Debating Gender E-Book

Nadia Harhash

• Herausgeber: Al Nasher Technical Services
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 151

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

This work is an in-depth examination of medieval and contemporary discussions of gender in Islam, focusing in particular on views of women. Ms. Harhash wisely introduces the discussion by clarifying the legal status of women in medieval Islam, which provides a useful framework for her discussion. While her sympathy clearly lies with Averroes, I was particularly impressed by the chapter on al Ghazali, which traces a nuanced picture of al Ghazali's approach to women, highlighting striking differences in his various works and connecting his (to the modern ear) unpalatable claims about women- to his embracement of Sufism. While Ms. Harhash is attracted to the "progressive" view of Averroes, she offers a lucid analysis of his core egalitarian statements in the commentary on the Republic without omitting to point out that his philosophical position is in some tension with the more traditional position in forming his legal decisions. Ibn Taymiyyah is probably the biggest villain in Ms. Harhash's narrative and is portrayed as a kind of antipode to Averroes. With respect to modern discussion, she focuses on Nawal El Saadawi and Fatima Mernissi, where she situates the modern discussion vis a vis its medieval counterpart and highlights differences and commonalities. Ms. Harhash does a good job showing how the critique of the oppression of women in modern days leads to the same question that she had already addressed in Averroes, namely whether a critique of unjust structures in contemporary Islamic societies can be separated from a critique of Islam itself. Overall, the thesis is a remarkable achievement. Ms. Harhash reconstructs the medieval and modern discussion with intellectual confidence and independence and brings out similarities and differences that are genuinely illuminating.

Leseprobe

Debating Gender

A Study of Medieval and Contemporary Discussions in Islam

Al Ghazali, Averroes, and Ibn Taymiyyah’s views on Women with an overview of Nawal Sa’adawi and Fatima Mernissi

Nadia Harhash

ISBN: 978-9950-385-96-2

© All rights reserved for the author. Reproduction of this book is not permitted without a written permission of the author.

First Edition: Ramallah, 2023

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Dar Al Nasher and Al Ahleia.

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To Yasmina and Serena

Your support

Your unsaid words

Your jokes

Your patience… to an Einstein-like wearing pajamas’ mother, lying with her laptop, on a covered with papers and books bed.

You will forever remain the light of this work.

Forward

Dr. Markus Waschowski

Ms. Harhash’s thesis is not only the result of meticulous work with the sources she presented, but it also shows an enormous amount of original thinking and personal involvement in the topic. Obviously, she was not only writing a scholarly work but also, by doing so, pursuing an interest of her own. This personal agenda did not interfere with producing an impressive analysis of three central thinkers in Islamic history concerning their concepts on women, including contextualizing them in the historical and political circumstances under which they lived. Still, it furthermore spurred the intellectual examination and sharpened Ms. Harhash’s arguments. Ms. Harhash has successfully shown the application of academic skills in combination with an ambitious progressive endeavor.

Ms. Harhash gives an overview of the beginnings of contemporary feminism in the early 20th century, mainly in Egypt and Lebanon, and its definition as “Middle Eastern” or “Muslim Feminism” in contrast to “Western feminism.” The two protagonists she presents, Nawal El Saadawi and Fatima Mernissi, chose different approaches and did not receive the same reception. With the division of body and soul in all creeds, El Saadawi sees the problem within religion itself. In contrast, Mernissi traces the regional and temporal reception of al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, and Ibn Taymiyya to understand women’s status and thus show thinkers’ relevance in effectively shaping a society.

Dr. Markus Wachowski

Academic Director of the MA Intellectual Encounters of the Islamicate World Freie Universitat Berlin

Preface

Being a good Muslim always meant to know the Kitâb[1]and the Sunna and, if privileged, to have access to al-Ghazālī’s Ihya’ ‘ulum al-Din.

I was one of those privileged who had the Ihya’ on my library shelves and quickly referred to it each time I had difficulty understanding or performing a rule of God in my daily life.

Somehow, we are sometimes forced to make a detour, or a U-turn, when regular routes do not work anymore.

One day I woke up as a divorced woman, and my journey of observing ‘ibāda (devotion to God) took a different turn. I started working on an academic paper discussing Muslim women’s situation in Jerusalem about tradition and religion, and there I met al-Ghazālī again. This time not as the great scholar who helped me interpret God’s orders correctly, but as the man whom Muslim feminists may charge with responsibility for the deterioration in the status of women in the Islamic world today.

I was taken by a real shock, reading his Kasr al-Shahwataiyn,[2] I was entering a feeling of awe, thinking that my language skills both in Arabic and in English must have been defeating me, and then researching al-Ghazālī, thinking that maybe it was another al-Ghazālī that was meant.

However, the al-Ghazālī I met while writing this academic paper was the same one who had accompanied my life as a good wife.

I started researching al-Ghazālī, trying to break the myth of a great scholar, even as his followers staunchly defended him. Scholars of al-Ghazālī are eloquent. They are well-spoken people. They either try to follow Sufism, which makes them appear as “mystical” people to non-followers of Sufism, or follow a line of moderate Islam that is not as strict as Ibn Taymiyya’s School, and this makes them look liberal.

Al-Ghazālī is represented in today’s Muslim world as a “Muhyi” (Reviver), “Hujjat al-Islam” (proof of Islam), the scholar, the Imam who saved the Muslim world from the darkness of the hardliners of the Ibn-Taymiyya school there and fought fanatical fundamental teaching.

Comparing al-Ghazālī to Ibn-Taymiyya makes the former look moderate. However, the right approach is not to classify Islamic scholars as falling into either Ibn-Taymiyya’s or al-Ghazālī’s camps.

In my previous marital life, people like myself represent al-Ghazālī’s followers, who perceive him as the liberator from radical Islam and a moderate Sufi scholar.

All this could have much truth; al-Ghazālī contributed much to the teachings of Islam, and his contributions through his written work are invaluable. But what al-Ghazālī represents regarding women’s issues shows no signs of moderation.

For this reason, I intend to examine al-Ghazālī ‘s works with a particular focus on the status of women.

While feminist writers and scholars such as the Moroccan author Fatima Mernissi scrutinized the works of al-Ghazālī and accused him of being a misogynist, other scholars such as Caesar E. Farah idealized him. They considered him a reviver of Islamic thought.[3]

In trying to understand his thoughts and works, it is not a surprise to be in a state of perplexity upon researching al-Ghazālī. Al-Ghazālī is known to the scholarly world and interested readers primarily through his two major works, Ihya’ Ulum al-Din and al-Munqidh min al-dhalal.

The Ihya’ is followed by people like I was in my previous journey who consider it a guide to their dhalal (error) in our different aspects of living. The Ihya’’ serves as an encyclopedia to the Muslim seeker of God’s best path. It is divided into ‘ibadat (acts of devotion), adat (matters of behavior), muhlikat (the Destructive Evils), and munajiyat (the Saving Virtues). Therefore, a Muslim does not need to consult any other reference after reading the Quran, except for al-Ghazālī’s work, which is easy to understand, eloquent, and moderate, with easy-to-understand language and guidance.

Also, for the avid Muslim reader, al-Ghazālī has a proper place in literature. The Munqidh is presented as an autobiography of a wanderer and a truth seeker that captures the reader’s sympathy and summarizes al-Ghazālī’s life experience in his words and narrative.

1) An Outline

The status of women in today’s Muslim world continues to spur debates regarding their role not just today but during the entire history of Islam. It also raises questions about whether Muslim women have gained or lost ground on the rights and benefits fronts over time.

A critical checkpoint for this debate takes place in medieval times, as between the ninth and the thirteenth-century thoughts and views about women were shaped by scholars such as al-Ghazālī’, Ibn Rushd, and Ibn Taymiyya.

The school of al-Ghazālī’ emerged from the Ash’ari school of religious thought and is considered the representative of Al-Ash’ari in today’s primary scholastic school in the Muslim world, Al-Azhar.

Ibn Rushd is viewed as a progressive thinker among Muslim and Western scholars and, by al-Ghazālī’’s followers, as a rival. This is essentially a result of his book Tahafut al-Tahafut, which Ibn Rushd wrote in response to al-Ghazālī’’s Tahafut al-Falasifa.

Whereas the debate took the form of refuting or not refuting philosophy in the first place, it continued among followers from both schools into what each of the scholars (al-Ghazālī’ and Ibn Rushd) stood for and thus refuted or supported all of what one scholar preached or taught.

In this sense, many Islamic scholars didn’t do justice to the thought of Ibn Rushd beyond the Tahafut. Hence, much of his view stayed ideal, the unopened drawer of “different” discourse.

Ibn Rushd’s progressiveness is demonstrated not in his jurisprudence books. In many ways, he adapted his jurisprudence and his fatwas to the general line of Islamic law voice of his time. His philosophical works, however, were a demonstration of his true ideals. His views on women were challenging then and still are challenging in today’s Islamic world. His view on the development of society as a whole is portrayed from a growing understanding that was far from applied in his time. However, his views were mainly a revision and influenced by his predecessors, such as Ibn Sina and Al-Kindi, a school of thought that integrated Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic thought.

Ibn Taymiyya, on the other hand, leaves behind him a school at the opposite extreme of Ibn Rushd’s progressiveness, one that in today’s religious approach is followed by Salafists and Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. His followers include Ahl al-Sunna Jama’a[4], the same branch of Islamic schools that stands opposite the Shiite[5]. Ibn Taymiyya, according to his followers, is considered the “Man of Awakening.” It was his view that many, a stream of Muslims, mainly in Arab countries, decided to take after the failure of Arab Nationalism following the Arab defeat in the 1967 war.

The importance of these three thinkers’ work lies in their continuing effect on today’s Islamic lifestyle, including the perception of women in the Islamic world.

This study attempts to discuss and explore the following: 1) the status of Muslim women in that period of al-Ghazālī’, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn Rushd (ninth through thirteenth centuries), with particular focus on these men’s views on women, and 2) how the teachings of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle influenced their views, and finally, 3) comparing the effect of their views on today’s thought in regards to women, through a) discussing the general status of Muslim women today, and b) examining different Islamic feminist scholars, namely Fatima Mernissi, who in her works has excessively criticized al-Ghazālī’’s views on women, and Nawal Sa’dawi, who has discussed women’s status from a different perspective relevant to the medieval era and its scholars.

This research will highlight the thought of both Mernissi and Sa’dawi, measuring their direct discourse against medieval thought and how it shaped women’s status.

2) Introduction

The Muslim-Arab world continues to struggle to revive an Islamic golden age that, in the mind of most, begins with the rise of Islam and therefore starts with the Prophet. Regardless of all the scholarly work and proofs of the development of the Islamic legacy, Muslims tend to hold tightly to the concepts and teachings delivered by the Prophet, all the while not realizing that many of these conceptions are the result of intellectual work that took place between the ninth and thirteenth centuries.

Amid the ongoing clashes in the Islamic world and the Middle East, there are calls to return to the original Islamic teachings. Da’esh[6] is a consequence of such calls, many of which respond to the failure of postcolonial Arab regimes. The fall of the Moslem Brotherhood, as in the case of Egypt, and the reallocation or regaining of power by previously overthrown secular military governments helped nourish extremism in the form of Da’esh.

Dramatically, what seems like a trip in a time machine took place. The Islamic world split into sympathizers and opponents of the new powers. Sympathizers of the Moslem Brotherhood decided to join the radical Da’esh in what appeared to be a conversion of the Al-Ash’ari school to that of al-Ẓāhirīyahs.[7]

The Ash’ari[8] school that is well followed in al-Azhar[9], where al-Ghazālī’’ represents its leading champion, appeared to be moderate and rational in front of the rising Wahhabi-nourished school in Saudi Arabia because its teaching is based on the al-Ẓāhirīyah (Arabic: “Literalists”) School, with Ibn Taymiyya as its champion. That leaves the secular approach in the middle appearing chaotic and nothing but a reaction against the other dominant schools of current thought.

Suppose we can be allowed again into such a time machine. In that case, the Muslim world needs to investigate thinkers and scholars that affected that foundational period and who represented a progressive approach that we often ignore today, an approach that incorporates Ibn Rushd’s thought. 

Amid all this chaos, women’s status seems to be moving in the exact direction as the general atmosphere changes on the ground. While all insist on the direct teaching of the Prophet, it is the thought and education of at least two centuries after the Prophet that the Muslim world today follows. 

Issues of gender equity do not only form the primary concern in cultures and religions, but in almost all life-related problems, including philosophy, law, literature, arts, and science, with gender remaining an essential factor in specifying the social and cultural roles that men and women are entitled to follow.

Feminism, as Miriam Cooke defines it, “is an attitude, a frame of mind that highlights the role of gender in understanding the organization of society. It provides analytical tools for assessing how expectations for men’s and women’s behavior have led to unjust situations, but not necessarily only for women.” Feminism, at large, by this definition, seeks justice and involves political and intellectual awareness of gender discrimination and open opportunities for women to participate in public life.

Gender issues are particularly controversial in the Islamic world because religion is traditionally perceived as patriarchal. The debate between what is observed in rights and teaching in the Qur’an versus what is applied in society remains contentious and controlled by the oppressive patriarchal tradition. But it is essential when it comes to gender relations and attitudes in different parts of the Muslim world—and mainly the Arab world—and this is where we find ourselves face-to-face with theology and feminism.

Islamic feminism, as part of the feminist theology, advocates women’s rights, gender equality, and social justice while remaining grounded in an Islamic framework designed to do justice to the uniqueness of Muslim women, their culture, and their belief system.”[10] Islamic feminism also creates “a move away from the earlier focus on women’s rights toward a wider focus on gender equality and social justice”[11], this being related to primary and intersecting principles enshrined in the Qur’an. “Those who shaped the discourse on Islamic feminism in the first place claimed an explicit feminist identity, but most who articulate Islamic feminism in contemporary times are reluctant to wear a feminist label.”[12]

The process of demonizing women did not begin within the structures of traditional monotheistic religions but had existed before these religions took form. Age-old myths about the creation of women—including old figures like Eve and Ishtar[13]—provided material for debate about women’s status and encouraged society, in which women continued to be subjected to scrutiny and dispute, to regard them as inferior.

Islam projected itself through modern Muslim teachings[14] With the image of freedom and empowerment for the weak, enslaved people and women: Islam prohibited burying girls alive and improved the status of adult females. The Prophet’s wives and daughters were examples of women playing central roles in society.

Still, one should not ignore that before Islam, too, women belonged to the elite of the Arab nation. Prominent female figures such as Khadija[15], Hind bint Utbah[16], and others come to mind.[17] Mernissi is among Islamic feminists who handle this issue, as her book Forgotten Queens of Islam[18] tracks the lives of influential women who reigned throughout the history of Islam.

In her book Forgotten Queens of Islam, Fatima Mernissi demonstrates impressive as well as extreme examples of women in the formative period of Islam that contributed to the rule of the caliphs and had a significant role in Islamic history; however, these women were either intentionally removed from historical narratives written by men, or described in negative ways, which usually showed them as disruptive to the goodness of the rule of men in Islam.

One can cite many stories demonstrating that women in the early days of Islam were not just living well but were also taking leading positions in social and political life. The initial years of Islam included the participation of women in specific roles in war, such as Asma bint Abi Bakr[19], the famed al-Nitaqayn (“the one with the two waistbands”)[20]. Aisha, the wife of the Prophet, was considered an essential source of ḥadīth among the Sunni and was an opposition leader in the Battle of the Camel (al-Jamal).[21]

Jurji Zaydan (1861-–1914) was among the historians and journalists who explored that period, shedding light on women’s role amid significant Islamic conquests and characters. In more than ten novels, he brings women to the front line of that history, where their positions are not limited to conspiracies and seduction but vital twisting functions in the history of that time. To mention some: Girl of Qairawan, Shajarat al-Durr, Bride of Farghana, Abbasa Sister of Harun al-Rashid, Armansura the Egyptian, Girl of Ghassan. In the rest of his Islamic history series, women take the leading role even when the title doesn’t carry a female name. [22]

In the formative centuries of Islam that followed, however, the weakened situation of women came to the surface when scholars and jurists such as al-Ghazālī’ (according to C. E. Farah’s introduction to his translation of al-Ghazālī’’s Kasr al-Shahwataiyn) established “codes of behavior for families and women, elucidating laws and theories with verses from the Qur’an and Ḥadīth and forming what would become the regulations for women’s conduct until this day.”[23] The same applies to following jurists such as Ibn Taymiyya, whose views on women continue to be practiced among his followers.

As mentioned earlier, today’s Muslim world primarily features two schools of thought: al-Ghazālī’’s and Ibn Taymiyya’s. Considering the generalization of this statement, there may be an under-recognized central school of thought that can stand as an alternative to the schools of al-Ghazālī’ and Ibn Taymiyya, which are both conservative in comparison: to that of Ibn Rushd. Despite being a vibrant presence in today’s Muslim world, Rushd’s thought is not well understood and remains limited to academic and intellectual circles.