Maulvi Begum Sahib: The eunuch who found her calling as a Qur'an teacher

SUKKUR: Seventy-year-old Jameela has come a long way from playing as a child with eunuchs to teaching 450 children the Holy Quran every day.

Born a transgender in March 1941, Jameela never fit in at home or at school, so when an elderly eunuch, Pasham Fakir, offered to take her away she ultimately yielded and followed him.
She continued to live in what she later called ‘sin’ until May 1972, when her brother died in a robbery. “This proved to be a turning point in my life because I started learning the Holy Quran,” Jameela told The Express Tribune.

She was born in Syed Mohammad Yakoob Shah’s household in Pishin, Balochistan. “My father had two wives: my mother was from a Syed family, while my stepmother was from a non-Syed family,” she said. “My mother died when I was four and my aunt looked after me for two years after which my father sent me to live with my stepmother in Ranchore Lines, Karachi.”

Jameela’s stepmother sent her to an all-girl middle school near their house, but the young eunuch left school when she was in class three because she used to get teased for her “attitude and strange style of walking.”
After dropping out of school, she helped her stepmother with domestic chores. “When I was 10 years old, a eunuch named Pasham Fakir came to our house and asked my mother to hand me over to him but my mother refused.”

She said that Pasham kept coming back for her and they used to talk outside the house. “Then one day I just went him without telling my mother,” she said dolefully.

Important Texts for a Gender/Islam Course

I'm taking a class called Gender, Sexuality, and Islam. I want to post my ENTIRE syllabus here for that class! But I first need to ask my teacher's permission, I'd think.

Required Texts:

Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Yale University Press, 1992).

Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007).

Kugle, Scott. Homosexuality in Islam: Islamic Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims (Oxford: Oneworld Publication, 2010).

Mernissi, Fatima. Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Societies by Fatima Mernissi  (also titled The Veil And The Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation Of Women's Rights In Islam) (Perseus Books, 1991; originally in French, 1987).

Stowasser, Barbara. Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation (New York: Oxford U Press, 1994).

Wadud, Amina. Qur'an and Woman:Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective (Oxford University Press, 1999). 

Recommended Texts:

Barlas, Asma. Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an (University of Texas Press, 2002). 

Spellberg, D. A. Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'Aisha Bint Abi Bakr (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).

Supplementary Texts:

Abou el-Fadl, Khaled. Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001).

Haeri, Shaela. The Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Iran (Syracuse University Press, 1989).

Hambly, Gavin (ed.), Women in the Medieval Islamic World (St. Martin's Press, 1999).

Musallam, Basim, Sex and Society in Islam: Birth Control before the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1983). 

Safi, Omid (ed.), Progressive Muslims: On Gender, Justice, and Pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003).
 
Ruth Vanita (ed.), Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society (Routledge, 2002).

In the next blog post, I will share what our last three assignments have been about. They're really interesting and stimulating topics, and I hope that those who hear about them will try doing them on their own.