Contesting Feminisms

Gender and Islam in Asia

Huma Ahmed-Ghosh

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781438457925, 9781438457932
• eBook ISBN: 9781438457949
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology
• Index: Social Sciences

Contesting Feminisms explores how Asian Muslim women make decisions on appropriating Islam and Islamic lifestyles through their own participation in the faith. The contributors highlight the fact that secularism has provided the space for some women to reclaim their religious identity and their own feminisms. Through compelling case studies and theoretical discussions, this volume challenges mainstream Western and national feminisms that presume homogeneity of Muslim women's lives to provide a deeper understanding of the multiple realities of feminism in Muslim communities.

Part I

Whose Feminism?

Muslim Women Redefining “Empowerment”

Chapter 1

Muslim Women’s Leadership in Uzbekistan

Religion and Emotion

Svetlana Peshkova

Leadership and Emotions

Women’s ability to provide religious and political leadership in their communities is debated in Muslim and other faith-based communities (see Abugideiri 2001; Mattson 2008; Stowasser 2001; for such debate in Christian communities see Harris 2004). This debate includes perspectives from those who see such leadership as un-Islamic; it manifests a growing Westernization and, therefore, is among the factors leading to Muslims’ moral corruption (e.g., Shehab 1986). The proponents of women’s leadership include those who insist that women are not only able, but also, as khalifahs, God’s moral agents on Earth, responsible for leading their communities (Wadud 2007, 14, 33). Although these views differ greatly, they share a focus on the social effects of leadership and its sociohistorical and/or theological, not corporal, constitution. For instance, Amina Wadud (2007), an Islamic feminist and religious and political activist, demonstrates through a personal example the importance of biology in the discussion of leadership. Yet she does not elaborate on the role of the human body in the constitution of individual leadership (e.g., Wadud 2007, 172). In this chapter, I argue that sociohistorical context, theology, and cultural grammar, which includes shared understandings and expressions of individual religiosity, certainly inform but do not entirely determine individual leadership; hence, an analytical approach limited to these factors does not fully explain leadership. By analyzing in-bodied—located within a physical body—feelings and desires, such as a feeling of being a leader, I argue that an analysis of Muslim women’s leadership (or human leadership in general) should include its emotional constitution; being a leader is a part of one’s autobiographical self, which is “a real entity in our neuro-cognitive system” (Marranci 2009, 18). Therefore, human leadership has ecological and not social or theological ontology (see also Csordas 1990).¹

To advance this argument, I utilize Gabriele Marranci’s (2006) theory of identity built on a fusion of anthropology and neuroscience. While synthesizing the work of a behavioral neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio (2000), and anthropologists Kay Milton and Gregory Bateson, Marranci, himself an anthropologist, argues that the self and identity are not abstract analytical concepts; the former is “a product of complex neurological systems,” while the latter is an “emotional commitment through which people experience [and express] their … selves” (2006, 45, 7). This way, the self and identity are determined neither by social processes and cultural expectations, nor by biology and psychology (Marranci 2006, 40). Rather, personal identity is a process that allows the self to make sense of and express emotions and feelings that are activated by interaction with the surrounding environment; it is “what we feel to be [and not how others define us] that determines our personal identity” (Marranci 2009, 18).²

Therefore a feeling of being a leader is an outcome of complex neurological processes that involve emotion, consciousness, and the surrounding environment; emotions are “integral to the processes of reasoning and decision-making” (Damasio 2000, 41). If we accept that leadership is, first and foremost, emotional and in-bodied, then the questions of whether one can or cannot be a leader and what kind of leadership one can assume are secondary to ecological emotions, which constitute a human desire to lead; these emotions generate the feeling of being a leader (or make one feel like a leader).

The emotional constitution of Muslim women’s leadership by no means makes their leadership less “rational” (“scriptural” or “orthodox”) than leadership offered by men. Both men and women feel themselves to be leaders; they articulate and act on their feelings. These feelings, perceptions of emotions, are something intangible, something that cannot really be taken away or reconstituted by the social, as long as individuals perceive their actions as meaningful and their missions as viable. I do not want to diminish the significance of the sociohistorical and ecological context within which these missions acquire meaning and viability. This context is instrumental to being a leader, whereas a human body, consciousness, and emotions are essential for leadership.

In the following paragraphs, I exemplify the emotional constitution of leadership and its expression in acts of identity (e.g., ritual leadership) through an analysis of leadership provided by otinchalar or otins (Muslim women teachers and leaders) in Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country comprising part of the former Soviet Union.³ I conclude this chapter by situating otinchalar among other female leaders and demonstrate this argument’s significance to debates about Muslim women’s leadership. I exemplify its in-bodied origin and emotional constitution by analyzing leadership offered by Amina Wadud, an Islamic feminist, and Zainab al Ghazali (d. 2005), a famous Egyptian Islamist (for a thoughtful criticism of subsuming Muslim women’s gender struggles under such categories as “Islamic feminist” or “Islamist” see Seedat 2013). Because one’s leadership is essentially emotional and in-bodied, in spite of how others evaluate them, these and other women leaders continue to effect change in themselves and others.

The State, Islam, and Otinchalar in Uzbekistan

In Uzbekistan, there are two clear, historically embedded, tracks of gendered religious authority (Khalid 2007; Sultanova 2011). Otinchalar (the singular is otincha), female religious teachers and leaders, facilitate ritual life of and provide religious instruction, and sometimes healing, to the members of their communities (Peshkova 2006, 2009a; Fathi 1997; Kamp 2006; Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004). Since Uzbekistan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Islam, as understood by religious, intellectual, and political elites, has become a foundation of the Uzbek state’s nationalist ideology, and the number of individuals wanting to reorient life toward “correct” Islam has increased (Adams 2010; Rasanayagam 2010; Peshkova 2013).⁴

In the late 1990s, responding to a political opposition articulated in terms of Islam, the Uzbek government tightened its control over diverse religious sensibilities and behaviors espoused by its citizens. As a result, non-institutionalized religious instruction was prohibited. Missionary activities by Muslim and non-Muslim groups were banned. All religious organizations had to register with the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan, a state institution, while the individuals teaching Islam or providing ritual leadership in their communities had to be certified. In order to prevent circulation of “extremist” ideas and anti-state propaganda, the government tightened its control over the Internet, religious literature, and audio and video recordings featuring Islamic preaching (Kendzior 2010). The government’s agencies, such as the National Security Service, continue to routinely penalize Muslims whose religious sensibilities and behaviors are deemed to be political (e.g., McGlinchey 2011; Human Rights Watch 2007).

Otinchalar are among informal leaders operating in this context. A very small number of them hold a (formal) public office, such as local imams (male prayer leaders) (for a discussion of an administrative position of hokymiat [city government] otin see Peshkova 2014). Even though these women’s leadership mainly focuses on ritual performance, they act as both religious and political leaders in their communities (Peshkova 2009a). Otinchalar do not (usually) express their political leadership by engaging the state directly through such actions as public protests. Rather, their political leadership manifests in their efforts to increase individual piety, including providing knowledge about Islam. They negotiate interpersonal conflicts and ease political and economic anxieties accompanying the daily life of local individuals through a ritual mediation between human and divine worlds.

This seemingly apolitical leadership also takes place in “unusual places,” such as their homes, the private homes of individual Muslims, and at sacred sites, and not at the mosques (for an example of such leadership in Iran see Friedl 1989; for a description of private ceremonies see Peshkova 2009b; Kandiyoti and Azimova 2004). And yet, the government’s criticism and its increasing efforts to monitor otinchalar’s activities (e.g., Barrett 2008) point to the potentially subversive, political nature of their leadership, since they provide non-institutionalized religious instruction and officiate at ceremonies that religious authorities often define as nontraditional (for a discussion of “politics of piety” in Egypt see Mahmood 2005; Hafez 2011; for regional religious education see Peshkova 2014). Therefore, otinchalar’s leadership exemplifies forms of leadership that are both religious and political, operating in and informed by a particular sociohistorical context, where Islam is both a symbol of national identity and a potential political contender to the government’s nationalist ideology (Rasanayagam 2010; Adams 2010; McGlinchey 2011; for contextual nature of such leadership see Peshkova 2009a).

During the second decade of the twenty-first century, Uzbekistan’s government agencies continue to control and manage individual religiosity—how religious sensibilities are understood and enacted. Such control includes, among other things, circumscribing individual ability to share religious knowledge, unless this knowledge is received or disseminated at religious institutions or by individuals accredited by the state (Abramson 2010). The police and National Security Service monitor, however successfully, ritual specialists’ activities; informal religious leaders continue to be fined, harassed, and sometimes jailed (McGlinchey 2007). Despite the Uzbek state’s attempts, informal religious teachers and leaders, like otinchalar, who in most cases are not accredited by the state, still persevere and thrive (see Kamp 2006; Fathi 2006).

The Uzbek government’s ideological emphasis on Islam and popular interest in religious knowledge and practice certainly sustain otinchalar’s leadership, which is also historically embedded; as one of two tracks of gendered religious authority in the region, it endures in spite of political repressions. This leadership, in some cases, is also a function of individual resistance to the state’s regulation of private religiosity (see Scott 1985; for examples of such resistance in the region see Karagiannis 2006). Economic hardships experienced by local individuals ensure continuity of otinchalar’s leadership as well. These women’s access to religious and ceremonial knowledge and their ability to skillfully navigate and negotiate a “cultural supermarket,” where different understandings and expressions of Muslimness compete and coexist, enables and sustains their leadership (on global cultural supermarket see Mathews 2000; on contesting models of Muslimness in Uzbekistan see McBrien and Pelkmans 2008). In response to the trials of daily life, as intermediaries between human and divine worlds, otinchalar help local individuals tap into a supernatural moral order through their ceremonial leadership and religious knowledge. In return, these women’s services are rewarded either monetarily or through goods (e.g., fabrics, scarves, food) (on Muslim women’s leadership in Tajikistan see Usmanova 2009; on Muslim women’s leadership in Kyrgyzstan see Borbieva 2012). In order to fully understand what propels their leadership, I, however, propose to look beyond its sociohistorical, economic, or ideological constitution, and focus on the human ecological emotions and feelings that constitute an individual’s desire to lead. Marranci’s (2006) theory of identity, briefly sketched in the following paragraphs, helps frame these women’s persistent leadership.

The Self and Identity

Marranci (2006) argues that identity is not a by-product of social history and context, and cannot be fully understood without considering human consciousness and emotions. “The relationship between the individual and its surroundings is ‘essentially emotional’ ” (Milton [2007, 71], quoted in Marranci 2009, 80). Emotions, according to Marranci (2009), are physical (bodily) responses to external stimuli, such as an increased heart rate, sweat, and an elevated blood pressure. Emotions are different from feelings, but both are central to the formation of human identity. Our interactions with human and nonhuman environments cause emotional responses. Since “a state of emotion … can be triggered and executed nonconsciously [sic],” some of these responses we are conscious of, but not others (Damasio 2000, 37; italics in the original). Thus, following Milton and Svasek (2005), Marranci (2006, 51) concludes that although social interactions “surely” raise emotions, these have an ecological rather than social ontology.

With the help of consciousness, humans become conscious of emotions and articulate them as feelings, such as fear and love. These feelings then become a part of the memory of emotions experienced in different settings, while interacting with human and nonhuman others; this memory helps humans to develop an individual “self” (also see Damasio 2000, 36). This self is not just an analytical concept; it is “real” and “neuro-cognitive” (Marranci 2009, 18). Hence, through emotions we are learning about the world and ourselves, while creating ourselves as a unique historical continuity “beyond the immediate here and now” (Damasio 2000, 37).

Marranci (2006), like Damasio (2000), accepts that human consciousness and the self are not monolithic, but divided into the core and extended consciousness corresponding to the core and autobiographical selves. The core consciousness is a by-product of brain activities retaining information about how external stimuli affect an organism’s internal state at a particular time in a particular space; it gives us “the feeling of knowing” (Damasio [2000, 172], quoted in Marranci 2006, 45). Because “we encounter an unending number of objects in our environment,” the core self is “continuously generated and time related” (Marranci 2006, 45). The autobiographical self—how we know ourselves historically—“provides a sense of stability” by reactivating selected autobiographical memories (memories of emotions and feelings) and the information retained in the core self (Marranci 2006, 46). These memories enable a human to develop and realize her historical and temporal continuity. Therefore, without the neurocognitive system there would be no self, no “reflecting subject” and no “self-consciousness” (Marranci 2006, 45).

The self is different from identity. Identity is neither a style an individual selects, nor is it determined by others; it is a process allowing “human beings to make sense of their autobiographical self [sic] and to express it through symbols, which communicate at an inner level feelings that are in other ways directly incommunicable” (Marranci 2006, 48, 51; italics in the original). Symbols, such as language and dress, allow us to communicate what and how we feel deep inside.⁵ Thus, identity, too, has an ecological and not social ontology. By enabling communication and feedback mechanisms between brain sites, physical body, and surrounding environment, as part and parcel of a human organism’s survival, identity facilitates learning and, therefore, is responsible for changes and continuities in one’s autobiographical self (Marranci 2006, 47).

For example, my statement, “I am a mother,” is a symbolic communication of my emotional commitment through which I experience my autobiographical self. (1) When I see my son, a surrounding environment—in this case human (could be nonhuman) and external (could be internal)—induces emotion; (2) his image reactivates particular brain sites containing memories of past experiences, such as his smile and his first words, and how I felt at the time—...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Whose Feminism? Muslim Women Redefining “Empowerment”
• Part II: Feminisms and Muslim Women’s Movements in Contested Spaces
• Part III: Transnational Feminisms: Locating Muslim Women at the Crossroads
• Contributors
• Index
• Back Cover