KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 ― Projek Dialog today launched Malaysia's first quiz series on the rights of Muslim women with an eye on educating and empowering them.
Victoria Cheng, who led the team producing the quiz series called “Hidayah Muslimah” (which means enlightenment of Muslim women), said the quiz will have real-life scenarios about women, including wives, mothers, career women, students.
“At the same time, we wanted them to be able to critically unpack their roles and worth as women based on the questions and at the end of the quiz, they could have some key takeaways to think about their role and worth as women in the bigger picture,” the Projek Dialog assistant programme manager said at the quiz's launch.
“It's about women's rights, but we are zeroing in on Muslim women rights because we feel that's not talked about enough, there's not enough resources and information to empower Muslim women here in Malaysia, so this is critical for us,” she said.
Projek Dialog adviser Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir noted that there was a lot of discrimination against Muslim women, citing the loss of their rights as victims in domestic violence cases. She said the quiz was a creative and interactive way of reaching out to women.
“A lot of Muslim women unfortunately don't know what rights they are entitled to in their own religion. They are taking this very often from what they hear, which may not necessarily be correct and finding often that it doesn't connect with their real lives.
“So I really think a project like this which tries to personalise the situations that women find themselves in and relate to their rights in Islam is a very good step forward,” she said before officiating the launch.
The quiz will run for a total of 12 weeks with a new quiz released every week on issues such as marriage, divorce, child custody, domestic violence and rape.
The first quiz released today is titled “Srikandi Islam yang manakah ada?” (Which Muslim heroine are you?), with results pointing to real-life female role models from Islamic history.
The quiz will provide information to quiz participants with references to verses taken from the Quran and hadiths or teachings attributed to Prophet Muhammad, while further information in an infosheet will also be made available at the end of each quiz.
Quiz co-writer Yana Rizal said the quiz ― which is in Bahasa Malaysia ― has a distinct Malaysian flavour to it with hints at local culture and is styled more like a game.
The quiz series goes beyond just addressing issues relating to Muslim women and will also look into matters such as the role and responsibilities of Muslim husbands, the team said.
“One of the things we are trying to break down are the misconceptions of the roles of women within a marriage, within a family,” Cheng said.
One of the upcoming quizzes will even look at what Muslim men think about beating wives.
“A key part of this, it's not to frame issues of women in Islam as though it is always a victimising kind of issue. There's a lot of empowerment within the Islamic history as well with regards to women,” Yana said, also saying that it would be beneficial to have a dialogue going on issues in the quiz.
“There's no guarantee we are going to change people's mindset… what we do try to do with this sort of information to get people to reflect back, is my understanding of this really fair, really correct, what are the different angles that we can understand this particular issue with.
“And to get men to be interested to take this quiz as well, because at the end of the day, chipping away at patriarchy is not just a woman’s job, it's everyone's job to know where things exactly stand,” she added.
Cheng said the team hopes the quiz series will expand knowledge about women rights in Islam for participants regardless of their religion or ethnicity.
"It's also helpful that when non-Muslims take this quiz, they can better understand what scenarios and struggles that Muslim women face on a daily basis, how different are the situations compared to a non-Muslim woman,” she said, having said the quiz is open to all.
It will be easier for those who take part in the online quiz, which can be found here, to give honest answers as they will stay completely anonymous since details such as their names and email addresses will not be collected. They may however choose to share the quiz results with their friends on Facebook.
At the end of the quiz series' three-month run, Projek Dialog will compile the results and present it on their website, with Yana saying it would serve as a survey to gauge public sentiments about the issues raised.
The whole process for the CIMB-funded quiz including research and fact-checking took a year, with the coincidentally all-women team of six also including co-writer Rusni Tajari, graphic designer Kalzom Kamarulzaman, programmer Angie Woo and consultant Suri Kempe.
