Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (35 page)

in which the Prophet advises Muslims to distinguish between commands that are specifi to him and his kin and those that apply to Muslims in general.33

Note that in making these counterarguments, Maryam does not challenge the principle of female modesty as divinely ordained, but contests the daeiyat's ideas regarding how this principle should be lived in practice. Key to Maryam's argument is her insistence that the injunction to avoid interactions with men should be contextualized: not only should one's moral character be taken into account when determining the manner in which one interacts with the opposite sex, but also the conditions under which the Quranic verses used to regulate such interactions were revealed. In the latter point, Maryam unsettles the implicit but powerful assumption of the Nafi daeiyat that

32
See Abedi and Fischer
(
1 990)
for a discussion of this principle of Quranic exegesis in the every day context of Iranian political debates, particularly chapter 2, entitled "Qur�anic Dialogics: Islamic Poetics and Politics for Muslims and for Us."

33
For a discussion of this badith, see Abu Shuqqah
1995, 3: 70-87.

Quranic verses are universally applicable regardless of context, and that the Prophet's life and that of his Companions and female kin must be emulated in all respects. At one level, most women in the mosque movement embrace this assumption but at another level, many participants, like Mary bring other considerations to bear upon this well..established and oft..repeated belief. It is within this space of disagreement that Maryam is able to raise her objections to the daciyat's interpretation of the Quranic verses.

Notably, Maryam's arguments resonate with a number of scholars active in the Islamic Revival who have written against the kind of views espoused by the Nafisa daciyat in order to correct what they perceive as a strong trend toward overly stringent and narrow interpretations of the Quran and the l) dith, particularly in those aspects that pertain to the conduct of women (see Abu Shuqqah 1 995 ; M. al..Ghazali 1996; al..Qaradawi 1996). When I asked Maryam whether she had read these authors, she said she had not but had become familiar with their arguments through attending mosque groups such as these, and through discussions with her peers at school, where such topics enjoyed common currency. When I asked her why she continued to attend the Nafisa daciyat's lessons, given her dis.. agreements, Maryam said that sessions such as these forced her to acknowl.. edge the danger of not being vigilant enough in her interactions with men in institutional contexts, and sharpened her argumentative skills in pre.. senting a counterposition to women like the N afisa daeiyat-one that re.. mained, nonetheless, within the purview of Islamic reasoning. Maryam said that she considered this to be a part of her contribution to the work of daewa.

As is evident from the exchange between Maryam and Hajja lman, the pedagogical space of daewa is often constituted by debate and disagreement, as much as it is a space of consensus, about what are deemed to be the proper terms and protocols of engagement with canonical sources. Consider, for ex.. ample, an objection raised by another audience member, Rabia, who was fi .. teen years old. When one of the daciyat was in the midst of one of her long monologues about the dangers posed to pious conduct by worldly desires, Ra..

bia interrupted her rather spontaneously, and said: "Okay, okay [ttry
y
ib
tayy
ib
],

Hajja Samira, perhaps I can give a comment [ana
mumkin li ta
T
q
]. There are sound al) that show that women did sit with the Prophet and his [male] Companions. There is one that says a woman came to talk to the Prophet to ask for advice because by mistake she ate while she was fasting, and Abu Hu.. rayra [a well..known Companion of the Prophet] was there and he adman.. ished her before the Prophet replied [this implies that unrelated women and men interacted at the time of the Prophet]."

The daeiya Hajj a Samira cut her offand argued back, "First of all, you don't

know how this woman was related to Abu Hurayra;34 second, you don't know if this incident was before the veil was made incumbent upon Muslims or af.· ter;35 third, are you sure that this l). is sound [�a�I�] ?"

Rabia insisted that it was indeed a sound l).adith. Hajja Samira replied, "When we want to follow a l) it's necessary that we see it in the context of the entire spirit of the religion
[
i
�
na
lazim nakhud id--
kullu] , and also see

what is the consensus of the religious scholars
[ijmae il-- eulama1
[on the issue] .36 You see, there exists a consensus among the c: ' that ikhtilat should not be undertaken unless necessary."

This exchange is instructive because it reveals the contentious character of the pedagogical space of the mosque lessons. Note that despite the diff

in age, and in experience in the use of canonical sources, between the dac: and their audience, the conversation between these women proceeds along

remarkably equitable lines. It would be rare, for example, to fi this ease of debate and counterargument in a parallel setting at the University of al- Azhar, between a shaikh and his male students, because the boundaries are more strictly drawn. In contrast, the young attendees here challenge the daeiyat not only by citing their own authoritative sources, but also by drawing upon the experience of their own lives in interpreting what are considered to be divine injunctions and indicators thereof. The young women and the dac: both contribute to this milieu of debate, disagreement, and persuasion, even though the Nafi dftiyat have the reputation of being the most strict and stringent of all Cairene dac: Note, for example, that in response to Ra- bia's demonstration that women and men interacted at the time of the Prophet without a "barrier" (Modern Standard Arabic:
/.Ui iz;
Egyptian Collo-

quial Arabic:
�agi ),
the daeiya responds not by rejecting this account outright, but by a
s
k
in
g the young woman a series of questions about its reliability. By do-

ing this, she not only implicitly acknowledges that she herself does not know the story's authoritative status, but also demonstrates to the attendees the se--

'4
The da�iya is alluding here to the Islamic edict that women may interact with their immedi.. ate male kin without the same order of restrictions they have regarding other men. In this view, if the woman was the daughter, wife, or mother of Abu Hurayra, then she would, according to Is.. lamic protocols, be able to interact with him without the same restraints.

" The da�iya is referring here to the understanding in Islamic tradition that the content of rev.. elation changed dramatically over time, since the Quran was revealed
seriatim
over a period of

twenry..three years. The verses that were revealed after Muhammed migrated to Medina form the basis of most Islamic laws dealing with economic, ritual, and social issues. Verses that pertain to women's modest dress and behavior, such as those in Surat al..Nur, Surat al..AQ.zab, and Surat al.. Nisa', were all revealed in the Medinan period.

36
ljmli
I!
is one of the three most important means of debating and adapting various aspects of

Islamic law, and refers to the unanimous opinion of recognized religious jurists about issues that are not clearly spelled out in the Quran and the Sunna.

ries of questions they need to ask in order to authenticate a Prophetic tradi.. tion. The da�iya's response gives the young woman the opportunity to come right back and assert her own evidentiary claims.37 What I am suggesting here is that this kind of exchange presents a situation far more complex than any simple model of "religious indoctrination" would suggest, and requires an analysis of the micropractices of persuasion through which people are made to incline toward one view versus another.

Women from a variety of ages and background have come to acquire a fa.. miliarity with a wide range of scholarly procedures, terminologies, and modes of reasoning through involvement in precisely these kinds of interactions and open..ended discussions, and have in tum suffu these doctrinal debates with a new kind of urgency that stems from the exigencies of their daily lives. One result of women's increasing familiarity with the canonical sources is that it has brought aspects of their lives within the purview of the logic of this largely male..inscribed canon, expanding its scope and applicability to prob.. lems that were hitherto outside its purview. As I have stated before, these discussions are remarkably consistent in staying within the protocols and as.. sumptions of debate established by Muslim j urists. This does not mean, how.. ever, that a uniformity of views exists, but rather that when contestations are launched, they tend to engage with a fairly consistent set of materials, proto.. cols of debate, and reasoning-making these contestations an integral part of what currently constitutes the discursive fi of Islamic dacwa.

FEMALE SEXUALITY AN D SOCIAL DISCO RD

The Nafi. da�iyat's position on ikhtilat is predicated upon a key doctrinal po.. sition, upheld by the four schools of Islamic law, which accords female sexual.. ity a signifi weight in the provocation to illicit sexual desire and the es.. tablishment of relationships between men and women who are not married.

This position is well captured in a popularly cited l) "The woman, all of her, is unseemly/unprotected
[eaura] ;
if she goes out from the house, the devil will oversee her [actions]
[al..mar'a kullaha eaura fa idha kharajit min baitrha is.. tashrafh al..shaita,n] ."
This is one among a number of authoritative al).adith

that, combined with certain Quranic verses, provide the basis for regulating women's appearance in public. The term
eaura,
used to describe women here, is complex and has a variety of meanings, including "weakness," "faultiness,"

37
The daeiya could have lied about the status of the Q. in order to assert her authority against the young woman's claim. But this would be unacceptable behavior since lying about any.. thing, in particular about the status of a Q. , is considered a cardinal sin.

"unseemliness," "imperfection," "disfi ement," and "genitalia."
eAura
is re.. lated to the term
eawir,
which Edward Lane translated as that which has "no keeper or guardian . . . literally having a gap, or an opening, or a breach, ex.. posing it to thieves and the like" ( Lane 1 984). The English term
p
udend
u
m

(plural:
pudenda)
best captures the meaning of
eaura
as used in this l) be.. cause it refers not only to the genital organs of men and women, but also to that "of which one ought to be ashamed" ( OED 1999) .38 According to the

logic of this Q. ( and of the fi literature in general), "woman is caura" be.. cause: (a) her exit from the house exposes her to dangers, requiring protec.. tion;39 and (b) just as one is ashamed to expose one 's genitalia, one is ashamed to have a woman appear in public. According to this view, all those parts of a woman's body that may cause embarrassment and shame should therefore be covered, which, in the majority view of Muslim jurists, includes everything except a woman's hands, feet, and face.40

A small number of participants in the dacwa movement interpret this

l) to mean that "correct" Islam prohibits interactions between women and men. Others-like the Nafi d�tiyat-take this Q. along with cer.. tain Quranic verses, to mean that social interactions between men and women should be severely restricted. The vast majority of participants in the mosque movement, however, interpret these authoritative texts more loosely. For example, many women at the lower..class Ayesha mosque have no choice but to work in mixed.- offi , and regard the aforementioned l)

as an admonition to greater vigilance in their dealings with men rather than a prohibition against male..female interactions. Hajja Faiza, from the upper.. middle..class Umar mosque, espouses a similar if somewhat more nuanced view on the subject. When asked by one of her audience whether she inter..

·'8
In four diff English translations of the Quran, when the term
eaura
occurs in conjunc; tion with won1en, it is translated as "nakedness" or "women's private parts;" and when it occurs in conjunction with the term "houses," it is translated as something that is "exposed" and therefore requires protection.

19
In the same spirit, the Quran says: "Verily our houses are taura [i.e., exposed or open to at;

tack]" (from verse 13, Surat al;Al). ). The term is used four times in the Quran, and the only place where
eaura
is used to refer to women's genitalia (or private parts), it occurs in the plural
C
au; rat
)
,
in verse 31 of Surat al;Nur. Hoffman;Ladd argues that the idea that all of woman is taura is not contained in the Quran, but only became hegemonic later in Islamic history, as the standards for women's modesty grew more strict ( 198
7,
46 n. 34 ).

40
The consensus among the four schools of Islamic law is that a woman should cover all her body, with the exception of face, hands, and feet. This position is justifi by reference to Quranic verses 31 and 53 in Surat al;Nur and Surat al;Abzab, respectively, and two al). attributed to Muhammed's wife Ayesha (Abu Shuqqah 1995 , 4:83-246 ). Some Muslim thinkers have chal; lenged the conclusion that these verses and abadith make the veil obligatory upon all Muslim women. See, for example, Ashmawi 1994a, 1994b. For a response that reiterates the majority po; sition upheld by the eulam�f, see the state mufti's response to this interpretation, Tantawi 1994.