Thoughts on the Doha Debates – Yaser Birjas

Regarding my thoughts on the Doha debates, Muslim women’s right to marry whomever they wish, Sh. Yasir Qadhi, hafidhahu Allāh, was the only panelist who displayed a professional and intellectual  discussion  on the topic, away from the “my personal opinion” “my experience..”  “my concern” and “I believe so..” kind of approach that highlighted the other guests presentations. There is no doubt the motion was too broad and too vague, and perhaps it was purposely made so to serve the goal of controversy, and it did.

The Debaters

On Asra Nomani

1. If Thurayyah al-Aridi appeared to be the “mother knows best” advocate, then Asra Nomani came out wearing the mantel of the well-experienced sage and the wise who knows everything best.
2. She anticipated the theological argument underlining this issue and immediately tried to give the audience a taste of what the argument of sh. Yasir would look like.
3. She turns her face to the audience and pleas to them on emotional level, not intellectual. It was surprising to hear an academic, like Asra, in such an intellectual debate fabricates an argument in such fashion. It sounded completely pathetic and unprofessional.
4. Her argument was completely subjective to her own personal experience, an experience that sounded very disturbing. Being a victim of a failed cultural marriage does not give her an automatic authority to dictate to women how to decide on their own marriages. I believe the Qatari woman among the audience who was in support of the family consent in marriage spoke clearly against Asra’s argument.
5. Asra’s premise is that Muslim women do not enjoy happy marriages because they cannot choose, and if women have choice and they choose their husbands they will “most likely” be happy. Tim, the mod, attacked that premise right away based on the existing loveless marriages as a reality in the west. Disappointingly, I did not hear any intelligent response from her to that particular point raised by the moderator. Maybe because there weren’t any.
6. I might even ask Asra a question: What if women “choose” to delegate that right to their families and put confidence in them to help them find a good spouse, would that be a problem? If Muslim women have the choice, and they do have the choice, to exercise their Islamic right and take their parent’s consent to their choice for a husband, what wrong would be with that?
7. I tried to look up the current marital status of Asra, to see if she found the man of her choice who would guarantee her “responsible” happiness but I could not find that in her bio. In fact, what I found was astonishing. It seems that she is advocating to other women what never worked for her.
8. All agree that forcing women into marriage does exist in reality but as a cultural arrangement, which is completely irrelevant to the motion suggested. The motion speaks about Muslim women, whom we assume abide by the laws of Islam in their personal lives, not by culture. If culture was the target, then Africa, South and Central America as well as other areas in the world, where forced marriages take place, should also be included in the discussion.
9. Every time Asra was answering a difficult question, she turned to the audience, not the panelists, and started the same emotional guilt filled response, such as “I’m a mother…” “I don’t want you to go through this…” just for an example. After all it seems that mothers always know best.

On Sh. Yasir Qadhi

1. I liked the suit with the blue tie sheikh. I was just wondering, how long would it take ‘me’ if I’d ever try, to tie a tie? I have not done that since high school and I don’t know how easy is that comparing to fixing a “Shimagh”. (Shimagh, for those who don’t know, is the traditional Arab head cover worn in the gulf).
2. Jazaka’Allahu khayran for speaking to the minds of the audience not just their hearts, and for making your case straight to the point without beating around the bush. I find your thoughts showing respect to the intellect of those who watched and listened. I guess you prepared well for it.
3. The level of academic discussion over some of the technical aspects of the subject, such as the juristic part was not clear enough to the masses. Obviously, the time constraints you were operating in would not allow further clarification. I assume that part disconnected you from the audience. Nevertheless, it was well done.
4. When asked by the moderator about Muslim women in a happy marriage with a non-Muslim man, I thought identifying the issue as a sinful act in Islam would have been sufficient unless it is done out of sheer rebellion to the law of Islam. In that case, I agree people should not identify themselves with Islam at all.

On Dr. Mohammad al-Habashi

1. There isn’t much really to critique in his presentation, because I couldn’t really follow his argument very well and at some point, I even wondered if he really knew what he was talking about. I just couldn’t understand what the base of the panelist selection to this debate was. Nevertheless, I guess sh. Yasir took care of that one easily.
2. His argument did not go in line with Asra’s arguments and I was even wondering if Asra Nomani would agree to the arguments he was making. His arguments appeared to set further restrictions on women’s choice anyways.

On Thurayyah al-Aridi

1. Unless she considered herself from “al qawaa’ed minal nisaa’” –women of post menstrual age- I think she lost her credibility to talk on behalf of Muslim women when she appeared in front of everybody without the proper hijab. Some girls who asked questions wore better hijab than she did. I thought it was perplexing scene.
2. Her starting point, speaking as a person not as an expert, weakened her argument as much as it did to sh. Yasir’s as well. No one in the audience, I believe, came to listen to personal thoughts or feelings about the motion. They came to vote on an issue that required rational discussion.
3. Her argument that young ones usually judge by physical look sounded very poor and based on my personal involvement in this area, I have to disagree with her. The attraction might happen the way she suggested and that is normal and natural, but the decision of marriage is more complex than she tried to explain.

The debate in general

On choice and education

In this discussion, two issues were raised leaving us to assume that they provide happiness for Muslim women in marriage; one is the right to choose and second is their current level of education.

There is no doubt that the choice to say yes or no for a prospect was guaranteed for women by the Shari’ah. Tradition and culture on the other hand distorted this principle, and the written law and the practice of some Muslim jurists following that regional tradition have contributed further to this crisis.

Now to claim that the right to choose would bring happiness to marriage is far from being true. The dynamics of marriage are more complex than just choosing the spouse, and what matters in marriage is not just the choice itself, but the mechanism of marital life the couple choose afterwards. Advocating for women’s right to choose their husbands has already being warranted in Shari’ah, and the call for it in this debate was mere reiteration of old feminist talk not to support or oppose a juristic ruling.

Claiming that women live miserably in arranged marriages is true to certain extent, but this is right for both men and women. However, and for fairness here for every miserable couple in an arranged marriage, I can bring another couple or more who are happy in their marital life. Furthermore, there is no doubt that statistics of divorce in the west regardless of religion, prove that choice is not enough to create a happy marriage.  In traditional societies, men and women alike might waive their right of deciding on a prospect to their families, and this is their right as well, and even today there are so many highly educated people who are still following that same old tradition.

This issue of choice is being raised in this time because we believe women today have better education. This implies that the more educated the individual is, the better the choice would be, but statistics of marriage and divorce speak differently.

Many people mix between education and certification, what people get at the end of their academic career is nothing more than certification in a specific area of study. Education is the value and training the individual retains from this long process of certification. In my field of marriage training, I can testify for that easily.

There are so many young men and women who are highly educated, certified per say, but they lack the basic knowledge they need to become eligible for a happy marriage. The education they pursue in life might not even be of any value to their marital life, it only brings them personal value and self-esteem. Some admit that and some do not want to admit, they rather live in a happy state of denial. Good for them.

When it comes to marriage, those who admit their weakness in this area come and seek guidance from the least educated person in the family or circle of friends; in many cases, it is the mother. Hands down for most mothers who know how to go about these issues, after all many of them have gone through this when they themselves got married.  But mothers cannot guarantee happiness in marriage for their children. What they can do is help them with their choice on basis of preconceived notions of happiness founded on “their” culture and tradition. Therefore, education does not translate into happiness, nor does choice.

Marriage is like any other field in life, requires learning and training. The social network that once provided young men and women a blue print or a road map for marriage does not exist in many cases of marriage today. The family network that once provided men and women the practical marital life to copy from is no longer available for so many. In the past families, even here in the west, were more connected, and young ones grew up watching their parents, siblings, uncles, cousins and others marry and live their lives. They used to copy them and paste these models in their own life, that is how life went by. Today, young men and women spend more time with their friends, who are single of course, than they would do with married relatives or friends. Most young men and women stop associating with the larger family network once they hit high school. Until after graduation from college, most of their social networks consist of single friends and most of their life revolves around single life. That’s why fearing to lose freedom of single life is one common reason for singles to delay their marriages. The value of social life diminished to minimum.

One category of Muslims in the west that would most likely, not have these biases when it comes to choice and marriage, is converts or reverts. Whether because their family has already given them this choice in life, or family ties already severed, our revert brothers and sisters do not have this problem of choice. However, they still suffer from other biases in marriage than just the concept of choice itself.

On the vote itself

Not surprisingly, the vote came out in favor of the motion by two thirds. Of course, we all realize that this is not a scientific result because the conditions of this vote were not right to begin with. Even new votes on larger scales, such as the one from women in the Arab world, proved it wrong.

First of all, the motion was broad in its definition of choice and it was hard to determine from the discussion if the panelists agreed on one meaning for it or not. Even though most of the discussion was geared towards Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men, the vote still requested a conclusion on that broad meaning of choice. People were voting on different definitions, not one.

Furthermore, the audience was a mixture of both Muslims and non-Muslims and if Muslims themselves might not have the proper religious, juristic and theological education to understand the subject discussed, how do we expect the non-Muslim audience to understand it from that Islamic perspective and then to vote against it? This is just like suggesting the same audience to vote on the rule of celibacy for Catholic priests. Can you guess the result?

Probably more than 15 percent of the audience was already decided. And if we take this percentage, if not even more, out of the vote the result will be close to 50/50 if not even against the motion.

To solve this technical issue, maybe casting a vote at the beginning of the debate and then one after might give an idea for which side presented a stronger argument. Without it, there would be no way to identify how many people have understood the discussion thoroughly and then made a qualified and educated vote.