Muslim Women

Freda Hussain

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781138821118
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000155952
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

The history of Islam and the changing role-performance of Muslim women, given the various interpretations of the belief system of Islam, are described. It is the contention of the authors that it is these various interpretations which have given rise to the conflict between the ideal and contextual realities. This book also includes papers which investigate the problems of feminism and employment for Muslim women, as well as the educational and legal aspects of their lives in contemporary Islamic society.

First published in 1984.

Part One:

THE IDEAL

Chapter 1

THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN EARLY ISLAM

Barbara Freyer Stowasser

An important aspect of the contemporary Islamic revival, the widespread and still spreading regeneration of the Islamic ethos, is the renewed and visible emphasis that is being placed by Muslims on the ‘Islamic way of life’.

As a comprehensive system of beliefs and values, Islam evolved principles that touched upon most aspects of social existence. Few, if any, of these therefore remain unaffected by the Islamic ‘regeneration’ (tajdid). The impact is further intensified by the scale on which this regeneration unfolds. Even societies which seemed securely on the road to secularist modernisation are now drawn into and give evidence of widespread, intensified emulation of Islamic lifestyles. Centrally affected by these developments are the societal patterns of men’s and women’s status and the interrelationship of the sexes. The question of women’s status in Islamic society, the issue of separation of female world from male world by means of secluding and barring women from public affairs, is hotly debated as the forces of tradition cross arms with the forces of modernity in today’s open, swiftly changing Islamic world of internal and external pressures and crises. The apologists of the traditional Islamic order who are in the forefront of the battle not only to retain, but to restrengthen ‘the Islamic way of life’ propagate a distinctive social order which has been described in terms of the institutionalisation (1) of the difference in ranking of men and women and (2) of the ‘cushioning–off’ of the female world (the home) from the male world (public affairs).¹ This order they sanction in religious terms by ascribing it directly to the Koran or to ‘the original order of Islam’. By describing the order in religious terms in this fashion, they contribute, or intend to contribute, to the compulsive impact of the institutions concerned.

It is thus a worthwhile undertaking to investigate exactly and in some detail what the Koran and the early Islamic Traditions (Hadith) contain of information regarding men’s and women’s status, interrelationships, rights, duties, etc. It will also be relevant to inquire how this information was used (or even changed) by later generations of Muslims.

This is, however, a vast area of concern, and only a small beginning can be made here in this presentation. I will attempt simply to indicate and characterise some of the available source materials, map out a course of action for research, and offer some preliminary findings.

The study of the early Islamic sources is enhanced as well as made difficult by their status as well as by the role which they have played in the development of the Islamic order as a whole. Not only the Koran itself, but also the early Islamic Traditions represent infallible, since divinely inspired, sources of the shari’a, the Holy Law of Islam, through which their principles and prescriptions are applied to all (or almost all) aspects of social and political existence. The Islamic doctrine that Muhammad as an individual and his Companions as a group acted under tacit divine inspiration, elevated even their daily behavour patterns to the level of legally binding precedent or model behavious (Sunna) which all believers were expected to follow. This doctrine was developed early on. Already at the end of the first century of Islam, the principle that ‘the Sunna is the judge of the Koran, and not vice versa’ was formed by the pious scholars in their endeavour to raise the Sunna to a position of equality with the Holy Book in establishing the law.²

A study of the legislative detail of the Koran as well as the Sunna of the early believers as depicted in the Traditions, therefore, brings us face to face with the ‘blueprint’ of the just Islamic order. Even when and where this model order was incompletely realised, it remained the code of ultimate normative value that the individual believer knew – and knows – as a vital part of his faith and against which he measured – and measures – his own, usually imperfect, reality.

This sanctity of the sources certainly endows them with the greatest importance, but also makes for great sensitivity in any attempt at critical investigation. Since even the order described in the Traditions has become part and parcel of the religion of Islam, to use the Hadith material critically as one would any other historical source is liable to be taken by ultra–conservative believers as an attack on the religion as a whole.

I THE SOURCES, NATURE AND FLEXIBILITY

Before presenting at least some limited detail on women’s position in the early Islamic society as depicted in the early Islamic sources, it may be of benefit (1) to briefly describe the sources and (2) to indicate how they were used by the early believers themselves to accommodate the staggering rate of political, economic, and social change that occurred during the first centuries of Islamic history.

The Koran, being the sum total of God’s revelations to the Prophet and utterly sacred in content as well as in form according to Muslim belief, had legislated deep–going changes in all areas of life. With the Prophet’s death in 632, the Koran became a closed book. As the Arabs embarked upon the wars of conquest soon thereafter and as the realm of Islam expanded dramatically within the span of just a few generations, the original message and way of life of Islam had to be made workable in the conquered areas for a multitude of peoples of varied ethnic, linguistic, political and cultural backgrounds many (or most) of whom converted the the new faith. One manner in which innovation and change could be accommodated and legitimised, and even foreign patterns could be assimilated, is constituted by the discipline of Koran exegesis (tafsir). Koran commentators set out to legitimise actual usage of their own day by interpreting it in great detail into the Holy Book. The process of change of women’s status in Islamic society, e.g. can be traced through a comparative study of Koran interpretations such as those of Tabari (d. 923), Zamakhshari (d. 1144), Baydawi (d. 1286), the Tafsir Jalalayn, begun by Jalal al–Din al–Suyuti (d. 1505) and completed by his son of the same name, and many others.

The Traditions (Hadith) which provide detail to the doctrines and laws of the Koran constitute source materials of quite a different nature while playing a similar role as the Koran interpretations in the process of accommodating and legitimising changes in the community. The Traditions embody the venerable precedent or Sunna of the Prophet and his Companions consisting of what he or they said, did, or tolerated. The Sunna was recorded and transmitted in the form of hadiths, short narratives or traditions, each of which consisted of a text – containing an element of doctrine, ethics, law or social custom and etiquette – and a chain of transmitters, i.e. a chain of the names of all those men and women who had handled that particular text and had passed it on one to the other. The deep–going changes that engulfed the ever–expanding Islamic community during the formative years of the Islamic Empire were in turn absorbed and legitimised through the Sunna as codified in the Hadith through the technique of forgery of hadiths. Political, sectarian, social and other innovations were legitimised by providing for them a fake ‘chain of transmitters’ and hence by presenting them as the usage of the Prophet and his Companions. This was an effective way of dealing with changes in the established order since a hadith (even if forged) was more convincing than rational argument.³ In this fashion, the Sunna was adjusted by the addition of normative detail to fit the needs of each new generation.

The challenge of uncontrolled proliferation of hadiths found its response in the emerging science of Hadith criticism with its weighty tones of biographic dictionaries (such as the Tabaqat of Ibn Sa’d, d. 844) that established both biographical data and credibility of the individual traditionists, together with a listing of the ‘sound’ material that they had transmitted. As a result, expurgated editions of Hadith material that – so their authors claimed – were free of forgeries were compiled from the mid–9th century onward (i.e. about 250 years after Muhammad’s death). Most notable among them are the six canonical collections of al–Bukhari (d. 870), Muslim ibn Hajjaj (d. 875), Abu Da’ud al–Sijistani (d. 889), Abu ‘Isa Muhammad al–Tirmidhi (d. 892), al–Nasa’i (d. 915), and Ibn Maja (d. 896).

A detailed study of these collections shows that they reflect and represent⁴ (1) the actual way of life of the first generations of Muslims, (2) a nostalgic reinterpretation and idealisation of the early beginnings by later generations, and (3) the growth and change that occurred during later periods. It should be understood, however, that all of the material – no matter what its age or authenticity – is most valuable for our understanding of Islam because of the fact that it reflects actual social reality, even if not necessarily the social reality of the first generations of Muslims.

While it is as yet impossible in most cases to determine the exact age of the information conveyed within a single collection, comparative study of several Hadith collections can be enlightening insofar as it helps to establish – with the death date of each compiler serving as the terminus ante quem for all material within his compilation – patterns and directions of development within Islamic doctrines and practice through the centuries.

II WOMEN IN THE KORAN

While the Hadith is a source that reflects both early and later usage, and hence tends to be ambiguous as to the age and authenticity of the information it contains, the Koran, on the other hand, is free of ambiguities of this kind. Thus, we find in it in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Dedication
• Introduction: The Ideal and Contextual Realities of Muslim Women
• Part One: The Ideal
• Part Two: Role Changes
• Part Three: Contextual Realities