The holders of power in Arab countries, regardless of their political make-up, are condemned to promote change, and they are aware of this, no matter how loud their claim to uphold the ‘prestigious past’ as the path to modernity. Historians have interpreted the somewhat cyclical resurgence of traditional rhetoric as a reflex of ruling groups threatened by acute and deep processes of change.14 The problem Arab societies face is not whether or not to change, but how fast to change. The link between women’s liberation and economic development is shown by the similarities in the conditions of the two sexes in the Third World; both sexes suffer from exploitation and deprivation. Men do not have, as in the so-called abundant Western societies, glaring advantages over women. Illiteracy and unemployment are suffered by males as well as females. This similarity of men and women as equally deprived and exploited individuals assumes enormous importance in the likely evolution of Third World family structure. George Tarabishi has pointed out the absurdity of men who argue that women should not be encouraged to get jobs in Arab society, where men suffer from unemployment.15 He argues that society should not waste human resources in unemployment, but systematically channel the wealth of resources into productive tasks. The female half of human resources is more than welcome in the Arab future.
One may speculate that women’s liberation in an Arab context is likely to take a faster and more radical path than in Western countries. Women in Western liberal democracies are organizing themselves to claim their rights, but their oppressors are strong, wealthy, and reformist regimes. The dialogue takes place within the reformist framework characteristic of bourgeois democracies. In such situations, serious changes are likely to take a long time. American women will get the right to abortion but it will be a long time before they can prevent the female’s body from being exploited as a marketable product. Muslim women, on the contrary, engage in a silent but explosive dialogue with a fragile ruling class whose major task is to secure economic growth and plan a future without exploitation and deprivation. The Arab ruling classes are beginning to realize that they are charged with building a sovereign future, which necessarily revolves around the location and adequate utilization of all human and natural resources for the benefit of the entire population. The Arab woman is a central element in any sovereign future. Those who have not realized this fact are misleading themselves and their countries.
Notes
The version of the Koran used throughout this book is Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (New York, New American Library, thirteenth printing). Abbreviations used in the notes are:
B for bab (‘chapter’);
H for hadith (‘verbal tradition of Muhammad’);
K for kitab (‘book’);
BESM for Bulletin Economique et Social du Maroc.
New Introduction
1. Catherine Vincent, ‘La tyrannie du plaisir’, Le Monde, 21 May 2003.
2. Daniel Pipe, ‘Eurabian Nights’, National Interest, Issue N°88, March–April 2007, p. 88, www.nationalinterest.org.
3. Robert Muchembled, Orgasm and the West: A History of Pleasure from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, Polity Press, 2008. In the original French edition, L’Orgasme et l’Occident, published by Le Seuil, Paris, 2005, p. 257, he quotes Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, Norton, New York,1978.
4. Imam Bukhari, ‘Sahih’, translated by Ahmed Harakat, Book of Marriage, vol. 6, Al Maktaba al a’çriya, Beirut, 1998, p. 613. Bukhari died in 256 Hijra (ninth century).
5. Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, Kitab al Muhabbar, al-Maktab at Tijari, Beirut, date not indicated, p. 232. The author died in the year 245 Hijra.
6. Dr Yahia Al Jubouri, Arab Clothes in Pre-Islamic Poetry, Al Malabis al Arabiya Fi ashi’r al-Jahili’ Dar al Gharb Al Islami, Beirut, 1989, p. 196.
7. Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, Kitab al Muhabbar, al-Maktab at Tijari, Beirut, date not indicated, p. 232.
8. My translation of the word ‘din’ in Ibn Manzur’s Lisan al ‘Arab (The Tongue of the Arabs), Dar al Ma’arif, Cairo, vol. 2. The author was born in Cairo in 630 hijra (1232 AD) and died in 711 hijra (1311).
9. Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Rawdat al Muhibbin (The Garden of the Lovers), Dar al Kutub al ‘ilmiya, Beirut, 1977. The author died in 751 Hijra (1349 AD).
10. Dr Mohamed Hassan Abdallah, Love in Arab Cultural Heritage (Al Hub Fi At-Thurat Al ‘Arabi), Dar Al Maarif, Cairo, 1994, p. 19.
11. Fatema Mernissi, ‘The Muslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality’, Beyond the Veil, Saqi Books, 1975, p. 32.
12. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986, p. 135. G. Lerner’s source for the Hammurabi ‘Middle Asssyrian Law 40’ (MAL-40) is from James B. Prichard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, second edition, Princeton University Press, 1955.
13. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986, p. 143.
14. For further information about the woman-moon connection, see Fatema Mernissi, ‘Seduced By Samar or How British Orientalist Painters Learned to stop Worrying and Love the Darkness’, The Lure of East: British Orientalist Painting, Tate Gallery Catalogue, Tate Publishing, London, 2008, (www.tate.org.uk/publishing).
15. My translation from Ibn Hisham’s As-Sira An Nabawiya (Biography of the Prophet), Dar Ihya’ at-thurat al ‘Arabi, Beirut, vol. 1, p. 214.
16. Ibid.
17. My translation of al-Azraqi’s Akhbar Makka, edited by Dr Ali Omar, maktabat at-taqafa ad-diniya, Cairo, 2003 edition, vol. 1, p. 140.
18. Imam Bukhari, ‘Sahih’, Four types of marriages in Jahiliya, quoted on p. 77 of this book in chapter 3, ‘Sex and Marriage Before Islam’.
19. See for instance William Robertson Smith’s Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, Beacon Press, Boston, first published in 1903.
20. Ahmed Amin, ‘The Nature of the Arab mind’ (Tabi’at al ‘aqlia al ‘Arabia), chapter 3, The Dawn of Islam (Fajr al Islam), Dar al Kitab al ‘Arabi, Beirut, 1975, p. 86.
21. My translation from Ibn Hisham, As-Sira An Nabawiya, Dar Ihya’ at-thurat al ‘Arabi, Beirut, vol. 1, p. 215.
22. For further information about the link between the cosmic connection between the moon and women’s menstrual system see Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press, 1963.
23. Ingrid Wassmann, ‘Cyber Infidelity in Egyt’s virtual world’, Arab Media and Society, Issue 10, Spring 2010.
24. Ibid.
25. Manal el-Jesri, ‘Heba Qutb: Meet the counselor who’s not afraid to talk about sex for a living’, Egypt Today, October 2004, http://www.egypttoday.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ArticleID=2480.
26. Ibid.
27. Manal el-Jesri, ‘Heba Qutb: Meet the counselor who’s not afraid to talk about sex for a living’, Egypt Today, October 2004, http://www.egypttoday.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ArticleID=2480,.
28. Michèle Alliot-Marie, ‘Défend La Loi Anti-Burqa’ collected by Timothée Boutry, Damien Delseny and Didier Micoine in the daily Aujourd’hui en France, 19 May 2010, pp. 4–5, www.aujourd’hui.fr.
29. Edward Cody, ‘France moves to fine Muslim women with full-face Islamic veils’, The Washington Post, Thursday 20 May 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com.
30. Manal el-Jesri, ‘Heba Qutb: Meet the counselor who’s not afraid to talk about sex for a living’, Egypt Today, October 2004,
31. http://www.egypttoday.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ArticleID=2480. Heba has her own website and as one can see, she spells her name differently (www.hebakotb.net). So, one has to remember when checking on Google to use all the diverse spellings of her name (Qotb, Qutb or Kotb etc ...), in order to get an idea of the extent of this lady’s digital power.
32. Anna Swank, ‘Sexual Healing’, Arab Media and Society, 26 September 2007. It is worth noting that this article is advertised on The Muslim Brotherhood’s Official English Website http://www.ikhwanweb.com.
3
3. Edward Cody, ‘France moves to fine Muslim women with full-face Islamic veils’, The Washington Post, Thursday 20 May 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com.
34. Danny Schechter, Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, Cosimo Books, 2008, p. 140, www.cosimobooks.com.
35. The word ‘din’ in Ibn Manzur’s Lisan al ‘Arab (The Tongue of the Arabs), Dar al Ma’arif, Cairo, vol. 2.
36. Ibid.
37. The word ‘jahl’ in Ibn Manzur’s Lisan al ‘Arab (The Tongue of the Arabs), Dar al Ma’arif, Cairo, vol. 2.
Introduction
1. Code du Statut Personnel (Personal Status Code), Dahir no. I-57-343, 22 November 1957, Bulletin Officiel no. 2378, 23 May 1958.
2. Malik Ibn Anas, al-Muwatta, Cairo, n.d.
3. Salama Musa, Woman is Not the Plaything of Man, Cairo 1955.
4. Ibid., p. 53. See also Abdallah Laroui, L’idéologie arabe contemporaine, Paris 1967, p. 51.
5. Salama Musa, Woman Is Not the Plaything of Man, p. 106.
6. Qasim Amin, The Liberation of Women, Cairo 1928, the edition published to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the author’s death, p. 18.
7. Ibid., p. 15.
8. Ibid., p. 16.
9. Ibid., p. 10.
10. Ibid., p. 9.
11. Ibn Murad al-Salah, al-Hisad ala’l-mar’at al-hadad, Tunis, n.d., p. 6.
12. Ibid., p. 70.
13. Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society, Modernizing of the Middle East, New York 1958, p. 44.
14. Ibid., p. 47.
15. Anouar Abdel-Malek, Egypt, Military Society, New York 1968, p. 249.
16. Paul Coatalen, ‘Ethnologic Barbaro’, in Annales Marocaines de Sociologie, 1970, pp. 3-11.
17. Allal al-Fasi, The Independence, Movements in Arab North Africa, New York 1970, p. 381.
18. The first members of the Arab League were Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon.
19. Allal al-Fasi, Independence Movements in Arab North Africa, p. 409.
20. Wilfred Cantwell-Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion, New York 1964, p. 79.
21. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina, Oxford 1956, p. 239.
22. H. A. R. Gibb, ‘Constitutional Organization’ in Origin and Development of Islamic Law, ed. M. Khaduri and H. J. Liebesny, Vol. I, Washington, D.C. 1955, p. 3.
23. Gertrude Stern, Marriage in Early Islam, London 1931, p. 71.
24. Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, London 1964, p. 161.
25. In The Muqaddimah, Art Introduction to History, translated from the Arabic by Franz Rosenthal, Princeton, N.J. 1969. The North African historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) sketched a model of the Muslim social order. He was interested in analysing what was happening to the then disintegrating Muslim world, which had stood uncontested in the Mediterranean arena until a few centuries before. Although primarily concerned with an entirely different problem, the growth and death of civilization, Ibn Khaldun analysed the reasons the Muslims had succeeded for so long.
According to his theory, the survival of human groups requires the surrender of individual will to a set of social norms or laws. There are two kinds of social norms: those having a human basis, reason, and those having a supernatural basis, religion.
If these norms are ordained by the intelligent leading personalities and minds of the dynasty, the result will be a political [institution] with an intellectual [rational] basis, if they are ordained by God through a lawgiver who establishes them as [religious] laws, the result will be a political [institution] with a religious basis. (The Muqaddimah, p. 154.)
A political institution having a religious basis is far superior to a political institution having a rational basis, not because of any deficiency in the latter’s mechanisms, but because of the narrowness of its scope. Reason governs only this world’s interests, while religious institutions govern both.
Political laws consider only worldly interests. On the other hand, the intention the lawgiver has concerning mankind is their welfare in the other world, therefore it is necessary, as required by the religious law, to cause the mass to act in accordance with the religious laws in all their affairs touching both this world and the other world. (The Muqaddimah, p. 155.)
26. H. A. R. Gibb, ‘Constitutional Organization’, p. 3.
27. S. G. Vesey-Fitzgerald, ‘Nature and Source of the Sharia’, in Origin and Development of Islamic Law, p. 109.
28. Ibid., p. 104.
29. Ibid., p. 85.
30. J. Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law, p. 76.
31. Ibid., p. 101.
32. Ibid., pp. 210-214.
33. Ibid., p. 100.
34. Abdallah Laroui, L’Histoire du Maghreb, Un Essai de Synthèse, Paris 1970, p. 346.
35. This opportunism is clearly illustrated in the economic options adopted by the Moroccan state during the years of independence. A revealing analysis of these options is Samir Amin’s Le Maghreb Moderne, Paris 1970, chapter Vi: ‘Le Maroc, Hesitations et Contradictions’. Also A. Belal, ‘L’Orientation des investissements et les imp6ratifs du d6veloppement national’, BESM XXVIII, p. 100; and T. Ben Cheikh, ‘Planification et politique agricole’, Part 1, BESM XXXI, no. 112-113 (January–June 1969), pp. 191, 199, and Part II in BESM XXXI, no. 114 (July–September 1969), pp. 75-83.
36. Salama Musa, Woman Is Not the Plaything of Man, chapter entitled ‘Our Philosophy on Women’.
37. Dahir, no. I-57-190, 19 August 1957, Bulletin Officiel no. 2341, 6 September 1957, p. 1163.
38. Sunni (that is, ‘orthodox’) Muslims recognize four legitimate schools of law:
Hanafi: The founder of the school was Abu Hanifa (699-769), who undertook to create precedents by analogy with the decisions of the first four caliphs; it holds sway mainly in central Asia, northern India, and among the Turks, but also in Pakistan, China, and Japan.
Shafii: The founder was Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Shafi’i (770-819); centred mainly in lower Egypt, southern India, and Malaya.
Malekite: The founder was Malik Ibn Anas (705-7/95), whose teachings were confined to the traditions (hadith). The title of his major work, al-Muwatta, means ‘the path’. The school holds sway mainly in Africa, especially north Africa, and upper Egypt.
Hanbalite: The founder was Abu Hanbal (780-855). This school is characterized by a strong puritanical tendency.
All four schools agree on the fundamental dogmas, but differ in the application of the Koran and its interpretation.
Chapter 1
1. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History, translated by Franz Rosenthal, Princeton, N.J. 1969, pp. 160-161.
2. Ibid., p. 161.
3. Ibid.
4. Abu Hamill al-Ghazali, Ihya Ulum al-Din, Cairo, n.d.
5. Ibid., p. 28.
6. Ibid., p. 25.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., p. 27.
9. George Peter Murdock, Social Structure, New York 1965, p. 273.
10. Ibid.
11. Qasim Amin, The Liberation of Women, Cairo 1928, p. 64.
12. Ibid., p. 65.
13. Al-Ghazall, The Revivification of Religious Sciences, vol. II, chapter on marriage; and Mizan al-’Amal, Criteria for Action, Cairo 1964.
14. Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad, Women in the Koran, Cairo n.d.
15. Ibid., p. 7; the verse he refers to is verse 228 of sura 2, which is striking by its inconsistency. The whole verse reads as follows:
And they [women] have rights similar to those [of men] over them in kindness, and men are a degree above them.
I am tempted to interpret the first part of the sentence as a simple stylistic device to bring out the hierarchical content of the second part.
16. Ibid., p. 24.
17. Ibid., p. 25. The biological assumption behind Aqqad’s sweeping generalizations is obviously fallacious.
18. Ibid., p. 18.
19. Ibid., p. 26.
20. A. Schultz, ‘The Problem of Social Reality’, Collec
ted Papers, vol. I, The Hague, n.d., p. 101.
21. Ralph Linton, The Study of Man, London 1936, p. 116.
22. A. Schultz, Collected Papers, p. 9.
23. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, College Edition, New York 1965, p. 114.
24. Ibid.
25. Sigmund Freud, Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, 2nd ed., New York 1909, p. 77.
26. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures, p. 114.
27. Al-Ghazali, Revivification of Religious Sciences, p. 51.
28. Una Stannard, ‘Adam’s Rib or the Woman Within’, Transaction, November-December 1970, vol. 8, special issue on American Women, pp. 24-36.
29. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 50. Not only is the woman granted ejaculation, she is also granted the capacity to have nocturnal ejaculation and ‘sees what the man sees in sleep’. (Ibn Saad, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, Beirut 1958, vol. 8, ‘On Women’, p. 858.)
30. Sigmund Freud, Sexuality and the Psychology of Love, New York 1963, pp. 196-197.
Beyond the Veil Page 19