Download The New Islamic Family

Young Bangladeshis and the
Islamic Family: Conflicting Ideals
Santi Rozario, Cardiff University, UK
For How Fares the Family? International
Conference on Resilience and Transformation of
Families in Asia, ARI, NUS 4th to 5th August 2008
The Project

Three-year ESRC project, ‘The Challenge of Islam:
Young Bangladeshis, Marriage and Family in
Bangladesh and the UK’ (S. Rozario, PI, with G
Samuel & S. Gilliat-Ray (CIs)

Central theme is influence of modernist forms of
Islam on marriage and the family

Fieldwork with young Bangladeshis in Bangladesh
(rural and urban - Dhaka) and UK (mainly with people
of non-Sylheti background)

Began Jan 2008 with initial visit to Bangladesh; this
paper is mainly about early work in UK, Apr-July
2008
Major Issues

Tension between ‘traditional’ extended
family and young women’s desire for
more individualised life-pattern.

Tension between Western models of
romantic love and marriage and desire
to behave in a proper Islamic way

Polygamy as a solution to problems of
‘spinsters’ and divorced women
Modernist forms of Islam

We’d expected both samples to be dominated
by Tabligh-i Jama’at, Jama’at-i Islami and
similar Wahhabi/Deobandi type
organisations.

In fact, initial contacts both in Bangladesh and
UK led to a much wider variety, including
several Sufi-inspired groups

Main emphasis in this paper is on Islamic
Circles (London) and Hijaz Community
(Nuneaton), also some unrelated individuals
Hijaz Community

Sufi community centred on Hijaz
College, near Nuneaton, and the shrine
of Shaykh Abdul Wahab Siddiqi
(Pakistani Sufi teacher, 1942-1994)
Hijaz Community

Now led by his eldest son, a
Western-trained barrister,
Shaykh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi

Nuneaton campus is also
spiritual centre for the Shaykh’s
followers

Annual urs (‘Blessed Summit’) in
July

Increasingly modern and
Western in its self-presentation
• Mostly Pakistanis, some Bangladeshis and others
Theoretical Approaches

The paper has some discussion of our
general approach
 Saba Mahmood (Politics of Piety 2005, etc)
on Muslim women in Egypt
- women’s embodied agency as directional,
as ‘cultivating and honing a pious
disposition’
- women are not just being submissive but
consciously and actively crafting their
selves
Theoretical Approaches contd
“In her recent study of women in the Egyptian
piety movement, Mahmood (200) prefers to
think in terms of dispositions rather than
habitus, because she stresses the agency
involved in cultivating a pious self. However, I
employ Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of habitus
in this article to underline the historicity of
social structures and individual dispositions.”
- Rachel Rinaldo, J. Contemporary Islam
(2008)
Theoretical Approaches contd

Our general perspective



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Islam (as a set of ideas, practices, ideal dispositions etc)
structures people’s behaviour,
However, people use Islamic and other resources creatively
to respond to their life-situations.
These responses both act to shape people’s future selves,
and also act on the overall field, which is fluid and constantly
transforming. This field includes ‘Islam’ itself as a set of
ideas, practices etc
Individual responses need to be understood in relation to
their life-situations - in this case, specifically, in relation to
marriage and the family
Finding a Marriage Partner

The norm in UK Bangladeshi community remains
arranged marriage, though initial contacts may take
place via an increasing variety of informal
mechanisms [examples - contacting distant cousin
via Facebook; mutual friend setting up indirect
contact]

There remains an expectation of avoidance of private
meetings between future spouses prior to marriage,
and considerable unwillingness to go against one’s
parents’ wishes

Families may wish children to marry relatives from
Bangladesh, to resolve debts and obligations to
family in Bangladesh
Finding a Marriage Partner - contd

Some men may welcome marriage to a relative from
Bangladesh, since Bangladeshi women born and/or
educated in UK are seen as potentially corrupted by
Western influences, though others may prefer a
‘modern’ wife

Women born and/or educated in UK may have
problems if married to a husband from Bangladesh,
with ‘traditional’ expectations of the wife’s behaviour
[NB Questions about ongoing reshaping of ‘tradition’ nuclear household etc.

Regardless of the husband’s expectations, the
husband’s family may expect an educated woman
with a career to drop her career and adopt a
‘traditional’ subservient female role
Islamic Circles

Started London 2001 by two young
Bangladeshi men

Wide range of talks and social events on
Islamic topics, martial-arts self-defence for
Muslim women (‘Ninjabis’) etc
Islamic Circles- July 2008
events
Islamic Circles & Marriage

They set up a matrimonial service in 2003

They now arrange three or four themed
matrimonial events a month in London model imitated elsewhere in UK

There is a specific problem of women who
can’t find husbands

Lots of effort to construct a mixed social
gathering (under strict controls) as properly
‘Islamic’
Islamic Circles & ‘Free Mixing’
“If there is no such word for “free mixing” in
Islam, why have our scholars used khalwah or
seclusion as its nearest equivalent, and why is
there so much emphasis on trying to avoid free
mixing, especially in the West where strict
segregation between the sexes is not practically
achievable anyway? Does simply speaking to a
person of the opposite sex with whom you are
not married suggest that you are trying to get
closer to them on a sexual level, and are
therefore doing something haram? . . .
Islamic Circles & ‘Free Mixing’
“What is the definition of a “mixed gathering”?
How do we develop natural, modest, friendly
yet non-flirty behaviour between members of
the opposite sex without obsessing about
free mixing?”
Islamic Circles e-mail circular July 2008
Islamic Circles Marriage Event 1
Islamic Circles Marriage Event 2
Islamic Circles Marriage Event 3
Islamic Circles Marriage Event 4


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One should first purify their intentions, i.e. to seek
the pleasure of Allah by fulfilling one’s obligation
to seek a marital partner in a halal way. It should
be treated as a form of worship, so that this will
set a precedent for one’s willingness to adhere to
Islamic etiquettes throughout the event.
Listen carefully and follow all the instructions set
out by the organisers.
Forgive the organisers and facilitators for their
shortcomings.
Try to be in a state of ablution (wudu) if possible.
Islamic Circles Marriage Event 5
• The best starting point is to recognise
that you are a humble servant of Allah
who is attending the event because you,
like all the other participants, are looking
for a spouse, and therefore want to
behave in the best of manners.
(Pamphlet distributed at marriage event)
Islamic Circles Marriage Event 6
“It is important to recognise that finding
a suitable spouse is a massive problem
for Muslims today. It has to be
addressed practically, not just through
lectures and seminars about the fiqhi
(juristic) nature of marriage and the ideal
scenario.”
(Islamic Circles pamphlet)
Hijaz Community and Marriage 1
• The community gives members access to a
wider range of partners from different ethnic
communities (Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Somali,
Surinamese, etc), who will ideally share their
Islamic ideals.
• The Shaykh as an authority replaces the
authority of their parents, who may be seen
as not understanding true Islam, and justifies
disobedience to their parents’ wishes
• Members may also expect the Shaykh to find
them a marriage partner within the community
Hijaz Community and Marriage 2
• Parents may be concerned about their
children’s involvement in the community
in terms of their abandonment of
standard life and career choices
• They may also be worried about the risk
of the Shaykh marrying their children off
to an ‘unsuitable’ person - “He’d better
not marry my daughter to some
Pakistani!”
Expectations of Love and
Marriage

Marriage is seen as an important
Islamic obligation: ‘Whoever has
married has completed half of his
religion; therefore let him fear Allah in
the other half!” (hadith of Bayhaqi)

Tahera (Hijaz community member) on
how ‘you can’t have true love unless
that marriage is based on love for God’.
Tahera on marriage
“So when I love my husband I hope I will love him
because he loves God. I will look at him and I will
see this fantastic guy. I will look at his love for
God and I will look at his face and see his love
for God and I will love that love and by loving him
I will love his love for God and therefore I will
love God… and I hope he will do the same with
me. I hope to become a person he will look up
and say, OK, she is not that fantastic, but she
loves God and I am going to love that love in her.
And then ultimately that relationship is
completely selfless, I am not going to be in this
for me and he is not going to be in it for him.”
Munira on marriage
“One thing that, a lot of people, who are single
and are trying to develop themselves spiritually,
they actually fear getting married because they
feel that [the marriage] will stop them from their
love for Allah – I think this is a huge sign of their
faith, but it’s a genuine fear because where does
your partner come, if you put God as your
priority, but the beautiful thing is that if you do
marry and it is somebody who is in similar path
to you then, you know, you complement each
other - well, we believe that after a nikah Allah
will put love between the partners anyway…
.”
Dealing with Separation and Divorce Nasreen on her family and her in-laws
When was I was in my husband’s house I was made to
feel that I wasn’t feeding the baby properly, I wasn’t
changing the baby properly, I wasn’t bathing him
properly, you know. I would wake up in the morning, I
would go to the bathroom and find my baby not in his
crib, and my mother-in-law has come in and taken him,
changed him and fed him, done everything for him. And
you don’t do that. Like in my house, when my baby’s
sleeping, my sister would ask me if she can pick him up.
That’s etiquette, that’s adab. It’s so Islamic to do that, to
come and ask. My mum would even ask me, you know,
‘Shall I take him?’, to feed him, yeah? And I’ll say, ‘Ok,
Mum’. Nobody enters our room – my Dad would never
enter our room without asking our permission.
Nasreen contd
S: Your parents are educated people?
N: They’re not, but they’re people with adab, they
have a lot of Islamic adab. When we have guests
walking into the house, you know, we don’t turn
around, bad-mouth someone’s mother in front of
them, we don’t do that. My sister-in-law would say to
me, ‘Your mother can’t cook, your mother doesn’t do
this,’ you know. I’d say to myself, this kind of
behaviour would never happen in my family.
OK, so my sisters don’t dress in the conservative
way that you’d expect them to dress, but, they have
a lot of etiquette about them, they have a lot of adab
about them.
Nasreen contd
My sister [an architect] travels round the
world, is that Islamic? But you know,
because she’s travelling the world, she’s a
lot more culturally aware and sensitive
towards each individual’s needs, so she’s
more of a better human being than my
sister-in-law who’s never travelled and lives
in a cocooned house.
Nasreen on Aisha and Khadija
Look at Aisha, look at her role, what a
significant role she played, she had a family and
home going, but she also played a significant
role out in the community, … Khadija, the
Prophet’s first wife, she was a
businesswoman… Significantly older than him,
and she married him, married a younger man,
can you imagine in our community a 25-year old
getting married to a 45-year old now? It’s
incomprehensible – and this is a young man
who married his boss – how modern and
forward thinking is that?
Nasreen on being an
independent woman
My Dad would often say, if a woman can’t
cook she’s not a woman. I say, How the hell
is that Islamic? I mean, what defines a
woman? In Islam a woman is not defined by
her motherhood, she isn’t defined if she’s a
wife, she’s defined by her relationship with
God, and that’s how her womanhood is
defined, her womanhood is not defined by
motherhood and wifehood and all of that kind
of stuff.
Polygamy
More positive discussion of polygamy
than I expected
 The (male) leaders of Islamic Circles
suggest that polygamy may be a
solution to the problem of large
numbers of divorced and widowed
women

Polygamy
“What is polygamy and can it really address the issue of
spinsters and divorced women, particularly those with
children, who are finding it extremely difficult to get
married and settle down in a stable relationship? Are
there enough suitable men who would be able to fulfil
their responsibilities in a polygamous marriage? Is there
a problem with the mentality of men which needs to be
addressed? What about the legal implications associated
with polygamy? Would nikah alone suffice without the
need for registration? Why has polygamy gained such a
bad reputation over the last few decades?”
Islamic Circles e-mail bulletin, June 2007
Polygamy
Shaukat suggested that professional women might find
this a particularly attractive option:
“They could carry on with their Islamic activities, learning;
they could carry on with their professions or businesses
and they could carry on with their children, at the same
time they could have companionship and have
relationships with their husbands and that will be on a
part time basis. So they will see their husbands twice
and thrice a week, and the rest of the time they will
spend with their kids and their business. For them it
suited the modern day work patterns.”
Polygamy
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
In practice, polygamy in the UK seems more likely to
be a man wanting to marry a second, younger wife
than a community solution for surplus older women
My female informants produced justifications for
polygamy (war-widows etc) but with one possible
exception they showed no interest in polygamy as
an option for themselves
Perhaps the discourse on polygamy is best
understood as a defence of Islam against Western
attack.
Conclusions

In closing, I would like to emphasise the open, creative
and experimental character of these young peoples’
involvement with Islam

Organisations such as Islamic Circles and Hijaz
Community are also part of this creative response to
the contemporary situation

Love, marriage and the family are clearly revealing
topics to study, and they are showing us aspects of
the religious life of young Bangladeshis that have
perhaps received little attention in previous studies.

Our research is still at an early stage, but we are
optimistic that it will provide valuable insights into
contemporary British Islam.
The End
E-mails
Santi Rozario
[email protected]
Geoffrey Samuel [email protected]