The Islamic Scholar as Feminist

The first time that I came across Farzana Hassan’s name was when I stumbled on to the website of Family of the Hearts (FOTH), around October/November, 2005. At that time, the topic of “Can We Say Goodbye to God?” was under discussion at FOTH. Farzana Hassan’s presentation regarding this question impressed me although I differed with her on the central thesis of her presentation. I made my difference known to her by writing an inter-act to which she responded graciously and acknowledged my differing views. She had posted a number of articles at FOTH, which she had published in the print media and elsewhere. The more I read of her, the more she impressed me.

By and by and in due time, I learnt many facts about her background and present engagements. I learnt that she is the great-grand daughter of Hakim Ahmed Shuja, a noted Pakistani writer, playwright and poet. Dr. Riffat Hassan is her maternal aunt. Riffat described her roots in an article (My struggle to help Muslim women regain their God-given rights, Dawn, Review, November 2004) as follows: “My maternal grandfather Hakim Ahmad Shuja came from Bazaar-e-Hakiman, which was named after his family, in the old city of Lahore. The Hakims (and their cousins the Faqirs) were known for their patronage of art and literature and nurtured many gifted artists, thinkers and writers including the young Iqbal when he first came from Sialkot to study at the Government College, Lahore. Hakim Sahib was not only well-known poet and playwright, but also a Quranic scholar who collaborated with Iqbal in some of his early works.” Riffat Hassan wrote her Ph.D. thesis on the philosophy of Iqbal.

While Farzana’s great-grandfather was a renowned scholar, her parents are no less scholarly. Her father, Riaz Hassan, has a doctorate in linguistics. Her mother is a Bar-at-Law from Lincoln’s Inn, London, has an M.Litt. from Durham University and a Ph.D. in political science from the Punjab University, Lahore. Her parents are divorced now. Her mother remarried and Farzana’s step-father was Dr. Shaukat Ali for whom she had great fondness and regard. He died two years ago.

Farzana’s ancestry is distinguished and her own credentials are no less impressive. She came to the United States when she was thirteen, finished school from Fall River, Massachusetts, went back to Pakistan to finish under graduate education at Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, and her Masters from the University of Massachusetts. She is an accomplished musician and a vocal singer, to round it all. She is a Canadian by nationality.

She lives several ‘lives’ simultaneously in her busy schedule including memberships of ‘Muslim Canadian Congress,’ ‘Canadian Association of Jews and Muslims,’ Credit Valley Interfaith Coalition’ among her other engagements and pursuits. In her own words, “I am a pianist and a vocalist. I have taught classical piano to students in Canada for many years. I also perform Hindi and Urdu songs at informal gatherings.” And she was recently elected and is the current president of the organizing committee of the FOTH.

She has published numerous articles on diverse topics, has lectured in colleges and universities and recently appeared on Canadian television in a discussion on the uproar at the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper, It is difficult for a person like Farzana not to draw hostile comments from different sources. But she has attracted a greater deal of appreciation for her work from the people who are aware of her positive and constructive contributions to humanity. She has written on such appropriate and timely (when weren’t they timely?) issues as women’s rights, women’s position in Islam, and as far-out issues as homosexuality. The image that rises from her writings is that of a person who is knowledgeable, patient, and gracious in her reactions to hostile criticism of her views and works. Such persons are rare these days and should be valued and cherished.

Farzana’s faith in Islam is foundational and not “fundamentalist.” She believes in the essence of the fundamental values of Islam and interprets and practices them according to the needs and demands of the modern times.

In her presentation on “Can We Say Goodbye to God? She wrote, “Every religion exhorts its followers towards righteous action, to give in charity, to help the needy, to uphold fairness and justice, It is up to us to create that utopia here. But it will require the commitment of all human beings to rise above their petty needs, selfishness, avarice and malice to achieve that just society. I also believe in an underlying unity of all faiths, with a common essence, ethics and morality. We need to discover and promote those universal truths shared by all faiths, and build a just and compassionate world around them. As one actively involved in the interfaith community, I am aware of a common goal for peace tolerance and understanding among the liberal segments of the various religious communities, as a reaction to all the bigotry and bloodshed. We need to provide impetus to these movements towards building that just and peaceful world.”

The range of her compass is really amazing. She has published on topics such as “Ponder the ‘Signs’ of Allah,” “Are Opponents of Shariah anti-Islam?” “Guru Nanak: Founder of a Monotheistic Tradition,” “Islam and Polygamy: An Age Old Controversy,” “God or Evolution,” “Shariah Arbitration,” “Muhammad in the Bible,” ”Remembering Iqbal’s Message to Muslims,” etc. She is the author of a novel “Echoes from the Abyss,” in which she has described a story of child prostitution in India. She has written poetry and what impressed me particularly was that she has translated some of Iqbal’s poems including one which I thought was difficult to render in English. Iqbal’s Urdu poem begins with “Kabhi a’ay haqeeqat-e-muntazr nazr a’a libas-e-majaz mein – Keh hazaaro’n sajday tarap rahay hain meri jabeen-e-niaz mein.”

In high school, my English teacher was a poet and had Masters in English and Urdu. Iqbal’s poem “haqeeqat-e-muntazr” was well above the general comprehension of the high school students but he was possessed by Iqbal. He spent better part of a lecture hour to explain the subtleties of “haqeeqat-e-muntazr” to us (another verse that he used to recite fondly was Momin’s: Dil kay a’aeenay mein haiy tasweer-e-yaar – Jubb zra garden jhukaee dekh lee). The inherent beauty of the poem touched me instantly at that time, and I kept on reading it off and on in my later life. I never thought anybody would try to translate it in English because, I thought, it was so delicate that its beauty might get tainted in the attempt.

But here is Farzana who rendered the opening lines as follows:

Elusive Thou, Supreme Reality
Make manifest Thyself in mortal cloak
Obeisance, supplication, longing, hope
Lay thus entrapped within mortality

Although the beauty of the original poem is difficult to capture in English, Farzana’s translation is not bad. Iqbal’s closing verse is:

Jo sar besajda huaa kabhi, tau zameen sey aanay lagi sadaa
Tera dil tau haiy sanam aashna tujhay kiya milay ga namaaz mein