Pada zaman Nabi Muhammad, wanita memang diposisikan dilindungi, karena kultur bias gender, condong pada hegemoni kaum lelaki. Maka anjuran bernada wajib adalah wanita muslimah gak boleh menikah denga pria non muslim. Ini secara antropologi atau sosiologi merupakan strategi budaya yang tepat.
Bagaimana dengan situasi sekarang di mana kaum perempuan tidak lagi dimarginalkan ? Tentunya strategi budaya melarang seperti itu kurang relevan. Bukan berarti larangan itu ketinggalan zaman, namun kalau kita memahami context zaman maka kita bisa memahami strategi budaya tsb.
Cuma kalau dibawah ke ranah fiqh menjadi debatable karena cara pandang beragam.
Wassalam
Abdul Mu'iz
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-----Original Message-----
From: Dwi Soegardi <soegardi@gmail.com>
Sender: wanita-muslimah@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 17:56:39
To: <wanita-muslimah@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: wanita-muslimah@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [wanita-muslimah] Muslim women in a marriage bind
Muslim women in a marriage bind
Muslim women in a marriage bind:
Stigma, shame, anger and rejection are among the consequences faced by
Muslim women in Canada who marry non-Muslim men
===
Problem:
Muslim women face conflict with their religion, families and Canada's
multicultural ethos because of this devastating formula:
1. Islam expects all Muslims to marry.
2. Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men. (*)
3. Muslim men can (and do) marry non-Muslim women.
4. Therefore, there is a shortage of unmarried Muslim men.
Solution?
(*) ".. Statistics Canada census data shows that roughly 30 per cent
of Canadian Muslim women marry non-Muslim men."
===
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/05/30/muslim-women-in-a-marriage-bind/
Note: Multi-faith Metro Vancouver is a place of high rates of
intermarriage and inter-ethnic dating. With Muslims now comprising the
second largest religion in Canada, I'm re-posting this piece in
response to interest from non-Muslim men and women who are finding
themselves falling for Muslims. And vice versa. DT
Vancouver Sun ARCHIVES
Saturday, Oct. 4, 1997
Column: Douglas Todd
The murder this week by Muslim fundamentalists of 11 women in Algeria
who refused to wear veils was another shocking example of how the
struggle between religious fundamentalism and gender equality can play
out in some authoritarian Islamic countries.
The consequeneces for Muslim women in Canada who choose not to adhere
to the strict tenets of their faith are less severe, certainly less
violent, but they still exist, especially when the issue is marriage.
Like tens of thousands of Canadian Muslims, Amina Ali is tormented by
her religion's marriage rules. Islam, now the second largest religion
in Canada, teaches that it is sinful for Muslim women, but not Muslim
men, to marry outside the faith.
The 36-year-old Indonesian-born Ali loves her Canadian-born husband –
but they argue about religion all the time. And in her more fiery
moments, Ali admits, she has told her husband she never would have
married him if she knew he wasn't going to seriously try to practise
Islam.
Ali and another Muslim woman, Tannis (a pseudonym), agreed to talk
about the Muslim marriage double-bind in a Victoria apartment, while
their children played in the background.
Barefoot in a green polka-dot dress, Ali is a vivacious, naturally
outgoing person. She moved to the Vancouver Island city after marrying
her geologist husband, Retno Buckley, while he was working in
Indonesia.
Her spirited personality helps explain why she has become one of the
rare Muslim women, even in Canada, willing to speak about the marriage
pressure her religion creates on women.
"I feel I have to tell the truth now. My husband says, `Tell the
truth.' But sometimes it's so hard for me."
Muslim women face conflict with their religion, families and Canada's
multicultural ethos because of this devastating formula:
1. Islam expects all Muslims to marry.
2. Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men.
3. Muslim men can (and do) marry non-Muslim women.
4. Therefore, there is a shortage of unmarried Muslim men. That means
many Muslim women don't marry at all, which is against the teachings
of their religion. Or they marry non-Muslim men, which Islam judges a
grave sin.
Professor Yvonne Haddad, a prominent Islamic scholar at the University
of Massachussets, says that Canadian census figures, which are far
more detailed than U.S. census data, reveal the extent of the marriage
threat to North America's roughly two million Muslim women.
Statistics Canada census data shows that roughly 30 per cent of
Canadian Muslim women marry non-Muslim men, says Haddad.
About half of those women marry non-Muslim men who either convert or,
like Ali's husband, suggest to mosque imams they intend to, but don't
follow through, Haddad says.
The other half marry non-Muslim men, and live with the consequences.
"That means 15 per cent of Canadian Muslim women, and probably a
higher percentage in the U.S., are living in sin," says Haddad.
"In the Middle East, a woman who does that might be killed. There have
been cases. People pretend it doesn't exist, but it's a reality."
About half of Muslim women in Canada marry non-Muslim men who either
convert or suggest to mosque imams they intend to, but don't follow
through. The other half marry non-Muslim men, and live with the
consequences. "That means 15 per cent of Canadian Muslim women … are
living in sin," says Prof. Haddad.
Women would not dare discuss the marriage bind in hard-line Muslim
countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh or Afghanistan,
where fundamentalists have interpreted Islamic teaching to mean single
Muslim women must be flogged if found alone alone with a man, a raped
woman is unfit for marriage and female writers must face death threats
for saying religious laws don't give women full rights.
In Canada, the U.S. and Europe, the repercussions for women who marry
non-Muslims are less brutal than in many Muslim countries, but they're
still serious. They include stigma, shame, anger and often separation
from the extended family.
Tannis says she worries she may have offended Allah by marrying a non-Muslim.
The anguish and uncertainty of the marriage double-bind for the East
African-raised Tannis is even stronger than it has been for Ali.
Tannis wedded a non-Muslim Canadian in 1992. The marriage is barely
working out.
"I remember God telling me: `Don't marry a non-Muslim.' But I did,"
Tannis says, dejection crossing her broad, handsome 27-year-old face.
"I was doing my best. I prayed for him to become a Muslim. But it
didn't happen because he was in a difficult time. I was feeling
regret: Why did I do it?' I was freaking out. But he's got a good
heart. I'm feeling calmer now."
Children are the crux of the Muslim law against women marrying outside
the faith. Islam teaches that Muslim identity is transferred through
the father. That makes it all right for Muslim men to marry non-Muslim
women, because they don't pass on the faith.
Although other religions, such as Judaism and Catholicism, also tend
to frown on intermarriage, the stigma against it in North America is
not that strong. In North America, more than half of the marriages
involving Catholics or Jews are intermarriages, compared to roughly
one-quarter of the marriages involving Muslims.
RELATED: Vancouver's Muslim community anything but monolithic
Which ethnicities do white men and women like to date? Study
Why do Canadians resist intermarriage?
Rabbi advises against marrying outside religion
Due to high immigration, Islam has recently surpassed Judaism to
become the second-largest religion in Canada, according to Hassan
Hamdani, a Muslim who is also a Statistics Canada researcher. Islam
has more than 400,000 adherents in Canada (about 10 per cent of them
in B.C.), while Judaism has about 360,000 adherents.
But Canada's Muslim population remains a small fraction of the world's
1.2-billion Muslims – who range from a minority who emphasize
individual liberty, including freedom of religious practice, to the
large majority who more rigorously adhere to sharia, or Muslim law.
Simon Fraser University Islamic history professor William Cleveland
says it would be hard to find an immigrant Muslim woman from the
Middle East who would marry a non-Muslim. The only Muslims in Canada
who would dare intermarry are Canadian-born or from countries,
including some in Asia and Africa, that interpret Muslim doctrine less
absolutely.
Alexandra Bain, who teaches Islamic art at the University of Victoria,
says the pressure to marry a Muslim man creates an additional danger
for Muslim women in Canada. Desperate for a Muslim man to marry, they
look offshore for husbands. That leaves them vulnerable to being taken
advantage of by men who marry only to gain landed-immigrant status,
says Bain, a Canadian of French descent who converted to Islam when
she was a teenager
Bain says her marriage to a Muslim man from Eritrea ended up on the
rocks – not necessarily because of immigration issues, but because he
was too bound by his culture's strict interpretation of Islamic law,
including those regarding women.
"I love the religion with all my heart, but I don't like that the
women don't have choice," Bain says.
Most of the Muslims who have immigrated to Canada in the past decade
are ultra-orthodox, says Bain. The newcomers are making things hard
for the relatively tiny number of Canadian-born Muslims, many of whom
have become more open to intermarriage. The new ultra-orthodox
immigrants, Bain is finding, are dominating Canadian mosques and
clamping down on any moves toward greater freedom.
While the Muslim women sip tea and watch their children play on the
patio, Tannis listens to Ali talking about how her parents in
Indonesia don't yet know that her husband has not bothered to follow
Muslim practice since they moved to Canada seven years ago.
To get married, Ali's husband had to recite the shahada – "There is no
God but God" and "Mohammed is the Messenger of God" – an act that is
considered the essence and beginning of being a Muslim.
But, as with many men who make gestures of converting to Islam at the
time of their marriage, the commitment of Ali's husband to Islam did
not last. Muslim community members are now constantly asking Ali why
her husband does not attend mosque.
"I have had to cover for him all the time." Ali believes they are
judging her. And she realizes it will get worse when her story appears
in print. But Ali is not too fretful because she knows her husband has
faith in God. And she believes only God, on Judgment Day, can truly
know what is in a person's heart.
Despite the evidence, official Muslim representatives deny that many
Muslim women struggle in a marriage quagmire.
Sister Zuleika Hussein, official women's representative at the Sunni
Muslim mosque in Richmond, claims she doesn't know of any Muslim woman
in Greater Vancouver who has married outside the faith. "It's a
serious sin," she says.
Hussein, an immigrant from British Guyana, admits she knows of Muslim
women who fall in love with non-Muslim men. But she insists the men
always convert and turn into devout Muslims.
Hussein says the different marriage rules for Muslim men and women
come out of the Koran. Koran 2.21 says Muslim men and women cannot
marry non-Muslims. Koran 5.5 , however, adapts the rule to say it is
lawful for Muslim men to marry
"There is a lot of heartache," says the president of the Canadian
Muslim Women's Association. She adds that imams won't talk to
non-Muslims about difficulties followers have with marriage.
virtuous Christian or Jewish women. Since the Koran is silent on
whether women get the same privilege, Muslim sharia has declared women
do not.
Fehmida Khan, president of the Canadian Muslim Women's Association,
explains that Muslim imams and other religious officials won't talk to
non-Muslims about difficulties followers have with marriage.
"They're only there to give the rules and regulations," says Khan, an
India-born businesswoman living in Ontario who calls herself a Muslim
community leader, as opposed to religious leader.
"There is a lot of heartache if a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim," Khan said.
"The family will want to keep it quiet. They won't take the same
pleasure as they would in a religious marriage. Some grandparents
might start by saying, `I'm never going to see my daughter or
grandchild."'
Khan, despite her willingness to admit to problems in Muslim culture,
acknowledges she is caught between Muslim tradition and Canadian
multicultural attitudes that are open to intermarriage.
But she still opposes it. Her grown children aren't married. And she
frets about who they may hook up with. She is trying hard not to
interfere.
At least, Khan says, Muslims won't excommunicate a woman who marries
outside the faith. So there is always a chance for reconciliation.
"I know people who have married non-Muslims and the family has rallied
after several years when they realize they are losing out on the
children."
One of the main reasons Khan continues to oppose intermarriage is her
conviction that a Muslim marriage is much more likely to overcome
domestic troubles.
Tannis, despite defending her decision to marry a non-Muslim,
acknowledges that stresses increase when children don't have a Muslim
religious upbringing. When she sees aimless street kids in Vancouver,
Tannis prays that her children won't end up like them. "I want them to
get away from that through religion."
As for Ali, she still feels she and her husband can make a go of it,
despite their disagreements over religion. But she also feels blessed
that her children have been given the ultimate escape hatch from the
marriage predicament facing Muslim women.
She's very happy her children are both boys.
"I was so scared they'd be girls."
LEVELS OF INTOLERANCE
The challenges for Muslim women who want to marry echo throughout
world. This is Conservative Peer Baroness Warsi, who was named
Britain's most powerful Muslim Woman
In Canada, foreign-born Muslims are much more opposed to intermarriage
than Canadian-born Muslims – and they make up the vast majority of
Muslims in Canada.
Only about four per cent of foreign-born Muslim women in Canada will
intermarry, says Hassan Hamdani, a Muslim researcher who studies
Muslim demographics through his job with Statistics Canada in Ottawa.
But evidence of second-generation Muslims embracing Canadians'
openness to intermarriage is strong, Hamdani says. Almost 40 per cent
of Canadian-born Muslim families consist of a Muslim wife and
non-Muslim husband.
Regardless of whether one opposes intermarriage or approves of it,
there is substance to Muslim leaders' fears that children raised in an
intermarried family could be lost to the Islamic fold.
Roughly 77 per cent of Canadian children raised by a Muslim mother and
non-Muslim father do not count themselves Muslim (the Muslim drop-out
rate is 60 per cent of children raised by a Muslim father and
non-Muslim mother).
By contrast, when both Canadian parents are Muslims, Hamdani's study
suggests 99 per cent of their children maintain a commitment to the
religion.
(Feature photo by Baba Steve / of two women by Zanini H. / close-up by rosmary)
------------------------------------
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