The last four months have been challenging for most people on this planet. Apart from trying to understand and respond to an unknown and unpredictable virus, we have become acutely aware of the inequalities of our societies. Every now and then, thanks to social media, this inequality is revealed in one or other particular aspect of social life.
In the last ten days, a video broadcast by a Mawlana Sampson went viral in the Muslim community of Cape Town and put the spotlight on the dignity of women.
Announcing his impending second marriage, Mawlana Sampson also called upon others to follow his example. His use of language to describe men and women was offensive, and it was rejected as soon as it hit the social mediascape of the Muslims of the city and the country. Eventually, the Mawlana apologized for his video.
But his language revealed a deep flaw that runs through the Muslim community in particular and the South African nation in general. In a country where violence against women has become the norm, the language of Sampson was rightly and quickly rejected. The language seemed to match a pandemic of violence against women in the country through murder, rape and mutilation.
But not all Muslims agreed with the critics of the video, particularly after Sampson extended an apology. Many regarded the video as an unfortunate human error that deserved to be forgiven.
But the issue has raised important issues on ethics and the general response of Muslims on equality and human rights. I would like to reflect on the politics of language and ethics provoked by the Sampson video.
Sampson's video clip is more than a straight-forward expression of a patriarchal world. It is also a form of resistance or turning away from a dominant world that has promised equality and rights, but which has been denied to most people in the world.
When we put up human rights as universal values, we often forget that inequality has been built into the modern system and its rhetoric of rights. Whether we turn to its origins in capitalism or the aftermath of World War II, human rights were born in a world of increasing inequality. As more gains were recorded on statute books, much less was achieved in the actual lives of most people on the planet. For most, COVID19 has merely revealed a world that becomes more unequal, while appeals for equality and dignity grow louder.
Some suggest that turning to religion is a form of deep resistance to such norms, but others say religious revival turns its back on such norms. The late Saba Mahmood has given a detailed glimpsed of this rhetoric of devotion and commitment in pockets of Muslim communities. If her analysis is valid for Sampson's community, then the video might be a sign of the community turning its back against modernity in general, and the rhetoric of human rights in particular.
Sampson's appeal for Muslim men to follow the example of the Prophet should not only be placed against the rhetoric of human rights. It should also be placed against an appeal of religious rhetoric in Sampson's mosque community.
Some have reminded us through social media that Sampson serves his working-class community with commitment and devotion. If this video clip is more than a passing byte, what do his images and words mean in his context? And more importantly, what does polygyny mean for his listeners, both men and women?
If this analysis is correct, we should take another look at the world of devotion and commitment. It is not sufficient to invoke the rhetoric of rights against a community, but see how Sampson and others like him offer an alternative vision and values. I do not know Sampson's context in greater detail to make further comments.
However, I would like to make some comments on the support for polygyny in Muslim discourse. Polygyny is presented as an unassailable good for Muslim societies. Sometimes, it is justified by the fact that polygyny serves some social contexts. In a time of war when men die in greater numbers than women, for example, polygyny is a better alternative for society. Some of these justifications have emerged in social media since Sampson's video went viral. I want to question these justifications on two levels.
I do not want to contest the fact that polygyny is acceptable in the Qurán and the practice of the Prophet. But rather than arguing for the limits placed on its practice by jurists and modern intellectuals, I would like to suggest that it is hardly presented in the Qurán as an unmitigated good. The Qurán presents various scenarios where the family of the Prophet Muhammad, particularly with regard to the relationship with his wives, was wracked by tension and hostility. The presentation of a polygynous family in the Qurán is anything but an idyllic household. In many cases, it was only a revelation from God that saved the day.
In contrast to the Qur'anic narrative, polygyny is presented in Sampson's video and modern Muslim discourse in a very different way. Polygyny is embraced as a distinctive and meritorious value for Muslims. It is better, Muslim apologists claim than the nuclear family promoted in modern discourse. In this counter-modern discourse, a polygynous family is celebrated as an unmitigated good. And this is not what I see in the Qurán.
My second point is related to my experience of reactions among Muslims to polygyny on a personal level. What do Muslims do when they are not defending polygyny as a greater good in public debate? In my experience, whenever a man in a family decides to take on a second wife, that decision is received with anger, rejection and great disappointment. Apart from the woman who must share her husband, other women generally reject the apparent desire of the man to do good. Close friends and family reject the practice for what it means to the dignity of the first wife.
These comments might seem anecdotal from my experience, but they reflect a contradiction between public support for polygyny and its experience at a personal level. It seems to me that from the time of the Prophet to the present, Muslims know that the practice of polygyny harms the dignity of women. Public debate obscures this awareness.
Sampson's video has raised two sets of questions. Firstly, it has posed questions on how the rhetoric of human rights works in communities that live with poverty, inequality and lack of dignity. How is the turn to religion to be interpreted against the contradictions of a human rights ethics, and actually existing inequalities. We need to bring a greater awareness of this in our public deliberation.
Secondly, the video has also raised critical questions about the justification of polygyny as an unmitigated value. From a practice which is put under surveillance, polygyny is promoted as an unmitigated good. More importantly, public discourse of both Sampson and his supporters ignore the deep attack on the dignity of women of which they are not unaware.
Works Cited
Mahmood, Saba. “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival.” Cultural Anthropology 16, no. 2 (2001): 202–36.
Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
