Savara Khan                                                                                     

Kelly McIntosh

FIQWS 10108

November 18, 2020

                                                              Women in Islam 

            The topic of Muslim women in Islam has been the center of debate for so many years due to the stereotypical perspectives that media and others propagate. Examples of those stereotypes are men and women are inequal in Islam, women are oppressed in Islam, and the headscarf worn by Muslim women, also known as a hijab, is a sign of subordination and oppression. While an accurate deduction of such claims should be withdrawn from the original sources of Islamic law the Quran and the Sunnah (the traditions or known practices of the Prophet Muhammad); most of the accusations against Islam regarding the status of women are unfounded. According to Islamic Law Research Guide (2020), the interpretation of Islamic law should ultimately be done using two types of scholarly principles only: ijma’ (consensus) and Qiyas (analogy).  In the following essay, four different articles about women in Islam will be rhetorically analyzed in order to show the diversity in opinions depending on the source of each article.

            The scholarly article, “Hijab in Islam: Liberation or Oppression from Islamic and Western Perspective” is authored by a senior research fellow at Aligarh Muslim University, Rameez Ahmad Lone. The article belongs to an academic genre that is sourced from an online academic journal. The audience the author is targeting is college students that have access to academic sources and are not educated about the hijab. To call out his audience the author stated, “While Islam views hijab as a sign of women’s empowerment, modesty, and liberation, West views it as a sign of gender oppression or women’s enslavement.”. The author’s tone of this article was informative because he studied both contradictory points of view regarding the Muslim woman’s hijab, as either a sign of oppression and discrimination versus protection or liberation, as seen by West, Europe, and Islam respectively, in an objective tone and academic way. His stance towards the controversy of the Muslim woman’s hijab is clear and unbiased as clearly stated: “This paper is primarily based on secondary data content analysis research methodology” which shows he used data for his audience to convey his purpose. The purpose of creating this article “is to make us understand what hijab is…and to stimulate our brains regarding its relation with gender liberation or oppression”. 

            Next article entitled “five myths about hijab”, is sourced from Washington Post Newspaper, a non-fiction type of genre. The authors, Ahmad and Quraishi-Landes, both Muslim law professors, misspelled some myths about one part of the heavily criticized topics regarding Muslim women: the headscarf or hijab. Given their religious and professional backgrounds, the authors clarify some of the misconceptions about the Muslim women’s dress code by comparing and contrasting its meaning from the original holy book Quran versus what is commonly known about it. The purpose of writing this article was to inform the non-Muslim readers who read the everyday newspapers and believe that these myths are true are being told false and incorrect news and to fix these misleading misconceptions the author used the same platform to inform the audience about the truth. The tone of this article is persuasive, although the authors explain their points of views using evidence from the Quran and their knowledge of the Arabic language to explain the meaning and purpose of hijab; they want to persuade the public that the generally known myths about Muslim women’s hijab as unconstitutional, unfair and oppressive. The authors target a non-Muslim, general audience that usually receives its information about Islam from western media or known stereotypes. This is evidenced by the translation of the multiple Arabic words (khimar, jilbab, hijab, etc.…), the use of the plain, standard English language, as well as referring to the original verses in the Quran for clarification and persuasion.  The authors’ stance towards Muslim women’s hijab is favorable, defending it as meaning modesty, including both men and women, signaling empowerment if worn voluntarily. This is supported by the multiple examples that the authors used ranging from Quran and Muslim scholars’ opinions to Nike Pro Muslim women’s attire and Merriam Webster’s definition of the word hijab. Like the scholarly article, this News article has for purpose rejecting the stereotypes about the Muslim women’s hijab as being degrading, discriminating, and oppressive to women using evidence from Quran. However, unlike the scholarly article, the News article does not have the same degree of objectivity and not citing the references, making it less credible and trustworthy for the audience.

            Thirdly, “The Woman of Islam”, by author, Lisa Beyer, is sourced from Time Magazine. The audience the author is trying to reach out to are the non-Muslim people to inform them about Islam and how Muslim women get treated. The purpose of this article was to persuade the audience that Islam is discriminative to women despite describing Prophet Muhammad as a “feminist”. The author’s tone is persuasive because she uses cultural and traditional practices done in conservative places to persuade the audience into believing that Islam is discriminative to women.  Her stance was clearly towards blaming “the religion” for entrenching “inequality”. Evidence of such claim was an example of some practices in certain countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait that reinforce “subjugation of the female sex”. The language that was used is informal and simple, suitable for the general public comprehension level. The author calls out his audience to believe in the traditional and cultural believes of some as part of the religion. Which is false from the truth and the author doesn’t use facts and reliable resources to express what Islam is truly like and how women of Islam should be treated according to the religion.

      Lastly, Instagram is a very famous and known media platform that people use to express and share their thoughts. A post called “Hijabers of Instagram: the Muslim women challenging stereotypes” was created to inform people about one of the many influential Muslim women-owned accounts that convey information about Muslims to the general public. This post is a non-fiction type of genre. The authors, Emma Baulch and Alila Pramiyanti are both parts of the digital Nowalls media research center. Their post gave information about a Muslim-owned Instagram account that spreads many things including information about Islam, faith, and modest fashion. The tone of this post is persuasive because as the authors were creating this post, they talked about how fast their account was growing especially the Public Islam part of the account, and stated, “Public Islam is an increasingly crowded field”. They also talked about the different aspects this account has to offer. The audience the author was aiming for can be both a non-Muslim person that doesn’t know anything about Islam as well as a Muslim who just wants to be part of a community that they can relate to. Through this Instagram account, they can not only learn about Islam but also see empowering women behind the senses controlling the account and empowering other women that are part of the community. The author used standard English language while giving information about the Instagram account. The authors’ stance is of this post is that Muslim women can be so empowering and spread positive information from anywhere around the world and in doing so they use reliable sources like the Quran as well as positive quotes and messages used to inspire people.

     All four of these rhetorical analysis articles connect to each other one way or another. They provide critical information about Muslim women in Islam and how they are treated in the United States as well as how these women are spreading peace and unity throughout the world. All four rhetorical analysis articles were aimed towards a certain audience creating a certain tone to convey their purpose. Although some used different tactics to gain the audience’s attention and different ways of supporting their claims. Some used facts and reliable data while others used their own experiences or opinions on a certain topic.  The authors for each article used their own style of language to portray their stance for their writing piece. With all the stereotypes around the concept of being a Muslim woman and all of the misleading information spread about them, they still stand up strong and stand with what they believe in. The hijab is not a sign of oppression but a sign of modesty and is used to show others the true beauty which is within a person and not their physical appearance.

Work Cited

Ahmad, N. B., Quraishi-Landes, A. (2019). Five myths about hijab- it’s not a headscarf-and it’s   not just for women. Retrieved from             https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-        myths/five-myths-about-hijab/2019/03/15/d1f1ea52-45f6-11e9-8aab-            95b8d80a1e4f_story.htmlIslamic 

Beyer, L. (2001). The women of Islam. Time Magazine. Retrieved from    http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,185647,00.html

Lone, R. A. (2019). Hijab in Islam: Liberation or oppression from Islamic and western     perspective. Online Journal of Multidisciplinary Subjects: 13-1. Retrieved from           http://www.researchguru.net/volume/Volume%2013/Issue%201/RG70.pdf

Baulch, E., Pramiyanti, A. (2020). Hijabers of Instagram: the Muslim women challenging            stereotypes. Retrieved from https://nowalls.qut.edu.au/hijabers-of-instagram-the-muslim-          women-challenging-stereotypes/