Introduction
In the book Do Muslim Women Need Saving?, Lila Abu-Lughod (2015) examines the extravagant language of rescue and liberation used by Western media and human rights activists in portraying Muslim women to justify military invasion and development interventions as if Muslim women are the victims of Islam that need to be rescued from its patriarchal cultures. While the book was published during the rise of veiling or burqa bans in many European countries to stop extremism and women’s rights oppression, the discussion about saving Muslim women is still relevant to the current context, particularly since the bombs in Gaza by Israel in 2023.
It is important to note that not only Western media and human rights activists who seek a justification to save Muslim women, but Western internet citizens still believe that Muslim women are forced to wear hijabs and behave according to Islam; therefore, they need to be liberated.
I found the above comment on Reddit in one of posts about Hamas, in which Western people think that Hamas forced Palestinian women to wear hijabs in Gaza; hence, the eradication of Hamas is a must as part of Muslim women’s liberation.
Interestingly, as a Palestinian-American anthropologist, Abu-Lughod (2015) provides thought-provoking critiques of Western narratives through various straightforward women’s stories in the local community in the Middle East, which powerfully unlocks the underlying truth of Muslim women’s experiences and substantially challenges the universal understanding of Muslim women’s rights. Additionally, reading her book and sharing insight about it in Tulisan Puan is relevant and important due to the current context in Palestina and to debunk the myths about Muslim women worldwide.
Powerful Questions to Western Political Narratives
I appreciate how Abu-Lughod renders her concern about Muslim women’s rights and the oppressed Muslim women that must be scrutinised by those who use those concepts (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 221). The main concern of this book is the polarity between the rights of freedom and the marginalisation resulting from those rights discourses. Hence, she raises several questions, such as ‘How does the proposition that such women live caged in their cultures undergird fantasies of rescue by the world community?’ (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 26) and ‘What presumptions are being made about the superiority of that to which you are saving her?’ (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 47). Those questions courageously challenge the international representation of Muslim women that depicts them as having no agency to liberate themselves due to the oppression of patriarchal religion. She argues that such an impression masks significant internal debate and institutional contention over justice (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 20).
The discussion on veiling in Chapter One is remarkably worth noting, considering the relevant controversy when the book was published in 2015. This chapter demonstrates how unveiling configured a strategy of civilisation in the Muslim world, using presumptions of the inferiority of local women to be saved while failing to acknowledge the long-term effects of foreign military intervention, particularly in the Afghanistan case. Her provoking questions: ‘Could we only free Afghan women to be ‘like us’, or might we have to recognise that even after ‘liberation from the Taliban, they might want different things than we would want for them?’ (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 43) reiterate her concerns that veiling or using a burqa must not be seen as a symbol of a lack of agency and unfreedom for Muslim women.
Moreover, in Chapter Two, Abu-Lughod carefully criticises best-selling books in the United States to educate the public about global women’s rights. She points out that the content of the books focuses on violence against women in the Global South but ignores the violence within [Western countries] and establishes the superiority of liberalism (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 127). She also highlights the role of pulp nonfiction in reinforcing stereotypes of violent and hyper-sexualised Muslim men, which adds fuel to Islamophobia in the West. Despite the pure intention of the publication to put the cause of women on a higher agenda, Abu-Lughod once again raises a provocative question to challenge their choice in making Muslim women a priority given all the pressing problems in the world: ‘How does this focus on global good works erase the fact that the problems that should concern us are not only “over there”? (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 62).
Finally, Abu-Lughod critiques many feminists for reinforcing stereotypes towards Muslim men in their campaigns through universal women’s rights to sexual liberation, which consequently stigmatises Muslim women for maintaining the traditional value of modesty. She argues that these women activists commercialise rights and depoliticise gender issues in a narrow way to target only men with destructive behaviours (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 156). Not only are the critiques addressed to liberal feminists in the West, but they are also intended for Islamic feminists and liberal Muslim organisations to employ identical strategies and narratives (Abu-Lughod, 2015, pp. 177–186). All of these intriguing questions and critiques steer readers to deny the rescuer’s role that reinforces narcissistic neoliberal values.
Islam as religion or Islam as a culture?
I probably felt slightly uncomfortable reading Chapter Four, which focuses on honour crime. While the author comprehensively examines the meaning of honour in the Muslim community, particularly in The Middle East and South Asia, as a form of respect for others by criticising several literature on honour killing memoirs (Abu-Lughod, 2015, pp. 117–125), she lacks evidence of how defending family honour can justify a killing event towards women and if honour killing is a Islamic phenomenon.
As she describes in the book and her previous book, Veiled Sentiment, honour is a moral code that defines social status for both men and women (Abu-Lughod, 2015, pp. 117–118). However, her arguments focus on the cultural practices in the regions rather than the interpretation of Islam as a religion. It contradicts the main idea of her book, through which she tries to challenge the narrative of Muslim women. If she wants to debunk the misleading global narratives about Muslim women, she needs to focus on the Muslims or Islam.
In other journals that I read, honour crime is a cultural practice in The Middle East and South Asia and has nothing to do with Islam (Islamiyati, 2017; Muhammad et al., 2012). The main Islamic teachings of Rahmatan Lil Alamin (the blessing of the world) instruct the Muslim community to avoid punishing other Muslims wherever possible, and if there is a way to escape punishment, let them off (Muhammad et al., 2012). In my reflection as a Javanese and Muslim woman in Indonesia, we also take pride and family honour as a priority, but it never justifies killing our family members. This is not in our culture.
On the one hand, I can understand how Abu-Lughod wants to inform the complexity of honour crime in the Middle East that Western organisations cannot use their own standard to eradicate this practice. On the other hand, I find it very challenging to guarantee that the Western community will understand the whole perspectives on why a family decided to conduct an honour crime against their daughters. As a result, when other Muslim communities, for instance, Indonesian Muslims, read this book, there would be a misleading perception towards Muslim women and Islam due to unclear explanations about the chapter.
Nevertheless, Abu-Lughod is aware of the challenges of honour crime in the Islamic world, particularly in Chapter Six when she acknowledges that Musawah and WISE (two women Malaysian organisations) argue that honour crime lies in cultures that contradict with knowledge of Islam, which is full of justice, compassion and human dignity (Abu-Lughod, 2015, p. 192).
Conclusion
Do Muslim women need saving? I definitely say NO. Muslim women do not need to be liberated as they can be their own agency to liberate themselves. However, I must acknowledge that not all Muslim women are not oppressed. Western activists, including The UN and international NGOs, need to stop homogenising Muslim women in the Global South and focus on the intersectionality lens to see women’s experiences from different backgrounds. Some Muslim women may be oppressed by ‘brown men’, but most Muslim women are oppressed by ‘white men and women’, too 🙂
Please contact Tulisan Puan at info.tulisan.puan@gmail.com if you are interested in reading the full version of the book: Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod (2015).
Reference
Abu-Lughod, L. (2015). Do Muslim women need saving? (First Harvard University Press paperback edition). Harvard University Press.
Burhanudin, J., & van Dijk, K. (2013). Islam in Indonesia. Amsterdam University Press; JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt46mwqt
Islamiyati, D. N. (2017). ISLAMIC VIEW OF HUMAN RIGHTS. International Journal of Islamic Business Ethics, 2(1), 238. https://doi.org/10.30659/ijibe.2.1.238-244
Muhammad, N., Mushtaq Ahmed, Mufti. M., Abdullah, A., Omer, F., & Hussain Shah, N. (2012). Honour Killing in Pakistan: An Islamic Perspective. Asian Social Science, 8(10), p180. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v8n10p180
