GENDER IDEOLOGY

Notions of proper gender roles, including those articulated by religious discourse, structure social expectations and lived experiences for the enactment of femininity and masculinity in human societies. More than prescriptions of behavioral norms, gender ideologies are deeply sedimented institutions or systems of belief that organize and protect differentiated expectations for men and women (Ridgeway and Correll Reference Ridgeway and Correll2004). These ideologies extend well beyond questions of how men and women should be organized in society and offer elaborate (even cosmic) explanations of gender as a constitutive element of the systems that shape any given societal order (Acker Reference Acker1990). Assumptions about the nature of gender carry “abstract, symbolic, structural, and normative force” that can shape the constitutive features of an institution, belief system, or ideology, eventually making an impact on individual practice and interpersonal relationships (Ashcraft and Mumby Reference Ashcraft and Mumby2004, 14). Cultural beliefs or traditions, and the social-relational context, in which they exist, work in tandem to construct the contours and parameters of particular gender ideologies (Ridgeway and Correll Reference Ridgeway and Correll2004). In this model, cultural beliefs and traditions (religious or otherwise) consist of the general attitudes and values that shape social norms for the appropriate enactment of gender roles, while social-relational contexts “comprise any situation in which individuals define themselves in relation to others in order to act” (Ridgeway and Correll Reference Ridgeway and Correll2004, 511). In accordance with the diverse cultures of the Muslim world, “the constructs, institutions, and modes of thought devised by early Muslim societies that form the core discourses of Islam have played a central role in defining women's place in Muslim societies” (Ahmed Reference Ahmed1992,1). It is therefore these religious and historical underpinnings that have established larger cultural narratives for masculinity and femininity. However, individuals' own gender ideologies vary in the degree to which individuals advocate the division of social responsibilities based on separate spheres for men and women (Davis and Greenstein Reference Davis and Greenstein2009). Thus, separate spheres for men and women both arise from and simultaneously shape “cultural beliefs and distributions of resources at the macro level, patterns of behavior and organizational practices at the interactional level, and selves and identities at the individual level” (Ridgeway and Correll Reference Ridgeway and Correll2004, 510–511).

While gender ideology characterizes an entire social discourse, gender identity refers to meanings that an individual and others apply to the “self” in a social role (Stryker Reference Stryker1980). The salience of any given ideology varies widely across individual usage, casting gender ideology as more a question of the degree to which personal narratives coalesce with larger cultural beliefs. As women and men engage in sense-making with others, they carve out a path for how to operate according to, or in contradiction with, these broader discourses. Through a process of social interaction, individuals (re)produce or resist popular constructions of masculinity and femininity. The multi-dimensional nature of gender ideology (Buhrke Reference Buhrke1988; Cota and Xinaris Reference Cota and Xinaris1993; Larsen and Long Reference Larsen and Long1988; Potuchek Reference Potuchek1992, Kroska, Reference Kroska2000) further complicates individuals' enactment of prescribed gender roles, however. Instead of simply engaging in the reproduction of given narratives or resistance to them, individuals are more often simultaneously enacting both. This is the case with the Islamist women who form the focus of this analysis.

The dialectical approach employed in our analysis assumes the simultaneity of reproduction and resistance in the construction of any cultural narrative, especially prescriptions for gender (Mumby Reference Mumby2005). Thus, while cultural beliefs and traditions appear to be relatively stable, transformation occurs where tensions disrupt the narrative and reveal opportunities for change or reform (Ashcraft and Mumby Reference Ashcraft and Mumby2004; Mumby Reference Mumby2005; Trethewey Reference Trethewey1997). Understanding instances of reproduction and resistance of gender norms, as they exist in conversation with one another, demonstrates the complexity of how individuals and social groups “engage with, resist, accommodate, reproduce, and transform the interpretive possibilities and meaning systems” (Mumby Reference Mumby2005, 22). Ultimately, a dialectical approach allows us to explore the process of change across a given gender ideology through day to day and longer term interactions. It is this process of change that becomes meaningful, and reveals the precarious nature of gender ideologies, such as those examined here (Mumby Reference Mumby2005).

ISLAMIC FEMINISM

Islamic feminism, as opposed to “Islamist feminism,” is a global movement of Muslim activists and scholars that affirms the equality of men and women under Islam by challenging and refuting traditional patriarchal or androcentric readings of the Qur'an and Hadith (prophetic traditions). Tied to late nineteenth century scholars and thinkers such as the reformist students of Muhammad Abduh, most notably Qasim Amin (d. 1908), Islamic feminism did not assume the form of a distinct intellectual movement until the mid-to-late twentieth century. The numerous Islamist movements that arose during this time, many of which perceived advances in women's rights as a product of secular Western influence on Muslim societies, promoted a rigid conservative social platform that curbed the social, legal, and economic advancement of women as a core component of their ideological projects. With this trend, which affected most of the Muslim world from the 1970s onward, a greater sense of urgency arose among certain Muslim activists and scholars to oppose what they perceived as retrogressive interpretations of Islam and disturbing abuses inflicted against Muslim women (e.g., the Taliban of Afghanistan).

While a wide range of perspectives and methodologies exist among Muslim feminists, certain distinctive features do appear to characterize this diverse global movement. Muslim feminists emphasize the centrality and authority of the Qur'an, encourage interpretations of the Qur'an as a cohesive whole, and emphasize the particular socio-historical contexts of its verses, thus removing it from the ossified readings of its traditional male exegetes and their influential commentaries (tafasir). The Hadith literature, in contrast, is frequently deemphasized or subjected to rigorous critical analysis, often leading to the rejection of certain traditions or particular transmitters, such as the allegedly misogynistic companion (sahabi), Abu Huraira (d. 681 C.E.). Such rigorous criticism of the Hadith literature is not at all new and spans virtually all of Islamic history in various forms, although with varying motivations (Brown Reference Brown1999). Muslim feminists also emphasize the existence of cultural or tribal customs that predate Islam, whether of animist, Jewish, Christian, or Zoroastrian origin, as sources of historical accretions, foreign corruption, and innovations alien to the egalitarian teachings of the Qur'an and the “true” teachings of the Prophet. Qur'anic verses or prophetic traditions (ahadith) that appear to favor men or exhibit prejudice against women, in matters such as leadership for example, are generally rejected (in the case of Hadith) or defended as deliberately self-limiting and progressive for seventh-century Arabia (C.E.), and thus generally indicative of the progressive intent of the Qur'an, which, they argue, must be allowed to continue in the modern age as the fulfillment of God's intentions for humanity. Muslim feminists also emphasize the contributions and important public roles played by Muslim women during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad and the revered era of the earliest community (the sahabah). Some have even called for the need to distinguish between the Meccan surahs of the Qur'an (610–622 C.E.), and the later Medinan surahs (622–632 C.E.), with the former surahs representing universal Islamic principles and the latter only the application of those principles to a specific turbulent moment in early Islamic history, and thus of only limited relevance to modern societies. Special emphasis on the earlier Meccan surahs over the later Medinan surahs is also not unique to Muslim feminists, and dates to at least the fourteenth century (C.E.) in the person of the Andalusian jurist, Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi (d. 1388).

In recent years, the work of American-Muslim feminist scholar, Amina Wadud, has received considerable attention, mostly as a result of her choice to lead a mixed-gender congregation in the weekly Friday prayer (jumaah salat) as an Imamah. Her most notable book, Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective, emphasizes that “no method of Qur'anic exegesis is fully objective” and that “each exegete makes some subjective choices” (Wadud Reference Wadud1999, 1). These subjective choices, she argues, are reflected in each exegete's interpretations of the Qur'anic text, but are not necessarily the “intent of the text.” As such, Wadud's book emanates from a larger area of feminist discourse that has criticized the tendency within many academic disciplines to conceive of the normative human form through the experiences and perspectives of the male person (Wadud Reference Wadud1999, ix). Wadud challenges centuries of tafasir (Qur'anic exegesis) and argues that the exclusion of women, or women's relegation to the role of subject without agency, is the work of centuries of “androcentric” scholarship, constructed and disseminated by men eager to maintain a patriarchal hierarchy within their own societies, while simultaneously denying the progressive and egalitarian intent of the Qur'anic text. Gender then, as both a category of thought and a social construction, imbued with certain intellectual presumptions and various ethical, social, and political postulates, has been particularly vulnerable to subjective androcentric manipulation in Islamic thought.

As a remedy, Wadud proposes what she describes as a “hermeneutics of tawhid” that emphasizes the unity of the Qur'an as a single cohesive text, as well as its overall universal aims (e.g., moral guidance, social justice, etc.), and calls for tafsir al-Qur'an bi al-Qur'an (interpretation of the Qur'an on the basis of the entirety of the text). By understanding the dynamics between the “universals and particulars” within the Qur'an, the reader or exegete may then theoretically better understand the terms, language, syntactical structures, and textual context in their determination of meaning. Wadud, borrowing heavily from the late Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988), argues that the reforms of the Qur'an establish “a precedent for continual development toward a just social order” (Wadud Reference Wadud1999, xiii). For instance, while the Qur'an does not explicitly abolish slavery, its repeated exhortations to free slaves as an act of righteousness should be treated as a first step toward full abolition, a feat that could not yet take place in seventh-century Arabia due to a variety of socio-economic circumstances.

Unlike Wadud, the Moroccan sociologist and feminist, Fatima Mernissi, is far more interested in the history of the early community and the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632 C.E.) than in Qur'anic tafsir, as shown in her book The Veil and the Male Elite (Mernissi Reference Mernissi and Lakeland1991). She condemns the “outrageous violence to Muhammad as a historical person” and the “fabrication of false traditions” that misrepresent male privileges and interests in his name (Mernissi Reference Mernissi and Lakeland1991, 8–9). The person of Muhammad is thus the subjective construct of the interpretive agent. A primary target of her analysis are the collections of Hadith, the oral traditions written and compiled in the ninth and tenth centuries (C.E.) that are ascribed to Muhammad and his companions (the sahabah). Mernissi is particularly interested in the motivations of the individual narrators through whom these oral traditions were transmitted, such as Abu Huraira or Aisha, and the later fabrication of traditions in their names for socio-political ends. The two centuries following the death of the Prophet were chaotic, which is why al-Bukhari and other scholars were compelled to compile sahih (“authentic”) collections of Hadith in the ninth century. She writes: “Behind this whole increase in lies about what the Prophet said or did, we must keep in mind the power struggles, the conflicting interests in a Muslim community which, judging by appearances, was growing rich, and in which social mobility, as well as geographic expansion due to conquests, was the order of the day” (Mernissi Reference Mernissi and Lakeland1991, 46). But much of the restrictions imposed on women are not straightforward fabrications. Rather, she locates them historically in the Medinan period amidst the war with the animist Meccans, where security and the normative ways of living were all compromised. This, she argues, brought with it particular revelations that are historically bound to those circumstances, but have since been maintained by men as universals for all times and places. For example, this is where Mernissi situates regulations on wearing the headscarf or hijab, namely within the conflict with the munafiqun (“hypocrites”) of Medina. “The veil represents the triumph of the Hypocrites,” she writes. Ultimately, all of this is framed by Mernissi as a part of an “amnesia of memory” where the “past is warping the possibilities of the present,” relegating the history of early Muslim women, such as Aisha, Umma Salama, or Muhammad's great granddaughter Sukayna, to a marginalized, dismissed, or forgotten past in favor of later androcentric innovations (Mernissi Reference Mernissi and Lakeland1991, 194–195).

Given the critique espoused by Muslim feminists, it is understandable that they would oppose the Islamist project that seeks to impose traditional androcentric interpretations of Islam on female populations using the coercive power of the modern nation-state. The Sudanese-American scholar, Souad T. Ali (Reference Ali2009), has directed much of her scholarly attention to the work of the late Egyptian reformist ‘alim, Ali Abdel-Raziq (d. 1966 C.E.). In his book, al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm, which was published in 1925 in the aftermath of Atatürk's abolition of the caliphate, Abdel-Raziq put forth the controversial claim that Islam is a din (religion), not a dawla (state), and therefore does not advocate any particular system of governance. He argued that Muslims should decide for themselves what the best government is for their needs. The caliphate, which had been the central institution of Islamic polity for over a millennium, was an innovation with no basis in the Qur'an or authentic Sunnah of the Prophet. But despite the fact that Abdel-Raziq's arguments appeared sound, well grounded in the sacred texts and Islamic history, the response to his work has generally been one of dismissal and even hostility, especially from Islamists. For Islamists, the differentiation of religion as something separate from the public, political sphere, reeks of Western secularism and thus cannot be considered “Islamic,” especially amidst the fervent anti-colonial attitude endemic among Islamists. To better understand the positions of the Islamists, we turn now to the personal histories and viewpoints of two prominent female Islamist leaders.

ZAYNAB AL-GHAZALI: PIONEER OF ISLAMIST FEMINISM

Historically, Islamism is a product of the anti-colonial fervor that simmered across much of the Muslim world during the early-to-mid twentieth century, most notably in Egypt and India (both under British colonial rule). Arguably the first mass Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen), was founded in colonial Egypt in 1928 in the small town of Ismailia near the British-controlled Suez Canal zone. Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949), the group's first Supreme Guide (Murshid), was appointed to teach at a primary school in the zone. He was horrified by the “impiety” and Western influence infiltrating his homeland, especially in the education system, stating: “The wave of atheism and lewdness engulfed Egypt . . . on the pretext of individual and intellectual freedom; nothing could stop the storm” (al-Banna Reference Al-Banna and Shaikh.2000, 109–110). At that time, six men in Ismailia, deeply moved by al-Banna's preaching, made their oath of allegiance (bay'a) to him and the cause of Islam, establishing the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Banna 2000, 141–142; Lia Reference Lia1998, 36–37). By the summer of 1931, the group was established in the bustling capital city of Cairo. Early on, the Muslim Brothers sought to defend what they considered the “Islamic character” of Egyptian identity against subversive Western influences, emphasizing traditional Islamic morality, self-discipline, and education, even athletics, in order to bring about a new generation of self-aware Muslims properly educated in “correct” Islamic teachings. The Muslim Brotherhood registered as a charitable organization and carried its message to every town and village in Egypt, countering British Christian missionary activities among the common people as its members went. The Muslim Brotherhood had a strong Sufi (i.e., mystical) orientation at the time, but this changed over the course of the 1930s, and only certain facets remained as it became an active political organization in the coming years. Al-Banna began to communicate directly with the King of Egypt, the nationalist Wafd Party, other opposition parties, and even other Arab governments (Harris Reference Harris1964, 188). By the 1940s, the Muslim Brotherhood was the largest Islamic organization in Egypt (offering vital welfare and social services) and a major political force in the region.

Zaynab al-Ghazali (d. 2005) was only eighteen when she began her work among Egypt's Islamists in 1935. “I met with Imam Shahid Hasan al-Banna, for the first time, in those remote blessed days of 1937,” she later wrote, “six months after I formed the Muslim Ladies Group [Jamiyyat al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat]” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 25). Prior to that fateful meeting, she had been active in Huda Shaarawi's (d. 1947) Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU), which was founded in 1923. But al-Ghazali left the group less than a year later, because she believed it was working to establish “the civilization of the Western woman in Egypt and the rest of the Arab and Islamic world” (Cooke Reference Cooke1995, 149). Thus, in keeping with the anti-imperialist spirit of the Muslim Brotherhood, she rejected the EFU's platform for reform and affirmed the essential Islamic character of Egyptian identity and society. As Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali (no relation to Zaynab) would later put it, the Islamists believed Egyptians would only find prosperity in the modern world by renewing their connection to Islam and ridding themselves of “educational, legislative, and intellectual colonialism” (Baker Reference Baker2003, 8). Zaynab al-Ghazali could not (in her view) work for the liberation of Arab and Muslim women if it meant shackling them to the chains of the colonial project that still imprisoned her homeland, whether militarily, culturally, or intellectually.

While Zaynab al-Ghazali's views on women's rights are not significantly different from the aforementioned Muslim feminists, the political underpinnings are profoundly dissimilar. She devoted her entire adult life to the struggle (jihad) for the “Islamic state,” and wholeheartedly rejected what she called “atheist, secular governments” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 18). “Jihad is obligatory as it is on any Muslim community which wants the establishment of God's rule and its firm implementation,” she wrote, “until all Muslims come back to Islam, and the religion of God is upheld, not as slogans but as a practical, living reality” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 41). A core component of this struggle was the education of Muslims in “correct” Islamic teachings and responsibilities, such as the obligation to fully implement shariah. Her organization thus trained women in preaching and propagation, and even enjoyed official ties to al-Azhar University for a short-time. The women enrolled in the program received six months of training and appointments to state-run mosques as wa'izat (or da'iyat; “preachers”) to provide religious instruction to other Muslim women (Mahmood Reference Mahmood2005, 67). In her view, public roles did not run contrary to the traditional domestic responsibilities assigned to women by traditional Islamic thought. On the contrary, the role of women as preachers was an essential part of the Muslim Brotherhood's call (dawah) for the establishment of the “Islamic state.” As the heads of the household, men are obligated to work and earn wages, thus she argued that women must be “educated, cultured, knowing the precepts of the Qur'an and Sunnah, knowing world politics, why we are backward, why we don't have technology,” and raise their “sons” as able Muslim agents capable of rectifying the situation (Cooke Reference Cooke1994, 3). As indicated by her designation of men as the head of the household, she affirmed that the first duty of a Muslim woman was to perform the role of a mother and wife, but so long as those obligations are met or completed, there is nothing in Islam that hinders public activities and pursuits for women. On the contrary, so long as Muslims continue to live in the absence of the “Islamic state,” debased under the tyranny of an atheist secular regime (e.g., Gamal Abdel-Nasser), she argued that traditional domestic obligations and social parameters could be suspended so that women can fulfill their important role in the jihad for God's rule. Indeed, the legal doctrine of darura (“necessity”) is a guiding principle in Islamic legal thought that can suspend normative legal prescriptions (defined by male jurists) in light of particular circumstances, such as the onset of jahiliyyah articulated by her Islamist colleagues, Sayyid and Muhammad Qutb.

Al-Ghazali, who claimed to have a special religious mission from God, had no children. In fact, she believed that this reality was connected to her mission and “adopted” her students (or disciples) as her children. Thus, she herself did not perform the customary role of raising children despite the importance she afforded it. She also had stipulations placed in her marriage contract (after divorcing her first husband) that ensured her the freedom to continue her public activism. As she later recounted in her autobiography, Ayyam min Hayati: “In the event of any clash between the marriage contract's interest and that of dawah [i.e., her religious mission], our marriage will end, but dawah will always remain rooted in me. . . I accept that ordering me to listen to you [i.e., her husband] is amongst your rights, but Allah is greater than ourselves and His dawah is dearer to us than ourselves” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 38). Her husband Muhammad Salim Salim, or her “righteous husband” as she called him, agreed to these terms and supported her activities until his death. Early on in her life, she resisted Hasan al-Banna's efforts to annex her Muslim Ladies organization into the Muslim Brotherhood. It was not until the end of 1948 that she met with al-Banna and pledged her official allegiance and obedience to him (although her existing ties to the Muslim Brotherhood were already strong). Al-Banna reportedly replied: “I accept this pledge, but the Muslim Ladies Group remains as it is” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 27). The autonomy of her group, as well as her leadership over it, thus remained, although she was a leading figure within the Muslim Brotherhood and obligated to obey the Murshid (Guide). After the 1952 revolution that brought Nasser and the Free Officers to power, relations between the Islamists and the state deteriorated. When Nasser unleashed his campaign to annihilate the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954, imprisoning its leadership and destroying its facilities and resources, al-Ghazali provided integral leadership to the remaining members and helped to ensure that the organization survived. Her home even became a regular meeting place for the Muslim Brothers, which earned her further enmity from the state regime.

Al-Ghazali's own imprisonment and torture under Nasser's secular pan-Arabist government began in 1965. Unlike most female activists who opposed him, Nasser had al-Ghazali sent to a notorious men's military prison where she remained for a period of one year. A letter penned by Nasser, who personally hated al-Ghazali, is reported to have stated: “By orders of President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Zaynab al-Ghazali is to be tortured more harshly than the men” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 84). During her time in the military prison, she was held in vile conditions, starved, attacked by dogs, repeatedly beaten, flogged, and psychologically tormented. It was the same prison that held Sayyid Qutb prior to his execution in 1966; the place where he wrote his most radical works, such as Milestones. Al-Ghazali's ideas had many parallels with those of Qutb, and she had close personal ties to Qutb's sisters Hamidah (her cellmate), Aminah, and his brother Muhammad (who fled to Saudi Arabia). She encouraged the study of Sayyid Qutb's writings and her autobiography reflects his ideological vision of the world. For instance, in recounting the barbaric savagery she endured in prison, she marveled at how godless and deprived the Egyptian prison guards and soldiers acted. Like Qutb, she concluded that they were not Muslims at all, but a symptom of society's reversion to a state of jahiliyyah, or pagan barbarism and ignorance. Those apostates worshipped and obeyed only President Nasser, not God. The remedy for this condition was religious propagation and education (this was her jihad), which will one day lead to the establishment of the Islamic state by popular will. “The establishment of an Islamic state is an obligation on Muslims,” she wrote, “and the means to do it is through the call [dawah] to God in the same manner the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his Companions called people to Him” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 188).

After a year in the military prison, al-Ghazali was transferred to al-Qanatir women's prison where she remained until Anwar Sadat released her on August 10, 1971. Nasser died in 1970 after having his reputation damaged by the Arab defeat in the Six Day War of 1967. Meanwhile, al-Ghazali had survived and never submitted to her captors. She credited her fervent religiosity (i.e., belief in God) for sustaining her through the brutal hardships of prison life. Numerous religious visions and dreams are recounted in Ayyam min Hayati, including mystical encounters with the Prophet Muhammad, his companions (sahabah) and wives, and the second Murshid of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Hudaybi (d. 1973). For the rest of her life (she suffered from Alzheimer's in her final years), her worldview expressed in pious, sometimes mystical, abstraction the struggle for the “Islamic state,” not unlike the ‘martyr’ (shaheed) Sayyid Qutb who refused to articulate details in his writings (despite his harsh condemnation of “abstract theories”). As she would later write, Sayyid Qutb “ushered in a new era of reflecting and pondering over the Qur'an, the Book of God, a new way of understanding His commandments,” and he has “shown what real adherence to din [‘religion’] is” (al-Ghazali Reference al-Ghazali and Guezzou2006, 165). In her view, the “Islamic state” was foremost a matter of belief; an article of faith that defines what it means to be a Muslim. Apostates (murtadin) and hypocrites (munafiqin) throughout the Muslim world were blinded to this fundamental truth by the forces of jahiliyyah. The utopian system and structure of the “Islamic state” was a long-term goal that the faithful awaited like the coming of the Mahdi or the Prophet ‘Isa (Jesus). As al-Ghazali stated:

Notably absent from such descriptions of the “Islamic state” are the details of a system of governance. In fact, this is almost an afterthought in her view. The most important matter for al-Ghazali was that human beings accept the sovereignty (hakimiyyah) of God and reject “man-made systems,” like those in the West (e.g., socialism). Qutb had harshly repudiated anyone who sought to delay a plan of action toward the establishment of the “Islamic state” by asking about the details of the Islamic system or the principles of its jurisprudence. “By these tactics,” Qutb wrote in Milestones, “jahiliyyah wants to find an excuse to reject the divine system and to perpetuate the slavery of one man over another” (Qutb Reference Qutb2002, 42). Therefore, informed by Qutb's ideas, we lack a systematic legislative account of women's rights in the “state” that al-Ghazali advocated. Rather, she spoke only in acceptable orthodox terms, stating in 1981:

As we will see in our next case, Zaynab al-Ghazali's Islamist feminist views were not at all an isolated aberration in the history of Islamist thought. On the contrary, they remain very much alive in contemporary Islamist discourse.

NADIA YASSINE: ISLAMIST DISSIDENT AND FEMINIST

On the opposite corner of the African continent from Egypt, Nadia Yassine was born in Casablanca in December of 1958, two years after Morocco achieved independence from France and Spain. By this time, Zaynab al-Ghazali was already busy attending to the reorganization of the Muslim Brotherhood in postcolonial Egypt after Nasser's campaign to eliminate it in 1954. Nadia Yassine's father is Abdessalam Yassine (b. 1928), the founder and Guide (Murshid) of an Islamist movement in Morocco similar to the Muslim Brothers, known as the Justice and Charity Society (Jamiyyat al-Adl wal-Ihsan). Today it is the leading Islamist opposition movement to Morocco's authoritarian monarchy. She grew up attending schools named after France's cultural giants; Paul Cezanne primary school, Descartes High School in Rabat, and Victor Hugo High School in Marrakech. Afterward, she graduated with a degree from the College of Political Sciences in Fez in 1980 and taught French language at private schools until her father's incarceration under King Hassan II in 1983. Certainly, not all Moroccan women enjoyed such education. A 2004 census found the literacy rate among women in Morocco at only 40%. Yassine's father, the Murshid, strongly supported his daughter's education, stating as recently as 2007:

It was during the Murshid's incarceration from 1983 to 1985, for criticizing King Hassan II in an article published in the newspaper as-Sobh (banned thereafter), that Nadia Yassine established the Women's Department of the Justice and Charity Society. Since that time, she has emerged as arguably its foremost public leader and an outspoken critic of the Moroccan monarchy in her lectures and writings. She is currently facing three to five years imprisonment and substantial fines in Morocco for publicly speaking in favor of a republican system of governance and criticizing the “sacred institution” of the monarchy.

Yassine's prominent role as a public figure has produced a wealth of material on her views on Islam and a woman's role in governance and public life. In an interview conducted by the influential Arabic satellite network, al-Jazeera, in 2007, she pointed to the findings of the most recent United Nations Development Program report on women in the Arab world, stating that “the real participation of women [in the Arab world] exists only inside Islamic movements.” She argued that “there is a real dynamic inside Islamic movements that so-called progressive and liberal movements lack considerably” (Nadia 2007, para. 5). Islam, Yassine forcefully contends, affords women “the right to speak and participate in politics at the highest levels,” and she emphasizes: “It's not only a right, but a duty” (Martinez Reference Martinez2008, para. 6). Such statements have led many observers to label Yassine a “feminist.” However, she rejects such descriptions. As she explained in a 2008 interview:

Like al-Ghazali, Yassine sees Western feminism as an ideological vehicle for the differentiation of the public and private spheres, seeking to restrict God (i.e., religion) exclusively to the latter. This is anathema to Yassine's understanding of Islam, where “belief in the Unseen” is the foundation of Muslim life and society as a whole. Islam is “foremost the belief in the Unseen,” she states, “so even as justice was ousted by our illegitimate rulers, so too was the belief in the Unseen [ousted] due to our servile imitation of the dominant, materialistic, colonizing West” (N. Yassine 2007, para. 8). “Feminism,” technically speaking, is the product of nineteenth century Western history and it is based principles derived from the “Renaissance period” (Yassine Reference Yassine2007, para. 1). Therefore, she argues that feminism “reflects the general intellectual current of that era in Western history, which sought to liberate westerners from all constraints limiting their freedom, especially those related to the Church and religion. The Church has held deep contempt towards women throughout its hegemonic rule, and considered [women] to be soulless and mere chattel” (N. Yassine Reference Yassine2007, para. 1). Hence, Yassine asserts that the underlying ideological platform or political philosophy of feminism is secularism, which is obviously contrary to her own.

Sayyid Qutb's notion of a global reversion to jahiliyyah, and the necessary struggle (jihad) against it, is not evident in Nadia Yassine's statements. However, she has explicitly identified reprehensible forms of corruption that are endemic in the Islamic world. She situates the tragic onset of this corruption to the time of the Umayyad caliphate (r. 661–750 C.E.) during the formative period of Islamic history. The Umayyads were a hereditary and very worldly dynasty of caliphs who ruled the Muslim empire from Damascus, Syria, until they were overthrown by the rival Abbasids (r. 750–1258 C.E.). The founder of the Umayyad dynasty, Muawiyyah (d. 680 C.E.), broke with the established tradition of the Prophet Muhammad's companions (sahabah) and declared his son, Yazid (d. 683 C.E.), his successor to the throne. Yazid, incidentally, is among the most notorious of the Umayyad caliphs. It was he who ordered the massacre of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Husayn (d. 680 C.E.), his family, and supporters, at Karbala in 680 C.E. for opposing his rule. The notion of an autocratic government or dictatorship in the Muslim world, according to Yassine, is a “political heresy that was devised by the Umayyads” (N. Yassine 2007, para. 23). All of Islamic history since that time has been corrupted by this heresy. “For 1,400 years,” she states, “on and on it was installed in the consciences that Islamity equals autocracy, isolation, and dictatorship” (Martinez 2008, para. 13). Islam's sacred texts (e.g., Qur'an and Hadith), she further contends, contains the “seeds of genuine democratic experience” and must be rediscovered and liberated from rudimentary and archaic readings rooted in corrupt heresies (Martinez 2008, para. 13). Such deviant expressions of Islam are still vividly apparent in sects such as Wahhabism, the state religion of Saudi Arabia, which Yassine denounces as “the antithesis of true Islam” (Martinez 2008, para. 14).

In this distinctive reformist framework, the dynamic emancipation and elevation of women that occurred under the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate successors (the Rashidun) was subverted and sent into decline during the rule of the Umayyads. This trajectory continued on over the centuries and left Muslim women in their current degraded position. Yassine's father, the Murshid Abdessalam Yassine, decries the current condition of Muslim women as having fallen “perhaps even lower than her pre-Islamic sister” and languishing in “the abyss of injustice and negligence” where “local masculine injustice has placed her” (A. Yassine Reference Yassine2007, para. 4–5). The solution proposed by Nadia Yassine is not the adoption of the secular materialistic “feminism” that developed in the lands of the Western colonial powers, like France or Britain, but a return to what she calls al-Minhaj an-Nabawi, or the “Prophet's Method.” At the core of this Islamic approach is an educational campaign, not unlike the dawah of Zaynab al-Ghazali. As Yassine states: “True liberation can only be achieved through the adoption of a liberating educational plan for both women and men; one that is conducted in a framework of respectful competition for good and in recognition of the complementary nature of men and women's roles.”

The personal narratives of Zaynab al-Ghazali and Nadia Yassine indicate numerous cultural tensions related to our analytical interests. On one level, they seem to represent an idealistic hope in an unrealized utopian system that might accelerate some postcolonial process of what Carl Jung called “individuation.” But more importantly, both narratives suggest the existence of liminal identities that attempt to negotiate conservative anti-Western Islamist discourse and progressive liberal discourses most often associated with Western secularism. As we typically understand them, these two broader intellectual currents are binaries or fundamentally oppositional ontological positions in the world. And yet, al-Ghazali and Yassine manage each contrasting social-relational context, and occupy a precarious position where they must constantly work to represent and redefine what it means to be a woman and a Muslim. Indeed, these women disrupt the primary gender discourses of each and forge their own liminal “third column” apart from the broader cultural and ideological discourses in which they seek to participate. For example, in the broader discourse over the nature of the modern postcolonial Egyptian state, al-Ghazali situated herself within the Islamist opposition against the secular regime of Nasser. At the same time, al-Ghazali complicates her identity within the broader Islamic and Islamist discourses by foregrounding Muslim women's leadership roles, a move that separated her from many other Islamists and Muslims. When necessary, she could strategically retreat into the identity of an Islamist or the identity of a “feminist,” choosing her language carefully, as she negotiated her precarious and eccentric position. However, aside from drawing significant attention to her fascinating personal narrative and points of view, the end product of al-Ghazali's efforts has remained unrealized, even ambiguous.

IMPLICATIONS

Many Muslims, Islamist or otherwise, perceive Western feminism as a gender ideology predicated on secularization, the differentiation of secular and religious spheres, and Euro-American social norms. In this way, advances in women's rights attributable to “feminism,” whether correct or not, face opposition from a well-established discourse against European colonialism (by extension American), rather than any rational discussion of the merits of the issues involved. The emergence of “Islamist feminism” is a product of this reality, where the undeniable urgency to improve the lot of women in the Muslim world, felt among Muslims themselves, has been articulated through indigenous channels that enjoy legitimacy and credibility within these powerful existing anti-colonial currents. For women who practice this form of feminism, the implications are great and include the potential for community building, reform of Islamic practices and beliefs, and personal development as social activists in the public sphere.

Organizations designed to inform and support women as they begin to locate their identities through feminist beliefs, as well as conflicting traditional community practices (e.g., Islamic law), are gaining ground across the globe (Sunder Reference Sunder2007). As women physically or ideologically come together through these organizations (e.g., Indonesia's Sisters in Islam), they establish and strengthen communities of women who share experiences and rely on one another as experts in a shared reality. Such connections and commiserations can create a more livable reality where women readily communicate with one another in order to strategize ways of navigating their daily lives as Muslim women.

Beyond the transformation of local communities, the work of these Islamist feminists has profound potential to transform the Islamic tradition. The work of al-Ghazali, Yassine, and other such women, disrupts many assumptions about Islam (among both insiders and outsiders), forces questions to be asked, and reveals the socially constructed elements present in all religions, as well as traditional or customary law. In doing so, men and women can approach and investigate their beliefs and practices as individuals, free to live their religion as it makes sense in their own lives. Al-Ghazali and Yassine have created space for not just “Islamist feminism,” but multiple approaches to Islam that have the potential to impact every woman (and man) that practices Islam.

In many cases, marginalized individuals find it impossible to critique the systems under which they enact their daily lives. However, these women are finding a way to do precisely that. Instead of rejecting one set of values (equality for women) or the other (cultural tradition), Islamist feminists have found a way to negotiate, inspire, and reform from within, that accommodates both sets of values. One result is that as women take the opportunity to challenge traditional patriarchal interpretations of Islamic social mores and carve out their own realities, they may become more dedicated to their religion as it better addresses their experiences as women. Thus, women, especially “Islamist feminists,” may emerge at the forefront of Muslim contemporary reform movements that seek to rejuvenate or renew Islam in the twenty-first century.

While we may perceive these women as victims of a “false consciousness,” we may also note that they embody a spirit of activism and the “Islamist feminist” perspective positions these women as agents in the construction of their own realities. In this way, women may become a modernizing force for their nations and their religion, moving Muslim societies toward tajdid (“renewal”) and away from the stagnation of taqlid (“imitation of the past”). Under such a perspective, women are bridging the public and private spheres through religion, and, in the process, accessing power as they adhere to traditional roles and gain influence in public life.

In many ways, there is a glaring contradiction between the “feminism” of Zaynab al-Ghazali and Nadia Yassine and their role as political activists for the “Islamic state.” However, we cannot ignore the fact that their presence within these movements may serve as a kind of safeguard for women. If (or when) such Islamist movements assume control of the coercive power of the nation-state, the absence of women in positions of leadership, which is often the case in Islamist parties, would leave the articulation of the “Islamic state” (ostensibly based on readings of the sacred texts) to exclusively male dictation and patriarchal interests that exclude female participation and voices. Therefore, contrary to the normative feminist stance of opposition to Islamism as a means to safeguard the rights of women, al-Ghazali and Yassine co-opted Islamism for the same ends, albeit in a distinctly indigenous manifestation rooted in North African and Middle Eastern anti-colonial discourse.

The potential for Islamist feminism to shift cultural expectations and day to day practices for Muslim women is significant; however, we must also recognize that the opportunity for such activism may not be available to all Muslim women. Yassine and al-Ghazali, in many ways, benefited from privileges granted by their social class. They not only had access to material resources, but apparently also were raised in families and environments that provided opportunities for them to explore their religion and valued their right to be outspoken about it. Many women, perhaps even a majority, who are born into Muslim societies, may lack the same degree of formal education and resources. They may be silenced by their families and never have the option to speak out and practice Islam in the same manner as al-Ghazali or Yassine. In a system of patriarchy, countless women are left without a safe space to reconsider how they might practice Islam. More importantly, these women may lack the time and opportunity to be bothered with such questions or ever engage in any sort of activism. Concerns about how to provide for a family or to ensure their own safety are often simply more immediate concerns for many women, denying them the time and mental/emotional presence to consider how they might differently enact their religion and transform their societies.

Islamism, as we have emphasized, has historical connections to modern Muslim efforts to “purge” their societies of foreign colonial influences. Islamist feminists have further broadened this “purge” to include androcentric innovations in Muslim doctrine and practice that run contrary (in their view) to the Qur'an and Sunnah. Under this approach, which is rather salafi in spirit, androcentric or machismo customs and readings of the sacred texts, which are “infidel” in origin, must be eliminated along with other sources of bidah (“innovation”) or jahiliyyah (“ignorance”) that have no sanction from the sacred texts. This strategy, as represented by al-Ghazali and Yassine, is precarious and fraught with considerable obstacles, as well as formidable opposition from many ends of the ideological spectrum. However, it is no less sound than any other reformist movement in modern Islam and it may well prove more effective than the efforts of Muslim feminists, many of which occupy positions outside of the Muslim world in academies and institutions established by former colonial powers.