Universal Islam and the Muhajabat
Part III: The last essay in a trilogy on Syria's female fundamentalists.

By Ayman Hakki MD
www.middleastforum.com

Scholars agree that Mohammad’s Islam drew its power from its "Universalist" nature. In spite of their internecine bickering over succession and other faults all Islamic leaders who followed Mohammad instinctively retained this critical quality. This Universalist quality allowed people from multitudes of cultures to accept Islam. At its core, Mohammad’s religion opened its doors to anyone willing to make a simple declaration of faith: "I proclaim that there is no god but God, and I proclaim that Mohammad is the messenger of God". It is that simple. And it is powerful. Mohammad put very few restrictions on his followers. All that he asked of us is to accept the basic truth that we are all united by the worship of God, the one and indivisible. Of course, he added a few other activities like prayer, zakat, fast, and hajj.
If you take the totality of everything that he asked of us as Muslims, it is so little that it makes it easy for everyone to join the faith. That is the beauty of Islam as a Universalist religion. Once you get past the basics and start looking for distinguishing details of Islam, I think that the key question to ask a faithful Muslim is "how do you treat your fellow human beings?" I think that is the gist of what Mohammad intended of Islamic behavior within the community.
How do Muslims treat each other and others?
Mohammad went out of his way to stress the continuity of the many prophets who preceded him from Abraham, to Moses to Jesus to Mohammad. The verse that captures this universality and inclusiveness is 3:84.
"say, we believe in God and in what has been revealed to us
and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismail,
Isaac, Jacob and the tribes,
and in the Book given to Moses, Jesus,
and the Prophet from the Lord:
We make no distinction between one and another among them,
and to God do we bow our will"
And several other Quranic verses support the attitude of tolerance and acceptance such as s 109:6 "to you your religion, to me mine". This is in addition to the well known verse 2:256 "There can be no coercion in religion". This provides ample evidence of the "universalist" and tolerant message.
On the other side of the coin you have what I call the "exclusivists". These are the people who define religion so narrowly that it excludes just about everyone who does not subscribe to their narrow definition of true faith. Among the exclusivists are those who insist on wearing the Hijab and consider everyone else who doesn’t to be non-Muslim. The same applies to other so called vices like drinking alcohol, enjoying music, wearing bathing suits, women driving cars…etc.
Once the exclusionists become militant and belligerent in imposing their beliefs on others, I take exception to that. In the final analysis, I do not accept their infringement on mine or others personal freedom and "There is no coercion in religion" should be a constant reminder to them.
The problem with the Hijab is not in wearing it, it is in assuming that those who don't chose to do so, are not Muslims nor are they people worthy of a simple handshake, and it is the pitfall of an exclusionary identity. This idea came to me last month as I attended a ceremony honoring a Syrian woman (Hind) for her efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. Mark, her partner in this unusual effort, is a Rabbi and a professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Hind is a remarkable lady, a Christian, a Syrian Nationalist and a patriot who is not afraid to reach out and embrace Jews just as she embraces Muslims and Islam. She gets teary-eyed when she talks about how she felt toward an Afghan woman whom she met. I realized that I share nothing with her except for our common Islamic culture. She said she realized right there that Islam may not be her religion but Muslim Civilization is her heritage because she is an Arab and a Syrian.
What all this has to do with the Hijab may still not be clear. But some people relate to the inclusiveness of Hind and can easily contrast it to the exclusiveness shown by the young Muhajabeh who refused to shake my eighty year old mom's hand. I have started with an example of what is good; good is a Christian who defines herself as a proud follower of Jesus and a woman who is a member of Mohammad's tribe. Mark is also remarkable, a Jew and a Rabbi who is working fervently on promoting peace between Syria and Israel. He has gone to Syria and spoke at a Mosque filled with Iraqi refugees as an American Jew. He apologized to the thousands assembled for what the US had done. When I asked Mark how can Israel remain exclusively Jewish if it achieves peace and Jews are engulfed in a sea of eligible young Syrian men and women? He said it depends on how Jews define themselves. Jews lived in Syria for thousands of years by defining who "they are"; and they were welcomed. The problem with some Jews in today's Israel is that they define themselves by who "they are not." They say we are not Arabs, and that's bad. Bad is anyone who defines himself by what he is not.
Now let's go back to Muslim Women and the Hijab, if the Hijab is a source of religious pride and helps a woman define who she is... that is fine. But when a Muhajabeh refuses to shake my mom's hand because she thinks she's Christian (she defines herself as not a Christian)…then that is bad.
The Hijab is clearly a way Syrian women today are identifying who they are and how one defines one's identity is the key here. Randa is a Muhajabeh who reaches out and shakes hands with Christians and Jews alike, Hind is a Christian who extends her divinely inspired love to Muslims and Jews, Mark is a Jew who also reaches out to Muslims and Christians alike. The three mentioned all do it while being very proud of who they are, and while remaining true to their religion. Contrast this with a Wahabi Muslim, a Meir Kahane Jew and a Billy Graham Jr. Christian…and you'd see where I think the problem lies: it is in the Hijab's exclusionary identity.