married, she has already received her dowry; if she is not married, the male relatives have the obligation to maintain her. The Islamic law also discriminates against the woman regarding the legal practice of giving evidence or testifying: the witnessing of the female is accredited half the valued of the witnessing of the male. This is because she is considered incompetent, especially in the area of trade and commerce – a subject which the Koran treats at length – despite the fact that Khadija, the wife of the Prophet, was a rich tradeswoman. Today, in some countries, the witnessing of a woman is just as valuable as that of a man, for instance in the medical field, provided, of course, that she is competent. However, in Pakistan, the witnessing of women and children in a case of rape, has no value, whatsoever.
Further discrimination is experienced with the ‘price of blood’, which means the compensation due to a victim’s family in case of murder: the family and relatives can accept the ‘price of blood’ instead of applying the law of retaliation. In the case of a murdered woman, the “price of blood” is half with respect to the sum evaluated for a male member of that same family. In the Iranian Parliament, at the moment, there is an on-going debate to equalize the “blood price” and Shirin Ebadi maintains – together with other Iranian women - that the women of the Islamic republic have a fundamental role in the society and in the country’s economy and for such reason their lives must be just as valuable as those of the men.
Let us now go on to the custody of children, a matter which is handled in different ways, from country to country. In Shiite Iran, the males stay with the mother until they are two years old, the females, until they are 7 years old. Recent law permits mothers to keep her children for a longer period, in the interest of the minors, but if the mother remarries, they are taken away.
The matter is in continual evolution: at one time, in the case of the father’s death, the children had to go to live with the father’s relatives but during the Iran-Iraq war, the widows were permitted the right to raise their children and to receive the benefit of the husband’s salary, without interference from the family of the deceased. This right, acquired by the war widows of the 1980’s, is now guaranteed to all women who lose their husbands.
In the Sunnite world, the rights of the mother on her children prevail – in theory –over those of the father: in the case of male children, the mother can raise them until they are 7 – 9 years of age, while, for the female children, the mother can keep them with her until they become of age. The following are some examples. A divorced Saudi woman, usually, takes her children to her father’s house. A Syrian divorcee who has a house and does not remarry, has the right to keep sons until they are nine and daughters until they are eleven. Usually, however, it is the man who owns the house of habitation and manages to convince the judges to give them custody of the minors.
An Egyptian woman usually obtains custody of the children, unless the husband can prove that she is not adequate or if she remarries. Furthermore, the 1956 constitution, guarantees the woman who is pregnant or nursing infants, one hour of rest a day, a maternity indemnity and the possibility of temporary retirement, with no salary, up to a maximum of three years. The Tunisian tribunal evaluates each case individually.
In Algeria the custody of the children is general given to the mother and fathers have the right to visit; when the boys are ten, they go to the father, while girls stay with the mother until marriage; in case of death of the father, the Algerian widows have the automatic custody of the children.
In the Moslem world, even if the mother obtains custody of the children, it is almost impossible for her to obtain alimony from her ex-husband. If it is not possible to speak about equality between man and woman and consequently of equal rights between husband and wife within the family, the principal reason is to be imputed to the enormous obstacles in the amendment of the laws.
The source of the law, in fact, is God: the Koran is the word of God, consequently, it cannot be amended.
In our analysis about the feminine condition, we come, now, to the case of Iran, particularly interesting because of the historical regression during the course of the second half of the 20th century. With the Family Protection Act in 1967, the Shah gave more rights to women, for instance, regarding marriage. The family Protection Act was improved in 1975, but the clerical opposition vehemently reacted, accusing the regime of decadence. In 1979, Iran was shaken by the Islamic Revolution.
The very day after seizing power, Khomeini introduced severe measures against women: the 26th February 1979 announced the abrogation of the Family Protection Act. The 3rd of March, he forbade women to hold the office of judge, three days later women were obliged to wear the hejab at work. In occasion of the woman’s feast, the 8th of March 1979, Iranian women protested against the imposition of the veil and asked Prime Minister Bazargan to intervene, but the hezbollah militia men attacked the demonstrators. The 28th of the same month, Khomeini announced the separation of women on the beaches and in sports events.
The ayatollah Khomeini, however, could not cancel the women’s right to vote, which was already well rooted in history, or impede their access to University. Founded in 1934 by Reza Shah, the University of Teheran has been open to both sexes from the beginning. It might appear strange, but it will be the Islamic Republic to grant Iranian women those rights which – to read certain articles in the Italian press – it seems to have denied them.
For instance, since 1984, Iranian women have been able to start divorce proceedings. Ten years later, a further liberalization was introduced, in 1988, a national programme for birth planning was started and since the end of the 1980’s, women have had better opportunities in higher education and in the business field. Today, in Iran, 63% of the first year university students are women.
If Iran is the expression of the 12th period of the Shiite religion and it is considered a potentially dangerous country, Saudi Arabia is, then, an American ally and professes the Sunnite Wahhabita Islam. Up to February 2005, when municipal elections were organized, in Saudia Arabia, only men over the age of 2l could go to the polls.
Furthermore, a high percentage of the women, in the kingdom, hold a research doctorate degree, but it is almost impossible for them to put their knowledge into practice. Since February, 2005, we have the news that the Saudi Minister of foreign Affairs has invited women to present their candidature for positions, and of a young woman hired by a wealthy prince, to pilot one of his private jets. The young woman obtained her pilot licence in Jordan, but in her village of birth, she is not authorized to drive her own car to work.
For years, Moslem women have been trying to improve their position and the Islamic feminism, understood as a “feminine discourse specifically contained within the Islamic paradigm”, is a consequence of their struggle.
The term Islamic feminism emerged in the 1990’s, in the writings of the Iranian women Afsneh Najamabadeh and Ziba Mir – Hosseini, who explain the birth and the utilization of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the journalists of the monthly review “Zanan” (women) founded by Shala Sherkat in 1992 (3) .
The Saudi scholar Mai Yamami has used this term in her book “Feminism and Islam” as well as the Turkish journalists, Yesim Arat and Feride Acar in their articles.
What is the Islamic feminism? According to the erudite Margot Badran, the starting point is that the Koran states the principle of equality of all human beings, but in practice, such equality has been and, today, still is hindered by the patriarchal system.
The priority of the Islamic feminism is, therefore, to go directly to the Koran, the fundamental sacred text, to recuperate its equalitarian message.
The Islamic feminism methodology is the interpretation of the religious sources (ijthad) and the Koran (tafsir) to which can be added history, literary criticism, sociology, anthropology, and the other disciplines, which, in some way, could be of assistance.
Islamic feminism, as Badran rightly adds, can be of particular help to the second generation Moslem women who live in western communities of Diaspora and in the minority Moslem communities. It is, in fact, these women, who find themselves caught between the “practices and rules of the original culture of their parents, emigrated from the Middle East or from the South Asian countries, and the way of life of their new countries.
Islamic feminism helps these women to disentangle religion from the patriarchal system; giving them an Islamic way of understanding the meaning of equality in general, social opportunities and their own potential” (4) .