Women in the Middle East and North Africa

Agents of Change

Fatima Sadiqi, Moha Ennaji, Fatima Sadiqi, Moha Ennaji

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415573207
• eBook ISBN: 9781136970375
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This book examines the position of women in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Although it is culturally diverse, this region shares many commonalities with relation to women that are strong, deep, and pervasive: a space-based patriarchy, a culturally strong sense of religion, a smooth co-existence of tradition and modernity, a transitional stage in development, and multilingualism/multiculturalism.

Experts from within the region and from outside provide both theoretical angles and case studies, drawing on fieldwork from Egypt, Oman, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Iran, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Spain. Addressing the historical, socio-cultural, political, economic, and legal issues in the region, the chapters cover five major aspects of women's agency:

• political agency
• civil society activism
• legal reform
• cultural and social agencies
• religious and symbolic agencies.

Bringing to light often marginalized topics and issues, the book underlines the importance of respecting specificities when judging societies and hints at possible ways of promoting the MENA region. As such, it is a valuable addition to existing literature in the field of political science, sociology, and women's studies.

Part I

Reconsidering the
Foundations of Women,
Islam, and Political Agency

1 The veil

Religious and historical foundations and the modern political discourse

Nazli Fathi-Rizk

Introduction

For an observer of the Muslim social scene during the past thirty years, it is notable that the hijab ¹ in its different forms—from the headscarf to the niqab (full covering of face and body)—became a revealing mark of Muslim women, not only in the Muslim world, but also within Muslim communities all over the world.² Confined in the beginning to some few states in the Arabian Peninsula, the veil has systematically propagated, as to acquire the attributes of a symbol. In Egypt, the tendency sporadically sprouted in the 1970s, first on a small scale, and then it gradually and exponentially spread, to include all classes of society. Now, it would not be preposterous to venture that a majority of Egyptian women are donning the veil in one of its forms. What religious, social, economic, and political forces converged to create and sustain such a phenomenon? And from the women’s point of view, what considerations, urgencies dictated their adoption of the veil? Are women becoming more pious, more religious, and more aware of their duties as Muslim than their grandmothers who had cast off their veils, last century?

Is the veil a sign of the revival of a pristine age—the age of the Prophet and his Companions, as propounded by the salafeya thinking?

Is the veil a religious duty for women to be placed in the order of priorities, just after the five pillars of Islam?

Is the veil a choice now, after having been during past centuries an imposition?

Is the veil an empowerment or an abdication of women’s rights?

Is the veil a statement of cultural identity, of allegiance to a community, of enrollment in the ranks of a revived umma (community of believers)?

Is the veil a declaration of difference, a statement of protest, and a defense against what is perceived as an encroachment of an alien and pervasive Western culture?

Is the veil, wittingly or unwittingly a reassertion of male supremacy, after the gains of women, in the course of the twentieth century?

Is the veil one of the manifestations of a political discourse, presenting itself as an alternative to the power of the modern secular nation-state?

Is the veil a response to economic deprivation and political alienation?

Is the revival of the veil part of a political program to instate a social, ethical order, in which women are at the vanguard of the Islamic transformation of society?

Is the veil the symbol and the banner of Islamism, the last line of defense against Western imperialism?

Is the veil a protective shield against sexual harassment and the pervasive laxity of social mores?

So many questions raised, that point the finger to an array of complex issues below the surface of the layered hijab!³ In order to understand the hijab’s propensity, this study uses a variety of approaches—historical, sociological, and semiotic— and is organized in an attempt to reflect the dynamics of the veil’s discourse. Thus, it looks first at the “orthodox”—or what has become a normative—view of veiling as presented by the religious establishment on the basis of their readings of the Qur’anic texts related to the dress code of women, and the hadith (saying or reported action) of the Prophet addressing the issue. Second, it considers the political and socio-economic factors contributing to the resurgence of the veil in Egypt: how it first emerged tentatively in the 1970s then gained full vigor in the ensuing decades, to the point that the veil seems now institutionalized. Last, it turns to the “revitalization” of the religious texts and reports on the alternative interpretations of the veil, as expounded by a new trend of Islamic scholarship, which could be perceived as a riposte to the seemingly prevalent consensus that a Muslim woman’s duty is to cover her hair.

The orthodox view

Part set of laws and part code of conduct permeating all the aspects of the human experience, the Shari’a stands as a comprehensive way of life. It governs and colors all aspects of the Muslim human experience, allowing the believer to tread a straight path, in accordance with the decrees of God and for the good of the community. Nourished by the main tributaries of the Holy Qur’an and the Sunna (example) of the Prophet, it also reflects the ijmaa (consensus) of the umma (community of Muslims), as well as the ijtihad (personal effort of reasoning and interpretation) of the ulama (religious scholars) of the eighth to tenth centuries. In the course of its formation, during the heyday of the Islamic civilization, the Shari’a was the axial institution, bonding the various Muslim communities under the rule and guidance of the Caliphate.

The orthodox view of the veil, stated as the obligatory dress code for women, derives from some verses of the Qur’an, especially the one in surat el nour (24:31), urging women to pull their veils on their bodies, and not to display their zeena (adornments), except to close members of their families. In another verse, God advises the Prophet’s female warden and the believing women to “lengthen their skirts,” (33:59). A third one urges the believers, both men and women, to hide their private parts and to “lower their gazes.” A fourth one admonishes the believers not to address the wives of the Prophet, except behind a “curtain” (33:53).⁴ A fifth aya (24:60) tackles with the status of “prostrated” women (either post-menopausal or sick, depending on the interpretation of the word moutakaedat), easing the restrictions put on them. The inference from these ayas, following the traditional view, is the necessity for a good Muslim woman to cover her head.⁵ To confirm and to ratify that view, a saying of the Prophet is put forward: “All in a woman is awra (Pudenda? Private? Immodest?), except her face and hands.” And it is presented as a final proof of the absolute necessity of the veil. Therefore, it is incumbent for a believing woman to be veiled.

The demise and resurrection of the veil in Egypt

The veil was not an issue in the course of the history of Islamic civilization. Women became veiled, and then segregated from the view of men, as of the outset of the Islamic conquests and the establishment of the Islamic empires; and it was a fact of life that the private and public spheres were to be scrupulously separated, following a tacit consensus of the times.⁶

The debate on the veiling of women was only raised in times of crisis, when the Muslim world came violently into contact with Western colonialism. Thus, during the brief French occupation of Egypt (1798–1801), the Egyptian chronicler of the time, Al Jabarti, expressed his shock and horror at the sight of French soldiers publicly consorting with women, in the Ezbekkia gardens (Vatikiotis 1991: 45).

In the first decades of the British occupation (1882–1954) the issue of the veil generated passionate debates between modernists and traditionalists, raising the issues of class and culture and reaching deep into the nature of Egyptian identity. Two events happened almost simultaneously in the1920s, which from their outset reveal an antithetical significance. On the one hand, the dramatic and defiant removal of the veil in public by the aristocratic Hoda Shaarawi and her protégée Seza Nabarawi; on the other hand, the “resistant” display of Muslim “traditional garb” by the Muslim Sisters, an affiliate of the surging haraka (movement) of the Muslim Brotherhood; two stands which could not be more different in their antecedents, their social basis, and their implications!⁷

The first stand was occasioned by the British rule in Egypt, and the domination of Western interests and customs. It epitomized the Westernization of the society mostly in its upper echelons, through its contacts, interplay, and aligned interests with the foreign power in place. It also affiliated itself with the nahda (renaissance) movement of the 1850s, which interacting with Western culture had been touching on many aspects of Egyptian life. Moreover, it seemed as a validation of the attack on the veil as expounded in the controversial writings of Kassem Amin, the champion of Egyptian women’s “liberation” (Ayubi 1991: 130–132).

The second one was an integral part of the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood formed initially in Ismailia, in 1928, by a secondary school teacher, Hassan El Banna. This movement catered to the afflicted and alienated rural masses that had rushed to the cities in search of employment after World War I. By offering counsel, services, and a secure sense of belonging to a “purified” Muslim community through the expansion of a network of preaching and support, the haraka spread to embrace new adepts from the urban lower class to the lower middle class (Zuhur 1992: 47).

Under the autocratic rule of its Supreme Guide, the Muslim Brotherhood insisted on proper Islamic behavior and conduct, and women were required to cling to their head covers, ostensibly white.⁸ The “Islamic” dress was the outer sign and banner of resistance against the Westernizing colonialist project for women. With the same logic, detractors of Kassem Amin perceived “his assault on the veil not as the result of reasoned reflection and analysis, but rather as the internalization and replication of the colonialist perception” (Ahmed 1992: 161). Similar stands vituperated the aristocratic mimicry of the occupier’s customs, and denounced the bad faith of the West. Don’t they use the feminist discourse which they fight at home; to show that the Muslim world in their seclusion of women is backward, therefore deserves its colonization by the West? Concerning that rapport between Western and Islamist views, Leila Ahmed notes:

the peculiar resemblance to be found between the colonial and still commonplace Western view that an innate connection exists between the issues of culture and women in Muslim societies and the similar presumptions underlying the Islamist resistance position, that such a fundamental connection does indeed exist. The resemblance between the two positions is not coincidental: they are mirror images of each other. The resistance narrative contested the colonialist thesis by inverting—thereby also, ironically, grounding itself in the premises of the colonial thesis.

(Ahmed 1992: 166)

In the ensuing period up to the 1970s, the modernist view was gaining ground, first, under the liberal experiment of semi-independent Egypt, then during the modernizing socialist rule of Nasser. Women were making huge strides in education, employment, careers, and rights, and their visibility and engagement in the public sphere went unchallenged. The veil, as the symbol of the segregation of women had receded, almost to the point of invisibility, except in the countryside, where the peasant woman costume and head cover had always been more of a national dress than a religious standard.

On the other hand, during the inter-war period, the Muslim Brotherhood was engaged into a political competition with other political parties—parliamentary and extra-parliamentary—for the mind and soul of the people; especially the students of the secondary schools and universities. With active support from their propagandists, they became more militant, more strident in their denunciation of the corruption and inefficiency of the monarchical rule. They launched daring attacks against the British bases in the Canal Zone during World War II; they volunteered en masse in the 1948 war, in defense of the Palestinians’ rights against the colonialist Jewish implantation in Muslim land. Moreover, they entered into bloody confrontations with the Egyptian state, assassinating Prime Minister Nokrashy Pasha, and seeing their Supreme Guide executed in the ensuing police retaliation (Ibrahim 1987: 122–124).

However, as a whole, their call for a return to pure Islam was one among other voices on the Egyptian political stage, and it was also subsumed by the common nationalist cause against British colonial rule and the mounting disaffection with King Farouk’s regime. Socially, they were still eager to promote their program of Islamization, but either because of police vigilance, the competition of other parties, or in view of their violent methods, the movement seemed less appealing to a seemingly secularized population.

In the aftermath of the 1952 Free Officers’ coup d’état, the power game following the fall of the monarchy set Nasser and his group of Free Officers a formidable task: how to consolidate their rule and acquire legitimacy. A gradual, systematic purge was put in place: the banning of the old parliamentary parties, the cleansing of their influence in the bureaucracy, the house arrest of Muhammad Naguib, the first President of Egypt, the Liberation Rally, etc. Nasser now was emerging as the mastermind of the revolution and he had astutely played his card in doing away with most of his rivals of the Old Regime and in the close circle of the Free Officers. He became president in 1954, with absolute power, and was carried by a huge wave of popular support. However, he still had to deal with a more formidable rival: the Muslim Brothers. Whether the Brotherhood was challenging his dictatorship or was claiming a share in power is not clear; however an attempt on his life, attributed to a Muslim Brother during a public speech in Alexandria, gave Nasser the opportunity to unleash a relentless hounding and brutal repression of the Brothers. The movement was dismantled, its members scattered, killed, or thrown in jail. From then on, during the whole Nasser era, the religious discourse took a backseat in the ideology of the country. Now, it was nationalism, the struggle against imperialism, the liberation from colonialism, populism, the fight against reactionary Arab regimes, defiance of Israel, the call for Arab unity and Arab socialism. Even Al-Azhar, bastion of Sunni Islam, was “nationalized” and operated under the hegemony of the State: its fatwas (formal religious opinions) conferred justification and legitimacy to Nasser’s policies and decrees (Hopwood 1993: 96).

What about the veil during that period? Simply put, it seemed a remote and archaic idea of the past, not worth even recalling. The Nasserite socialist program of industrialization, free education, full employment, and social mobility had served women well.⁹ Thus, they competed with men in jobs and professions, in the media, in the theater, in the cinema; they enjoyed equal opportunities and equity of salaries. Egypt was the center of the Arab world and its songs, films, and stars confirmed its preeminence on the Arab cultural scene. And women were at the forefront of stardom and modernity.

Then the nakbah (catastrophe) struck like lightning on the country. Everybody agrees that the Six Day War and the Arab armies’ defeat at the hands of Israel had a traumatic effect on the nation. Psychologically speaking, it was a shake-up of assumptions and delusions. The regime was uncovered: its other face of repression, of secret prisons, of torture and human rights violation, of corruption and unaccountability, of economic and political failure was revealed and exposed. Nasser, the embodiment of Egypt, of Arab nationalism, the hero of the masses, the champion of Arab awakening, was broken. The whole edifice of the military dictatorship that he had built and consolidated with an iron fist for 25 years was pitifully crumbling. No matter that crying and desperate masses flocked in a huge demonstration calling him to revoke his resignation, no matter the trials of the officers responsible for the defeat, no matter the sit-ins of leftist students at the universities clamoring for transparency and accountability. The whole ideological fabric supporting the regime was cracking and the prostrated nation exposed its wounds. All the political “isms” of the past—liberalism, communism, socialism, fascism—had revealed their inadequacies and failure to deliver promises of prosperity and social justice.

Religion became a solace, the only haven of certitude in a world shaken in its foundations. (A significant sign: in the aftermath of the defeat, a rumor spread that the Virgin Mary had appeared in tears in a small church of Cairo, causing Copts and Muslims to flock in, in a spontaneous outpouring of religious fervor (Al-Sayyid Marsot 1990: 126).) However, the regime survived,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Series editors' preface
• Introduction Contextualizing women's agency in the MENA region
• Reconsidering the Foundations of Women, Islam, and Political Agency
• 1 The veil Religious and historical foundations and the modern political discourse
• 2 Women, Islam, and political agency in Morocco1
• 3 Assia Djebar and Malika Mokeddem Neocolonial agents or postcolonial subjects?
• 4 Women and political reform in Israel
• Women's leadership in civil society
• 5 Women's NGOs and social change in Morocco
• 6 Palestinian women's movements and activism
• Women and legal reform
• 7 Tunisia at the forefront of the Arab world Two waves of gender legislation
• 8 Feminism and family law in Iran The struggle for women's economic citizenship in the Islamic Republic
• 9 The legal status of women in Egypt Reform and social inertia
• Women Social, cultural, religious, and symbolic change
• 10 Algerian women as agents of change and social cohesion
• 11 Women in Turkey Caught between tradition and modernity
• 12 Women and language in Tunisia
• 13 Women, education, and the redefinition of empowerment and change in a traditional society The case of Oman
• 14 Perpetuating authority Ishelhin women's rituals and the transmission of Islamic knowledge in southwestern Morocco
• 15 Moroccan women contrabandists Interferences in public space
• 16 The Orient within Women “in-between” under Francoism
• Bibliography
• Index