Women and Sharia
News: How will Iraqi women fare under a constitution based on Islamic law?
February 9, 2005
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Hanging out with the Sadris, the followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, is a real treat, if only because they are among the few guys who don't constantly hit on Hiba, the translator I work with. Almost across the board, when we meet lawyers, ministry officials, insurance agents — men of any shape and color, really — she gets hit on. "We" are frequently invited to unscheduled press conferences by the Ministry of Defense spokesman, who is one of her legions of admirers. I am sure I am the only journalist who gets calls from the MOD flak at eight in the evening, just wondering if my translator is around.
Anyway, it seems the pheromone that gets them going is the working-woman factor — if she's not at home, she must be loose. Hiba is married, but that doesn't seem to stop them. She tries to be polite and friendly, but it just seems to egg them on. It's an added problem because she is already a woman working in a man's world, and every time she tries to make friends with a male colleague, it seems to end with her deleting his number from her phone because he just won't stop calling.
So you can imagine Hiba's reaction as a relatively liberated Iraqi woman when it became evident that Iraq's constitution, to be hashed out over the coming months, will most likely contain more than a nod to Islamic law.
Jenan Jassim Al-Obeidy is a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the party that led the so-called "Shiite list" of candidates and has taken more than half the vote. Al-Obeidy said that they are not pushing for anything as strict as forced veiling, but rather to have sharia, Islamic law, as the code for matters of "personal status law," including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Multiple marriages would also still be allowed. Al-Obeidy, a small woman cloaked in a billowing black abbiya, or robe, the head cover of which she is forever adjusting when it slides down over her face looks slight. But when I ask, she launches into a fierce defense of the plan.
"Everything needs to be discussed, but we think people can be convinced to accept it," she says with the air of someone who is used to dealing with children (she's a pediatrician by training). She also explained certain tenets of sharia, such as why men receive twice the inheritance of women.
"The husband is obliged to spend on his wife, from her food, wearing, home. Everything he is responsible for, not here. She is not responsible for the family. This is in Islam."
Will there be separate courts for those who want to subscribe to secular law? "Well, maybe ... sure, why not?"
I know that tone of voice. It's the same tone my mother used to use when I asked for something I knew damn well I wasn't going to get.
Al-Obeidy added that those who choose not to wear a hijab should still "respect" those who do, and should cover their heads anyway if they are in the south of the country, which is known for its conservatism. I kept pressing her on what exactly "respect" meant, and what might happen to those who were not respectful, but she declined to answer. This morning, when I interviewed Adel Abdul Mehdi, the current finance minister and a top candidate for the position of prime minister, I put the same question to him. He is also a member of SCIRI, so I also asked him about the complaints that both the Badr Brigades (SCIRI's militant wing) and the Sadris had blown up liquor stores, destroyed hair salons and harassed hijab-less women. Further, in Basra musicians are not allowed to play in public and drama has been cut from schools.
"We will never be able to stop this one way or another," he said, asserting that 80 percent of the country wants Islamic law anyway.
There is opposition. Yanar Mohamed, the leader of the Women's Freedom Movement and a member of the Worker's Communist Party, is organizing demonstrations and a conference on the subject for March 8. She is also planning to visit schools and workplaces in the coming weeks to educate women about the issue. In case you were wondering, Mohamed stopped keeping track of the death threats a long time ago.
Mohamed was at the fore of the demonstrations that forced US proconsul Paul Bremer to belatedly veto order 137, which was passed by the US-appointed Interim Governing Council last year and would have enshrined some tenets of sharia then. This time, however, there is no such oversight.
"Those that are promoting the religious constitution are very well funded and very well supported, they are well-supported by the surrounding countries," Mohamed said. "The Islamic republic of Iran has supported these groups. They have the guns and they control the country's resources — we do not have the same resources to reach the millions, but we are trying to make people aware with a ripple effect, through our newspapers and through our demonstrations, that there is a movement in Iraq."
She also said that many of the people who voted for the "Shiite list" didn't know quite what they were voting for. Sistani's fatwa -- his edict commanding Shiites to go to the polls -- has been interpreted on the street to mean everything from "you don't go to heaven if you don't vote" to "you're no longer allowed to have sex with your wife if you don't vote." He never said it, but these are some popular interpretations. She also raised some articulate concerns about what sort of "democracy" last month's vote signifies.
"If all the population is scared stiff and they want a strong party that has all the militias to rule and they are scared stiff because Sistani has issued a fatwa and you will go to hell if you don't vote, they are being robbed of their political will," she said. "They don't know what happened after the Iranian revolution, when all these clerics they thought would be moderate began killing their opponents."
The Shiite holy month of mukharram (the 40 days prior to ashoura, which marks the death of Hussein) begins tomorrow, so tonight I stocked up on beer. Hamoudi, my driver, said there was a line of like-minded patrons at our favorite liquor store, which, though it is Christian-owned, will be closed throughout the holiday for fear of being attacked.
David Enders is a 24-year-old freelance journalist who has spent more than a year reporting from Iraq since the end of the invasion. His first book, Baghdad Bulletin: Dispatches on the American Occupation, will be released by the University of Michigan Press in April.
Photo: AP/Wide World Photos
