Propagating Gender Norms in an Islamic Republic: Three Pakistani Alims and their Online tafsīrs

Abstract

This article analyses the commentaries of three contemporary Pakistani scholars – Dr Israr Ahmad, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, and Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza – on three Qur’anic themes as addressed in three specific verses: the creation story (Q. 4:1), women and legal testimony (Q. 2:282), and marital relationships (Q. 4:34). It emerges that the approaches taken by all three scholars differs considerably to those of earlier, premodern interpreters. For example, none of the three quote earlier authoritative opinions or engage in grammatical discussion, while only one uses ḥadīths to make his point. All three selectively bring in modern ideas to reinforce existing exegetical opinions and interpretations, and only rarely challenge these. While the three scholars deviate from the wider, inherited exegetical tradition in maintaining that women are not spiritually inferior or secondary to men, they do not challenge any other inherited concepts. In their discourse, they propagate the idea that men (i.e. husbands and fathers) are in charge of the family unit, the fundamental building block of society, because of their innate psychological and physiological features, and hence have greater responsibilities towards their households and society, while women, although spiritually equal, have different roles. None of the three scholars seem to consider the impact of changing socio-economic realities in Pakistan in their exegeses on the three themes addressed here, giving the impression that the normative values and customs of an Islamic society are independent of these changes. Finally, Ghamidi takes a more flexible approach in his question-and-answer sessions as compared to his tafsīr musalsal, giving the impression that the genre is more about conserving the meaning of the scripture.