extreme suffrage

by Mark Hunter Mulvey

Published: June 3, 2008

I know that since the women started out on their crusade they have scored in every project they undertook against unjust laws. I would like to see them help make the laws and those who are to enforce them. I would like to see the whiplash in women’s hands.

- Mark Twain, American writer (1835-1910)

May it please you to take away my life rather than the old religion.

- Mary I, a.k.a. “Bloody Mary,” Queen of England (1516-1558)

A remarkable debate is currently taking place among Islamic extremists, prompting female jihadist-hopefuls to set down their munitions and talk things out a bit. The topic is whether or not women have the right to join al-Qaeda’s fight and have their suicide missions acknowledged as legitimate acts of terror for the cause.

Al-Qaeda’s strict interpretation of the Quran maintains that a woman’s role in their fight is restricted to caring for the homes and children of the fighters. Yet the outcry in Iraq is clear. As one woman declared, “A lot of the girls I speak to … want to carry weapons.” They are pleading for the right to terrorize.

What I find interesting is not in the Americans trying to reconcile their support for women with their contempt for terrorism. Rather, it is these fundamentalist Islamic women rebelling against a clear fundamentalist tenet that holds women as inferior to men. In adhering to any religion, one flirts with hypocrisy when “customizing” their beliefs at will and tossing out the elements that don’t sit well with the conscience. In this case, these women don’t care for the gender hierarchy of the Quran but are in agreement with other aspects of the faith.

To further mystify this situation, it is the right to kill oneself that is the driving force behind this uprising. Women are fighting for the freedom to take lives, prompted by the recent comment by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader below Osama bin Laden, when he made clear that the terrorist group does not have women. Yet recently, suicide bombings by women in Iraq have been on the rise, so it appears nobody in the Islamic extremist camp has been counting those. Hence the terrifically backward sexism that is on display in the Middle East today.

Women’s place in Islam has a long and conflicted history, and it brings to light the underlying danger in al-Qaeda’s mission: it is being carried out by men and women who are still in disagreement. Suicide bombings carry on in the midst of uncertainty, and al-Qaeda is questioning the “validity” of these deaths. America faces an enemy that is still ironing out the details of their principles on the battlefield of public spaces, which is a dangerously unpredictable enemy to face.

For many women, there is no uncertainty. The editors of “al-Khansaa,” a niche magazine for female terrorists, recently declared, “We will stand, covered by our veils and wrapped in our robes, weapons in hand, our children in our laps, with the Quran and the Sunna (sayings) of the Prophet of Allah directing and guiding us.” And so the fight continues.

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