The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender [1 ed.] 2020019099, 9780815367772, 9781351256568

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Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: Foundational texts in historical and contemporary contexts
1. Classical Qurʾanic exegesis and women
2. Sex and marriage in early Islamic law
3. Islamic gender ethics: traditional discourses, critiques, and new frameworks of inclusivity
4. Muslima theology
5. Gender and the study of Islamic law: from polemics to feminist ethics
PART II: Sex, sexuality, and gender difference
6. Applying gender and queer theory to pre-modern sources
7. Intersex in Islamic medicine, law, and activism
8. Sexuality and human rights: actors and arguments
9. Mixité, gender difference, and the politics of Islam in France after the headscarf ban
PART III: Gendered authority and piety
10. Gendering the divine: women, femininity, and queer identities on the Sufi path
11. Gender and the Karbala Paradigm: on studying contemporary Shiʿi women
12. The stabilization of gender in zakat: the margin of freedom and the politics of care
13. Muslim chaplaincy and female religious authority in North America
14. Malama Ta Ce!: women preachers, audiovisual media and the construction of religious authority in Niamey, Niger
PART IV: Political and religious displacements
15. Gender, Muslims, Islam, and colonial India
16. Islam and gender on the Swahili coast of East Africa
17. Mujahidin, mujahidat: balancing gender in the struggle of Jihadi-Salafis
18. Modelling exile: Syrian women gather to discuss prophetic examples in Jordan
PART V: Negotiating law, ethics, and normativity
19. Transgressing the boundaries: zina¯ and legal accommodation in the premodern Maghrib
20. Women and Islamic law: decolonizing colonialist feminism
21. The emergence of women’s scholarship in Damascus during the late 20th century
22. Human rights, gender, and the state: Islamic perspectives
PART VI: Vulnerability, care, and violence in Muslim families
23. Two ‘quiet’ reproductive revolutions: Islam, gender, and (in)fertility
24. Aging and the elderly: diminishing family care systems and need for alternatives
25. Domestic violence and US Muslim communities: negotiating advocacy, vulnerability, and gender norms
26. #VoiceOut: Sufi hardcore activism in the Lion City
PART VII: Representation, commodification, and popular culture
27. Hijab, Islamic fashion, and modest clothing: hybrids of modernity and religious commodity
28. Constructing the ‘Muslim woman’ in advertising
29. French Muslim women’s clothes: the secular state’s religious war against racialised women
30. Female filmmakers and Muslim women in cinema
31. Gender, race, and American Islamophobia
Index
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The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender [1 ed.]
 2020019099, 9780815367772, 9781351256568

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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ISLAM AND GENDER

Given the intense political scrutiny of Islam and Muslims, which often centres on gendered concerns, The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender is an outstanding reference source to key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into seven parts: • • • • • • •

Foundational texts in historical and contemporary contexts Sex, sexuality, and gender difference Gendered piety and authority Political and religious displacements Negotiating law, ethics, and normativity Vulnerability, care, and violence in Muslim families Representation, commodification, and popular culture

These sections examine key debates and problems, including: feminist and queer approaches to the Qurʾan, hadith, Islamic law, and ethics, Sufism, devotional practice, pilgrimage, charity, female religious authority, global politics of feminism, material and consumer culture, masculinity, fertility and the family, sexuality, sexual rights, domestic violence, marriage practices, and gendered representations of Muslims in film and media. The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, Islamic studies, and gender studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, area studies, sociology, anthropology, and history. Justine Howe is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University, USA.

Routledge Handbooks in Religion

The Routledge Handbook of Muslim–Jewish Relations Edited by Josef Meri The Routledge Handbook of Religious Naturalism Edited by Donald A. Crosby and Jerome A. Stone The Routledge Handbook of Death and the Afterlife Edited by Candi K. Cann The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics Edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender Edited by Amy Hoyt and Taylor G. Petry The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender Edited by Justine Howe The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Journalism Edited by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler and Xenia Zeiler For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/RoutledgeHandbooks-in-Religion/book-series/RHR

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF ISLAM AND GENDER

Edited by Justine Howe

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Justine Howe; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Justine Howe to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Howe, Justine, 1981- editor. Title: The Routledge handbook of Islam and gender / edited by Justine Howe. Description: 1. | New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge handbooks in religion | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020019099 | ISBN 9780815367772 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351256568 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sex–Religious aspects–Islam | Gender identity–Religious aspects–Islam. Classification: LCC BP190.5.S4 R68 2020 | DDC 297.081–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019099 ISBN: 978-0-815-36777-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-25656-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by River Editorial Ltd, Devon, UK

CONTENTS

List of contributors Acknowledgements

ix xiv

Introduction Justine Howe

1

PART I

Foundational texts in historical and contemporary contexts

21

1 Classical Qurʾanic exegesis and women Hadia Mubarak

23

2 Sex and marriage in early Islamic law Carolyn G. Baugh

43

3 Islamic gender ethics: traditional discourses, critiques, and new frameworks of inclusivity Zahra Ayubi

57

4 Muslima theology Jerusha Tanner Rhodes

68

5 Gender and the study of Islamic law: from polemics to feminist ethics Fatima Seedat

83

v

Contents

PART II

Sex, sexuality, and gender difference

99

6 Applying gender and queer theory to pre-modern sources Ash Geissinger

101

7 Intersex in Islamic medicine, law, and activism Indira Falk Gesink

116

8 Sexuality and human rights: actors and arguments Anissa Hélie

130

9 Mixité, gender difference, and the politics of Islam in France after the headscarf ban Kirsten Wesselhoeft

146

PART III

Gendered authority and piety

161

10 Gendering the divine: women, femininity, and queer identities on the Sufi path Merin Shobhana Xavier

163

11 Gender and the Karbala Paradigm: on studying contemporary Shiʿi women Edith Szanto

180

12 The stabilization of gender in zakat: the margin of freedom and the politics of care Danielle Widmann Abraham

193

13 Muslim chaplaincy and female religious authority in North America Sajida Jalalzai 14 Malama Ta Ce!: women preachers, audiovisual media and the construction of religious authority in Niamey, Niger Abdoulaye Sounaye

209

222

PART IV

Political and religious displacements

239

15 Gender, Muslims, Islam, and colonial India Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst

241

vi

Contents

16 Islam and gender on the Swahili coast of East Africa Nathaniel Mathews

256

17 Mujahidin, mujahidat: balancing gender in the struggle of Jihadi-Salafis Nathan S. French

269

18 Modelling exile: Syrian women gather to discuss prophetic examples in Jordan Sarah A. Tobin

282

PART V

Negotiating law, ethics, and normativity

297

19 Transgressing the boundaries: zinā and legal accommodation in the premodern Maghrib Rosemary Admiral

299

20 Women and Islamic law: decolonizing colonialist feminism Lena Salaymeh 21 The emergence of women’s scholarship in Damascus during the late 20th century Feryal Salem 22 Human rights, gender, and the state: Islamic perspectives Shannon Dunn

310

318

328

PART VI

Vulnerability, care, and violence in Muslim families

341

23 Two ‘quiet’ reproductive revolutions: Islam, gender, and (in)fertility Marcia C. Inhorn

343

24 Aging and the elderly: diminishing family care systems and need for alternatives Mary Elaine Hegland

358

25 Domestic violence and US Muslim communities: negotiating advocacy, vulnerability, and gender norms Juliane Hammer

375

26 #VoiceOut: Sufi hardcore activism in the Lion City Sophia Rose Arjana vii

390

Contents

PART VII

Representation, commodification, and popular culture

405

27 Hijab, Islamic fashion, and modest clothing: hybrids of modernity and religious commodity Faegheh Shirazi

407

28 Constructing the ‘Muslim woman’ in advertising Kayla Renée Wheeler

423

29 French Muslim women’s clothes: the secular state’s religious war against racialised women Shabana Mir

435

30 Female filmmakers and Muslim women in cinema Kristian Petersen

447

31 Gender, race, and American Islamophobia Megan Goodwin

463

Index

475

viii

CONTRIBUTORS

Rosemary Admiral is Assistant Professor of History in the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research focuses on Middle East and North African history, Islamic legal history, and histories of women and gender. Her current book project explores how women engaged with Islamic law and legal institutions in premodern Morocco. Sophia Rose Arjana is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Western Kentucky University. She is the author of four books: Muslims in the Western Imagination (Oxford, 2015), Pilgrimage in Islam: Traditional and Modern Practices (Oneworld, 2017), Veiled Superheroes: Islam, Feminism and Popular Culture (Lexington, 2017), and Buying Buddha, Selling Rumi: Orientalism and the Mystical Marketplace (Oneworld, 2020). Zahra Ayubi is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College and specialises in women and gender in premodern and modern Islamic ethics. She is the author of Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society (Columbia University Press, 2019). She also teaches and publishes on gendered concepts of ethics, justice, and religious authority, and on Muslim feminist thought and American Muslim women’s experiences. Carolyn G. Baugh (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 2011) is Associate Professor of History and Arabic at Gannon University. She is the author of Minor Marriage in Early Islamic Law (Brill, 2017). Shannon Dunn is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University. She earned her PhD from Florida State University. Professor Dunn’s research focuses on gender, violence, and religious and secular systems of law. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters in comparative religious ethics. Nathan S. French is an Associate Professor of Comparative Religion and an affiliate of Middle East and Islamic Studies at Miami University. He is the author of And God Knows the Martyrs: Martyrdom and Violence in Jihadi-Salafism (Oxford University Press, 2020).

ix

Contributors

Ash Geissinger is an Associate Professor in the Religion Program at Carleton University (Canada) who researches the intersections of the Qurʾan and its exegesis, the hadith, gender, and sexuality. Recent publications include the book chapter: ‘Are Men the Majority in Paradise, or Women?’ Constructing Gender and Communal Boundaries in Muslim b. al-Ḥajjā j’s (d. 261/875) Kitāb al-Janna (in Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam, edited by S. Günther and T. Lawson, Brill, 2017). Indira Falk Gesink is Professor of History at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Her work has also appeared in the American Historical Review and the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, and she is author of Islamic Reform and Conservatism: Al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam (I.B. Tauris, 2009), Barefoot Millionaire (Baldwin Wallace University, 2013), and Philosophies of History (Cicero Press, 2018). Megan Goodwin is Program Director of Sacred Writes: Public Scholarship on Religion, a Luce-funded project hosted by Northeastern University, as well as a visiting lecturer in Northeastern’s Department of Philosophy and Religion. Her work on American Islamophobia has appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the Muslim World. Her first book, Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions, is available through Rutgers University Press. Juliane Hammer is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts against Domestic Violence (Princeton University Press, 2019) and American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer (University of Texas Press, 2012), as well as the co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to American Islam (with Omid Safi, Cambridge University Press, 2013). Mary Elaine Hegland is Professor of Anthropology at Santa Clara University. Dr Hegland authored Days of Revolution: Political Unrest in an Iranian Revolution and many articles based on her fieldwork during the Iranian Revolution and other periods of research in Iran from 1978 to 2018. In addition to religion and politics, her publications deal with aging and the elderly in Iran and among Iranian Americans in California’s Bay Area; women and gender, change and continuity in an Iranian village; Shiʿa Muharram rituals among Pakistani women; and marriage and sexuality among Iranians. Anissa Hélie is Associate Professor of History at John Jay College, New York City. Growing up in Algeria, she has been involved with feminist organisations and transnational networks, and works on issues of sexuality, wars and conflicts, religious fundamentalisms and violence against women. Justine Howe is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on contemporary Islam with an ethnographic focus on Muslim communities in the United States. She is the author of Suburban Islam (Oxford, 2018). Marcia C. Inhorn is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University, where she serves as Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies. A medical anthropologist focusing on gender, religion, and reproductive health in the Middle East and Arab America, Inhorn is the author of six books on the subject. x

Contributors

Sajida Jalalzai is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She specialises in the study of Islam and Muslims in North America, with a specific interest in the professional education of Muslim leadership. Her research focuses on the impact of educating Muslim chaplains in North American Protestant seminaries. Nathaniel Mathews is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at SUNY-Binghamton. He is currently writing a book about the post-1964 revolution diasporas from Zanzibar to the Gulf region. Shabana Mir is Associate Professor (Anthropology) and Director, Undergraduate Studies at American Islamic College. She wrote the nationally award-winning book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), based on ethnographic research on Muslim college students after 9/11. Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst is Associate Professor of Religion and Associate Director of the Humanities Center at the University of Vermont. Her first book, Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion, attends to imperialism, colonialism, racialisation, and minoritisation and Islam in South Asia. Additionally, she works on the histories of religious and Islamic studies. Hadia Mubarak is Assistant Professor of Religion at Queens University of Charlotte. Mubarak completed her PhD in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University, where she specialised in modern and classical Qurʾanic exegesis, Islamic feminism, and gender reform in the modern Muslim world. Her upcoming publication, Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands (OUP), explores significant shifts in modern Qurʾanic commentaries on the subject of women against the backdrop of historical, intellectual, and political developments in 20th-century North Africa. Kristian Petersen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. His current research interests include Muslims and popular culture, media studies, and religion and film. He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims. He is the editor two forthcoming volumes: Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (Ilex Foundation and Harvard University Press) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). Jerusha Tanner Rhodes is Associate Professor of Islam and Interreligious Engagement and Director of the Islam, Social Justice, and Interreligious Engagement Program (ISJIE) at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Her work and writing focus on Islamic feminism, interreligious engagement, and social justice. She is author of Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima Explorations in Comparative Feminist Theology (Oxford University Press, 2018). Lena Salaymeh is Associate Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University and Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private International Law. She is the author of The Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Feryal Salem (PhD, University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at American Islamic College. Her research interests include Islamic philosophy and xi

Contributors

theology in the post-classical period, interreligious studies, and the development of Muslim thought in the contemporary era as it came into conversation with aspects of modernity. Dr Salem is the author of The Emergence of Early Sufi Piety and Sunnī Scholasticism: ʿAbdallā h b. al-Mubā rak and the Formation of Sunni Identity in the Second Islamic Century (Brill, 2016) published in the Islamic History and Civilization series. Fatima Seedat (PhD Islamic Law, McGill) is Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her work focuses on gender studies at the intersections of Islam, sexuality, and law. She writes on the convergences of Islam and feminism, queering the study of Islam, militant Muslim masculinity, and egalitarian readings of Islamic law. Her current research projects include feminist readings strategies and reform methods for Islamic law, and she is in the early stages of a project on gender non-conforming Muslim sexualities. Dr Seedat’s teaching focus lies in African and other feminist theorising, and feminist research and writing methods. Faegheh Shirazi is Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of numerous academic articles in diverse journals and contributor of book chapters and encyclopaedia articles. Shirazi is author of The Veil Unveiled: Hijab in Modern Culture (University Press of Florida, 2001); Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women’s Quiet Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism (University Press of Florida, 2009/2011); Brand Islam: The Commodification of Piety (University of Texas Press, 2016); and the editor of Muslim Women in War and Crisis: From Reality to Representation (University of Texas Press, 2010). Professor Shirazi’s research interests focus on the Islamic popular religious practices and rituals and their influence on gender identity and discourse in Muslim societies, with a primary focus on Iran, Islamic veiling, material culture, textiles, and clothing. She also serves on a number of academic editorial boards nationally and internationally for various journals and book publications. Shirazi’s new book project is Textiles, Clothing Symbology and Rites of Passages in Islamicate Societies (in progress). Abdoulaye Sounaye is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Contested Religion Unit at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient. He received his doctorate from Northwestern University. He is the author of Islam et Modernité Contribution a l’Analyse de La ré-islamisation Au Niger (L’Harmattan, 2016) and Muslim Critics of Secularism: Ulama and Democratization in Niger (Lambert Academic, 2010). Edith Szanto is an Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. She received her doctorate from the University of Toronto and previously taught there and at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. She is finishing a book manuscript, tentatively entitled ‘Transgressive Traditions: Twelver Shi’ism in Modern Syria’. Sarah A. Tobin, Research Professor at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway, is a cultural anthropologist of Islam and economy, politics, and Syrian refugees in Jordan. Dr Tobin’s books are Everyday Piety: Islam and Economy in Jordan (Cornell University Press, 2016) and The Politics of the Headscarf in the U.S. (with B.C. Welborne, A.L. Westfall, O. Celik-Russell, Cornell University Press, 2018). Kirsten Wesselhoeft is Assistant Professor of Religion at Vassar College. She studies Muslim social activist and intellectual culture, combining ethnography, cultural history, and xii

Contributors

constructive Muslim ethics. Her forthcoming book, Fraternal Critique: Muslim Social Ethics in Contemporary France, focuses on class, racialisation, feminist politics, and trans-Atlantic circulation in Muslim Paris. Her articles have appeared in Sociology of Islam, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and the Oxford Review of Education. Kayla Renée Wheeler is Assistant Professor of Gender and Diversity Studies at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa. Her forthcoming book, Fashioning Black Islam, explores how Black Muslim fashion designers, stylists, and social media taste-makers use fashion to challenge hegemonic Islamic femininity, to create alternative modes of Islamic knowledge production and transmission by centreing materiality and embodied practices, and to construct networks of belonging based on a shared BlackMuslimWoman identity that is facilitated by social media. She is the curator of the #BlackIslamSyllabus. Danielle Widmann Abraham is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion at Ursinus College where she also holds the Wright Lectureship in Middle East Studies. Dr Widmann Abraham is a scholar of contemporary Islam who researches responses to violence, poverty, gender, and suffering. Her scholarship explores the ways in which Islamic tradition intersects with movements for social change in South and Southeast Asia, as well as the contemporary United States. Merin Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Queen’s University in Canada. She works on contemporary transnational Sufism, with regional interests in North America and South Asia. She is the author of Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures (2018) and the coauthor of Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics and Popular Culture (2017).

xiii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to all of the authors for their contributions to this collective effort. As I review the final submissions, I am overcome with gratitude for their hard work, critical acumen, and brilliant insights. I thank Aysha Hidayatullah and Saadia Yacoob for our generative conversations about the field of Islam and gender. From the beginning, Rebecca Shillabeer at Routledge has been a stellar editor, providing unwavering support and excellent guidance at every stage. Likewise, Amy Doffegnies expertly shepherded the manuscript through the submission process. I am indebted to Timothy Beal, my department chair, for encouraging me to take on this project. The introduction was much improved by the feedback of several colleagues: Amanda Baugh, Brian Clites, Kate Dugan, Maggie Popkin, and Michal Raucher. As always, my family has been there to provide support and a lot of love and joy every step of the way. I am finishing the editing process in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. To the health care and other essential workers who are keeping us safe and cared for: Thank You. Justine Howe Cleveland, OH USA April 2020

xiv

INTRODUCTION Justine Howe

The 19th century saw the rise of a great poet, teacher, and spiritual guide in West Africa named Nana Asma’u (1793–1864). She was the daughter of Shehu Usman dan Fodiyo, the scholar, preacher, and Sufi (mystical) leader who led the early 19th century rebellion and reform movement, known as the Sokoto Jihad, against the Hausa Kings of Gobir in present-day Nigeria. Dan Fodiyo successfully unified existing territories into a single political entity based in the new city of Sokoto. In 1837, Nana Asma’u started her poem, ‘Sufi Women/Tawassuli Ga Mata Masu Albarka’, with the following lines in Hausa/Fulfulde:

Alhamdulillahi, we Thank God We invoke blessings on God’s Messenger We invoke blessings on his family and Companions And those who followed them, thus we gain self-respect We invoke blessing on the Companions of the Prophet Who are now sanctified My aim in this poem is to tell you about Sufis To the great ones I bow in reverence I am mindful of them while I am still alive So that they will remember me on the Day of Resurrection (Mack and Boyd 2000, p. 127) In the religious authority unit in my introductory Islam and gender course, I always begin with the story of Nana Asma’u. Her life and literary works serve several purposes. First and foremost, they help my students to see that Muslim women have played important social roles that defy our contemporary representations of them as passive victims of religious patriarchy. Her story also illuminates key dimensions of Muslim religious authority. As the daughter and sister of major religious and political figures, her religious status, like that of her father and brother, was constituted through genealogies of scholars who transmitted knowledge through networks of family, scholarship, and piety over great geographic distances. Her family were prominent members of the Qadiriyya, a transnational Sufi order that had thousands of followers stretching across multiple continents. The beauty of her

1

Justine Howe

poetry, as a mode of religious expression, further attunes my students to the expansive religious, linguistic, and aesthetic horizons of Muslim communities. And finally, it centres West Africa as a key site for transnational Muslim intellectual and cultural contributions. For example, we read about contemporary communities in the United States who draw on Nana Asma’u’s example as the basis for their collective religious life. Like my students, I suspect many readers have never heard of Nana Asma’u, even though she was an important intellectual figure of the 19th century, who was fluent in multiple languages, including her native Fulfulde, Hausa, Tamachek, and Arabic. She was an effective teacher and author, who worked to unify diverse communities under the banner of Islam. Close to the centre of political power, Nana Asma’u was instrumental in bringing Shehu Usman dan Fodiyo’s vision to fruition. Her extraordinary life is of particular concern for a volume devoted to the study of Islam and gender. Her absence from many 19th century Muslim intellectual and cultural histories is but one example of the ongoing neglect of women’s voices and experiences in Islamic studies scholarship, even when such contributions, like those of Nana Asma’u, have an established written archive. The marginalization of Black and African Muslims has also contributed to this lack of attention to her many achievements in literary, educational, and religious areas. Who are these exemplary mystics to whom Nana Asma’u devotes the next 80 verses? The poem attests to the expansive network of female scholars and mystics through which Asma’u embedded her religious and political project, bringing to life the contributions of more than two dozen Muslim women in the past, the present, and in the hereafter. Some of these exemplary figures are well known, such as ʿAʾisha, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad and daughter of Abu Bakr, the first caliph or successor of Muhammad. Nana Asma’u also honours other exemplary female figures, namely Rabiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (d. 801), the famed mystic and poet from Basra, Iraq who was renowned for her exceptional piety and ascetic discipline. Her poems and ‘mastery over learning’ make her a key figure in Nana Asma’u’s genealogy of female mystical models (Mack and Boyd 2000, p. 128). Many other women in the poem are significant in the Sufi lineages of Nana Asma’u’s West African context. In short, the women honoured by Asma’u are a diverse group of religious exemplars throughout Muslim history and spanning multiple continents. These exemplary women were teachers, scholars, mothers, wives, ascetics, preachers, and saints. Nana Asma’u also praises them for a range of attributes and characteristics: kindness, generosity, zealousness, nobility, grace, and determination. They embodied many of the conventional attributes associated with women such as grace and kindness. Yet they also exceeded these expectations by accomplishing extraordinary spiritual feats. And by presenting these women as models for other women, Nana Asma’u suggests the possibility of emulating their example in daily life. Nana Asma’u and the Sufi women in her poem challenge dominant contemporary representations of Muslim women, namely that they are passive, lack agency, and are subordinate to their husbands and fathers. In Asma’u’s poem, these female mystics embodied none of those characteristics. They had particularly special roles to play in mediating between the living, the dead, and the divine due to their exceptional piety and their worldly achievements as women. Nana Asma’u praises women such as Rabiʿatu for her commitment to prayer as well as her ability to see ‘male and female jinns’, or beings made from fire who have free will. She mentions that devotees who visit the tomb of Nafisatu, a figure who recited the Qurʾan 6,000 times in the grave, would receive blessings (baraka) from God. Many of the women praised in the poem were intercessors who had the power to remember the deeds of others on the Day of Judgement. 2

Introduction

The multivalent dimensions of Nana Asma’u’s authority illuminate important insights for this volume as a whole, especially how gendered norms and practices in religious contexts are tied to other domains of social power as well as broader theological and philosophical frameworks. Her authority was constructed in part through the authority of her male relatives, who were themselves subject to paradigms of masculinity and male power that in turn buttressed their religious and political authority. This particular poem was commissioned by Asma’u’s brother, Muhammad Bello (d. 1837), who succeeded his father as the political and religious leader of the emergent Sokoto caliphate. Bello wanted his sister to transform his prose work about Sufi women, A Book of Good Advice, into verse. This was no straightforward task, and Asma’u approached the work as her own creative and religious project, which she intended to reach a much broader audience. She made notable changes to the content Bello’s work, omitting his many admonitions to women, and calling attention to both the worldly and extraordinary accomplishments of the Sufi women in the poem (Mack and Boyd 2000, pp. 60–61). Similarly, the women she celebrates in her poem are identified through their fathers. And yet, they, like Nana Asma’u, pursued their own agendas within the gendered and other social hierarchies of their times. Her example demonstrates how gendered norms and practices are imbricated in multiple social domains, working to structure political and religious authority, conceptions of the divine, and individual and collective identities. All of the chapters in this volume take a similarly inclusive and expansive approach to gender, demonstrating how gendered norms and practices are essential to exploring the complexities of Muslim social worlds, not just the particular experiences of women. While many chapters focus on women, others focus on the structuring effects of gender on men and non-binary people. These chapters show that bringing gender and queer theory to bear on Muslim materials and contexts yields broader insights into theology, law, economics, politics, and culture. Moreover, a focus on gender parochializes male-centred and androcentric perspectives that are frequently taken to be objective or universal. At the same time, foregrounding gender highlights the importance of social actors and practices that are often deemed to be insignificant agents of history and culture. This volume brings to the surface new voices and new archives for scholarly inquiry, encouraging scholars and students to focus on communities and practices that are often marginalized by dominant, hegemonic frameworks that privilege certain kinds of bodies over others. Together, these chapters show that gendered categories and ideologies in Muslim contexts are complex and multifaceted. This volume aims to capture the global processes through which the dynamic interplay between Islam and gender has unfolded and continues to unfold.

Introducing Islam Islam is a vibrant faith of more than 1.8 billion followers. Muslims trace their religion’s origins to the 7th century, when Muhammad ibn Abd-Allah began preaching a new message of monotheism and devotional piety in what is now the nation-state of Saudi Arabia. This volume focuses on three primary dimensions of Islam: texts and their interpretations, community, and embodied practice. These aspects demonstrate the historical contingency of Muslim beliefs and practices and the internal diversity of Islam as a global religion. Muslims recognize a diverse set of sacred texts. The most important is the Qurʾan, which Muslims believe was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad from the angel Gabriel in Mecca and Medina from around 610 CE to his death in 632 CE. The Qurʾan contains just 3

Justine Howe

over 6,000 verses. Muhammad’s message focused on restoring monotheism to the Arabian Peninsula, through belief in the one God (in Arabic, Allah), establishing key pious practices in devotion to God, such as daily ritual prayer (salat), and creating a religious community that superseded tribal and kin loyalties. From the beginning, the Qurʾan had an important ritual function for Muslims, primarily through the practice of recitation. For example, Muslims recite the Qurʾan during salat and during major life events such as weddings and funerals. Contrary to contemporary public representations of the Qurʾan, it is not primarily a legal text. Only a few hundred verses provide explicit guidance on mandatory or prohibited behaviours. Muslims also recognize hadiths as a body of authoritative texts. The hadith corpus preserves the sayings and the deeds of the Prophet Muhammad as recorded by his closest companions and family members. These diverse sources and the relative paucity of direct guidance in the Qurʾan has meant that Muslims themselves have done a lot of interpretative work in order to establish gendered norms and practices, as well as other normative questions around law and ethics. There is no single Islamic position on the status of women or normative gender norms and practices. Like members of other faiths, Muslims have put forward many interpretations of their sacred texts and what they require Muslims to do based on those understandings. From the 8th to the 12th centuries, (male) Muslim elites established the scholarly disciplines and methods for interpreting canonical sources. The areas that have been most prevalent in the study of gender and Islam are: Qurʾanic interpretation (tafsīr), theology (kalam), jurisprudence (fiqh), and philosophical ethics (akhlaq). The methods that scholars developed in the formative and classical periods still play an important role in how modern Muslims understand these foundational texts. Yet each community brings a new set of questions and concerns to them. Scholars use the term Islamic tradition to describe the dynamic relationship between sacred texts and their interpretations through which Muslims produce authoritative meanings and practices (Asad 2009). The Islamic tradition is neither static nor fixed in a single set of interpretations. Muslims return again and again to their tradition in response to changing historical and social circumstances. The Qurʾanic verses concerning polygyny are a good illustration of how interpretations are historically contingent and dynamic. The fourth chapter (sura) of the Qurʾan, known as al-Nisāʾ (The Women), outlines the conditions for men taking more than one wife. The Qurʾan stipulates that men may marry up to four women, but ‘if you fear that you will not deal justly, then only one, or those whom your right hand possesses’ (4:3). Kecia Ali argues that in classical legal texts, male Muslim scholars took polygyny for granted as part of a broader hierarchical system, in which free male Muslims assumed positions of social power over dependents, including women, children, and slaves (Ali 2010). Ali’s point is that jurists’ recommendations for how polygyny ought to work reflected their particular historical conditions in which slavery was also taken for granted. It is not enough to observe that such interpretations are patriarchal. Nor can we assume that such positions simply reflect what the Qurʾan says. Rather, this link that premodern scholars drew between marriage and slavery demonstrates the contingency of patriarchy as it is articulated and implemented in a particular social setting. Muslim positions regarding polygyny became more varied with the advent of colonialism. Faced with European critiques of polygyny as backward and immoral, and as a result of broader economic and political changes that favoured companionate, nuclear families, Muslim legal positions on polygyny shifted as well. Muslim thinkers such as the 19th century Egyptian jurist Muhammad ʿAbduh argued that in the modern period, polygyny often 4

Introduction

produced injustices and conflicts within families. Due to these problems, he argued that it should be prohibited (Ali 2006, p. 504). While many Muslims today do not practice polygyny, the practice does continue in many social locations. Debra Majeed has documented the experiences of some contemporary Black Muslim women who engage in polygynous relationships (Majeed 2016). Like Muslims in other times and places, the women’s justification of polygyny reflects broader social and religious imperatives and constraints. By telling their stories, Majeed shows that the women who embrace polygyny are not helpless victims of an oppressive patriarchy. Instead, they exercise agency under a set of intersecting gendered and racial hierarchies and contemporary political conditions (Majeed 2016, p. 30). Women in polygynous relationships put forward sophisticated and nuanced readings of the Qurʾan and other Muslim sources to understand their complex family lives. They are also aware that these marital arrangements sometimes leave them without formal legal resources and restrict their financial options upon divorce. However, they enter into polygynous relationships for a variety of religious, economic, and interpersonal reasons. Whatever their outcomes for particular Muslim women, Majeed’s point is both intuitive and cutting-edge: Muslim marriages are complex and defy recourse to singular factors, such as culturalist explanations of Islamic patriarchy. The next aspect of Islam that is pertinent to our discussion of gender is community. Muslims are part of multiple, sometimes overlapping communities. By focusing on the multiple communities to which Muslims belong, the inadequacy of the often-posed question, ‘What is the status of women in Islam?’, becomes apparent. The better question is, ‘How do Muslims negotiate and construct gendered practices and norms in their particular communities?’ Today, Muslims are part of many communities and social spaces that work to structure gendered beliefs and practices, including religious communities. A US Muslim may consider themselves to be part of the umma or global Muslim community. Some may also be members of a religious congregation, as are the 50 per cent of US Muslims who belong to mosques (Sciupac 2017). Others may consider families to be their primary place for religious worship and belonging. For still others, ethnic or national organizations form a core part of their communal identity as Muslims. And some US Muslims participate in political causes or social justice movements that come to constitute their primary religious community. These communities represent rich and contested places where Muslims construct and negotiate overlapping commitments that are sometimes in tension with one another. Through communities, Muslims form relationships with one another and with ‘special beings’ (Orsi 2018). These include God and the Prophet Muhammad, but also saints and the companions and family members of the Prophet. These braided relationships always have gendered dimensions that have unpredictable material effects on practitioners. In Shiʿi piety, Fatima al-Zahraʾ is a major figure. The daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, the wife of the fourth caliph (successor to the Prophet Muhammad), and the mother of Husayn, who was martyred at Karbala, her status is both contingent on her relationships to male figures and transcends them. She is represented as existing before Creation, which gives her intercessory powers independent of her male relatives’ deeds (Ruffle 2010, p. 8). Like Nana Asma’u, Fatima is an exemplary figure, honoured by both men and women for her exceptional capacity to relate to the divine. In some Sunni mystical traditions, conceptions of God as articulated by Sufi scholars and shaykhs celebrated feminine aspects of the divine as superior to masculine attributes. Yet these gendered metaphysical frameworks do not necessarily translate into positions of power for women within Sufi organizations (Xavier, this volume).

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Finally, this volume focuses on embodied Muslim practices. Religion is as much what people do as what they believe. To be sure, Muslims have a robust belief system. For example, the shahāda, or declaration of faith, affirms Muslims’ belief in one God and in the Prophet Muhammad as the messenger of God. But equally, if not more important, are the multiple acts that Muslims perform to worship God and perform service for their communities. Embodied practices include religious rituals such as prayer, fasting, and charity. Other practices such as everyday ethical action and consumer practices are also central to tracking gendered norms and practices and their significance within Muslim communities, such as sartorial practices, everyday material cultures and narratives, and media such as music, television, and film. The most visible and contested Muslim practice today is not prayer or pilgrimage, but instead Muslim women’s dress. In Euro-American contexts, and in many Muslim-majority ones, like Turkey, the ‘veil’ or ‘headscarf’ has generated tremendous controversy. In the eyes of many Europeans and Americans, the hijab has become the symbol of Muslim women’s purported lack of freedom under Islamic patriarchy and the mark of Islam’s supposed incompatibility with liberal democracy. These representations show how gendered symbols become implicated in broader social debates concerning modern governance. Hijab controversies tell us much more about Euro-American anxieties over citizenship, sexuality, and race than they do about the actual religious lives of Muslim women (Wesselhoeft, this volume; Mir, this volume; Goodwin, this volume). Exploring Muslim women’s sartorial practices and their justifications for wearing (or not wearing) headscarves or other articles of clothing shows how religious practices are necessarily tied to wider social factors. Muslim women not only choose whether or not to cover parts of their bodies, they also make choices about how to cover, including which garments to wear and their design, fit, and fabric materials. All of these choices have complex motivations that stem from individual preferences as well as broader political and economic realities, but especially the modern consumer economy. Sartorial practice is also contingent on women’s particular geographic location, educational or employment status, racial and ethnic identities, and family situation. Elizabeth Bucar uses the term ‘pious fashion’ to refer to this matrix of fashion choices and practices through which Muslim women signal their religious commitments, aesthetic tastes, ethnic heritage, and class status (Bucar 2017, pp. 3–4). Even in Iran and other places where the state requires women to cover in public, Iranian women display a variety of identities and preferences through what they wear (Shirazi, this volume). These embodied practices thus demonstrate how Muslim women make meaning and create belonging through a variety of sources, with religion being just one. Their participation in the global consumer economy also reveals persistent representations of Muslim women that privilege certain racialized bodies over and against others (Goodwin, this volume; Wheeler, this volume). In all of these examples, normative Muslim texts and practices are crucial for understanding sartorial trends, but never in isolation from other structuring forces.

Defining gender This volume focuses on gendered Muslim beliefs, practices, and identities. Scholars use the term gender to refer to how societies differentiate among human bodies according to sex characteristics as well as certain behavioural, psychological, and cultural features. Gender is a relational category that classifies individuals into groups such as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ or

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Introduction

‘male’ and ‘female’. Today, such categories are often presented as mutually exclusive but as multiple chapters in this volume explore, gendered categories are dynamic and relational. In the contemporary American context, binary conceptions of gender are inextricably connected to social understandings of biological sex. Gendered norms and practices work on human bodies from birth. For example, parents now routinely have ultrasounds at 20 weeks into a pregnancy to check for potential health problems. These tests may also ‘reveal’ the baby’s sex. Based on that result, parents may choose clothing or decorate the baby’s nursery in particular colours and with particular objects, such as trucks for boys, dolls for girls. After babies are born, hospitals often assign and then record an infant’s sex based on observable biological characteristics such as the presence of a vagina or penis. These practices help to build the idea that sex is the biological, natural core of a binary gendered identity. That is, babies can be either male or female, but not some other category. Health care providers may then perform a number of gendered practices based on that assignment. A baby with a penis may be swaddled in a blue blanket and an infant with a vagina is swaddled in pink. Assigning binary sex to babies does not just reflect societal norms; such a practice is prescriptive, by helping to reinforce and maintain the sex/gender binary as natural (Butler 1989). However, these practices, peculiar to a particular time and place, further demonstrate how gender is something people do, not just what they intrinsically have. Despite the stable identity that sex assignment presumes, we know that designating an infant as ‘male’ or ‘female’ does not mean that the infant will necessarily grow up to identify with their assigned gendered or sexual identity. Some infants swaddled in pink blankets may grow up to identify as male or transgender or non-binary. Nor do these assignments reflect actual sex characteristics on a chromosomal level. Up to 10 per cent of those babies will have chromosomal variants that make them ‘intersex’, meaning they do not fit neatly into categories such as ‘male’ or ‘female’ that are based on observable characteristics such as the appearance of sex organs. Whatever their biological sex characteristics, any of those babies may grow up to identify as either male or female or as non-binary. As Indira Gesink explains in her contribution, knowledge of persons who do not fall into binary sex categories is far from new even when premodern cultures did not share notions of modern identity. Premodern scholars were aware of these sex variations and wrote about their implications for a host of religious and social practices (Gesink, this volume). Gender is thus better thought of in terms of process rather than as a fixed category. While sex and gender are often presented as natural, with gender identity following from biological sex, these identifiers are actually unstable markers and are culturally constructed. Gendered norms and practices do important cultural work on bodies from birth, but these practices are not solely determinant of a person’s gendered identity or expression. Gendered norms and practices are highly performative, dependent on how individuals and communities enact them, and how such enactments are perceived and acted upon by others in their historical and cultural context. And while the field of gender studies has historically been associated with the study of women, people with a variety of gendered identities, including men and non-binary people, participate in these processes of negotiating, maintaining, and challenging gendered categories and norms. Everyone does gender. Simone de Beauvoir’s classic observation that one is not born but rather is made a woman, captures the social processes through which individuals come to inhabit, perform, and sometimes contest gender ideals (de Beauvoir 1949). Moreover, gendered norms are engaged and performed in a variety of ways that are not always conscious for the performer.

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Emphasizing process underscores how gender norms and practices are culturally specific and historically contingent. Not all cultures associate blue with boys and pink with girls. Some societies recognize a third gender or non-binary persons; others do not. More importantly, the processes through which societies understand sex, gender, and the relationship between them depend on the political, social, religious, and economic conditions, rather than stemming from natural facts. These tensions are often best observed through social symbols. For example, high heels are now a symbol of femininity. When worn by a woman, high heels project female power while also signalling her sexual allure for men. Borrowed from Persian horse back riding culture, high heels gained popularity among the European elite men in the 17th century. The high heel still projected graceful power, but its gendered meaning connoted elite masculinity rather than femininity. That is, the high heel conveyed some of the same attributes of the wearer, but associated with a different gender. This one article of clothing shows how gendered practices and their perceived meanings are highly malleable, and change according to social conditions (Wade and Ferree 2015). Even within particular cultures, gendered classifications and their associated meanings and practices shift over time. Although often taken to be a natural (i.e. scientific) or divine distinction between human bodies, decades of cross-cultural gender studies scholarship have shown that there is no ‘man’ or ‘woman’ in a universal sense. Moreover, historians have warned against reading the modern gender binary back onto premodern societies, where different gender categories and frameworks operated. Studies of premodern Muslim sources have shown how in some contexts, scholars sometimes allowed for more ambiguity than a binary approach may presume, even if these authors did not share our modern concept of gender identity (Geissinger 2015, pp. 30–65; Gesink 2018). This observation has important implications for understanding the emergence of heterosexuality as a normative ideal, i.e. the expectation that male persons are expected to be attracted to female persons, and women to men. These expectations reinforce the idea that heteronormative couples are the ideal pairing, crucial for social reproduction, and therefore essential for national preservation. Through her examination of material culture and art in Iran, Afsaneh Najmabadi shows how a range of homoerotic practices and representations came to be displaced by heterosexuality as the singular sexual norm of Iranian modernity. She argues, ‘if the 19th century began with male and female beauties as desirable objects of male eroticism and ended with the female as the only acceptable object of desire of male eroticism, then all objects of male erotic desire had to become femininized. It is this momentum that created feminized passivity as the only position for the male homosexual objects in modernist imagination’ (Najmabadi 2005, p. 59). That is, a new conception of gender difference as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ narrowed Iranian conceptions about who was beautiful and desirous. The object of desire (whether heterosexual female or a homosexual male) became feminized and passive. Najmabadi’s work suggests that the gender binary and its related heteronormative ideal are now more important in contemporary Iran than in the past (Najmabadi 2005, p. 1). Yet it is important to keep in mind that religious practitioners (both male and female) and authority figures often present gendered identities and heterosexual desires as natural and divine or both. Many contemporary Muslims maintain that God created two categories of gendered bodies: men and women. In many cases, the binary supports an ideal model of gendered relationships, in which men and women assume complementary masculine/feminine roles and responsibilities in social institutions such as the family. In this arrangement, men often assume the role of primary breadwinners and public religious, political, and economic responsibilities. Women take charge of the caregiving responsibilities such as 8

Introduction

childrearing and household tasks. That these social roles are taken to be traditional and/or normative attests to the important role that gender norms and practices play in community belonging, religious authority, and conceptions of the divine. Even when ‘traditional’ norms are upheld and named as such, no simple recourse to ‘Islam’ explains why these ideals maintain their staying power. Individuals and communities shape the meaning and significance of these norms in particular historical contexts, in which Islamic norms and gendered norms are shaped by one another (Geissinger, this volume). The assumed naturalness of gendered identity and norms appears often in texts and institutions that seek to produce and maintain particular social relations. For instance, mosques are highly gendered spaces. Men and women often sit separately. Some ritual roles, such as that of the imam, or prayer leader, have historically been assigned only to men. Yet these arrangements have never been without debate and the need for justifications on the part of Muslim scholars. Marion Katz has explored why and how Muslim legal authorities have sought to limit female access to mosques, while attending to why such attempts were never entirely successful (Katz 2013). Katz shows how premodern scholars made claims that women did not belong in mosques and other public spaces during times in which women became more visible in religious and political settings. Such arguments thus reflected a dynamic relationship between political developments, local religious practice, and understandings of divine intent. In the modern world, as increasing numbers of Muslim women have become visible presences in mosques around the world, the mosque as a gendered space is changing too (Bano and Kalmbach 2012). Debates surrounding the presence of female bodies in certain spaces of worship has become reactivated, but this debate takes different shapes in particular cultural settings. The fact that these debates become reactivated demonstrates that gendered norms and practices within religious communities are contingent, rather than monolithic or static.

Situating the field of Islam and gender This volume builds on three key strains of scholarship in the field of Islam and gender: feminist engagements with Muslim sources; historical and anthropological literature that has explored the contours of Muslim women’s lives in global contexts; and the more recent turn toward queer theory, critical race theory, and masculinity studies. Many of the chapters in this volume continue the field’s historical focus on women’s lives and experiences. Other chapters explore the experiences of non-binary people and men. But all of them use gender as their analytical framework through which to explore the broader religious and political implications of their objects of study. In recent decades the field of Islam and gender has addressed several political concerns in both academic conversations and in broader public debates. The narrow frames through which gender and Islam continue to be represented demonstrate the enduring legacies of 18th and 19th century European colonial ventures into Muslim-majority societies. Muslim female bodies have long been sources of desire and disgust, as they signified alluring yet dangerous sites of imperial domination and rescue (Abu-Lughod 2013). The female Muslim body became a ground through which colonial actors constructed their versions of Islam as backward and uncivilized. At the same time, these gendered constructions undergirded racial hierarchies in which European, Christian societies were celebrated as the high point of civilization, while Muslim societies (as well as other non-Christian communities) were necessarily inferior and thus the targets for imperial domination.

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Scholars of Islam and gender have productively demonstrated how the legal, economic, and political changes wrought by colonialism created new gendered categories, identities, and practices for Muslims under imperial rule (Morgenstein Fuerst, this volume). Under the logic of colonialism, if Muslim women were passive victims, then Muslim men were either their brutal oppressors, patriarchal and domineering, or effeminate, decadent figures (Arjana 2015). These gendered constructions were highly racialised as well, turning on the notions of non-white people as inherently inferior to white Europeans. Although such representations have varied over time and space, Orientalist images of Muslim women as both objects of desire and as symbols of Islam’s incompatibility with the ‘West’ have proved to be remarkably durable. These representations reflect an ideology that declares to be in the service of improving the lives of Muslim women, but ultimately it serves political ends – usually the exercise of (neo)colonial power – that often have the opposite effect. These colonial logics are still at work today. Muslims have increasingly been the target of violence (often state-sponsored), surveillance, and discrimination around the globe, but especially in North America, Europe, South Asia, and China. Despite the fact that Muslims are overwhelmingly the victims of terrorist acts and white nationalists perpetuate many more acts of extremist violence, Islam is persistently cast as the existential threat to a liberal, democratic way of life and to state security more generally. The colonial narrative of ‘white men saving brown women from brown men’, to invoke Gayatri Spivak’s evergreen assessment of this political strategy, has retained its ideological appeal in the hands of political leaders looking to expand economic and political domination in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, under the guise of the War on Terror following 9/11 (Spivak 1994). This justification of military intervention has obvious echoes in imperial strategies that sought to save Muslim women by subjugating them to foreign rule. The legacies of colonialism and orientalism continue to shape the kinds of materials that scholars focus on, with particular consequences for how gendered norms and practices are presented. The tendency to focus on texts produced in the early centuries of Islam has been an enduring feature of Islamic studies since its beginnings. Within the field of Islamic studies in general and in the area of Islam and gender in particular, there has been far more attention to the Qurʾan and legal materials, with less attention to other religious sources (theology, philosophy, ethics), not to mention the broad literary and cultural production (such as poetry and art), which have all played important roles in shaping the political, social, and religious fabric of Muslim societies (Ahmed 2016). In the last few decades, scholars have challenged male-dominated perspectives in Muslim sources and the Islamic interpretative tradition (Barlas 2002; wadud 1999). amina wadud developed a rich feminist hermeneutic for assessing and challenging male-centred interpretations and for probing the gendered hierarchies undergirding Islamic sources. Her work has been highly generative for the field on the whole. In the process, wadud and others have proposed new understandings of Qurʾanic notions of justice, equality, and divinity as well as conceptions of Muslim authority (Chaudhry 2013; Geissinger 2015). These modes of inquiry have produced vibrant debates concerning, for example, the extent to which the Qurʾan professes egalitarian principles, as well as the impact of this gendered language, narratives, and content on living Muslim communities. Such scholarship has also investigated how interpretative traditions have been shaped by patriarchal and androcentric frameworks. Recent work by scholars such as Aysha Hidayatullah has pushed this conversation further, toward a critique of how some feminist scholars map their own normative assumptions about ideals such as equality onto the Qurʾan and other sacred texts (Hidayatullah 2014). In addition to probing the gendered assumptions and frameworks of texts, the field of Islam and gender has long focused on restoring Muslim women to the historical record and 10

Introduction

to investigating how and why gendered norms and practices took shape. Leila Ahmed’s ground-breaking Women and Gender in Islam (1992) argued that while the early Muslim community enacted more egalitarian gender norms, patriarchal practices came to be hegemonic in the decades following the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Along with the work of Fatima Mernissi (1983), Ahmed’s book provided a foundational account of the contributions of Muslim women in Islamic history. Ahmed and Mernissi both noted how the construction of the classical Islamic tradition normalized patriarchy and decreased female religious and political power, as well as women’s social and legal status. Most importantly, these histories demonstrated how patriarchy came to be naturalized as God’s intended law. Social history has also highlighted the importance of everyday negotiations of gender norms and practices in Muslim contexts. Historians such as Leslie Pierce and Judith Tucker have shown how Muslim women participated in legal proceedings, and while untrained in the realm of fiqh, have helped to shape the mechanisms and outcomes of Muslim legal proceedings. These works reveal Islamic law as a process, not a fixed set of rules enshrined in a set of texts. Although courts often crystallized patriarchal arrangements that placed women in subordinate roles to men, their work explains how women also used the law and the courts to improve their material circumstances. Rosemary Admiral (this volume) explores Islamic law as a site of local contestation among a variety of social actors only some of whom were specialists in fiqh. These actors bring divergent motivations, skills, and aspirations to their understanding of the relationship between sexual ethics and social order, which they marshal to greater or lesser effect depending on their contingent positions within multiple domains of social power. Similarly within anthropology, the themes of agency and authority have been key areas of inquiry in the study of gender and Islam, particularly in regards to the experiences of women. Saba Mahmood’s landmark study (2005) of Egyptian women affiliated with the revivalist mosque movement paved the way for more nuanced examination of female engagement with the Islamic tradition and how textual study and ritual practice facilitate their embodiment of religious norms. In Mahmood’s analysis, women do more than simply conform to, or challenge, prescriptive discourses. Rather, Muslim women possess complex goals and motivations for inhabiting conservative religious norms. Their religious practices and frameworks often complicate liberal feminist concepts such as autonomy and freedom (Mahmood 2005). Ethnographers have built a rich body of scholarship that has documented emerging gendered religious authority in the modern world. As Muslim women entered public spaces (schools, places of employment, civil society) in greater numbers in the 20th century, their religious roles shifted as well. Joseph Hill documents how some Sufi women in West Africa have built large followings of urban young people. Rather than eschewing gendered practices usually associated with women, such as cooking, these female Sufi leaders embrace them. Hill demonstrates that these emergent forms of religious authority enable extraordinary women to both achieve great spiritual heights and reinforce gender difference. More recent scholarship has refocused the centre of inquiry on gender, expanding the locus of inquiry to include men and masculinity (Abdul Khabeer 2016). This focus on gendered norms and practices illuminates how men and women navigate patriarchal gendered norms and expectations that can be damaging for both of them. Marcia Inhorn (2012) shows how new companionate ideals have taken hold in Arab marriages among both men and women. She shows how the agency of individual couples has been paramount in the shift toward smaller families centred on the nuclear family unit, which enable women to work outside the home, and for men to assume child care responsibilities, including family planning and struggles with infertility. 11

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Scholars have also interrogated masculinity and homosociality in Muslim texts to show how Muslim men also negotiate gendered norms and perform gendered practices. This line of inquiry has demonstrated how foundational sources that profess to be universal are actually highly particular in their outlook, usually aimed at an elite male audience. Zahra Ayubi’s recent work on akhlaq (philosophical ethics) has shown how elite men were the presumed audience for texts aimed at cultivating ethical refinement. Non-elite men and women were merely instrumental to this project of ethical perfection (Ayubi 2019). Ayubi demonstrates how gendered assumptions in these texts produce tensions between their stated commitment of metaphysical equality of all humans and their conviction that women and non-elite men were simply not capable of ethical perfection. Other foundational work in masculinity studies (De Sondy 2013) explores how patriarchal interpretations of Muslim sacred texts have foreclosed possibilities for masculinity. De Sondy’s Islamic Masculinities called for new models of Muslim manhood that more fully account for the many roles that exemplary Muslim men have held, both past and present. The study of Islam and gender has only recently begun to use the insights of queer theory to explore Muslim texts and practices. Fatima Seedat has called for ‘queering the study of Islam’, a project that entails both the intentional study of alternative sexualities and the study of non-normative areas of study, for example, the introduction of Islamic perspectives in hegemonically Christian contexts (Seedat 2018). Adopting a posture of ‘sitting’ with difference and irresolution, Seedat encourages scholars to resist seeing the Islamic tradition as essentially ‘straightened’ or absolutely heteronormative (Seedat 2018). For Seedat, the challenge of queering the study of Islam lies in the capacity of scholars to analyse the ambiguities around sexual and gender difference without flattening or essentializing them. The above discussion demonstrates just a sampling of the broader insights that are generated through a focus on gender in Muslim contexts. And yet the marginalization of this kind of inquiry continues to happen on two fronts: one, the ongoing lack of attention to women and non-binary people as agents shaping their own histories and as important to the history of Islam more broadly; and two, the ongoing lack of attention to gender theory as a rich analytical lens for scholarship in Islamic studies (Kueny 2013). The contributors to this volume thus share a commitment to interrogate these power dynamics through a variety of theoretical and methodological tools, including but not limited to feminist inquiry. Although this self-reflexivity is practiced in different ways, each contributor sees this interrogation of how academic knowledge is produced, and who benefits from it, as essential to their academic practice. The contributors share this ethical stance of self-reflexivity, whether they identify as Muslim or not, whether they see their scholarship as normative or descriptive or both, or whether their work concerns premodern or modern contexts. These chapters also share a commitment to opening up new archives and new voices in the study of Islam, and to exploring expanded theoretical and methodological terrain for exploring them. These exciting possibilities for the future of Islam and gender are evident in each of the chapters, which are briefly outlined below.

Chapter outline Part I Foundational texts in historical and contemporary contexts The chapters in Part I build on the robust scholarship that analyses gender norms and practices within authoritative Muslim texts and the genres that emerged to interpret them. In Chapter 1, ‘Classic Qurʾanic exegesis and gender’, Hadia Mubarak captures the internal 12

Introduction

pluralism of tafsīr (Qurʾanic interpretation). She takes up Karen Bauer’s (2015) argument regarding the polysemy of Qurʾanic interpretation to examine controversial verses dealing with polygyny and wives’ obligations in marriage. Mubarak argues that rather than cast the Qurʾan as either patriarchal or egalitarian, scholars should instead attend to the complex web of social hierarchies through which interpreters attempted to promote just gendered norms and practices. Carolyn G. Baugh expands on this inquiry into the internal plurality of Muslim discourses concerning sex and marriage through her analysis of 9th century legal compendia, or the musannaf genre. Chapter 2, ‘Sex and marriage in early Islamic law’, explores the forgotten responses to daily situations that were preserved in this legal tradition alongside records of the practices and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, his Companions, and the early generations of followers. The compendia reveal the legal tensions arising from situations stemming from daily life, and crucially, the problems posed by ruling an expanding multireligious and multiethnic empire. Zahra Ayubi’s contribution, ‘Islamic gender ethics: traditional discourses, critiques, and new frameworks of inclusivity’, similarly expands the textual horizon for inquiry into Islam and gender. For Ayubi, ‘Islamic ethics’ encompasses a broad array of sources including scriptures (Qurʾan and hadith), fiqh (jurisprudence), akhlaq (philosophical ethics), and Sufism. After surveying previous feminist engagements with Islamic ethics, Ayubi excavates new approaches, such as the ethics of care and love ethics, which suggest alternative frameworks for Islamic normativity. Taking up this constructive thread, Jerusha Rhodes lays out the contours of a Muslima theology in Chapter 4. A constructive, theological, and comparative project, Muslima theology aims to interrogate assumptions concerning gender and women within theological explorations of God and the divine and its relation to humanity and other forms of creation. Through comparative engagement with Christian and Jewish feminist thought, Rhodes shows that interreligious feminist debate is essential to the work of Muslima theology. In the final chapter in Part I, Fatima Seedat further investigates gendered approaches to Islamic law through her survey of feminist approaches to Muslim legal texts and practices. She outlines three trajectories that have emerged over the course of 40 years of inquiry: frameworks that propose new interpretations, approaches that move from deconstruction to reconstruction, and ethics-based reform projects. Seedat shows how all of these methodologies focus on the accountability that scholars and other religious authorities have toward women and gender minorities in their local communities..

Part II Sex, sexuality, and gender difference Part II shows how gendered hierarchies and practices are implicated in configurations of sexuality and sexual difference. These chapters interrogate connections between gender and sexuality, showing how they help to constitute broader relations of power in the premodern and modern periods. In Chapter 6, Ash Geissinger challenges the conventional view that premodern textual traditions were uniformly heteronormative and that they prescribed a gender binary based on physical (namely genital) differences. Using gender and queer theory, Geissinger probes several hadiths to demonstrate how non-normative persons and gender minorities, who fell into a variety of social categories, were in fact central to constructions of power, space, and authority in an emerging Islamic empire. Indira Gesink’s piece further explores one such group of gendered minorities known as the khuntha, or ‘intersex’ in premodern legal and medical discourse. Chapter 7, ‘Intersex in Islamic medicine, law, and activism’, shows how Muslim medical and legal authorities addressed intersex individuals’ position of sexual ambiguity. Rather than seeking to erase or correct this 13

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ambiguity, premodern Muslim authorities debated the position of intersex individuals in relation to practices such as inheritance and dress as well as institutions such as slavery and marriage. Gesink suggests that these premodern texts, with their recognition of nonbinary persons, could be a potential resource for trans* and other gender minorities’ activism. Turning our attention to the modern period, Anissa Hélie surveys sexual rights advocacy, paying particular attention to the ways that advocates and their opponents have engaged human rights frameworks. Chapter 8, ‘Sexuality and human rights: actors and arguments, considers how diverse actors marshal categories such as ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ to expand or deny sexual rights to women and gendered minorities. While the human rights framework has many flaws, Hélie demonstrates how local actors have eliminated damaging practices and challenged laws that deny the right to sexual expression and bodily autonomy through engagement with human rights concepts and strategies Kirsten Wesselhoeft shows how gender and sexual difference and the eroticization of interactions among men and women have come to play a crucial role in French imaginaries of national identity. Chapter 9, ‘Mixité, gender difference, and the politics of Islam in France after the headscarf ban’, highlights the concept of mixité, or prescribed heterosocial interactions. The headscarf, which symbolizes gender segregation and female modesty, is thus seen as undermining these supposed foundations of French identity. Wesselhoeft demonstrates how public critiques of Islam increasingly centre on solidifying gender difference and erotic gender mixing as essential to the construction of Frenchness. This renewed emphasis on mixité and the erotics of public life has implications not just for Muslim women but for all women in the French republic.

Part III Gendered authority and piety Part III explores the variegated positions of authority that Muslim women inhabit in the modern world. Muslim women are healers, teachers, transnational Sufi leaders, chaplains, and preachers. They often have significance caregiving responsibilities, especially the task of raising pious Muslim children. Some are recognized by their communities; others are less visible. In some places women in authority roles are working to challenge dominant social hierarchies, while in others they seek to maintain what are seen as timeless gendered divisions of labour that restrict certain forms of religious authority to male and female bodies. In Chapter 10, ‘Gendering the divine: women, femininity, and queer identities on the Sufi path’, Merin Shobhana Xavier traces the ambivalent dimensions of images, concepts, and frameworks related to the feminine in Sufi contexts. She argues that gendered norms are often subverted in everyday practice and sometimes open up possibilities for queer expressions. Chapter 11, ‘Gender and the Karbala Paradigm: on studying contemporary Shiʿi women’ shows how representations and practices of Zaynab in Twelver Shiʿism have changed over the past four decades. Szanto offers a more expansive view of Shiʿi piety by reconsidering the narratives and practices of Zaynab, who has come to represent a wide range of possible political and religious roles. These practices and narratives are not the products of a broader Muslim turn toward self-cultivation, but rather the result of persistent conditions of war and violence experienced by Shiʿi communities in various contexts. Danielle Widmann Abraham examines the gendered dimensions of zakat practices in Chapter 12. By comparing three philanthropic organizations in India and the United States, she shows how, through their efforts to challenge structural poverty and state violence, zakat projects also stabilize gendered norms and representations. In Chapter 13, Sajida Jalalzai turns our attention to emerging forms of female religious authority in the United States through the 14

Introduction

example of chaplaincy. She examines how the institution of chaplaincy enables women to take up new public leadership roles, and demonstrates how this position of leadership serves the specific needs of Muslim Americans. Drawing on fieldwork with female chaplains, she shows how the role of chaplain, with its emphasis on pastoral care and emotional labour, reinforces, rather than disrupts, traditional notions of femininity while possibly challenging dominant modes of masculinity. Finally, in Chapter 14, Abdoulaye Sounaye looks at the rise of Muslim women preachers in Niger, who have effectively used radio and television to carve out new positions of religious authority. Their message of reviving Muslim practice at the local level has proven to be highly appealing among urban youth. And in the process, these preachers have effectively challenged a male-dominated religious sphere.

Part IV Political and religious displacements The chapters in Part IV examine the gendered dimensions of colonial and postcolonial legal and political processes. Together, these chapters demonstrate how experiences of displacement, whether through colonialism or war, are themselves gendered. In Chapter 15, Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst demonstrates the long reach of colonial gender laws in India. Through an examination of two 19th century laws, the Contagious Diseases Act and the triple talaq law, she shows how legal categories (and the assumptions undergirding them) helped to inscribe intersecting gendered and racialized hierarchies that continue to have resonance in Indian politics and society. These laws had consequences for both Muslim men and women, who found themselves subject to a legal regime bent on solidifying their religious, racial, and gendered identities. The ways that gender interfaces with other forms of political and religious identities is also a principal theme in Nathaniel Mathews’ contribution, Chapter 16, ‘Islam and gender on the Swahili coast of East Africa’. This chapter explores the gendered effects of major social changes in East Africa, namely the abolition of slavery and the end of colonial rule. He shows that the rise of ‘anxious patriarchy’ in Swahili communities in the 20th century cannot be attributed solely to the legal or textual traditions of Islam, but rather the result of economic and political changes whose effects are discernible in the local negotiations of everyday life. The next two chapters deal with the ongoing effects of the vast humanitarian crisis unfolding in Syria and surrounding regions. In Chapter 17, ‘Mujahidun, mujahidat: balancing gender in the struggle of Jihadi-Salafis’, Nathan French traces the evolution of the term mujahidat within Jihadi-Salafi writings. Contrary to media accounts that define women who fight for ISIS in relation to their husbands and children, French paints a more complex picture of subjectivity and agency. He shows that the term ‘mujahidat’ encompasses three potential roles for women to occupy: as purified embodiments of passive femininity, as female martyrs who take on military responsibilities, and as self-renouncing actors who embody exemplary models of patience and other virtues. Within this same geographic context, Sarah Tobin explores the effects of mass displacement on the pious practices of female Syrian refugees. Chapter 18, ‘Modelling exile: Syrian women gather to discuss prophetic examples in Jordan’ shows how experiences of exile have changed the religious practices and perspectives of the women she interviewed. In contrast to the ‘architectural piety’ of Syrian religious practice before the war, which tended to be more individualized and focused on visiting prominent mosques, Muslim piety in exile has become more community based and more centred on the Qurʾan and prophetic narratives. This chapter shows how practices of place-making produce new forms of religious agency and learning, even under significant political and economic distress. 15

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Part V Negotiating law, ethics, and normativity Legal contexts have long been key sites for the study of Islam and gender, encompassing both the administration of law in specific institutional contexts, such as the courts, and ethical and other normative settings (which often overlap). Part V explores new directions in this sub-field, examining feminist and human rights approaches to the dynamic, shifting ways in which law, gender, and Muslim practice interact. Chapter 19, ‘Transgressing the boundaries: zinā and legal accommodation in the premodern Maghrib’, uses fatwas dealing with sexual transgressions from premodern North Africa to demonstrate how various legal actors, specialists, and non-specialists alike used Islamic legal norms and concepts toward a variety of ethical and pragmatic goals. Even in cases that seemed to warrant harsh punishment, Rosemary Admiral finds that jurists and everyday Muslims were guided by the imperative to bring sexual relationships back into licit arrangements, usually by restoring the marriage, and in these cases, they were far less likely to punish transgressions. In Chapter 20, Lena Salaymeh critiques the colonialist feminism paradigm and its distorting representations of Muslim women. By comparing practices of female circumcision and cosmetic surgery, Salaymeh seeks to expose the inconsistent standards applied to Muslim and non-Muslim women. In the process, she offers possibilities for a decolonial feminism. Chapter 21 highlights the contributions of female Syrian scholars to contemporary fiqh and hadith scholarship. Salem demonstrates how these scholars cultivated broad followings of women by synthesizing and collecting a vast array of premodern material into new, accessible formats. In the final chapter of Part V, ‘Human rights, gender, and the state: Islamic perspectives’, Shannon Dunn explores the tension between intellectual efforts to expand and enhance women’s rights in Muslim contexts and the political imperative of selfdetermination in postcolonial contexts. Through a close examination of key Muslim thinkers who engage a human rights framework, Dunn shows the internal diversity of contemporary Muslim thought on questions concerning women’s rights, what those entail, and how best to achieve them in the legal institutions of modern nation-states, which are often guided by other priorities.

Part VI Vulnerability, care, and violence in Muslim families Part IV focuses on the institution that has been a key focal point for the study of Islam and gender: the family. These chapters go beyond culturalist and modernization approaches to examine the diverse familial arrangements of modern Muslim families. While families can be sites of care and companionship, they can also be places of violence and instability. In Chapter 23, ‘Two quiet revolutions: Islam, gender, and (in)fertility’, Marcia Inhorn analyses two major recent developments among Arab families: dramatic rising infertility rates and the increasing use of reproductive technologies by both men and women. Inhorn argues that these shifts are due not just to increased access to and religious support for assisted reproductive technologies. They also reflect broader changes in attitudes concerning the family and gendered roles within them. In particular, she highlights the role of individual and familial agency through the pervasive ideal of companionate marriages formed around emotional bonds and the desire on the part of Muslim couples to have smaller families. Yet these same forces that have supported the autonomy of nuclear families and companionate marriages have also diminished broader kin networks. As Mary Elaine Hegland explores in Chapter 24, ‘Aging and the elderly: diminishing family care systems and need for 16

Introduction

alternatives’, older women in Iran expected to depend on extended family networks in the end of life. They now find themselves subject to neglect and sometimes abuse as their sons and daughters prioritize careers and their own families, and as they outlive their husbands. Through their stories, Hegland documents growing isolation and neglect among this demographic, arguing that alternative social institutions and ethics of care ought to be developed to fill the current void in material and emotional support. The last two chapters highlight advocacy efforts to address the troubling problem of domestic violence in Muslim families. In Chapter 25, ‘Domestic violence and US Muslim communities: negotiating advocacy, vulnerability, and gender norms’, Juliane Hammer draws our attention to the complex interplay of factors that anti-domestic violence advocates must negotiate in their work to support survivors. Not only do these advocates engage broader American gender norms and the persistent neglect of domestic violence as an urgent and widespread social problem, they also have to navigate anti-Muslim racism, especially pernicious representations of Muslims as inherently violent and oppressive toward women. They also seek the elimination of domestic abuse within a specifically Muslim context that produces another set of constraints and possibilities around gender norms, textual interpretation, and religious authority. In Chapter 26, Sophia Arjana looks at anti-domestic violence efforts in Singapore led by a Sufi organization known as Sout Ilaahi. The community uses practices of spiritual discipline and therapeutic models to help survivors deal with the physical and emotional toll of their abuses, while encouraging survivors to use law enforcement and governmental resources.

Part VII Representation, commodification, and popular culture Finally, Part VII illustrates the multifaceted dimensions of Islam and gender in modern consumer culture. These chapters work to expand the archive of Islam and gender to include social practices not typically deemed ‘religious’. In the contemporary world, this means taking stock of the importance of pop culture and consumer practice in sustaining religious identity and practice (Deeb and Harb 2016; Lofton 2017; McLarney 2012; Gökariskel and McLarney 2010). Muslim religious identities are constructed and negotiated through a whole host of material and consumer practices from fashion and makeup to film and social media. Pop culture producers and consumers play an indispensable role in mediating transnational perceptions of gender and Muslims. And these representations are indelibly marked by contemporary racial, national, and class-based assumptions. In Chapter 27, Faegheh Shirazi explores the politics and economics of Muslim fashion in Iran. She analyses new trends in women’s fashion choices, and the commitments they perform by wearing them, in terms of broader economic developments that have made Muslims into a growing market for the global fashion industry. In her contribution, Chapter 28, Kayla Renée Wheeler examines how Muslim fashion companies construct and distribute representations of the ideal Muslim woman alongside the Islamic clothing they sell. Through her analysis of Instagram ads, she argues that these companies portray thin, covered, brown female bodies as normatively Muslim and in the process maintain extant racial hierarchies within the umma that marginalize Black Muslim women. Building on the politics of Muslim fashion, Shabana Mir critiques the racial and gendered dimensions of the burqa bans in France. Her chapter, ‘French Muslim women’s clothes: the secular state’s religious war against racialised women’, argues that these bans reveal how secular state policy and public discourse in France has marginalized and stigmatized Muslim women in a number of chilling ways, rendering them hypervisible threats to French identity, all in the name of affirming the autonomy and agency of women writ large. 17

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Kristian Petersen examines questions concerning representation and visibility in Chapter 30, ‘Female filmmakers and Muslim women in cinema’. Focusing on Southeast Asian films, he shows how Muslim women, both as creators and subjects of ‘transnational cinema’, defy conventional understandings of terms such as ‘Muslim’. He argues that film represents a rich, intercultural archive for exploring how gender constructs other categories such as ethnicity and race, as well as how religious representations are produced and received in global contexts. The final chapter, Megan Goodwin’s ‘Gender, race, and American Islamophobia’ pursues an intersectional analysis of anti-Muslim racism, tracing its historical roots and examining its contemporary manifestations. Through recent legal and cultural developments, such as the Muslim ban, Goodwin demonstrates how Islamophobia depends not just on racist and racialized representations of Muslims, but also how they perpetuate images of white women as passive victims of male Muslim violence.

A note on classroom use This volume was designed with an undergraduate audience in mind. It aims to provide students with a window into the rich scholarly conversations in the field of Islam and gender, as well as to give them a sense of the theoretical and methodological diversity of these conversations. To do this, the volume contains multiple chapters that focus on key areas of inquiry, such as family, marriage, and sexuality, as well as religious practices that have becomes sites of political controversy, such as the headscarf/veil, in different geographic locations. It is my hope that this handbook will provide a compelling entry point into both the broad range of inquiry and the depth of the insights that have emerged from this exciting field.

References Abdul Khabeer, S. (2016). Muslim Cool: Race, Islam, and Hip Hop in the United States. New York: New York University Press. Abu-Lughod, L. (2013). Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ahmed, L. (1992). Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ahmed, S. (2016). What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univesrity Press. Ali, K. (2006) ‘Polgyny,’ The Qurʾan: An Encyclopedia. Edited by Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge, pp. 504–506. Ali, K. (2010). Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Arjana, S.R. (2015). Muslims in the Western Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Ayubi, Z. (2019). Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Asad, T. (2009). ‘The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam’, Qui Parle 17 (2), 1–30. Bano, M. and Kalmbach, H. (eds.) (2012). Women, Leadership, and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority. Leiden: Brill. Barlas, A. (2002). Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bauer, K. (2015). Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾan: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bucar, E. (2017). Pious Fashion: How Muslim Women Dress. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Butler, J. (1989). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Chaudhry, A. (2013). Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press. De Beauvoir, S. (1949) The Second Sex. Paris: Gallimard.

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Deeb, L. and Harb M. (2013). Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shiʿite South Beirut. Princeton: Princeton University Press. De Sondy, A. (2013). The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities. London: Bloomsbury. Geissinger, A. (2015). Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qurʾan Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Gökariskel, B. and McLarney, E. (2010). ‘Muslim Women, Consumer Capitalism, and the Islamic Culture Industry’ Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6(3), 1–18. Hidayatullah, A. (2014). Feminist Edges of the Qurʾan. New York: Oxford University Press. Inhorn, M.C. (2012). The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Katz, M.H. (2013). Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kueny, K. (2013). Conceiving Identities: Maternity in Medieval Muslim Discourse and Practice. Albany: State University of New York. Lofton, K. (2017). Consuming Religion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Mack, B. and Boyd, J. (2000). One Woman’s Jihad: Nana Asma’u, Scholar and Scribe. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Mahmood, S. (2005). The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Majeed, D. (2016). Polygyny: What It Means When African American Women Share Their Husbands. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Mernissi, F. (1983). Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society. Revised Edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Najmabadi, A. (2005). Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Orsi, R. (2018). History and Presence. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Ruffle, K. (2010). ‘May Fatimah Gather Our Tears: The Mystical and Intercessory Powers of Fatimah alZahra in Indo-Persian, Shiʿi Devotional Literature and Performance’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 30 (3), 386–397. Sciupac, E.P. (2017). ‘U.S. Muslims Are Religiously Observant but Open to Multiple Interpretations of Islam’, [Online] www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/28/u-s-muslims-are-religiously-obser vant-but-open-to-multiple-interpretations-of-islam/ Accessed March 12, 2020. Seedat, F. (2018). ‘Sitting in Difference: Queering the Study of Islam’, Journal of Feminist Studies of Religion 34 (1), 138–142. Wade, L. and Ferree, M.M. (2015). Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. New York: W.W. Norton. wadud, a. (1999). Qurʾan and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.

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PART I

Foundational texts in historical and contemporary contexts

1 CLASSICAL QURʾANIC EXEGESIS AND WOMEN Hadia Mubarak

Among its many functions, the genre of tafsı̄ r has long created an interpretive space for understanding the Qurʾanic text. The Islamic exegetical tradition underscored textual polysemy as an inherent feature of the Qurʾan, rendering it amenable to a multiplicity of readings (Calder, 1993, p. 103). As early as the mid-8th century, when the genre of tafsı̄ r first emerged, exegetes debated the meaning of the Qur’an – a scripture of 114 chapters and 6,236 verses1 believed to be the word of God verbatim. While exegetes of all stripes and colours agreed on the Qurʾan’s divine origin, this did not preclude their disagreement on the nature of Authorial intent. What does God mean by His words? What are the legal or theological implications of a given verse? To what extent should the Qurʾan’s words be measured against an external source, such as law, prophetic tradition, theology, philology, and the like? The answers to these questions were by no means monolithic. Early on in its development, the exegetical tradition, therefore, bequeathed to Islam’s central text a multiplicity of meaning. Interpretive pluralism has been a key feature of tafsı̄ r. As Karen Bauer notes, the genre of tafsı̄ r was ‘inclusivist’, ‘polyvalent’, including conflicting interpretations, and ‘diachronic’, developing through time (Bauer, 2015, pp. 11–12). Interpretive differences that arose between exegetes were the product of two sources of influence: hermeneutics and context. First, an exegete’s methodological, legal, and theological inclinations came to bear in his/her participation in the interpretive process (Calder, 1993, pp. 105–106). Second, an exegete’s intellectual, historical, and social milieu often influenced his/her intellectual preoccupations and concerns (Netton, 1996, p. 132). Nowhere does this become more obvious than in a comparative study of pre-modern and modern Qurʾanic exegesis. The milieu in which a scholar writes his exegesis of the Qurʾan often frames his intellectual concerns and priorities, which bears influence on his interpretive choices. As Bauer accurately notes, ‘For the ʿulamaʾ, social context extended into their methods of writing texts. Their intellectual milieu had much to do with how they wrote, which in turn affects what they wrote about women’ (2015, p. 272). As such, this chapter brings attention to the role of context in premodern exegetical interpretations of the Qurʾan. Does the exegetical tradition evince the same level of pluralism in its interpretations regarding women and gender? The answer to this question remains disputed in contemporary

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scholarship on gender in the Qurʾan. Maysam al-Faruqi, for example, describes the classical genre of Qurʾanic exegesis as ‘decidedly misogynistic’ (2000, p. 82). Similarly, Asma Barlas argues that the exegetical tradition ‘enabled the “textualization of misogyny” in Islam’ (2002, p. 9 n35, citing Rashaand Sass). amina wadud depicts traditional exegesis as ‘voiceless’ of women’s perspective (1999, p. 2, 2000, p. 13). Yet much of these works evade a substantive engagement with tafsı̄ r as a scholarly genre with methodological boundaries. In the last decade, a few works have attempted to bridge the separate fields of tafsı̄ r and gender studies. Most notably, Bauer and Ayesha Chaudhry have extensively examined the pre-modern exegetical tradition on significant gender issues in the Qurʾan. In her work, Bauer underscores the diversity and heterogeneity of the pre-modern exegetical tradition on gender, in terms of both methodology and interpretation. She examines interpretations of verses 2:228, 4:1, and 4:34. Based on her findings, she writes in ‘Room for Interpretation’, Despite broad agreement on some essential points, the interpretations of these verses present a striking range and variety through time. The nature of the variation found in these exegeses means that they defy simple categorization of ‘dogmatic’ … A more precise way of describing the exegeses of these verses is that certain interpretations remain constant through time, while others vary between times, places, and individual authors. This gives the impression of constancy while incorporating change and variety. (2008, p. 2)2 In contrast to this representation of diversity, Ayesha Chaudhry depicts the pre-modern exegetical tradition on gender as ‘consistently and monolithically patriarchal’ (2013, p. 40). While she notes a variety in interpretation, she argues that a constant feature of all premodern exegetes in their exegesis on Q. 4:34 is that they predicate their interpretations on ‘a patriarchal idealized cosmology’ (2013, pp. 54–55). Departing from binary conceptions of Qurʾanic tafsı̄ r as either patriarchal or egalitarian (Naguib, 2010, p. 33), this chapter seeks to complicate current narratives on scriptural interpretations of women and gender in the Qurʾan. It argues that a closer engagement with tafsı̄ r reveals a more complex image of classical and modern exegetes’ attitude towards gender, a byproduct of the genre’s interpretive pluralism. The medieval exegetical tradition, despite its patriarchal bent, simultaneously reflects a consistent concern for women’s welfare and wellbeing. For example, although medieval male exegetes do not appear to place a premium on notions of gender justice or gender equality, as we understand these concepts in our contemporary context, they were quite attuned to notions of justice, legal rights, and men’s responsibility to provide good companionship (h ̣usn al-muʿā shara) to their wives as evident by their discourse on marriage and divorce in the Qurʾan. Further, as I illustrate below, although premodern commentators showed no discomfort with the institution of polygyny as expressed by verse 4:3, they all emphatically concluded that the verse’s central objective was to protect women and orphans from injustice. In fact, as early as the 10th century, Qurʾanic exegetes posited that monogamy was the preferred course of action for those who want to stay clear from potential injustice, as implied by the wording of Qurʾanic verse 4:3. Rather than force this tradition into a false dichotomy of being either ‘misogynistic’ or ‘egalitarian’, scholars who work on gender in the Qurʾan should consider more nuanced ways of engaging and capturing the complexity of the tafsı̄ r tradition. On women’s issues in particular, medieval exegetes were clearly influenced by their historically bound, socialcultural realities. As Karen Bauer writes, 24

Classical Qurʾanic exegesis and women

There is no doubt that the patriarchal context of pre-modern Muslim societies shaped their interpretations, but that does not mean that interpreters had no notion of fairness or justice. At times, they too struggled to explain a system that might lead to abuses of power. (2015, p. 275) A historical survey of the genre of exegesis suggests that patriarchal interpretations become entrenched by the 6th/12th century.3 Many, although not all, classical commentaries reflect a persistent adherence to patriarchal norms about women’s place in society. To attempt to prove otherwise would be disingenuous. Yet this patriarchy should not be mistaken as misogyny. Rather, it is a reflection of historically particular notions of justice. As Aysha Hidayatullah writes, ‘we often forget that our notions of equality are guided by historical values of our own that we bring to the text’ (2014, pp. 150–151). The same is also true regarding gender justice. It was natural, to some extent, for the Qurʾan’s medieval readers to read the Qurʾan in light of their present realities. Their conceptions of women’s roles in societies, capabilities, and weaknesses were in many ways informed by existing social hierarchies, which they projected upon the text. The social hierarchies of the medieval period were a given. As scholars such as Kecia Ali (2010) and Patricia Clark (2001) have illustrated, medieval societies in both the Middle East and Greco-Rome were structured on a complex web of social hierarchies. Men and women could occupy diverse positions on the strata of social privilege based on a multitude of factors, including one’s status as free or slave, married or unmarried, and even ‘honour’. In Qurʾanic exegesis, like in other modes of interpretation, there is a life-relation between the exegete and the subject matter of the text (Rahman, 1997, p. 3), which becomes most evident upon comparing a number a diverse number of exegeses on a specific text. Is it possible that gender hierarchies, however, were not by-products of the medieval period but embedded within the Qurʾanic text itself? This question has been at the centre of intense scholarly debate in the last two decades. The answers generated by scholarship on gender and the Qurʾan are far from conclusive. On one end of the spectrum are scholars, such as Asma Barlas, Azizah al-Hibri, Maysam al-Faruqi, Riffat Hassan, and amina wadud, who absolve the Qurʾanic text itself of patriarchy and instead blame the exegetical tradition for entrenching patriarchal readings in classical Muslim thought.4 On the other end of the spectrum are scholars, such as Kecia Ali, Aysha Hidayatullah, and Raja Rhouni,5 who critique feminist scholars for imposing their own contemporary sensibilities upon the Qurʾan, even when the literal meanings of the text appear to contradict their egalitarian aspirations for it. For example, in Feminist Edges of the Qurʾan, Hidayatullah argues that there may be no inherent contradiction between Qurʾanic verses that express egalitarianism with those that express gender hierarchies. She writes, ‘It could be that in the context of the Qurʾan “patriarchy is not bigotry, hatred or oppression, but rather the natural social order”’ (Hidayatullah, 2014, p. 166, quoting Linda Luitje, 2001, p. 152). Hidayatullah is correct to note that social hierarchies did not necessarily preclude mutual love and affection; in fact, the gendered nurture women were expected to receive, based on exegetical articulations, may have been a function of their social status as ‘individuals in need of protection’. As Patricia Clark (2001, pp. 54–75) also notes in regard to GrecoRoman societies, ‘More than a simple hierarchy of authority and obedience was involved, however, for at the core of the ideal family was the conjugal pair, bound by mutual ties of marital affection’. However, it is important not to reduce the Qurʾan’s intended meanings to its historical context or the context of its exegetes. While the Qurʾan’s historical context 25

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is critical to an accurate understanding of its development over 23 lunar years, it would be a mistake to collapse this historical context with the Qurʾan’s transcendent meanings, which are being continuously negotiated and renegotiated by its communities of readers. The textual polysemy of Islam’s longstanding interpretive tradition of tafsı̄ r underscores the fact that meanings are often derived by their authors. There is no hegemony of meaning, as Jonathan Brown (2014, p. 84) argues, but a ‘hegemonic power’ of communal understanding. The community reading the text establishes the boundaries of interpretive possibility.

Medieval exegesis on women As the Qurʾan has become the focal point of the modern debate on whether Islam is irreparably patriarchal or even misogynist, this chapter takes these three verses as the centre of its focus: 4:3, 4:34, and 4:128. These verses have been at the centre of a contentious debate within the last two decades on the Qurʾan’s potential to be a site for gender justice. Verse 4:3 has elicited attention in the debate on gender for granting men the right to marry up to four women, under certain conditions. Verse 4:34, the target of even greater controversy, grants husbands the function of qiwā ma over women due to ‘what God has preferred over others’ and men’s financial maintenance of women. Among other themes, it also prescribes three measures for dealing with a wife who is guilty of nushū z. Based on a literal reading of the verse, these three measures are first, giving advice, second, hajr in beds (primarily interpreted as sexual abandonment or separation of beds), and third, hitting. It impossible to untangle the translation of qiwā ma or nushū z from their interpretation; for the sake of clarity, however, men’s qiwā ma over women has been traditionally interpreted as guardianship, protection, ‘being in charge of’, and financial responsibility. The meanings attributed to nushū z range from recalcitrance, defiance, and disobedience to hatred and sexual deviance. However, I leave the terms qiwā ma and nushū z in their Arabic form throughout the chapter because any translation requires an interpretative choice. Whereas Q. 4:34 has been the subject of countless articles and books, another verse in the same chapter, Q. 4:128, which describes the process of resolution when the husband is guilty of nushū z, has been almost entirely overlooked.6 The lack of scholarly attention to a Qurʾanic verse that speaks of men’s nushū z is a perfect illustration of the disproportionate emphasis given to verses on male privilege or female passivity as opposed to verses that focus on the duties that men owe to women. In contrast to Q. 4:34, which identifies women as the source of marital turbulence, based on a literal reading, Q. 4:128 identifies men as the source of marital conflict. As I have argued elsewhere (Mubarak, 2014, p. 298), my findings strongly suggest that scholars should consider new ways of approaching premodern exegesis on gender. To arrive at a more holistic understanding of exegetes’ approaches to the foundational text of the Qurʾan, I consider exegetical discussions on the nushū z of both genders in tandem.

Pre-modern Qurʾanic commentaries on polygyny And if you have reason to fear that you might not act equitably towards orphans, then marry from among women whom are lawful to you – [even] two, or three, or four: but if you have reason to fear that you might not be able to treat them with justice, then marry one – or those whom you rightfully possess. Thus, it will be more likely that you will not do injustice.7 (Verse 4:3) 26

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Pre-modern commentators showed no discomfort with the institution of polygyny as expressed by verse 4:3. Unlike exegetes who were writing in the 20th century,8 premodern exegetes made no attempt to justify the institution of polygyny or to identify its advantages over monogamous marriages as the ideal standard of marriage. Rather, premodern Qurʾanic exegetes sought to explain why God restricted the number of wives a man could have to four, not why He permitted it. This stands in sharp contrast to modern Qurʾanic commentators.9 In assessing pre-modern commentaries on gender issues, one should not lose sight of the historical particularity of medieval authors’ contexts and cultural milieus. Whereas their historical frame of reference leads them to read Q. 4:3 as a restriction of polygyny, our own contemporary standards of monogamy as the marital norm leads us to read Q. 4:3 as a license instead. This underscores the need to recognize the ‘historical specificity’ of notions of gender justice and egalitarianism that exegetes bring to the Qurʾan, an argument Hidayatullah makes in regard to feminist exegetes (2014, p. 150). In their interpretations, the primary focus of pre-modern exegetes was to identify the exact correlation between the issue of orphans, on one hand, and the issue of marriage to more than one woman, on the other hand. The verse begins with a dependent clause expressing a condition, the protasis (sharṭ): ‘And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with orphans’. It then follows with a second clause expressing the consequence, the apodosis (jawā b al-sharṭ): ‘then marry those women made lawful to you, in twos, threes, or fours’. For the pre-modern exegetes, any interpretation of this verse needed to take into account its syntactical structure. What is the correlation between fearing unjust treatment of orphans and multiple marriages? If textual polysemy was an inherent feature of medieval Qurʾanic exegesis, then it was most evident in the 10th-century exegesis of Ibn Jarı̄ r al-Ṭabarı̄ (d. 923). Al-Ṭabarı̄ ’s methodology was to include the entire range of opinions that existed on a particular issue, even when he was aware of explicit contradictions between the reports, their weaknesses or complete fabrication (Hodgson, 1974, vol. 1, p. 353). Al-Ṭabarı̄ cites three possibilities for the correlation between orphans and multiple marriages, as expressed in the conditional phrase of verse 4:3. The first opinion al-Ṭabarı̄ cites (2010, vol. 7, p. 531) is that this verse restricts male legal guardians from marrying orphans under their care due to the potential injustice it may cause. He attributes this opinion to the wife of Prophet Muhammad, ʿAʾisha, who narrates a hadith10 that connects the two pieces of the puzzle: orphans and multiple marriages. According to ʿAʾisha’s report, this verse addresses legal guardians who desire to marry female orphans under their care because they are attracted to the orphan’s beauty and wealth. Yet their status as legal guardians creates a conflict of interest. More specifically, by marrying a female orphan under his care, the legal guardian would likely not give her the same amount of marital dower – mahr – that another man would have gifted her, ʿAʾisha notes. Accordingly, God forbids these men from marrying those orphans under their care, unless they could be just and give them the full amount of mahr due to them. The option to marry other women whom are lawful to them, therefore, functions as a deterrent to male legal guardians from marrying orphans under their care, who are vulnerable to exploitation by their social status as minor, orphan, and female (al-Ṭabarı̄ , 2010, vol. 7, p. 531). This report by ʿAʾisha is cited by all the pre-modern and modern exegetes I examine (Mubarak, 2014, pp. 136–168). Based on al-Ṭabarı̄ ’s characteristic of citing interpretive reports (Donner, 1998, p. 258), he cites all the chains of transmission for the authorities who have adopted this interpretation, which demonstrates the prominence of ʿAʾisha as a reliable source of exegetical material. As Ash Geissinger notes (2015, pp. 176–182), ‘ʿAʾisha is the preeminent female source of exegetical hadiths’ in both the hadith cannon and early exegetical works. 27

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The second interpretation that al-Ṭabarı̄ cites is that Q. 4:3 deters men from using orphans’ wealth to financially support their multiple marriages. According to this interpretation, this verse directly addresses a social practice of Arab men from the Quraysh tribe in 7th-century Arabia. These men would marry ten women, or more or less, and then use the wealth of the orphans under their care to financially support these multiple marriages (alṬabarı̄ , 2010, vol. 7, p. 534). Worse yet, they would use the orphan’s wealth to get married in the first place, by paying for the dower and other marital celebrations out of the orphan’s wealth. Accordingly, this verse restricts the number of marriages that a man could have in order to eliminate his need or desire to use the wealth of orphans under his care (al-Ṭabarı̄ , 2010). The third interpretation al-Ṭabarı̄ cites, which is the opinion he champions, is that the Arab men of Quraysh did in fact refrain from being unjust with orphans’ wealth, but they did not exhibit that same level of restraint towards the women they married. For al-Ṭabarı̄ , the correlation between orphans and multiple marriages at the beginning of the verse is not in the legality of marrying orphans versus non-orphans. Rather, the correlation between these two topics is in the level of concern one should have towards both subjects: women and orphans. Al-Ṭabarı̄ argues that since Q. 4:2, the preceding verse, warns against unjustly appropriating orphans’ wealth, then verse 4:3 commands men to fear being unjust towards women they marry just as they fear being unjust towards orphan. He writes (al-Ṭabarı̄ , 2010, vol. 7, pp. 535–6), Just as you fear being unjust with orphans, likewise fear being unjust to women, so do not marry of them except one to four, and do not exceed this; and if you still fear that you will not be just with more than one woman, then do not marry except that [number] in which you do not fear being unjust, from one to what your right hand possesses. In contrast to what one might assume, the 11th-century Shiʿi scholar and exegete Abū Jaʿfar Muhammad Ibn Ḥasan al-Ṭū sı̄ (d. 406/1068) does not present much that is hermeneutically or interpretively different from al-Ṭabarı̄ . Structurally, al-Ṭū sı̄ maintains the characteristics of polyvalence and the citation of named authorities, two features that Calder (1993, p. 103) had described as ‘constitutive of the genre’ of tafsı̄ r. Al-Ṭū sı̄ cites six possible scenarios for the correlation between orphans and marriage to more than one woman, as described in the verse. The first opinion he cites (1985, vol. 3, p. 103) is that of ʿAʾisha, which al-Ṭabarı̄ had also referenced. Accordingly, men should refrain from marrying orphans under their care due to the potential injustice that could ensue from doing so. Rather, they should marry other women instead, up to four, if they could ensure justice. The significance of this citation lies in the fact that ʿAʾisha’s role as a source of exegetical authority appears to transcend sectarian boundaries during this period. Al-Ṭū sı̄ appears to prefer this first interpretation, which he attributes to ʿAʾisha and al-Ṭabarı̄ . Unlike the latter, however, al-Ṭū sı̄ does not make his preferences explicit, reflecting the belief that the Qurʾan carries a breadth of meaning. The second and third opinions he cites parallel al-Ṭabarı̄ ’s second and third interpretations. The fourth opinion he deduces introduces a third factor: illicit sex. Accordingly, the verse means, if you fear being unjust towards orphans’ wealth, then likewise fear approaching illicit sex and therefore, get married instead (al-Ṭū sı̄ , 1985, vol. 3, pp. 103–104).11 To arrive at this interpretation, however, requires one to stretch the semantic boundaries of the verse. In this case, the connection between the two subjects, orphans and multiple marriages, 28

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is not a straightforward one, but must be extrapolated by several hermeneutic layers: men should fear committing the sin of illicit sex just as they fear committing a sin towards orphans, so rather than engage in illicit sex, they should ‘marry those women made lawful to them’. This opinion is also cited by Mah ̣mū d ibn ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharı̄ (d. 538/1144) and later exegetes. The fifth opinion al-Ṭū sı̄ cites is that this verse recommends marrying eligible orphans who are relatives rather than orphans under one’s care. The final opinion he posits (al-Ṭū sı̄ , 1985, vol. 3, p. 105) is that this verse reminds men that just as they fear usurping orphans’ wealth, as referenced in Q. 4:2, they should also fear the practice of polygyny with orphans unless they could ascertain justice. The 12th-century Persian commentator, al-Zamakhsharı̄ , represents an important structural shift from both al-Ṭabarı̄ and al-Ṭū sı̄ in that he rarely cites his authorities. Unlike alṬabarı̄ , he does not cite reports from earlier authorities, although it is clear that he is still relying on the interpretations of predecessors. His theological orientation as a Muʿtazilı̄ theologian strengthens the tendency to eschew certain possibilities. Yet in his interpretations on gender issues, al-Zamakhsharı̄ ’s Muʿtazilı̄ orientation does not appear to bear any influence. He cites three possible interpretations regarding the meaning of verse 4:3. Like al-Ṭabarı̄ , al-Zamakhsharı̄ suggests that the connection between orphans and marriage to more than one woman is in the level of reverence one should assume towards both (2016, vol. 1, p. 373). To this interpretation, he adds the following analysis: if you fear being unjust with the rights of orphans and therefore, refrain from it [being unjust], likewise, fear being unjust to women, so reduce the number of women you marry, because whoever refrains from one sin or repents for it, while committing another sin, is neither abstinent [from sin] nor repentant … because repugnance exists in every sin. (2016, vol. 1, p. 373) In other words, it is pointless to refrain from one sin while engaging in another. If it is a sin to be unjust with orphans, likewise, it is a sin to be unjust towards women. Al-Zamakhsharı̄ identifies two other possible interpretations. The 13th-century Ashʿarı̄ theologian and exegete, Fakhr al-Dı̄ n al-Rā zı̄ , continues the classical method of citing a range of possible meanings and then choosing a particular one. Although he cites four interpretations, he singles out one as being the most probable. According to al-Rā zı̄ , the objective of this verse is to restrict the number of marriages that a man could have in order to eliminate his need or desire to use the wealth of orphans under his care (2013, vol. 5, p. 140). Therefore, the correlation between fearing injustice towards orphans and marrying up to four women is an inverse one. Marrying more than four women could lead to a financial burden and greater temptation to use the wealth of orphans under one’s care. According to a report by ʿIkrima (d.105 AH/723/4 CE), a man would marry many wives while simultaneously having orphans under his legal care. After spending all of his money on his wives, he would have nothing left and be in financial need. He would then use the orphans’ wealth to financially support his wives. According to al-Rā zı̄ ’s reading (2013), if one fears being unjust to orphans’ wealth, then one should decrease the number of women one marries accordingly. From the medieval vantage point of pre-modern exegetes, polygyny was the default position and the objective of this Qurʾanic verse was to restrict it. Therefore, their interpretations centred on explaining why God had restricted the practice of polygyny, not on why 29

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He allowed it to exist. Subtle differences in the various interpretations aside, for all four of these pre-modern exegetes, the objective of this verse was either to prevent injustice to orphans or prevent injustice to women themselves. None of the pre-modern exegetes entertained the idea that the institution of polygyny itself, under any circumstance, could be unjust. A man’s simultaneous marriage to more than one woman was not inherently just or unjust; it all boiled down to individuals’ capacities and circumstances. Unlike commentators in the modern period, pre-modern exegetes felt no need to defend or justify the existence of the institution of polygyny. This was, simply, a non-issue.

Gendered notions of nushū z The Qurʾanic text prescribes two different scenarios for resolving cases of nushū z, depending on the whether the wife or husband is the source of turbulence. The parallel wording of Q. 4:34 and Q. 4:128 suggests ‘some parity between spouses’, as Chaudhry observes (2013, p. 62). The verses describe a state of turbulence that may arise in marital relationships. While the former verse locates the blame for nushū z with the wife, expressed in the phrase ‘those [women] whose nushū z you fear’, the latter verse locates the blame for nushū z with the husband, using strikingly similar language: ‘If a woman fears nushū z from her husband’. However, most pre-modern exegetes ignored the parallel wording12 of these two verses and instead interpreted these two terms ‘in completely different ways’, as Chaudhry notes (2013 p. 63). Whereas most pre-modern exegetes defined a woman’s nushū z as her ‘disobedience to her husband’, (Chaudhry, 2013, p. 64), they instead interpreted men’s nushū z as hatred, cruelty, superiority, or the sexual or financial abandonment of women.13 The notion of men’s defiance or disobedience made no appearance in their exegesis on Q. 4:128, an interpretation they applied exclusively to women’s nushū z. Yet exegetes acknowledged that the term nushū z in Q. 4:34 and Q. 4:128 derives from one semantic wellspring. For example, the 10th-century exegete, al-Ṭabarı̄ , uses the terms elevation (istiʿlā ʾ) and rising (irtifā ʿ) to interpret nushū z in both verses. In the context of marital discord, this nushū z is a type of haughtiness or arrogance that one spouse espouses towards the other. Yet for al-Ṭabarı̄ , the way that men and women display haughtiness is clearly gendered. A woman’s nushū z, according to al-Ṭabarı̄ , is her refusal to have sex with her husband, due to ‘her disobedience’, and her defiance in other matters in which she should obey him, either out of hatred or disregard for the husband (al- Ṭabarı̄ , 2010, v. 3, p. 801). A husband’s nushū z is his sexual abandonment of his wife, due to his preference for another woman, which amounts to neglect or cruelty rather than disobedience. The gendered ways in which al-Ṭabarı̄ describes the sexual disinterest of both spouses is grounded in Islamic legal conceptions of marriage as an exchange of rights. In both cases, the nushū z that he describes constitutes a spouse reneging of one of the rights he/she owes the other. Al-Ṭabarı̄ uses the term disobedience ‘ʿiṣyanan minhunna’ to characterize the wife’s abandonment of her husband’s bed due to legal conceptions of sex as a right that a wife owes to her husband. On the other hand, al-Ṭabarı̄ uses the phrase ‘giving preference to another’ (atharatan ʿalayhā ) to characterize the husband’s sexual neglect or abandonment of his wife. The equal treatment of co-wives was regarded as a legitimate right that a woman could demand from her husband.14 A man’s sexual neglect of his wife, therefore, was not regarded as ‘disobedience’, but as a violation of a wife’s right to be treated on par with other wives, based on Q. 4:3 ‘and if you fear that you will not be just, then marry only one or your female slaves’. Therefore, al-Ṭabarı̄ ’s understanding of nushū z is grounded in his legal conception of marriage as an exchange of rights. 30

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Nushū z, according to legal-minded exegetes like al-Ṭabarı̄ and al-Qurṭubı̄ (d. 671/1273), amounts to a spouse reneging on the rights of the other. The nature of these rights, as law specialists Kecia Ali (2016, pp. 9–13) and Judith Tucker (1998, pp. 42–46) have illustrated, however, was largely gendered. This gendered definition of nushū z, informed by the different legal rights that each spouse owes the other, continues with 12th- and 13th-century exegetes. The 12th-century Muʿtazilı̄ exegete, al-Zamakhsharı̄ , interprets (2016, vol. 1, p. 538) a woman’s nushū z as her disobedience and agitation towards her husband. On the other hand, he interprets (2016, vol. 1, p. 604) a man’s nushū z as being harsh towards his wife ‘by depriving her of sexual intercourse, finances, love, and mercy, which should be between a man and woman’ and verbal or physical abuse. Chaudhry notes (2015, p. 336) that exegetes ‘argue[d] that when love and mercy were lacking in a marriage, that was a failing on the part of the husband’, based on Q. 30:21, which describes ‘love and mercy’ as essential qualities of a marriage. The 13th-century exegete, al-Rā zı̄ , acknowledges that the term nushū z shares one linguistic origin in both verses. He writes (2013, vol. 6, p. 52), ‘nushū z could stem from either of the spouses and it is the hatred of one for the other’. Despite this initial concession, alRā zı̄ proceeds to define the markers of nushū z for men and women in distinct ways. For alRā zı̄ , a woman’s nushū z is grounded in her disobedience towards her husband (2013, vol. 5, p. 73). The husband’s nushū z, on the other hand, is marked by his disinterest in his wife or ill-treatment of her. Al-Rā zı̄ writes (2013, vol. 6, p. 52), ‘A man’s nushū z against his wife’s right is that he neglects her, frowns in her face, ceases to have sex with her, and treats her badly (yusı̄ ʿ ʿushratahā )’. In both cases, the spouse evinces disinterest in the other. Yet in the case of women, al-Rā zı̄ characterizes this as disobedience; in the case of men, he characterizes it as bad companionship. As Karen Bauer writes (2015, pp. 173–177), a woman’s right to ‘good companionship’ was central to exegetical discussions on marriage. This understanding was informed by verses in the Qurʾan such as Q. 4:19, ‘And live with them in kindness’ and 2:229 ‘A divorce may be revoked twice, then (a woman) must be retained in honour or released in kindness’.

Can men hit rebellious wives? Classical interpretations of Q. 4:34 Men are qawwā mū n [supporters to] women with what God has favored some over others and with what they (men) spend out of their wealth. Therefore, righteous women are devoted and guard the unseen as God has guarded (it). As for those (women) whose nushū z [uprising] you fear, admonish them, (then) avoid them in their beds and (then) hit them. But if they obey you, then seek nothing against them. Behold, God is most High and Great.15 (Verse 4:34) No other verse in the Qurʾan has garnered as much controversy to the scholarly debate on gender in the Qurʾan as Q. 4:34. The list of works that focus or engage with this verse is exhaustive. In the English language alone, over 40 publications have been published in the last two decades on Q. 4:34.16 The ‘difficulty’17 of dealing with Q. 4:34 has become more pronounced in the last few decades, as religious texts are measured against modern notions of gender equality and gender justice. As G. Vermes, a scholar of Biblical texts, once stated (1970, quoted in Calder, 1993, p. 104), one should distinguish ‘between a problem that arises because of something in the text’ itself, and one that arises ‘because something external to the text is imposed upon it’. The level of attention given to Q. 4:34, one of over 6,000 31

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Qurʾanic verses, speaks to the tensions involved in reconciling scripture – divine truth for 1.8 billion Muslims – with contemporary sensibilities of ideal marital norms between a husband and wife. The quest to make meaning of Q. 4:34 – which has assumed scholarly, spiritual, and advocacy forms – is most certainly a reflection of our own times and intellectual priorities, rather than a reflection of the text itself. As Norman Calder writes (1993, p. 104, emphasis added), exegetical problems arise when ‘something within the text is recognized as being at odds with something outside the text’. While Calder (1993, p. 105) is primarily concerned with external structures such as ‘the scholastic disciplines of law, theology and prophetic narrative’, Arabic morphology, rhetoric, and grammar, I argue that human societies’ evolving cultural norms and notions of morality also shape the process of scholarly interpretation. Verse 4:34 becomes central to the contemporary debate on women and gender because of three concepts that it introduces. First, the notion that husbands are qawwā mū n over their wives, a term that has been interpreted and translated in significantly different ways: as protectors of women, financial providers for women, and being ‘in charge of’ women. Second, the verse prescribes three disciplinary measures for wives who are guilty of nushū z. Since the three disciplinary steps are to be applied to a wife only in a state of nushū z, how an exegete defined nushū z was critical for the either the restriction or expansion of the verse’s application. As I demonstrate below, exegetes derived a broad range of meanings for the term nushū z. For the most part, women’s nushū z was grounded in the concept of spousal defiance or disobedience for pre-modern exegetes (Chaudhry, 2013, p. 172; Mubarak, 2014, p. 202). Third, the last disciplinary measure of this verse has unquestionably provoked the greatest level of controversy. Based on a face-value interpretation, it allows husbands to ‘hit’ women who are guilty of nushū z. The range of semantic possibilities of the phrase ‘wad ̣ribū hunna’ (‘and hit hem’), its theoretical implications for the project of gender feminism, and its impact on Islamic family law have entered the mainstage of contemporary debates on women and Islam. As Kecia Ali writes (2016, p. 157), Q. 4:34 is one of the most ‘notoriously difficult verses for exegetes concerned with gender justice and equality’. The most provocative question to the Qurʾan’s contemporary readers is the following: does this verse permit husbands or even suggest for them to hit their wives when the latter are guilty of nushū z? The modern period yields a cacophony of voices in response to this question; the range of responses is complex and evades binary categorization. The traditional approach, which is the most common one, has been to restrict the application of this verse by obliging a chronology of steps, a ‘light’ or symbolic hitting with a handkerchief or toothbrush, and the certainty of nushū z.18 The modernist approach to Q. 4:34 has been to reinterpret the semantics of d ̣araba, arguing that the term has been misunderstood by the majority of Muslim scholars.19 For these scholars, the verb d ̣araba does not mean to hit women, but to separate from them – or according to one translator, to have intercourse with them – the former meaning being also supported by prophetic practice. A third position, one taken by a few Muslim scholars in the West, is to move beyond debates about the verse’s meaning. Rather, they argue that regardless of the verse’s intended meaning, one must prioritize one’s conscience and ethics over the text’s literal meaning. Scholars who have taken this approach include amina wadud, Khaled Abou El-Fadl, Farid Esack, Ebrahim Moosa, and Laury Silvers, among others.20 While the interpretive strategies of these scholars are by no means homogenous, they share one important commonality: privileging an ethical, egalitarian paradigm over the Qurʾan’s literal meaning. What does it mean to privilege an ethical paradigm? For a scholar like amina wadud (2006, pp. 199–200), it means ‘to finally come to say “no” outright to the literal implementation of 32

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this passage [4:34]’. Although definitive and bold, wadud’s stance raises uncertainties, as ‘it is not clear what saying “no” to texts such as Q 4:34 means precisely’, an observation made by scholars like Chaudhry (2006, p. 163). For Khalid Abou El-Fadl (2005, p. 94), a ‘conscientious pause’ denotes measuring divine speech against divine ontology. ‘How can The Beautiful demand of us anything but the beautiful’, he asks (Abou El-Fadl, 2019). ‘Before I ascribe to God something that torments the heart, I must weigh the possibilities in my head’ (2019). In contrast to wadud’s definitive ‘no’, Abou El-Fadl casts doubt on the notion that God could require of His creation anything less than sublime and beautiful. In a similar vein, Silvers argues (2006, p. 177) that ‘we must struggle with our conscience even in response to God’, relying on Prophet Muhammad’s alleged response to the revelation of Q. 4:34. For Silvers, however, this is not a post-modernist position, but one that conforms to an ethical interpretation of the Qurʾan, as reflected by both the Prophet’s example and the hermeneutics of the 12th-century Andalusian scholar Muh ̣yı̄ al-Dı̄ n ibn al-Arabı̄ (d. 638/1245). While contemporary, post-modernist, and progressive scholars have certainly made important contributions to ethical discussions of Q. 4:34, I argue that they are not radically new. A close analysis of both modern and pre-modern Qurʾanic exegesis reflects similar hermeneutic tensions and ‘conscientious’ wrestling described by contemporary scholars. The assumption that classical scholars were unperturbed by the notion of a husband abusing his wife does not withstand a close, historical inquiry. As early as the second Islamic century, the well-known jurist and mufti of Mecca, ʿAtā ̣ ʾ b. Abı̄ Rabā h ̣ (d. 115/733), argued that his contemporaries had misunderstood Q. 4:34 (Maydā nı̄ , 2002, pp. 6–16). He established, ‘The husband does not hit his wife, but gets angry with her’ (Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , 2012, vol. 1 p. 536). Based on the Prophetic hadith ‘the best of you shall not hit [his wife]’, Ibn Abı̄ Rabā h ̣ deduced that the imperative form ‘wa-d ̣ribū hunna’ (commonly translated as ‘hit them’) did not function as an obligation (wujū b) nor a recommendation (mandū b) nor even an license (ibā h ̣a); rather it functioned as a karā hiyya (an odious or disliked thing) (Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , 2012). While the majority of traditional Muslim scholars did not adopt this position, Ibn Abı̄ Rabā h ̣ was certainly not alone in taking this view. Most notably, Muhammad ibn Idrı̄ s al-Shā fiʿı̄ restricted the application of Q. 4:34 on the basis of prophetic precedent. In his legal treatise al-Umm, al-Shā fiʿı̄ demonstrates a clear discomfort with the notion that a husband should hit his wife, even when guilty of nushū z. Moving away from a literal understanding of the imperative verb wa-d ̣ribū hunna, he argues that this cannot denote an obligation, but a permissibility. Yet al-Shā fiʿı̄ does not stop there and argues (2008, vol. 6, p. 424), ‘we prefer for him [the husband] what the Prophet peace be upon him preferred; therefore, we opine that a man not hit his wife due to her loose tongue towards him or what resembles this’. As the Islamic legal specialist Kecia Ali notes (2006, p. 149), ‘It is fair to assume that al-Shā fiʿı̄ shares the prophetic distaste for striking wives; the refrain “The best of you will not strike” is repeated three times in one section alone, while Shā fiʿı̄ ’s contemporaries very rarely mention striking’. These two legal opinions become critical points of intervention in the exegetical commentaries of three significant works of tafsı̄ r: first, the legalistic commentary of the Mā likı̄ Andalusian jurist, Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabı̄ (d. 1148); second, the philosophical commentary of ‘one of the most celebrated theologians and exegetists of Islam’, Fakhr al-Dı̄ n al-Rā zı̄ (d. 1209) (Anawati, 2018); and third, the 20th-century philological exegesis of the Tunisian scholar, Muhammad al-Ṭā hir ibn ʿĀ shū r (d. 1973), described ‘as one of the most influential and encyclopedic authors of his generation’ (Haddad, 2019, p. 50).21 Although representing 33

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two different genres, in both the exegetical and legal literature, the jurists and exegetes rely on a prophetic tradition to impede a straightforward interpretation of Q. 4:34. The earliest of these three exegetes, Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , argues that it is impossible for a man to resort to disciplining his wife, child or servant without compromising his own faith. For Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , the prophetic concession, ‘[you may] hit, but the best of you will not hit’ (2012, vol. 1, p. 536), highlights that the moral high ground is to never hit a woman, irrespective of her own state. In support of this position, he references the 8th-century legal opinion of Ibn Abı̄ Rabā h ̣, arguing that Ibn Abı̄ Rabā h ̣ arrived at this position due to his ‘[accurate] comprehension (fiqh)’, and ‘understanding of divine law (sharı̄ ʿa)’ (Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , 2012). Therefore, as early as the 12th century, exegetes like al-Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ made the argument that saying ‘no’ to a literal application of Q. 4:34 was a reflection of an accurate understanding of divine law. For legal-minded exegetes like Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , an accurate interpretation of divine law necessitated measuring divine speech against the Qurʾan’s broader ethical paradigm and prophetic precedent. A century later, Fakhr al-Dı̄ n al-Rā zı̄ emerges as another proponent for the legal position that it is recommended to refrain from physically chastising a wife. He relies (2013, vol. 5, p. 73) on al-Shā fiʿı̄ ’s legal opinion that although a symbolic hitting is permitted as a third measure, it is legally preferable not to hit (‘wa tarkuhu afd ̣al’). Like al-Shā fiʿı̄ and Ibn alʿArabı̄ , al-Rā zı̄ opines that a correct application of this verse means to refrain from enacting the last disciplinary measure identified in Q. 4:34 (al-Rā zı̄ , 2013). He bases this on an authentic Prophetic tradition,22 which concludes with the statement, ‘certainly those [who hit women] are not the best among you’.23 As Chaudhry observes (2013, p. 91), ‘How could Muhammad criticize husbands for an action that was divinely prescribed in the Qurʾan?’ The only way to reconcile this apparent contradiction with the belief that Prophet Muhammad is the Qurʾan’s first recipient and ‘perfect embodiment’ (Silvers, 2006, p. 171) is to refute its existence. There is only a mirage of a contradiction, much like the sun setting and rising from our optical vantage point when, in reality, the earth itself moves around the sun. This understanding seems to be in line with the way the scholarly Muslim community interpreted the Qurʾan’s words, reflecting a myriad of inner, allegorical, and figurative meanings. As Ingrid Mattson describes (2008, p. 189), scholars argued that imperative commands in the Qurʾan did not share one normative value. In some instances, an imperative could be interpreted as a religious obligation; in other instances, an imperative command might denote a recommendation or a mere permission to do something. The idea that the Qurʾan should be reduced to its most literal meanings never gained any credibility within the exegetical tradition. While pre-modern exegetes did not negate the husband’s authority to potentially discipline his wife, they clearly attempted to restrict his authority. As Judith Tucker writes (1998, p. 180) in regards to Islamic law, ‘In elaborating and enforcing the law concerning these [marital] rights, the muftis and courts upheld a model of marriage in which the dichotomy of power was tempered by concepts of fairness and protection from abuse’. Similarly, in their interpretations of Q. 4:34, ‘all exegetes qualified this imperative [“hit”] in one way or another’ (Chaudhry 2013, p. 81). They restricted the implementation of the verse in three ways. First, they imposed a sequential order to the three disciplinary measures, even when a literal reading of the verse did not support this interpretation. The verse separates the three disciplinary measures with the conjunction ‘and’. Accordingly, it states, ‘for those [fem.] whose nushū z you fear, admonish them and avoid them in beds and hit them’. While the conjunction ‘and’ could signify simultaneity, the overwhelming majority of exegetes 34

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instead argued that husbands could not move to the second step until they had exhausted the first step. Similarly, they could not move on to the third step until they had fully exhausted the first two steps (Chaudhry, 2013, pp. 87–88). A second most common condition that exegetes imposed on this verse was the qualification that the hitting be ‘nonextreme’ (ghayr mubarrih ̣) (Chaudhry, 2013, p. 81). Chaudhry (2013, appendix 24, p. 232) lists 29 exegetes who qualify that any hitting must be ghayr mubarrih ̣. In reports cited by alṬabarı̄ , ʿAṭā ʾ ibn Abı̄ Rabā h ̣ seeks more information on the meaning of ghayr mubarrih ̣ from ʿAbdullā h Ibn ʿAbbā s (d. 68/687), the Prophet’s cousin, who clarifies that it means to hit with a siwā k24or a similar object (al-Ṭabarı̄ , 2010, vol. 8, pp. 314–315).25 Al-Ṭabarı̄ ’s insertion of these citations seeks to restrict or diminish the effect of the hitting, although not eliminate it. Hence, exegetes advised men who resorted to this final option to use symbolic gestures like a toothbrush (siwā k) or handkerchief (mandı̄ l). This interpretation has been the most common ‘traditional’ interpretation in both the classical and modern periods. Allowing a husband to symbolically hit his wife with a siwā k or handkerchief is problematic for several reasons, including the intrinsic authority it denotes to the husband over a wife’s body and the loophole it leaves for justifying violence against a spouse, a practice that Prophet Muhammad had personally shunned and discouraged. Yet by consistently interpreting the phrase, wa-d ̣ribuhunna (hit them), in a restrictive sense, exegetes clearly obviated a literal interpretation of this verse, which could have provided a license for serious violence and abuse. This leaves us to pose the following question, in Shuruq Naguib’s words (2010, p. 40) regarding Q. 2:222, ‘What do we make of this history of exegetical determination to defuse, as much as possible, the negative implications of a literal reading of this piece of revelation on women?’ Scholars’ answers will likely vary. While pre-modern exegetes may have not been concerned with championing women’s rights, many of them also evinced a hermeneutic tension with a literal or straightforward interpretation of this verse. A survey of pre-modern exegesis on Q. 4:34 and other verses illustrates that exegetes often upheld male privilege as a marital norm while also attempting to mitigate injustice or abuse by obliging men to be affectionate, fair, and kind to their wives (based on interpretations of other Qurʾanic verses).

What happens to husbands who are guilty of nushū z? If a wife fears cruelty or desertion on her husband’s part, there is no blame on them if they arrange an amicable settlement between themselves; and such settlement is best; even though men’s souls are swayed by greed. But if ye do good and practise self-restraint, Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do. (Verse 4:128) When husbands are guilty of nushū z, the Qurʾan recommends that the two parties reach a settlement, without specifying the nature of that settlement or which of the two parties should compromise or bear the consequences of the settlement. Rather, the verse utilizes the dual form of the Arabic verb ‘to settle’ (yuṣlih ̣ā ), which denotes a level of mutuality. Despite the explicit wording of the Qurʾanic text, pre-modern exegetes disproportionately lay the onus to settle on the wife. For the most part, they recommended she relinquish some of her financial rights, such as a portion of her deferred dower, or nights allotted to her in order to remain married to her husband (al-Bayd ̣ā wı̄ , 1997, vol. 2, p. 101; al-Ṭabarı̄ , 2010, vol. 4, pp. 191–197; al-Rā zı̄ , 2013, vol. 6, p. 53; Al-Zamakhsharı̄ , 2016, vol. 1 p. 605). Nonetheless, pre-modern exegetes highlighted a wife’s consent to any settlement as a condition for its validity (al-Ṭabarı̄ , 2010, vol. 4, p. 195; al-Qurṭubı̄ , 2006, vol. 7, p. 164; 35

Hadia Mubarak

Al-Zamakhsharı̄ , 2016, vol. 1, p. 605). They assumed that a woman’s willingness to relinquish certain rights in exchange for marital stability meant that she desired to remain married and deemed marriage to be a superior alternative to divorce. Yet rendering the meaning of Q. 4:128 in this way meant that women paid the price in the case of their husbands’ nushū z, as well as their own nushū z, as reflected by pre-modern interpretations of Q. 4:34. This fact didn’t seem to cause pre-modern exegetes much angst. One must question, however, why would classical exegetes suggest that a wife give up some of her rights in order to remain married to a man who no longer desires her? The answer to this question is embedded in the way exegetes interpreted the phrase ‘wal-ṣulh ̣u khayr’ (‘and reconciliation is better’). The superlative in the sentence, ‘better’, indicated that reconciliation was a superior alternative to something else. It appeared obvious to pre-modern exegetes that it was ‘better’ for an aged woman to remain within a marriage, which provided either social, physical or financial security – even if she had to forgo some rights – than to be divorced. This understanding is certainly informed by Islamic legal conceptions of marriage. As historian Yossef Rapoport (2005, p. 52) writes, the ‘prevailing assumption’ of classical Islamic law is that marriage brings financial security to women. Another historian of the Middle East, Judith Tucker, also writes (1998, p. 42), ‘marriage was … defined as a relationship of material support, and the provision of that support was strongly gendered … A man was solely responsible for his wife’s nafaqa (support), regardless of the wife’s own resources’. Pre-modern exegetes who were interpreting the Qurʾan were informed by the legal conception of marriage as a source of financial stability for women and their children of that union. Therefore, in their interpretations of Q. 4:128, exegetes privileged marriage as a better alternative to divorce for aged women who had lost their husbands’ sexual interest – even if they had to forfeit some of their rights. Such interpretations were not necessarily malicious or misogynist in nature, but reflections of a ‘gendered system of nurture’ (Tucker, 1998, p. 43) in which legal conceptions of marriage are embedded.

Conclusion By surveying classical Qurʾanic exegesis on key gender verses, this chapter demonstrates the difficulty of categorizing this discursive tradition into neatly sized boxes labelled as ‘misogynistic’ or ‘egalitarian’. Perhaps, as other scholars have noted, projecting these categories on a medieval scholarly genre such as tafsı̄ r is anachronistic to begin with. As Hidayatullah critiques (2014, pp. 150–151), in placing feminist demands on the Qurʾan, we have projected a historically specific (and at the same time theoretically unclear) sense of ‘gender justice’ onto the text without fully considering how our demands might, in fact, be anachronistic and incommensurate with Qur’anic statements (and the exegetical tradition …). An in-depth analysis of classical tafsı̄ r reveals that although the characteristic of interpretive pluralism diminished when it came to women’s issues, it was not entirely eliminated. For example, as I illustrated above, significant jurists and exegetes such as ʿAṭā ʾ b. Abı̄ Rabā h ̣, alShā fiʿı̄ , Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , and al-Rā zı̄ employed prophetic traditions to argue against the interpretive consensus regarding implementing the last disciplinary measure in Q. 4:34. The legal positions of Ibn Abı̄ Rabā h ̣ and al-Shā fiʿı̄ became the basis for the positions of two notable exegetes, Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ and al-Rā zı̄ , highlighting the intersections of law and exegesis. Such scholars had leveraged Prophetic tradition in their interpretation of Q. 4:34 to argue for a different legal norm than most exegetes: hitting one’s wife, even if she is 36

Classical Qurʾanic exegesis and women

guilty of nushū z, should be avoided. While one must not single out exceptional positions as the norm, one must also recognize the diversity of interpretation that has characterized the scholastic disciplines of law and exegesis. If we are to recognize the nature of exegesis as ‘a genealogical tradition’, as Walid Saleh argues (2004, p. 14), it becomes evident that exegetical opinions entered the mainstay of tradition not simply by repetition, but by the weight of the scholar adopting this position. This becomes evident in the exegetical works described in this chapter. Classical exegetes’ attitude towards women is more complex than binary categorization permits. While many subscribed to notions of male privilege, they also believed that men’s greater privileges should translate into greater responsibility.26 A more holistic examination of classical exegesis on verses related to marriage, marital dower, and divorce demonstrates a concern with women’s rights to justice, a dower, financial provision, and good companionship (h ̣usn al-muʿā shara), which they described with detail. If a man was unable to provide a woman with her due rights, they emphasized the need to release her with kindness rather than hold her prisoner in a suboptimal marriage, based on Qurʾanic verses Q. 2:229, Q. 2:231, and Q. 65:2, among others. For future research, this chapter recommends that scholars of the Qurʾan also examine critical verses dealing with the ethical boundaries of marriage and divorce, which may yield surprising results. Much of the conversation on gender hierarchy or egalitarianism in the Qurʾan continues to take place outside the genre of Qurʾanic exegesis. Rather than cast aside the exegetical tradition as patriarchal or misogynist, I argue that a close study of this discipline enriches contemporary efforts to recover Islam’s capacity to support diversity and pluralism.

Notes 1 This numbering of verses is based on the Kufi count, which is one of the seven canonical Qurʾanic recitations. Furthermore, legal schools differ on the exact number of verses in the Qurʾan due to a number of factors, including whether or not one includes the basmala – ‘Bismilla ar- Rah ̣mā n arRah ̣ı̄ m’ – and disjointed letters at the beginning of 29 chapters. 2 Some of these findings became the basis for Bauer’s later work (2015), Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾan. 3 My own research corroborates Karen Bauer’s finding that patriarchal interpretations and references increase during this period (Bauer, Gender Hierarchy, 271–272). See also Hadia Mubarak, Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 4 amina wadud writes about the ‘voicelessness of women in tafsı̄ r’ in both her article, ‘Alternative Qurʾanic Interpretation’ in Windows of Faith, 13, as well as in Qurʾan and Woman, 2; Maysam J. alFaruqi, ‘Self-Identity in the Qurʾan and Islamic Law’, Windows of Faith, 82; Barlas, ‘Believing Women’, Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan, 9, 36. 5 These works include Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics in Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’ā n, Hadith and Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006), Aysha Hidayatullah’s Feminist Edges of the Qurʾan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), Raja Rhouni’s Secular and Islamic Feminist Critiques in the Work of Fatima Mernissi (Leiden: Brill, 2019). 6 Ayesha Chaudhry’s Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition (2013) is one of the few works that give some attention to the way pre-modern exegetes interpreted men’s nushū z in comparison to women’s nushū z (62–67). She also examines these two verses in parallel in her book chapter, ‘Marital Discord in Qurʾanic Exegesis: A Lexical Analysis of Husbandly and Wifely Nushū z in Q. 4:34 and Q. 4:128’, in The Meaning of the Word: Lexicology and Qurʾanic Exegesis. Men’s nushū z is mentioned in passing in Seyed Asadinejad’s ‘Legal Strategies to Resolve Problems of Martial Relationships in the Qurʾan’, Journal of Politics and Law 5.3 (2012): 81–87 and Kecia Ali’s ‘The Best of You Will Not Strike’, Comparative Islamic Studies 2.2 (2006): 143–155. 7 Qur’an, 4:3. This translation is an edited version of Muh ̣ammad Asad’s translation for the most part and Pickthall’s transition for the last clause. I omitted most of Asad’s parenthetical insertions, which were more interpretive than literal.

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Hadia Mubarak 8 See for example Rashı̄ d Rid ̣ā ’s and Sayyid Quṭb’s commentaries on Q. 4:3, which primarily functions as a justification and rationalization of the Qurʾan’s qualified endorsement of polygyny. 9 My upcoming publication, ‘Rebellious Wives, Sexually Neglectful Husbands’, deals extensively with modern approaches to verse 4:3. 10 The entire text of the tradition in Ṣah ̄ ̣ıh ̣ al-Bukhā rı̄ is as follows: Narrated by ʿUrwa ibn Al-Zubayr that he asked ʿĀ ʾisha regarding God’s Statement: ‘If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan girls.’. (4.3) So she said, ‘O son of my sister! This is an orphan girl who is under the care of a guardian with whom she shares property. Her guardian, being attracted by her wealth and beauty, would intend to marry her without giving her a just mahr; he does not give her the same amount of mahr that another man would give her. So such guardians were forbidden to do that unless they did justice to their female wards and gave them the highest mahr their peers might get. They were ordered to marry women of their choice other than those orphan girls’. ʿĀ isha added, ‘The people asked God’s Messenger his instructions after the revelation of this Divine Verse whereupon Allah revealed: “They ask your instruction regarding women” (Q. 4:127) ʿĀ ʾisha further said, ‘And God’s statement: “And yet whom you desire to marry”, (Q. 4:127) as anyone of you refrains from marrying an orphan girl (under his guardianship) when she is lacking in property and beauty’. ʿĀ ʾisha added, ‘So they were forbidden to marry those orphan girls for whose wealth and beauty they had a desire unless with justice, and that was because they would refrain from marrying them if they were lacking in property and beauty’, Ṣah ̄ ̣ıh ̣ al-Bukhā rı̄ , Volume 6, Book 60, Number 98. http://sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_6_60.php 11 He cites Mujā hid b. Jabr al-Aswad al-Qā riʾ (d. 104/722 or 103/721) as the source of this opinion. 12 Q. 4:34, ‘and those [women] whose nushū z you fear’, and Q. 4:128, ‘and if a woman fears from her husband nushū z’. 13 The most commonly cited definitions for men’s nushū z by premodern exegetes were: (1) acting superior to the wife, (2) treating the wife with cruelty or hatred, and (3) abandoning her physically or financially. Al-Ṭabarı̄ mentions all three reasons in his interpretation of Q. 4:128 (al-Ṭabarı̄ , Jā miʿ alBayā n, v. 4, pp. 191–197). In a similar vein, al-Ṭabarı̄ also presents a range of meaning for women’s nushū z in Q. 4:34, including haughtiness, sexual abandonment, and defiance (v. 3, p. 801). AlZamakhsharı̄ defines men’s nushū z as being harsh towards his wife by depriving her of sexual intercourse, financial provision, love, and mercy, which should be between a man and woman, and that he harms her physically or verbally (Al-Kashshā f, v. 1, p. 604). On the other hand, a woman’s nushū z, according to al-Zamakhsharı̄ , is her disobedience and agitation towards her husband (v. 1, p. 538). For al-Rā zı̄ , ‘a man’s nushū z (in Q. 4:128) against his wife’s rights is that he abandons her (yuʿrid ̣ ʿanhā ), frowns in her face, does not have intercourse with her, and behaves ill towards her (yusı̄ ʿ ʿushratahā )’ (al-Tafsı̄ r al-Kabı̄ r, v. 4, p. 235), whereas in Q. 4:34, he states that a woman’s nushū z is her disobedience to her husband and acting superior to him through defiance (4:72). Ibn Kathı̄ r defines men’s nushū z as his repulsion from his wife (Tafsı̄ r al-Qurʾā n al-ʿAẓı̄ m, v. 2, pp. 474–475), whereas he interprets a woman’s nushū z as her haughtiness towards her husband, who ‘leaves his command, abandons him (sexually) and is hateful towards him’ (v. 2, p. 326). 14 Women’s legal right to equal treatment with co-wives is discussed in all four legal schools based on the Qurʾanic verse 4:3 and the Prophetic tradition: ‘If a person has two wives and he is inclined towards one of them, he will appear on the Day of Judgement with one of his sides paralyzed’ (Sunan Abı̄ Dawū d, 2133; Al-Zaylaʿı̄ , v. 3, p. 214 (as cited in Al-Hidā yah v. 1, p. 545)). ‫بي‬ ِ ‫ن َأ‬ ْ ‫ع‬ َ ‫ياَمِة‬ َ ‫ق‬ ِ ‫ل‬ ْ ‫يْوَم ا‬ َ َ‫ج ا ء‬ َ ‫حَداُهَما‬ ْ ‫لى ِإ‬ َ ‫ل ِإ‬ َ ‫فَما‬ َ ‫ن‬ ِ ‫تا‬ َ ‫لُه اْمَرَأ‬ َ ‫ت‬ ْ ‫ن‬ َ ‫كا‬ َ ‫ن‬ ْ ‫ل ‘َم‬ َ ‫قا‬ َ ‫لَم‬ َّ ‫س‬ َ ‫يِه َو‬ ْ ‫ل‬ َ ‫ع‬ َ ‫لُه‬ َّ ‫لى ال‬ َّ ‫ص‬ َ ِّ ‫ب‬ ‫ي‬ ِ ‫ن‬ َّ ‫ن ال‬ ْ ‫ع‬ َ ‫يَرَة‬ ْ ‫ُهَر‬ ٌ ‫ئ‬ ‫ل‬ ِ ‫قُه َما‬ ُّ ‫ش‬ ِ ‫’َو‬. 15 Qurʾan, 4:34. Author’s translation. 16 To capture a few of the most significant pieces: Abdulhamid Abusulayman, Marital Discord (London: IIIT, 2003); Asma Barlas, ‘Believing Women’ in Islam; amina wadud, Qurʾan and Women; Ayesha Chaudhry, Domestic Violence; Ayesha Chaudhry, ‘The Problems of Conscience and Hermeneutics’, Comparative Islamic Studies 2.2 (2006): 157–170; Azizah al-Hibri, ‘An Islamic Perspective on Domestic Violence’, Fordham International Law Journal 271 (2003): 195–224; Hadia Mubarak, ‘Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly’, Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and Islamic World, 2.3 (2004): 261–289; Julianne Hammer, ‘Men are the Protectors of Women’, Feminism, Law and Religion (2013); Karen Bauer, Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾā n; Kathryn Klausing, ‘Two Twentieth-century Exegetes between Traditional Scholarship and Modern Thought’, Tafsı̄ r and Islamic Intellectual History; Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam; Kecia Ali, ‘The Best of you Shall Not Hit’, Comparative Islamic Studies 2.2 (2006): 143–155; Khaled Abou El Fadl, Speaking in God’s Name

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17 18

19

20

21

22

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(Oneworld, 2005); Laury Silvers, ‘In the Book We have Left Out Nothing’, Comparative Islamic Studies 2.2 (2006): 171–180; Mohamed R. Beshir, Family Leadership (Maryland: Amana publications, 2009); Saadiya Shaikh, ‘Exegetical Violence: Nushuz in Qurʾanic Gender Ideology’, Journal for Islamic Studies 17 (1997): 49–73; Seyed Mohammad Asadinejad, ‘Legal Strategies to Resolve Problems of Martial Relationships in the Qurʾan’, Journal of Politics & Law (2012); Zainab Alwani, ‘The Qurʾanic Model’, Change from Within; Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger, Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition (Oneworld, 2015); Johanna Pink, Muslim Qurʾanic Interpretation Today (Sheffield: Equinox, 2019). Kecia Ali writes that Q. 4:34 and Q. 2:228 are ‘notoriously difficult verses for exegetes concerned with gender justice and equality’ (Sexual Ethics and Islam, 2nd ed., p. 157). As Ayesha Chaudhry illustrates in one of the most comprehensive studies on this subject, this has been the position of the majority of pre-modern exegetes as well as contemporary scholars whom she labels as ‘neo-traditionalist’ due to their attempt to synthesize the tradition with notions of an egalitarian marriage (Domestic Violence, pp. 81–84; pp. 165–168). Some scholars who have taken this approach include Abdul-Hamid Abu Sulayman in his book Marital Discord, Laleh Bakhtiar in her Sublime Translation of the Qurʾan and Ziauddin Sardar in Reading the Qurʾan; Ahmed Ali also challenges the common translation of this term in his Contemporary Translation of the Qurʾan. Rather than identify its meaning as ‘separate from’, however, he interprets it as ‘to have intercourse with’, based on a lexical analysis of the verb. According to Johanna Pink, some contemporary professors in Turkey have also defined the term as ‘separate from’ (Epilogue, Muslim Qurʾanic Interpretation Today, 284–285). Abou El-Fadl, Speaking in God’s Name, 94; Esack, ‘Islam and Gender Justice: Beyond Simplistic Apologia’, What Men Owe Women, 192; Silvers, ‘In the Book We have Left out Nothing’, 177; wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 199–200. For a detailed exposition of Ibn ʿĀ shū r’s exegesis on Q. 4:34, see Hadia Mubarak, ‘Change Through Continuity: A Case Study of Q. 4:34 in Ibn ʿĀ shū r’s Al-Tah ̣rı̄ r wa-l-Tanwı̄ r’. Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 20.1 (2018): 1–27. The tradition narrated by Shā fi’ı̄ is: ‘It has been related that ʻUmar b. al-Khaṭṭā b said: [When] we were in the society of the Quraysh, our men controlled our women, but when we came to Medina we found their women controlled their men. Then our women mingled with their women and they became frightening/threatening (dhaʼara) to their husbands, meaning they committed nushū z and became audacious. So I went to the Prophet and said: the women are quarreling with their husbands, so permit us to strike them. Thereafter the apartments of the wives of the Prophet were surrounded by a gathering of women complaining about their husbands. So [the Prophet] said: ‘The family of Muhammad was surrounded tonight by seventy women, all of them complaining about their husbands, and you will not find [those husbands] to be the best of you’ (al-Razi, 10:73). I use Ayesha Chaudhry’s translation of this tradition (‘Wife Beating’, p, 282). Classified as ṣah ̄ ̣ıh ̣ (authentic) and narrated by Ah ̣mad ibn Ḥanbal, Abū Dawū d, Al-Nasā ʾı̄ , Ibn Hibban, and al-Ḥā kim. See Abū Dawū d al-Sijistā nı̄ . Sunan Abı̄ Dawū d. Beirut: Dā r al-Risā la alʿAlā miyya (2009). A small twig of the arak tree, traditionally used as a toothbrush and recommended for hygienic use by the Prophet. It is also referred to as miswā k. See reports #9368, #9387 and #9388. In the last one, ʿAṭā ʾ does not identify Ibn ʿAbbā s as the source of this information. For example, al-Ṭabarı̄ interprets men’s degree in Q. 2:228 as men’s responsibility to pardon their wives for any shortcomings towards their husbands, while not using this as an excuse to renege on their own responsibilities. Similarly, al-Zamakhsharı̄ and Abū Qā sim al-Qushayrı̄ (d. 465/1072) interprets the passage ‘men are qawwā mū n over women’ in Q. 4:34 to argue that greater strength entails great responsibility.

Further reading Bauer, Karen. Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾan. Cambridge University Press, 2015. Bauer’s Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾan is the first to bring forth significant nuances in contemporary religious scholars’ interpretations of Qurʾanic verses on human creation, female witnesses, and marital hierarchy by

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incorporating interviews from conservative, neo-traditionalist, and reformist scholars in Iran and Syria. Her inclusion of female scholarly voices is a refreshing shift from the academic literature’s nearly exclusive emphasis on male scholarly views. Chaudhry, Ayesha. Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition. Oxford University Press, 2013.Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition remains the most exhaustive work on Q. 4:34, providing an impressive breadth of exegetical and legal interpretations on men’s qiwā ma over women and ways to deal with wives guilty of nushū z. Moving outside the genre of tafsı̄ r, she incorporates a range of contemporary scholarly and activist voices in Arabic, Urdu, and English from three media – video, text, and audio – to assess modern interpretations of Q. 4:34. Geissinger, Aisha. Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qurʾan Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2015.Geissinger’s Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority is distinct in examining the role that female exegetical authorities played in the earliest sources of Islam, including hadith, exegesis, reports and variant readings, and the ways in which these sources shaped the pre-modern genre of tafsı̄ r. Through the lens of gender, Geissinger introduces readers to hitherto neglected historical material attributed to female figures or related to female bodies. Pink, Johanna. Muslim Qurʾanic Interpretation Today. Sheffield: Equinox, 2019.This most recent work explores the diverse ways in which contemporary Muslims interpret the Qurʾan, by drawing upon the authority of the tradition in unique ways, historicizing it or arguing for new approaches. It draws upon a rich array of untapped sources including social media blogs, YouTube videos, and television shows. Stowasser, Barbara. Women in the Qurʾan, Traditions and Interpretations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.In 1994, Stowasser was the first Western scholar to comprehensively examine how women appear in the Qurʾan and its exegesis, specifically through the depiction of historic female characters and the Prophet’s wives. It brings to readers’ attention the discrepancies that sometimes exist between the Qurʾanic portrayal of women and Qurʾanic exegesis.

References Abou El-Fadl, Khaled. Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005. ———. ‘Excerpt by Khaled Abou El-Fadl: On the Beating of Wives’. Scholar of the House. Accessed 29 May 2019. . Abū Dawū d al-Sijistā nı̄ . Sunan Abı̄ Dawū d. Beirut: Dā r al-Risā la al-ʿAlā miyya, 2009. Abusulayman, Abdulhamid. Marital Discord. London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003. al-Bayd ̣ā wı̄ , ʿAbdallā h ibn ʿUmar al-. Anwā r Al-Taʾwı̄ l Wa-Asrā r Al-Tanzı̄ l. Edited by Muhammad ʿAbd al-Rah ̣mā n al-Marʿashlı̄ . Beirut: Dā r Ih ̣yā ʾ al-Turā th al-ʿArabı̄ , 1997. Al-Faruqi, Maysam J. “Self-Identity in the Qurʾan and Islamic Law.” Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists of North America. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000. al-Hibri, Azizah. ‘An Islamic Perspective on Domestic Violence’. Fordham International Law Journal 27.1 (2003): 195–224. Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islamic: Feminist Reflections on Qur’ā n, Hadith and Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2016. ———. ‘The Best of You Shall Not Hit’, Comparative Islamic Studies 2.2 (2006): 143–155. ———. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. al-Qurṭubı̄ , Abū ʿAbdullā h Muhammad ibn Ah ̣mad al-Anṣā rı̄ al-. Al-Jā miʿ li-Ah ̣kā m al-Qurʾan, 1st edition. Edited by ʿAbdullā h ibn ʿAbd al-Muh ̣sin al-Turkı̄ . Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risā la, 2006. al-Rā zı̄ , Fakhr al-Dı̄ n al-. Al-Tafsı̄ r al-Kabı̄ r (Mafā tı̄ h ̣ al-Ghayb). Beirut: Dā r al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2013, 292. al-Shā fiʿı̄ , Muhammad ibn Idrı̄ s. Al-Umm. Cairo: Dar al-Ḥadith, 2008. al-Ṭabarı̄ , Abū Jaʿfar Muhammad Ibn Jarı̄ r al-. Jā miʿ al-Bayā n ʿan Taʾwı̄ l al-Qurʾan. Edited by Ṣalā h ̣ ʿAbd al-Fattā h ̣ al-Khā lidi. Cairo: Dā r al-Hadith, 2010. al-Ṭū sı̄ , Muhammad Abū Jaʿfar Ibn al-Ḥasan ʿAlı̄ . Al-Tibyā n Fı̄ Tafsı̄ r al-Qurʾan. Beirut, Lebanon: Dā r Ih ̣yā ʾ al-Turā th al-ʿArabı̄ , 1985. Alwani, Zainab. ‘The Qurʾanic Model for Harmony in Family Relations’. In Change From Within, edited by Maha al-Khateeb and Salma Abugideiri, 33-66. Herndon, VA: Peaceful Families Project, 2007.

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Classical Qurʾanic exegesis and women Al-Zamakhsharı̄ , Mah ̣mū d ibn ʿUmar al-. Al-Kashshā f ʿan Ḥaqā ʾiq al-Tanzı̄ l Wa ʿuyū n al-Aqawı̄ l fı̄ Wujū h al-Taʾwı̄ l, 2nd edition. Edited by ʿAbd al-Razzā q al-Mahdı̄ . Beirut: Dā r Ih ̣yā ʾ al-Turā th al-ʿArabı̄ , 2016. Anawati, G.C., ‘Fakhr al-Dı̄ n al-Rā zı̄ ’. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 17 April 2018. . Badran, Margot. ‘Feminism and the Qurʾan’ In Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan, edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Georgetown University, Washington D.C.: Brill, 2011. Accessed on December 7, 2011. 0-www.brillonline.nl.library.lausys.georgetown.edu/subscriber/entry?entry=q3_ COM-00065. Barlas, Asma. ‘Believing Women’ in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Bauer, Karen. ‘Room for Interpretation: Qurʾanic Exegesis and Gender’. PhD diss., Princeton University, 2008. ———. Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Brown, Jonathan. Misquoting Muhammad. London: Oneworld, 2014. Calder, Norman. ‘Tafsir from Tabarı̄ to Ibn Kathı̄ r: Problems in the Description of a Genre, Illustrated with Reference to the Story of Abraham’. In Approaches to the Qurʾan, edited by G.R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, 101–140. London: Routledge, 1993. Chaudhry, Ayesha S. ‘The Problems of Conscience and Hermeneutics’. Comparative Islamic Studies 2.2 (2006): 163. ———. Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. ———. ‘Marital Discord in Qurʾanic Exegesis’. In The Meaning of the Word: Lexicology and Qurʾanic Exegesis, edited by S.R. Burge, 325–349. London: Oxford University Press, 2015. Clark, Patricia. “Women, Slaves and the Hierarchies of Domestic Violence: The Family of St. Augustine.” In Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Differential Equations, edited by Sandra Joshel and Sheila Murnaghan, 109–129. London: Routledge, 2001. Donner, Fred M. Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton: Darwin Press, 1998. Esack, Farid. ‘Islam and Gender Justice: Beyond Simplistic Apologia’. In What Men Owe to Women: Men's Voices from World Religions, edited by John Raines and Daniel Maguire, 187–210. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Geissinger, Aisha. Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Gilliot, Claude. ‘Exegesis of the Qurʾan: Classical and Medieval’. In Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan, edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Washington, DC: Brill Online, 2014. Accessed March 19, 2014. http:// referenceworks.brillonline.com.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-Qurʾan/ exegesis-of-the-Qurʾan-classical-and-medieval-COM_00058. Haddad, Gibril Fouad. ‘Tropology and Inimitability: Ibn ʿĀ shū r’s Theory of tafsı̄ r in the Ten Prolegomena to al-Tahrı̄ ṛ wa’l-tanwı̄ r’. Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 21.1 (2019): 50–111. Hammer, Julianne. ‘Men are the Protectors of Women’. In Feminism, Law and Religion, edited by Marie Failinger, Lisa Schiltz, and Susan Stabile. 237–256. London: Ashgate, 2013. Hidayatullah, Aysha. Feminist Edges of the Qurʾan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Hodgson, Marshall G. The Venture of Islam. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , Muhammad b. ʿAbdallā h Abū Bakr. Ah ̣kā m al-Qurʾan. Beirut: Dā r al-Kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2012. Ibn Kathı̄ r, Ismā ʿı̄ l ibn ʿUmar. Tafsı̄ r al-Qurʾan al-ʿAẓı̄ m. Damascus: Maktabat Dā r al-Fayh ̣ā ʾ; Riyadh: Maktabat Dā r al-Salā m, 1994. Luitje, Linda. ‘Response to Asma Barlas ‘Muslim Women and Sexual Oppression, Reading Liberation from the Qurʾan’. Macalester International 10 (2001): 152. Mattson, Ingrid. The Story of the Qurʾan. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing: 2008. Maydā nı̄ , Muhammad Shakū r. ‘Al-Marʾa bayna al-musā wā t wal qiwā ma’. Hadyi l-Islam 46.7–8 (2002): 6–16. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, eds. Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. Oxford: Oneworld, 2015. Mubarak, Hadia ‘Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly’. Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and Islamic World 2.3 (2004): 261–289.

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Hadia Mubarak ———. ‘Intersections: Modernity, Gender and Qurʾanic Exegesis’. PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2014. ———. ‘Change through Continuity: A Case Study of Q. 4:34 in Ibn ʿĀ shū r’s Al-Tah ̣rı̄ r wa-l-Tanwı̄ r’. Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 20.1 (2018): 1–27. Naguib, Shuruq. ‘Horizons and Limitations of Feminist Hermeneutics’. In New Topics in Feminist Philosophy of Religion, edited by Pamela Anderson, 33–49. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010. Netton, Ian Richard. Texts and Trauma: An East-West Primer. London: Curzon Press, 1996. Pink, Johanna. Muslim Qurʾanic Interpretation Today: Media, Genealogies, and Interpretive Communities. Sheffield: Equinox, 2019. Rahman, Yusuf. ‘Hermeneutics of Al-Baydā wı̄ in his Anwā r Al-Taʾwı̄ l Wa-Asrā r Al-Tanzı̄ l’. Islamic Culture 71 (1997): 1–14. Rapoport, Yossef. Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Saleh, Walid. The Formation of the Classical Tafsı̄ r Tradition. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Shaikh, Saadiya. ‘Exegetical Violence: Nushū z in Qurʾanic Gender Ideology’. Journal for Islamic Studies 17 (1997): 49–73. Silvers, Laury. ‘In the Book We have Left Out Nothing’. Comparative Islamic Studies 2.2 (2006): 171–180. Stowasser, Barbara. Women in the Qurʾan, Traditions and Interpretations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Tucker, Judith. In the House of the Law. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Vermes, G. ‘Bible and Midrash: Early Old Testament Exegesis’. In Cambridge History of the Bible, edited by P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans, 199–231. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. wadud, amina. Qurʾan and Women: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ———. ‘Alternative Qurʾanic Interpretation’. In Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists in North America, edited by Gisela Webb, 51–71. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. ———. Inside the Gender Jihad. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.

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2 SEX AND MARRIAGE IN EARLY ISLAMIC LAW Carolyn G. Baugh

What sorts of questions about sex and marriage arose for early Muslims, and how did some of Islam’s earliest authorities attempt to answer them? Rediscovering these questions, as well as the answers attempted, can shed light on what early Muslims understood ‘Islamic law’ to be. When a course of action was in doubt, members of the Muslim community sought out the insights of the most respected local authorities. Far from a monolith, early law was a tapestry of queries with widely varying opinions in response. Although early Muslims considered the opinion of the Prophet to be preeminent, for some topics it was simply unavailable. Thus, many early Muslim questioners were forced to rely on the opinions of esteemed local community members. These opinions, like those of the Prophet, were passed on for generations orally, preserved in the minds of citizens and legal authorities alike. Ultimately these opinions came to be written and gathered into folios. The genre that emerged was called the musannaf (compendium/written compiḷ ation). The compendia of the 9th century contained legal opinions relevant for Muslims attempting to sort out how to apply divine law to their lives. These compendia are compilations of the practice, habits, and legal decisions/opinions attributed to the Prophet, his Companions, and the successor generations. The emerging musannaf literature represents ̣ an early legal hybrid, straddling the genres of prophetic tradition/saying (h ̣adı̄ th) and legal opinion of authorities from the community (raʾy). These two competing sources of law fought for supremacy as an ever-increasing Muslim community wrestled with how best to behave as Muslims, pursuing information that could facilitate informed decisions. Two early scholars, ʿAbd al-Razzā q al-S ̣anʿā nı̄ (211/826) and Ibn Abı̄ Shayba (234/849), were among those who began preserving both prophetic and non-prophetic opinions in writing in the early 9th century. The Musannaf of Ibn Abı̄ Shayba is a much larger work than the better-known ̣ Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzā q. On the topics of marriage and sex, however, the less ̣ famous work proves a much richer resource. Both of these non-canonical collections provide access to what Crone refers to as ‘pre-classical law’ (Crone 1987). The legal tradition had been entirely oral in its earliest periods (from the 7th through mid-8th centuries). This oral legal tradition was characterized by a culture of question (istiftā ʾ) and response (iftā ʾ), on points of law and social behavior as well as regarding proper interpretation of Qurʾanic verses. Some 50 years later the classical prophetic hadith collections 43

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would take precedence over these earliest compendia. This was due to a trend in legal theory that called for elaboration of the law to be based solely on the opinion of the Prophet. In an expanding empire rife with regional differences, legal scholars hoped this shift would aid in unification and simplification. Thus, scholars pursued the gathering and preservation of authentic hadith that could be verified as to content and chains of transmitters; the resultant ‘sound’ prophetic sayings were deemed the second most authoritative source of law after the Qurʾan itself. Meanwhile, the emerging legal schools (Ḥanafı̄ , Mā likı̄ , Shā fiʿı̄ , and Ḥanbalı̄ , all linked to late 8th and early 9th century scholars) began generating discussions and decisions that were collected in manuals of positive law. How, then, do the compilations differ from other legal sources or from authentic hadith collections? The issues of authenticity, as well as the challenges posed by such sweeping and – crucially – regionally heterodox collections, have been discussed at length by Motzki in his illuminating study. An important takeaway from Motzki’s work on the Musannaf collections is the conclusion that they are closely linked to the early legal works ̣ of the likes of the Medinan authority Mā lik (179/795) (Motzki 2002, pp. 51–2). Many of the topics are presented as debates, becoming prototypes for legal works that would address multiple perspectives. Some recorded perspectives would prove highly controversial, and later jurists would angrily refute some of the content found to be at odds with what came to be accepted practice. As to the hadith works, Muslim scholars demanded reports traced to the Prophet be verifiable, with every member of the chain of transmission identifiable and of irreproachable character and memory. Indeed an entire field of study, with extensive biographical dictionaries, emerged to meet the demands of this method of analysis. In contrast, many of the reports in the compendia lack named transmitters, instead referring only to ‘a man’ or ‘a man of the Arabian peninsula.’ Yet the compilations were not easily discarded, because the opinions in the compendia were often attributed to famous and well-respected early Muslims. Many of the opinions therein surfaced in exegesis and even in later positive law manuals, occasionally as definitive sources, occasionally only to be rebutted. The anecdotes and debates provide fascinating clues to Muslim social history. It is also crucial to note that early Muslim scholars took the Musannaf works very seriously. ̣ For example, Ibn al-Mundhir al-Naysabū rı̄ (318/930), famed last of the ‘truly independent jurists’ (mujtahid muṭlaq) and compiler of points of consensus, learned Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s Musaṇ naf from Ismā ʾı̄ l ibn Qutayba (284/897) in Nishapur, before traveling in search of further knowledge and acquiring al-Shā fiʿı̄ ’s Umm and only later the Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzā q. ̣ The chains of transmission that Ibn al-Mundhir cites for Companion and Successor opinions in his works mirror those provided by the Musannaf works. Ibn al-Mundhir in turn was ̣ a major source for later legal scholars like the 13th-century Hanbali jurist Ibn Qudā ma alMaqdisı̄ (620/1223) who quoted him extensively. Further, Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s Musannaf was ̣ among the textbooks used by scholars in Cordoba, while in the Maghrib his book was regarded as one of the canonical collections of hadith (Pellat 2008). Then as now, those with knowledge of Islamic law took seriously the task of shaping Muslim social behavior, and this is evident in the ideals around which they focused their discussions. While it is possible to guess at the nature of some portion of lived reality from these discussions, it is wise to resist the temptation to simply equate lived reality with what authorities considered proper behavior. Their purpose was ultimately prescriptive, not descriptive.

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Sex and marriage in early Islamic law

General overview of marriage law Before delving in depth into the chapters on sex and marriage in the compendia, it is useful to have a brief overview of classical Islamic marriage law. Many of the following issues, such as polygyny, compulsion, guardianship, and divorce law generally, are contested by reformers and indeed banned or modified by civil law; others, such as concubinage, have been rendered obsolete with the abolition of slavery. Even so, classical law still holds sway in certain elements of global Muslim family law. The compendia allow us to see now-forgotten differences of opinion on issues that would eventually be presented as settled. The compendia under discussion have in common with hadith collections and later legal manuals their chapter titles: Kitā b al-Nikā h ̣. The word nikā h ̣ means both sexual intercourse and marriage; the Qurʾan uses the word to mean both. Although other words from the Arabic lexicon convey these concepts, when scholars used the title Kitā b al-Nikā h ̣ it meant ‘The Chapter on Marriage,’ although a more precise rendering would be ‘The Chapter on Sex and Marriage.’ Because the primary goal of marriage is to render sex licit, the semantic link is clear. Early jurists held that licit sex can occur through either the purchase of a female concubine or through entering into a valid marriage contract. Legal manuals explain that men are unrestricted in the amount of concubines they can own and thus to whom they have sexual access; women are not allowed to have sex with their male slaves. Men are restricted in several ways with regard to whom they can marry. Almost all interpretations of Q4:3 have determined that men may marry up to four women provided that they give each an equal share of their attention. The Qurʾan prohibits marriage with sisters, mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, stepdaughters, aunts, great-aunts, nieces, and milk-sisters. Simultaneous marriage to related women (sisters, mother–daughter or aunt–niece combinations) is also prohibited. Although marriage to polytheists is prohibited, marriage to free Christian and Jewish women is allowed. For Muslim women, only Muslim men are legal spouses. Key to the legality of the union is the marriage contract. The valid marriage contract has certain essential components. It must be witnessed by two men or one man and two women. In all but the Ḥanafı̄ school a marriage guardian, most usually of the agnatic kin, is required to represent the bride at the time the contract is signed. The Ḥanafı̄ al-Shaybā nı̄ (189/805), perhaps recognizing the fraught nature of his school’s position, feistily begins his chapter on marriage with the assertion that a woman can marry off her slave or slave girl and conclude a marriage contract, even her own (al-Shaybā nı̄ 2006, pp. 64–79). Part of the duty of the guardian is to assure that the bride is married to a ‘suitable’ spouse; definitions of suitability differ widely, with no consensus as to whether it refers to piety, lineage, social or economic status, or some combination of all these. Fathers are allowed to compel virgin daughters to marry in the Shā fiʿı̄ , Mā likı̄ , and Ḥanbalı̄ schools, while in the Ḥanafı̄ school fathers can only compel their prepubescent virgin daughters (because pubescence, not loss of virginity, confers legal capacity according to that school). The contract contains details of the spouses’ names, their lineage, and the amount of the marriage dower owed the bride in exchange for her complete sexual availability and obedience. She is also due maintenance (nafaqa) throughout her marriage, which includes food as well as clothing and any monies necessary for the support of offspring resulting from the union. The contract will often further include the details of any maintenance agreement, although jurists have opined that the amounts due can change based on the economic circumstances of the husband. Non-essential components to the contract can include conditions or stipulations. Although there is general agreement that stipulations have been allowed in the marriage contract since its inception, it is a fact that many marrying Muslims have not been cognizant 45

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of their right to include them. Stipulations can range from guarantees that a woman be housed in proximity to her family, to being allowed to work or continue education, to an effective prohibition of the husband’s marrying additional wives or taking concubines. Jurists insisted that stipulations could not prohibit what is allowed by law. For example, a stipulation that no offspring result from the union would be void. Because polygyny is licit, a wife cannot stipulate that her husband refrain from it, only that if he does so the legal effect would be to trigger her divorce by judicial process. Marriage is entered into via contract. Thus, the dissolution of that contract ends the marriage. Three modes of divorce exist. The first mode is unilateral repudiation of a wife by her husband (ṭalā q). This can occur at whim and be revoked at whim only twice. A third repudiation is irrevocable, although the couple can remarry after the wife has entered into a consummated contract of marriage which then ends through divorce or the new husband’s death. The second mode of divorce is by judicial process (faskh), referenced above, which occurs when a judge determines the couple should be divorced (i.e. if a husband is proven to be impotent or has not paid maintenance, or in cases where the husband is deemed unsuitable). Both repudiation and divorce by judicial process allow the wife some financial rights upon divorce, most commonly the payment of the remainder of her dower and any arrears of maintenance. The third mode of divorce is the woman-initiated divorce (khulʿ), which results in a wife surrendering all financial rights in exchange for her freedom.

Early opinions from the chapters on Nikā h ̣ Early legal compendia recorded questions posed by men concerned with the mechanics of living with and having sex with women (including queries about licit sexual positions and how to divide one’s time equably between multiple wives). Which women were marriageable was a topic of great concern: although the outer limit of four was clear enough, there were restrictions on marrying women who were related to each other (or to the potential groom). What of marrying women of other religions? In a suddenly sprawling empire, issues of community definition arose as Muslims – who remained for many generations a minority – now found themselves in constant contact with Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. Underlying all these issues was concern with paternity and sexual ethics in a world where a man could have multiple concubines in addition to his multiple wives.

Issues of consent and valid contracts In a culture that still valued orality over writing, people also worried about the nature of contracts and consent. Many early legal issues centered on the mechanics of constructing a valid contract, with questions posed about consent, guardianship, and legal agency. For the most part, the chapters on marriage of the early compendia establish an overwhelming body of evidence in support of a requirement for female consent. This need for female consent applied to virgins as well, despite the fact that the Mā likı̄ and Shā fiʿı̄ and Ḥanbalı̄ schools would later deny virgins this right when they anchored attainment of legal capacity in loss of virginity. In ʿAbd al-Razzā q’s three chapters on female consent, only five of 43 reports deny a virgin the right to refuse a marriage. Similarly, in Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s compendium, five of 24 reports obviate female consent: one allows the father to force any of his dependents to marry; two say he can compel his daughter whether she is a virgin or a non-virgin, and two deny virgins any right to choose their spouses (Baugh 2017, pp. 64–5). If we add to this the even earlier work of al-Awzā ʿı̄ (157/773), we find 46

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five reports confirming that a virgin who was married by her father against her will complained to the Prophet who separated her from her husband (Al-Awzā ʿı̄ 1993, pp. 325–6). The necessity of a guardian to contract the marriage, be it the father, a member of the agnatic kin, or the ruler, is generally established. In Ibn Abı̄ Shayba, sub-chapters five and six insist on the inability of women to play that role, although one report allows her to contract marriage for her slave. Those reports responding to the queries of women who had contracted for themselves use the language of prostitution: a woman who marries in this way is the equivalent of a whore. Even so, any Qurʾanic basis for the role of the guardian is challenged in the compendium. Sub-chapters 139 and 140 discuss the meaning of the verse 2:237. Several opinions included say it refers to the husband himself instead of the guardian, throwing into question the presumed explicit Qurʾanic textual support for the institution of guardianship. Contractual conditions or stipulations were also debated among the early scholars. The right of a woman to stipulate that she not be moved away from her family, for example, was supported by some (sub-chapter 73) and rejected by others (sub-chapter 74). One opinion notes clearly that women have no right to stipulate anything whatsoever. Meanwhile, there is evidence that fathers were using stipulations for financial gain: ‘ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzı̄ z intervened in a case where a man had stipulated that he should get one thousand and his daughter one thousand; ʿUmar awarded 2000 to his daughter and none for him’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 500). Although such contracts of marriage, even when entered into with full consent, afforded marital status to free women, the institution of marriage retained much that smacked of un-freedom.

Marriage and slavery Discussions regarding marriage law took shape in a society profoundly shaped by slavery. The extent to which slavery was a global cultural norm in the 9th century cannot be overstated. The vast Muslim empire had endured a six-year civil war between the sons of Hā rū n al-Rashı̄ d (193/809). The victor in this war, al-Maʾmū n (r. 197–218/813–833), became determined to rely even more heavily on slave regiments than any previous Caliph (Lapidus 2002, p. 104). Slavery thus took on new layers of complexity in contexts where slave soldiers could be empowered and promoted, mixing, often unchecked, with the citizenry. Meanwhile, highly cultured and very expensive concubines represented coveted status symbols. Questions about how slaves should marry and be married off, and how to balance marriage to slaves with marriage to free persons weighed heavily on the minds of many in the community. Marriage and slavery in early Islamic law share vocabulary, conceptual categories, and power structures (Ali 2010). For example, the dower (mahr) paid to a woman in exchange for granting a man exclusive sexual access to her can be analogized to the price paid for the purchase of a slave. Ownership (milk) grants the license to have sex; milk al-nikā h ̣ refers to the ownership of marriage, or a man’s dominion over his wife through the marriage contract. Its corollary with regard to slavery is milk al-yamı̄ n, or ownership of the right hand, a term found throughout the Qurʾan to refer to slaves. The position of the slave girl was often analogized to that of the prepubescent child or the virgin woman; just as a master could contract marriage for his slaves without their consent, a father could marry off both his sons and his daughters prior to pubescence, or his daughters in their virginity. The jargon of early legal discussions supports the hierarchical nature of marriage: ‘al-rajul yakū n tah ̣tahu al-marʾa’ – meaning literally ‘a man has beneath him a woman’ – is another 47

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way of referring to his marriage. It is also not too difficult to locate something of the actual semantics of marriage and sex interwoven in such an elliptical mode of reference. Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s 84th sub-chapter contains the following: Those who say [a newly freed slave girl] can rescind whether married to a free man or a slave … [Ṭā wū s] said, ‘She can rescind even if married to a man of Quraysh (tukhayyar wa in kā nat tah ̣t rajul min Quraysh).’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 506) This anecdote, useful for illustrating one of the idiomatic expressions for marriage, further illustrates the commitment some early jurists had to the need for female consent. The agency attained by a now-freed woman was affirmed in the strongest terms possible (men of Quraysh were considered the community’s most elite stratum). Even if such a match were imposed upon her during her enslavement, some insisted her consent was necessary, once freed, in order for the marriage to retain its validity. Vocabulary regarding sex is also extremely hierarchical, positing male actors and female receivers of action. The verb waṭaʾa is used constantly in the early sources, which I have translated elsewhere as ‘to perform the sexual act upon,’ but other terms include – most frequently – dakhala bi-hā , literally ‘to enter her,’ and always referring to the act of consummation which triggers payment of the dower, asā ̣ ba (to penetrate), and ghashā (literally to cover), as well as waqaʿa ʿalā (to fall upon). Infrequently, the term yujā miʿ or jā maʿa is used, the one term for sex – denoting coming together – that suggests anything more than a unilateral act. The hierarchical nature of marriage is affirmed and reaffirmed in the early sources. The obedience of wives is stressed as a virtue: The Prophet said, ‘The greatest benefit the Muslim benefited, after Islam, is a beautiful woman who pleases him when he looks at her, obeys him when he orders her, and, if he must be absent, guards his money and herself for him.’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 559) The most graphic example emerges from the following narrative, at least part of which is enshrined as a hadith in some of the minor collections: Abū Saʿı̄ d al-Khudarı̄ said, ‘A man brought his daughter to the Prophet and said, “My daughter refuses to marry.” The Prophet said to her, “Obey your father.” She responded, “No, not until you tell me what right a husband has over his wife.” She repeated herself, then [the Prophet] responded, “The right of a husband over his wife is that if he had a wound (qarh ̣a), and she licked it (lah ̣asathā ), or if his nose flowed with pus or blood, and she licked it, even then she still would not have fulfilled his right.” She replied, “By the One who sent you with the Truth, I will never marry.” The Prophet replied, “Do not marry them off without their permission (lā tunkih ̣ū hunna illā bi-idhnihinna).”’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 556–7) Despite the vile imagery, the anecdote contains much that is useful. Neither the girl’s age nor sexual status (virgin or non-virgin) was mentioned, yet the Prophet included her under the umbrella of those who cannot be married without giving permission. The girl had refused a direct order from the Prophet (‘Obey your father’), demanding more information. 48

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The information he gave her allowed for an informed decision on her part, in that she saw that she would prefer independence over a life of servitude and obedience. In response, the Prophet did not challenge her, but rather affirmed her choice not to marry. Other legal difficulties arose in the area of marriage to and sex with slave girls. In the early formative era, no over-arching legal doctrine had emerged to reconcile Islam’s hostility toward adultery with its receptiveness to owning and having sex with multiple women. Thus, the way that early legal authorities responded to questions about sex, marriage, and slaves often varied. Kecia Ali (2010, p. 25) has remarked that, The critical conceptual links between marriage and slavery emerge from a core idea about sexuality and sexual licitness: licit sex was possible only when a man wielded exclusive control over a particular woman’s sexual capacity. This view, implicitly shared at the outset of the formative period, was fuzzy with regard to female slaves and stronger with regard to free women. By the end of the formative period … it was accepted that the same strictures would apply to slave sexuality. The jurists’ comfort with the semantic overlap between marriage and slavery facilitated this process. As prime examples of the process of negotiating this ‘fuzziness,’ the compendia shed light on the issues that evolved as the allowance for owning slaves and sleeping with slave girls collided with strict requirements against committing adultery and wariness of allowing for any ambiguity in lines of succession. One key question, for example, was whether or not a slave could have concubines. Ibn Abı̄ Shayba records nine opinions allowing the slave to have concubines, some stipulating that it should be with his master’s permission (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 485). The most intriguing of the anecdotes reads that Ibn ʿAbbā s himself had a merchant lad (ghulā m tā jir) and allowed him to take six or seven concubines. Four other opinions, however, decried this. The famed dream interpreter Ibn Sı̄ rı̄ n (110/728) was not alone in insisting that the male slave should marry rather than take concubines. The compendium’s succinct style includes only opinions; in-depth legal analysis of this issue can be found in a legal manual like that of al-Shā fiʿı̄ . Al-Shā fiʿı̄ pointed out that slaves, by virtue of being owned, cannot own assets such as concubines. The slave, therefore, should be allowed to have sex only through marriage. To do otherwise would cause confusion regarding the status of the concubine: is she solely the property of the slave or also the property of his master (al-Shā fiʿı̄ 2008, pp. 118–19)? In a milieu wherein slaves could attain wealth, power, and education, questions of misrepresentation arose. What if a husband claimed to be free but he was in fact enslaved? Some scholars insisted that an enslaved man was not suitable for a free woman. The four opinions listed in Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s Musannaf give the woman a choice as to whether she ̣ wants to rescind the union or not (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 478). Further confusion centered on sons having sex with their fathers’ slave girls. Some of the most interesting opinions in Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s work have to do with the idea that a father can render his slave girl off-limits to his son simply by seeing her naked. The power of the patriarch’s gaze was in fact to make a woman illicit for his son, with the intended legal outcome being, in this case, perhaps, an overcorrection with regard to ensuring lines of descent. Thus the very title of the section reads: ‘Regarding the woman who is [no longer] licit for a son if a father strips and touches her’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 479–80). The quicktempered second Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khā ṭṭā b (23/644) figures prominently (two nearly identical reports) in this section: he had stripped a slave girl and then averred that this 49

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rendered her illicit for one of his sons who requested her. One early authority drew strong lines between actually having sex with his slave girl and merely doing what makes her illicit for his sons: ‘touching and looking.’ A man who inserts his finger into the vagina of a slave girl (qabalahā bi-yadihi) has made her illicit for his son. The Musannaf further records how a wife could use this knowledge of the law to her ̣ benefit, should she seek to prevent her husband from sleeping with his slave: A man bought a slave girl and his wife feared he would take her (khashiyat imraʾtuhu an yatakhidhahā ), so she ordered one of her sons, a lad (ghulā man), to sleep with [the slave girl] (an yaḍṭajiʿa ʿalayhā ) in order to render her illicit for the husband. (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 480) The issue of simultaneous relationships with sisters sparked ambiguity when it came to slaves. Sub-chapter 50 of Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s Musannaf is entitled, ‘A man owns two sister ̣ slaves and performs sex upon them together (fa-yaṭaʾhumā jamı̄ ʿan)’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 480). Although evocative, as titles go, it is not impossible that jamı̄ ʿan (together) in this context merely meant being in a sexual relationship with both simultaneously. In exploring this section we find one anecdote that reads: ʿAbd Allā h ibn al-Mubarak related from Mū sā ibn Ayū b from his uncle from ʿAlı̄ , saying, ‘I was asked about a man who had two slave girl sisters. He had sex with one and then wanted to have sex with the other. ʿAlı̄ said, “No, not until he no longer owns the first one.” I asked, “What if he married her to his slave?” ʿAlı̄ said, “Not until he no longer owns her.”’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 482) Such clarity does not find its way into all of the opinions listed. Another anecdote says that the man in question can do whatever he desires with whomever of his slaves simultaneously. Four reports said one verse (Q4:24) makes it legal and another (Q4:23) does not. Of these reports, two were ascribed to third Caliph ʿUthmā n ibn ʿAffā n (36/656), one to fourth Caliph ʿAlı̄ (41/661), and one to the legal scholar Abū Ḥanı̄ fa (150/767). The issue of one verse disallowing certain combinations among slaves and another rendering them legal also presents itself in questions about combining mothers and daughters. Of the seven opinions listed, only two are unequivocal that such a combination was forbidden. One anecdote has a master describing how he became attracted to the daughter of one of his concubines and mentioned he wanted to ‘ask about her’ and ‘look’ at her. The mother responded that she would not do that until she heard it was licit from the Caliph ʿUthmā n ibn ʿAffā n. The latter’s response was not to condemn the idea outright, but to say that as for him, he would not practice such a combination (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 481–2). Much of marriage law is, as mentioned, designed to clarify lines of descent. A divorced woman must sit for a waiting period (ʿidda) of three menstrual cycles or three months to prove herself not pregnant before remarrying. What, then, of a slave girl newly purchased? After all, she would have been at the disposal of her previous master. A waiting period had to be innovated. Opinions in the Musannaf convey that a man need only wait two cycles for ̣ his slave girl to become allowable. In the meantime, he can still kiss and fondle her. If he purchased her from a woman, or if she is too young for sex (saghı ̣ ̄ ra lā yujā miʿ mithluhā , i.e., those of her body type are not typically sexual partners; thus she would not have a period 50

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that could demonstrate a lack of pregnancy), he can even have sex with her without observing the waiting period (lā baʾs an yaṭaʾhā wa lā yastabriʾuhā ) (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 515–16).

Who to marry Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s chapter on sex and marriage begins by addressing those who are ‘ordered’ to marry. Reports in this section highlight the Prophet’s disapproval for men who could marry but chose not to, while also noting that many would have voluntarily become eunuchs had he not forbidden it. Both males and females dealt with pressure to marry. However, they could also successfully refuse, as observed in the anecdote above regarding the girl who refused the Prophet’s command that she obey her father. The Musannaf includes stories of resistance to direct orders from even the much-feared ʿUmar ̣ ibn al-Khaṭṭab: Abū Yazı̄ d related that Subā ʿ ibn Thā bit married the daughter of Rabā h ̣ ibn Wahb. He had a daughter from another and she had a son from another. The boy [Subā ʿ’s son] fornicated with the girl [his step-sister] and she became pregnant. They were sent to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭā b so they confessed. He whipped them and insisted they marry, but the boy refused. (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 527) The boy effectively exercised agency in the face of this order to marry, challenging the Caliph’s decision. Opinions were not confined to encouraging marriage, but also described what qualities should be sought in a wife. Beyond the lauding of good-mannered women over badmannered women, the compendium includes four entries, three of which are ascribed to the Prophet, listing the most attractive qualities in a woman as being: ‘religion, money, and beauty’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 560). One sub-chapter includes opinions on the proper vocabulary for courting during the potentially awkward waiting period of a widowed or divorced woman. The Qurʾan itself refers to this situation (2:235), encouraging men to marry such women and to make their intentions known even as they defer to the rules regarding the waiting period. One opinion instructed that the woman could only be approached through her guardian. Others, however, provide substantive advice (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 532–3): Mujā hid said, ‘He can say, “You are beautiful (jamı̄ la) and useful (nā fiʿa) and good for me (innaki la-ilayya khayr).”’ Ibn ʿAbbā s said he should say, ‘I desire you and want to marry you’ until such a time as she knows this without yet having made any promises or contracts.

People of the Book The marriage chapters in the compilations are concerned with community building. Marriage to women of the People of the Book, therefore, presents particular quandaries. How many can one marry at one time, and should they have the same allotment of conjugal nights per week as Muslim women and the same marriage rights? Their rights are the same, 51

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the opinions convey, but even so, there are numerous opinions averring that marriage to Muslim women is preferable: Ḥudhayfa [ibn al-Yamā n, 36/656] married a Jewish woman, and ʿUmar wrote to him that he should leave her. So he wrote back, ‘If it is forbidden, I will leave her.’ To which [ʿUmar] responded, ‘I do not claim that it’s forbidden, only that I worry you all will pursue their whores (akhā f an taʿā ṭū al-mū misā t minhunna).’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 474–5) Other opinions suggest that such marriages only took place in the past when Muslim women were few. Another, this time emanating from ʿUmar’s son Abdullā h (73/693), shows the lingering fear that People of the Book had some taint of polytheism. Ibn ʿUmar detested marriage to women of the People of the Book and would recite: ‘Do not marry polytheists until they believe (Q2:221)’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 475). The status of the People of the Book remained problematic. Even a sub-chapter on what purpose the deferred dower serves and when it should be paid suddenly devolves into a discussion of whether or not the Christian Arabs are actually People of the Book. There were opinions holding that this was not in fact the case (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 476–8). Al-Shā fʿı̄ also holds forth on this topic, discarding them outright as converts and differentiating between genealogy and religion, as he asserts that the People of the Book are in fact members of Banı̄ Isrā ʾı̄ l to whom were given the Torah and the Gospels, and this is not something to which one can convert, so to speak (Al-Shā fʿı̄ 2008, pp. 16–18). The fact that many early Muslims considered large swaths of the Christian population polytheists, and therefore unmarriageable, is just one of the social tensions and ambiguities that the compendia have brought to light.

Combining women Among other challenges for early Muslims was coming to terms with the allowance of four women. Which four women? The Qurʾan is explicit about what women are not marriageable: a man cannot marry his sisters, mother, grandmothers, nieces, aunts, and great-aunts, nor can he marry any step-mothers and step-daughters (Q4:23). However, there are gray areas. As per usual, the compendia address these by presenting the questions and multiple opinions. For example, the aunt–niece combination is forbidden, as well as mother–daughter combinations and marriages to sisters simultaneously. Even so, illicit combinations occurred, often on technicalities: ʿAlı̄ was asked about a man who divorced his wife, and she had not yet completed her waiting period when he married her sister. ʿAlı̄ separated them and decreed she should have her dower due to the fact that her genitals had been made licit for him. He said, ‘If he consummated the marriage [with the new sister/wife], then she is due her entire dower, and must sit for the entirety of her waiting period. The two of them must both sit through their waiting periods. Each must sit for three cycles, and if they do not menstruate, they must sit for three months.’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 525) Still, the compendium then muddies the waters somewhat by proceeding to include other opinions that if a man has divorced his wife triply, it is not illegal to marry her sister while 52

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the divorcee is in her waiting period. Other complexities arose for converts to Islam who happened to have been simultaneously married to two sisters prior to becoming Muslim: ‘ʿUmar said, “By God, you may pick one of them, for if you go near the other I’ll cut off your head”’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 563). Sub-chapter 61 is entitled, ‘Regarding a man who commits adultery with his wife’s sister; what is the status of his wife for him?’ This suggests that the illicit nature of engaging in sexual intercourse with both sisters was not enough to prevent men from doing it. The opinions there vary: one reads, ‘An illicit thing does not render a licit thing illicit (lā yuh ̣arram h ̣arā m h ̣alā lan).’ Another opinion said that the wife was now off-limits for him. Yet another said that he would have to wait for the sister to sit for her waiting period to prove that she was not pregnant (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 491). Sub-chapter 68 responds to questions that came up given the social realities of divorce, death, and remarriage. Step-daughters, it was well-known, were off-limits. But what about marrying a woman and her step-daughter, or, conversely, a woman and her step-mother? Predictably, there were those who supported such combinations and those who found them reprehensible (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 496–7). Another gray area arose with regard to milk-sisters. Sharing a wet nurse rendered two people, for all intents and purposes, siblings. Thus, a man nursed by a wet nurse was forbidden from marrying any female also nursed by her. Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s sub-chapters 142 and 143 highlight questions about how much or how little milk, or how many sessions of nursing, might cause the status of ‘forbidden’ to kick in, while sub-chapter 80 explains that – in all opinions but one – a single wet nurse’s testimony that she had nursed them both was enough to separate two spouses. Nursing from the same woman would also render two females effectively sisters, and combining sisters in marriage is forbidden. This is the explanation behind another fascinating anecdote presented in the Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzā q (ʿAbd al-Razzā q 2000, p. 206). [Sufyā n] aḷ Thawrı̄ (161/777) described how he was asked about a man who had married a woman and not yet consummated the marriage. Not long thereafter this man contracted an additional marriage with an infant who was still nursing. Outraged, the first bride’s mother took herself to the infant’s home and somehow managed to gain access to the child and to nurse her. Al-Thawrı̄ ruled that both marriages were then immediately rendered invalid, and the rogue breastfeeder would have to pay both brides half their dowers since she was the cause of the problem. After the contracts were invalidated, the husband could remarry whichever one he chose, although if he had in fact consummated the first marriage then the first wife would get the full dower and have to sit for a waiting period; he could, however, marry her during her waiting period. While it is not a leap to imagine that this was an anecdote manufactured for the sake of legal debate, the fact remains that it found its way into the compendium.

Sex The compendia also make room for graphic discussions regarding birth control and sex. Questions about sex and sexual positions, in addition to how to cope when a wife is menstruating, are all discussed openly. The Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzā q, like that of Ibn Abı̄ Shayba, includes ̣ a lengthy chapter on how to go about having sex – what to say and what to do (ʿAbd al-Razzā q 2000, pp. 193–5). One choice bit of advice from the early authority Ibn Jurayj (150/767) says that he heard from Anas ibn Mā lik (93/711) that the Prophet said, ‘If a man has sex with his wife (idhā ghashā al-rajul ahlahu), he should be attentive to her (fa-liyaqsidha ̣ ̄ ). If he fulfills his need, and she has yet to fulfill her need, he should not rush her (lā yuʿajjiluhā ).’ 53

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Beyond this acknowledgment of women’s sexual needs, the compendia include sections that explore the limits of what a man can perform sexually. Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s sub-chapter heading #124, entitled ‘What came regarding entering women through their anuses’ rules out sodomizing both males and females: ‘Ibn ʿAbbā s said that God does not look at a man who has entered a man or a woman via the anus’ (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, p. 569). The Qurʾanic verse 2:223, ‘Your women are your tilth,’ generated much discussion regarding not only sexual positions but birth control and menstruation. Generally, any position that allows for vaginal sex is allowed. Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s Musannaf contains the oft-recurring exegetical ̣ anecdote regarding how the Muslims rejected the Medinan Jewish community’s contention that vaginal sex from behind generated cross-eyed children. Other interpretations of the verse in the compendium find in it allowance for a man to practice the withdrawal method of birth control or not, as he wishes (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 517–18). This would be in contradistinction to sub-chapter 96 containing opinions forbidding the withdrawal method, including one of Ibn ʿUmar who was angry that the slave girl he had given to his son had yet to become pregnant. Sub-chapter 97 further contains opinions that the withdrawal method is allowable with slave girls but free women must give their permission. All opinions support the idea that sex is not allowed during menstruation, but Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s very next sub-chapter expounds widely on what a man can do when his wife or slave is menstruating. While many opinions convey the ‘all that is above the underwear (mā fawq al-izā r)’ hadith, this section in the Musannaf also includes ̣ graphic descriptions of an ‘everything-but’ approach to sex with a menstruating woman, including touching but not penetrating the vagina with the penis and ejaculating on her belly or between the thighs (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 530–2).

Conclusion Mining Ibn Abı̄ Shayba’s Musannaf for information on law regarding sex and marriage is ̣ both risky and fascinating. As a source, it is both rich and problematic. Some of Islam’s most respected scholars (such as Ibn al-Mundhir) began their legal studies by memorizing it; it was used as a textbook in Muslim Spain from the 9th century on. Its reports, in various forms, surface in other legal sources both contemporaneous (such as al-Shā fiʿı̄ ) and much later (such as Ibn Qudā ma). The variety of early opinions recorded suggest much more debate and equivocation than the discussions of the legal schools convey. The scope of the questions and the often-explicit nature of the responses suggest that believers sought legal advice on every aspect of marriage and sex. Those seeking answers did not limit themselves to the dicta of the Prophet, but gave credence to early Companions and Successors as well. Still, the impetus behind the consolidation of the legal schools in the 9th and 10th centuries stemmed from intentions to limit the amount of conflicting legal opinions, just as the move to rely solely on prophetic reports sought to keep the Muslim community on a clear and unequivocal path for any given topic. While the issues found in the early compendia are not all still pertinent, as with so much of the Islamic tradition, the content tends to be used selectively. A 2005 internet fatwa uses the Prophet’s response to a girl’s query about marriage (discussed above) to bolster an argument for marital subservience for women (https://fatwa.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/67037/). Yet the version used in the fatwa makes no mention of the incident with which Ibn Abı̄ Shayba begins and ends: the girl was protesting her father’s pressure to marry. Ultimately she had rejected the sort of power dynamic the Prophet described, and the Prophet affirmed that she could not be forced to marry (Ibn Abı̄ Shayba 1989, pp. 556–7).

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The reports depict a world where slave women, even children, had no voice with regard to their sexual partners and the vocabulary of sex was determinedly unilateral. Nonetheless, a slave woman could demand to question a Caliph about what the law allowed. Some reports supported slave women who were freed immediately exercising their legal agency and rejecting the matches made for them – even if the match had been with a man from the exalted tribe of Quraysh. Women with an understanding of the law could use it to subvert the plans of men to gain multiple partners – even if it meant pushing their sons into early sex or breastfeeding a stranger’s child. Thus while the Musannafs generally – and that of Ibn Abı̄ Shayba in particular – do not ̣ enjoy the status of the accepted hadith compendia or legal manuals, there is much insight to be gained on early legal culture and the sorts of questions that confronted the first generations of Muslims in a diverse and rapidly expanding empire.

Further reading Ali, K. 2008, Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence, OneWorld, Oxford. Kecia Ali explores sexual issues ranging from a wife’s obligation to provide sex to how the law views homosexuality, bringing to bear her vast knowledge of both the sources and processes particular to Islamic Law. Ali, K. 2010, Marriage and Slavery in Islam, Harvard University Press, Harvard. This work delves into how early jurists conceptualized marriage. It identifies and highlights links between marriage and slavery and divorce and manumission, as well as nuances in legal methodology that allow for challenges to such concepts. Hallaq, W. 2005, Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. A comprehensive approach to unpacking the complex structures of Islamic Law. Hallaq deftly explains legal sources as being both Qurʾanic and socio-cultural, exploring Islam’s early centuries and luminaries. Motzki, H. 2002, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence, Brill, Leiden. Motzki asserts that Joseph Schacht’s (Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1950) dismissal of the earliest legal tradition by assuming early chains of transmission are all forgeries does a massive disservice to the understanding of early Islamic law. Motzki has provided a lucid approach to the early scholars by cross-referencing their legal decisions with biographical material related to them. His focus is on the Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzā q, much more so than on that of Ibn Abı̄ Shayba; ̣ however both works shed light on legal opinions that were not confined geographically to Medina and Kufa (as ultimately was the case with the preserved works of the legal schools), and thus add much texture to Islam’s early legal history. Abou el Fadl, K. 2005, Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority, and Women, OneWorld, Oxford. This book is concerned with explaining, in very accessible ways, the methods by which early jurists determined what Islamic law was; Abou el Fadl gives close attention to women’s issues, arguing that many Qur’an-centered legal approaches would affirm women’s rights rather than result in their oppression. Lowry, J. 2007, Early Islamic Legal Theory: the Risā la of Muh ̣ammad ibn Idrı̄ s al-Shā fiʿı̄ , Brill, Leiden. A work of crucial importance in understanding how Islamic Law evolved from drawing on multiple, disparate sources to reliance upon a hadith-centered legal methodology.

References Al-Awzā ʿı̄ , Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Rah ̣mā n. 1993, Sunan al-Awzā ʿı̄ , ah ̣ā dı̄ th wa athā r wa fatā wā , Dā r al-nafā ʾis, Beirut. Ali, K. 2010, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, Harvard University Press, Harvard. al-S ̣anʿā nı̄ , ʿAbd al-Razzā q. 2000, Musannaf, Vol. 9: Kitā b al-Nikā h ̣, Dā r al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, Beirut. ̣ al-Shā fiʿı̄ , Muh ̣ammad. 2008, Kitā b al-umm, Vol. 6, ed. Rifʿat Fawzı̄ ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Dā r al-Wafā , alMansụ ̄ ra. al-Shaybā nı̄ , Muh ̣ammad. 2006, Kitā b al-Ḥujja ʿalā Ahl al-Madı̄ na, ed. Mahdı̄ Ḥasan al-Kı̄ lā nı̄ , ʿAlam alKutub, Beirut.

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Baugh, C. 2017, Minor Marriage in Early Islamic Law, Brill, Leiden. Crone, P. 1987, Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Ibn Abı̄ Shayba, ʿAbd Allā h ibn Muh ̣ammad. 1989, Kitā b al-Musannaf, Vol. 3: Kitā b al-Nikā h ̣, Dā r ̣ Qurṭuba, Beirut. Lapidus, I. 2002, A History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Lucas, S. 2008, ‘Ibn al-Mundhir, Muh ̣ammad b. Ibrā hı̄ m’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3, Brill, Leiden, consulted online on 20 January 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_24330. Motzki, H. 2002, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence, Brill, Leiden. Pellat, C. 2008, ‘Ibn Abı̄ S̲ h̲ayba’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Brill, Leiden, consulted online on 21 January 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3055.

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3 ISLAMIC GENDER ETHICS Traditional discourses, critiques, and new frameworks of inclusivity Zahra Ayubi

What is the difference between what is Islamic and Islamic ethics and how does one study gender ethics? Islamic ethics is an academic construct, which scholars have used to describe the values imparted in various genres of the Islamic tradition, including Qurʾan and hadith, which I treat together as the scriptural ethics tradition; the intellectual ethics tradition including jurisprudence (fiqh), Sufism, theology (kalam), philosophical ethics (akhlaq), and literature (adab). In addition to that which is prescriptive and originates from one of these scriptural or intellectual traditions, scholars also define Islamic ethics by Muslim praxis. What various scholarly descriptions of Islamic ethics have in common is that they describe moral values and/or practices that Muslims have distilled as the way to live a life according to an Islamic ethos, whether or not it adheres to any tangible theoretical or prescriptive discourse. In other words, people may still insist on something being Islamic even if it goes against something found in the Qurʾan, hadith, law, etc. An idea deemed as Islamic based on one genre may not exist in other genres. So Islamic ethics is then best defined as an articulation of principles or values of what is Islamic for Muslims either in theory or praxis. Rather than complicating this picture, paying attention to the category of gender in Islamic ethics actually helps clarify how a belief or practice which does not necessarily originate in scripture or law becomes Islamic. The origin of something believed to be ethical could be historical, an influence of something adjacent religiously or culturally – regardless, it is a deeply held belief that thinking philosophically can uncover. Paying attention to the underlying philosophy of gender or gender ethics is asking the question, whether historically or now, how is life that is lived in accordance with an Islamic ethos gendered or variable given a person’s gender? It is to pay attention to the deeply held philosophical ideas about how someone’s gender affects how they are to live as a Muslim in the world, even if they themselves might be focused on preparation for the hereafter or aspire to a gender-blind relationship with the Divine. To be sure, attention to the category of gender emerged in Islamic studies through feminist work. Likewise, to study gender in Islamic ethics is to take a feminist standpoint – that is to focus on how the discussions about how to be Muslim while inhabiting a gendered body has been a normative male one. Most scholars follow the lead of medieval Muslim thinkers for whom the whole universe is male dominion to order according to Divine wishes.

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Muslim feminist ethics is a category that we can use to classify Islamic ethics positions from decidedly feminist standpoints, even if the various moments in which Muslim feminists have used the term ethics have been disjointed. Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (2016) was among the first monographs to employ the category of ethics meaningfully. While Ali limits the scope of ethics to classical and contemporary jurisprudential discourses, the work is largely about the deeply ethical issue of Muslim women’s consent in marriage, divorce, sexual relations, and other issues of bodily autonomy, while questioning the notion of what is and who are authoritative. Ali’s work demonstrates that approaching the Islamic intellectual tradition on gender and sex from an ethical standpoint allows Muslim feminist discourses on sex to account for the “increasing gap between classical doctrines, present-day ‘values,’ and actual sexual practices;” discourses on authenticity and authority; and shifting values on sex and consent (Ali, 2016: xxxii). In Inside the Gender Jihad, amina wadud employs the category of ethics in her approach to interpreting the Qurʾan in order to advocate for gender equality on the basis of ontological equality (wadud, 2006: 29). Ali’s analysis echoes amina wadud’s assessment that “what is ethical is relative to context,” and because the Qurʾan does not outline an ethical system, “it must be formulated through human beings, the agents responsible for implementing and maintaining those systems in the first place” (wadud, 2006: 38). While Ali contends that the “Qurʾan itself poses challenges for those committed to egalitarian social and intimate relationships” (2016: 195), wadud holds that the “responsibility of acting on the earth to fulfill moral agency involves acting in accordance with the guidance about right and wrong given in these two primary sources,” the Qurʾan and Sunnah (wadud, 2006: 37–38). Ali and wadud’s works, both first published in 2006, emphasize that Muslim feminist ethics is an endeavor rooted in individual and collective interrogation of what is considered just and unjust in an Islamic framework. More recently, in Gendered Morality, I offer reflections on philosophical problems that emerge from feminist close reading of the philosophical ethics (akhlaq) tradition with respect to the exclusion of women and non-elites in ethical refinement. I argue that there is a need for reimagining the philosophical definitions of what it means to be human that is inclusive of gendered, racial, and various marginalized experiences. The methods, or what sources scholars turn to define gender ethics in Islam have varied. In this chapter, I describe the major ethical constructs associated with masculinity, femininity, and gender relations that scholars have distilled across the various genres of Islamic ethics. Many of these descriptions of gender ethics across the genres of Qurʾan, hadith, jurisprudence, Sufism, and akhlaq are feminist-critical. I then discuss new ethics discourses within Muslim thought that seek to uncover or recover the ethical bedrock of Islam, which supports gender justice. In particular ethics of care and love ethics focus on contemporary Muslim women’s activism. I argue that although these new ethics movements remain critical of gender ethics in the intellectual tradition, they are creating a new Islamic ethical tradition based on their experiences and what they believe a moral life today requires.

Gender ethics in the Qurʾan and Hadith Male superiority, gender complementarity, and gender equality are the main three, distinct positions that faithful Muslims have taken in reading Qurʾanic verses and hadiths about gender roles. While some argue that the Qurʾan and hadith support absolute male superiority, others soften the patriarchal blow by arguing that the scriptural tradition supports equal status in the eyes of God, but that God has created men and women with different natures that are best suited to different roles. The complementarity thesis holds that within these differing roles, 58

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men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because of their essential nature, and thus have been burdened with power, strength, and responsibility over women, whose roles are fulfilled in part by their nature to reproduce and nurture. Proponents of equality in the scriptural and interpretive tradition have argued that male superiority is a historical, philosophical paradigm of gender ethics in which the Qurʾan and hadith emerged and have been interpreted. Examining the relationship between historical context and the Qurʾan has produced two distinct conclusions in feminist scholarship. On the one hand, Muslim feminist theologians have contextualized Qurʾanic verses that propose hierarchical gender relations as a product of the social norms of 7th-century Arabia and propose that the universal, egalitarian ethos of the Qurʾan should be prioritized over historically specific, gender-hierarchal verses. On the other hand, and as argued by Aysha Hidayatullah’s analysis of Muslim feminist theologians’ interpretive strategies, the prioritization of egalitarian verses over hierarchical verses is not instructed in the Qurʾan. Thus, if interpreters acknowledge the historical context of verses in the Qurʾan, then “from a contemporary perspective in the here and now, the Qurʾan perhaps endorses a notion of sexual hierarchy as we define it today that is incompatible with sexual equality as we define it today” (Hidayatullah, 2014: 153). Hidayatullah’s “radical uncertainty” in the Qurʾan’s ability to support contemporary notions of male–female equality suggests that “instead of putting so much pressure on the text to say things that we wish it to say, we must relocate the intensity of our demands elsewhere: to an honest interrogation of our interpretive aims and objectives” (Hidayatullah, 2014: 150). Muslim interpreters of the scriptural tradition have utilized a few methods to arrive at gender equality. Feminist theologians such as amina wadud and Asma Barlas emphasize the overwhelming egalitarian worldview of the Qurʾan and have critiqued the atomistic hermeneutical method of traditional male-centered tafsı̄ r that focused on linguistics of the Qurʾan over its ethical core. Rather than values that are “external” to Islam, this ethical core of absolute egalitarianism emerges for them from the Qurʾan itself and asking questions about what kind of society that is yielded by belief in a just God and in the oneness of God. This egalitarianism also extends to those with non-binary gender identities and diverse sexualities – the idea that according to Qurʾanic ethics, all human beings are equal. Another method for arriving at gender equality within Muslim feminist theology is through a comparative religion approach. Jerusha Lamptey compares scholarship on the “Word” of the Qurʾan and the “Word” of Jesus to offer theological, constructive, and comparative reflections on shared feminist concerns, such as the role of the “Word” in a contemporary context. In recognizing that Muslim feminist theology has both highlighted the egalitarian ethos of the Qurʾan and noted its gender egalitarian limitations, Lamptey draws on Christian scholar Kwok Pui-lan’s work on feminist imaginings of Jesus to propose that Muslim feminist theologians adopt a hybrid approach towards the Qurʾan. That is, viewing the Qurʾan as a “site of relationship” and embracing its complexities and ambiguities (Lamptey, 2018: 69). In doing so, readers are able to recognize that “the Qurʾan is divine and of this world. It is universal and revealed in response to a particular context. It is egalitarian and marked with androcentrism and patriarchy” (2018: 68). Lamptey proposes that such an approach allows for additional egalitarian interpretations “by refusing to privilege historical meaning or accumulated tradition,” and approaching historical meaning and tradition as a “responses to aspects of Qurʾanic hybridity, but they are not the only possible or legitimate responses” (2018: 70). In addition to cultivating strategies for defining, defending, and critiquing gender egalitarianism in the Qurʾan, feminist scholars have examined scriptural exegesis as a normatively male tradition. Ash Geissinger argues that pre-modern exegetes brought 59

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their pre-existing gender biases to tafsı̄ r, or interpretive analysis of the Qurʾan, and further marginalized women through their engagements with hadith. Geissinger’s survey of “cultural work” performed by gender in pre-modern tafsı̄ r illustrates that constructions of gender are fluid and contextually specific, but exegetes defined any kind of social authority, including interpretive authority, as masculine. Consequently, pre-modern exegetes framed the authority to interpret the Quran “over/against femaleness, which they associate[d] with intellectual, physical, moral and spiritual deficiency” (Geissinger, 2015: 25). By both marginalizing women’s roles in exegetical materials and their roles as hadith transmitters, pre-modern interpreters constructed “the Qurʾanic text so that it appears to virtually refuse the possibility that a woman could possess the authority to legitimately interpret it” (Geissinger, 2015: 25). In tandem with Gessinger’s analysis of pre-modern interpretive and religious authority as normatively male, Fatima Mernissi argues that hadith and the chain of transmission (isnad) that attributes hadiths back to the Prophet or his companions served as formidable political weapon used to maintain the power of male elite after the death of the Prophet. Mernissi argues that the manipulation of hadith to uphold male authority was a “structural characteristic of the practice of power in Muslim societies. Since all power, from the seventh century on, was only legitimated by religion, political forces and economic interests pushed for the fabrication of false traditions” (1991: 9). In examining the historical context and methodological issues that arise in examination of frequently cited hadith used to justify hierarchical gender relations and misogynistic attitudes of highly accredited transmitters, Mernissi argues that women’s rights have never been incompatible with the Prophet’s message or Qurʾan, “but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of a male elite” (1991: ix). Ethics, in the valence of praxis, which stems from engagements with the Qurʾan and Islamic religious knowledge, refers to people’s real-life experiences and actions they believe are in accordance with Qurʾanic principles. Sa’diyya Shaikh’s research on Muslim women domestic violence survivors argues that Islamic gender ethics are not only derived from tafsı̄ r by traditional and feminist scholars, but informed by Muslim women’s lived experiences, or a “tafsı̄ r of praxis.” Shaikh examines how participants’ experiences with domestic violence led them to contemplate their humanity, Islam, and Islamic ethics, which resulted in a “Islamic ethical and theological framework that challenged misogynist and utilitarian religious views on women and explicitly interrogated the abusive relationships on a religious basis” (Shaikh, 2007: 80). Through their experiences with oppression and contemplation of their religion and humanity, participants were able to derive Islamic ethical frameworks that condemned patriarchal interpretations of 4:34 by their husbands and local religious leaders. Shaikh’s work demonstrates that the contemporary gender ethics derived from the Qurʾan are in “an arena of engaged, dynamic, and polysemic encounters” (2007: 89). Thus, women’s lived experiences are a “source of understanding and knowledge production within religious traditions” (2007: 89). The notion of tafsı̄ r of praxis points to a possibility of an Islamic feminist ethics that is not confined by the gendered intimate and social relationships described in Islamic texts.

Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) as ethics and its limits Islamic jurisprudence is probably the most tangible and obvious genre of Islamic thought that dictates gender ethics but also responds to Muslim praxis, in the second sense of ethics as people’s practices, through the apparatus of fatwas or legal responsa. Discourses on gender in Islamic jurisprudence are frequently discussed in relation to family and marriage law, for 60

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example women’s right to divorce, inheritance, maintenance, education, and employment. Fiqh has responded to contemporary debates on gender and women’s rights through fatwas that either uphold, amend, or recontextualize classical Islamic jurisprudence on marriage and family law. However, based on analysis of classical fiqh on marriage, Kecia Ali argues that early jurists viewed fiqh on marriage as a contract (2003). The parameters of this contract were based on jurists’ environment and premised on the notion that women’s maintenance was a condition of their sexual availability, as demonstrated on early rulings that compared marriage to slavery or a contractual sale. Feminist scholars, like Ali, have identified two contemporary approaches for responding to gender hierarchical fiqh, neo-traditionalist or gender complementarism (Mir-Hosseini, 2003) and “feminist apologist” (Ali, 2003: 175). Neo-conservative or neo-traditionalist scholars who have taken the complementarity position concede that from the perspective of Allah, all human beings are equal – that is they have been created by Allah in the same way and will be judged by Allah using the same standards of their weighing their deeds and misdeeds in the hereafter. However, such scholars primarily understand that equality is limited to the Divine perspective in the hereafter and not God’s intent for earthly gender relations. On Earth, they contend that according to the Qurʾanic verse 4:34 God intended complementary roles for men and women. In the complementarity thesis men are the protectors and especially financial maintainers of women (qawwamun ‘ala an-nisa), who in turn are suited to feminine domestic roles. Ziba Mir-Hosseini identifies a complementarity approach towards Islamic gender relations that emerges out of Muslims authority figures’ contradictory need to both defend and uphold traditionalist fiqh models of family and gender relations, while also being aware of, and sensitive to, criticism of the patriarchal basis of Islamic law and the desire to ground gender egalitarianism as inherently Islamic, not Western or imported (2003). The contradictions that arise from the gender complementarity thesis are illustrated when a single text argues “for gender equality on one issue (for example, women’s education and employment), but rejecting it on another (for example, divorce)” (Mir-Hosseini, 2003: 16). In addition, women’s biological disposition or nature towards domestic work are often cited to support gender complementarism and defend classical fiqh. However, Ali points that such arguments are inconsistent with classical fiqh as early jurists concluded that domestic work was not a wife’s responsibility, just sexual availability (2003: 175). Ultimately, these tensions expose the “internal contradictions and anachronisms in fiqh rules” on gender, which Mir-Hosseini attributes to classical jurists misconstructions of the concept of qiwamah (traditionality translated as male guardianship). Based on an analysis of classical jurists use of qiwamah in family and marriage law, qiwamah developed in accordance to pre-Islamic marriage contracts and have “mistakenly been understood as placing women under men’s authority, with the result that they have become the building blocks of patriarchy within Muslim legal tradition” (Mir-Hosseini, Al-Sharmani and Rumminger, 2015: 18). Second, scholars who adopt a feminist apologist approach emphasize the importance of stipulations and practical applications of marriage contracts. For example, the inclusion of stipulations that guarantee a woman’s right to education and outside employment within marriage contracts. However, Ali argues that such an approach “misses the forest for the trees” (2003: 164) and “though potentially quite effective in securing for women’s rights that are not respected today, it runs the risk of further cementing the authority of the traditional opinions” (2003: 181). Thus, Ali proposes that a critical appraisal and analysis of the methods and rules of traditional jurisprudence will demonstrate “that its doctrines are entirely inadequate to serve as the basis for laws governing Muslim families, communities, and societies today” (2003: 182). 61

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Like the scriptural ethical tradition, feminist scholars have identified the limits of jurisprudence in defining and defending egalitarian gender ethics. These limitations are a consequence of the historical context in which schools of jurisprudence emerged. However, pre-modern jurisprudence has contemporary consequences, and forces feminist scholars to ask whether a tradition formed to support patriarchal social structures is capable of producing egalitarian gender ethics.

Sufi ethics meets feminism Often scholarship about women and gender in Sufism notes that Sufism is not a social movement but that the focus is on the spiritual and not the embodied – even if discipline of the body is the way to the divine. Feminist literature on Sufism and gender ethics aims to bridge this gap, demonstrating that engagement with the Divine and the refinement of the soul are not only spiritually accessible to women, but dependent on just and egalitarian social relationships. For example, Sa’diyya Shaikh proposes that Sufi discourses on ontology and metaphysics offer Muslim feminists an alternative, faith-based approach for critiquing Islamic law and gender inequality (2009). Shaikh draws on Sufi narratives and Ibn Arabi’s work, one of the foremost Sufi scholars, that challenge gender inequality to argue that Sufi ontology, which can be understood as pertaining to the spiritual elements of being Muslim and cultivation of the soul or nafs, is inherently egalitarian. Reading Ibn Arabi’s work and Sufi narratives from a feminist lens, Shaikh makes two important ontologically based defenses of gender egalitarianism within Sufi discourses. First, with the Sufi mission to cultivate “soul at peace” (an-nafs al-mutma’innah) through complete submission of God and the purification of the heart posited, Sufi narratives demonstrate that “the commitment to a constant awareness of God’s absolute sovereignty counters the human instinct to claim power, including male claims to authority over women” (Shaikh, 2009: 792). Thus, any claim of social or physical authority over another being signifies an uncultivated and impure soul (an-nafs al-ammara). Second, Ibn Arabi’s references to women’s spiritual equality in response to hierarchical Islamic law and hadith serve to recognize women’s social inequality, question the applicability of gender-hierarchical hadiths, and connect “women’s ontological capacity for perfection to agency in the social realm and specifically, in the law” (2009: 811). Laury Silvers’s historical mystery novel, The Lover, offers a fictional, but historically sensitive account of gendered engagement with mysticism in tenth century Baghdad (Deighton, 2019). Following the life of the lead character Zaytuna, a Nubian wash woman whose mother was a famous mystic, and other servant-class characters in their pursuit to uncover information about a murdered a local boy, The Lover is an example of Sufi gender ethics that insists upon deep mystical engagement with the Divine, while being conscious of gendered experiences and embodiment while trying to live a fulfilling life. Through Zaytuna and other characters, Silvers depicts how gender and socio-economic status impact both characters’ lived experience and engagements with the Divine and displays “the full range of cognitive and embodied dissonance that can emerge when the doctrines designed to keep us ‘right with God’ give rise to our trauma” (Deighton, 2019). Although it is fiction, the novel’s themes are a commentary on how women encounter the ethical/Muslim life in gendered ways. Feminist engagements with Sufism posit an understanding of gender ethics that is equally concerned with addressing gender hierarchies in both the physical and metaphysical world. In doing so, gender hierarchies can be approached as a characteristic of women’s social 62

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relationships, as well as their relationship with the divine. In light of such understandings, one is forced to ask whether the soul is gendered and examine how social oppression both inhibits women’s access to religious authority and the ways in which women have imagined new means of fostering spiritual refinement in response to such conditions.

Hierarchies in Kalam and Akhlaq and their gender ethics implications Although kalam (theology) is not directly about people, much less gender, many of the debates within this genre are relevant to gender ethics in Islam. The central questions in the genre of kalam is what is the nature of God and what does that nature tell us about Divine intent for the universe and humanity? The way Muslims have imagined God, as documented in the kalam genre, becomes about human relationships to God as well as access to God, authority to speak or act on behalf of that God, and so on. There are a few vital issues regarding the concept of God that manifest in Muslim understanding of gender and gender roles; namely, the gendered male language and understanding of God in masculine terms; the concept of oneness of God (tawhid); and relatedly, the notion of God’s absolute authority/will and how that will is embodied and enacted by humans (khilafah). Language and pronouns for the Divine were among the first issues that feminist theologians (across religious traditions) grappled with in coming to terms with the patriarchal nature of scriptural interpretation. In questioning male pronouns used in tafsı̄ r (Qurʾanic exegesis) and in everyday language and thought, Muslim feminist theologians were not just questioning a patriarchal intellectual tradition, but exposing a deep theological and philosophical assumption that many Muslims make – that God is male. Although the Muslim tradition rejects anthropomorphization of God, using female pronouns seems absurd to many, revealing the idea that the use of the male pronoun is not arbitrary, but rather normative. The ramifications of male normativity in the conception of God has had consequences as far as Muslim men’s self-perception as representatives of God’s plan for humanity, society, and their families and in the form of the male-oriented concept of khilafah (vicegerency of God). Consequently, Muslim men have viewed themselves in their descriptions of God and God’s intent for humanity. Although the Qurʾanic concept of khilafah can be construed as a gender neutral responsibility of every human being to be a “trustee” or “moral agent” of God’s justice, as wadud has argued (2006: 35), in practice, the role of khalifah, or the public title that involves being God’s stewards of Muslims/society, has only been played by men. This fact also relates political leadership, which is often construed as a peripheral concern for Muslim women, to the fundamental idea about their status and relationship to the Divine. Relatedly, the idea that Divine authority has been invested only in men manifests as justification for male superiority – of their intellect, strength, and rulership over women. A salient critique of gender hierarchy as mandated by the Divine is wadud’s perspective on Muslim belief in tawhid (Divine unity), which she calls the tawhidic paradigm. She argues that the most fundamental aspect of Islam, that is belief in one God, requires gender equality. She reasons that all humans must be equal if there is a singular Lord – that is no humans “lord over” others, including men over women or free persons over the enslaved. Consequently, “when a person seeks to place him- or herself ‘above’ another, it either means the divine presence is removed or ignored, or that the person who imagines his or her self above others suffers from the egoism of shirk [idolatry]” (wadud, 2006: 32). Thus, gender hierarchy violates tawhid because it invests moral and spiritual superiority in men, despite the impossibility for Muslim women to believe in any superior power other than God. 63

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In the adjacent genre of philosophical ethics (akhlaq), women are likewise excluded from the path of ethical refinement. As I have shown in Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society, pre-modern Muslim ethicists cut women off from the creator’s plan for humanity as they invested khilafah in elite men on the basis of their higher rational capacity, while prescribing an instrumental role for women to serve their husbands on the basis of their deficient capacity for rationality. I argue that this seemingly time-bound marital arrangement has far-reaching consequences on Muslim understandings of how existence and roles in life are gendered and hierarchical (Ayubi, 2019: 172–173) Elite men are also meant to rule over the lower classes of men in the homosocial male public arena, as well as all enslaved persons because of their supposedly higher intellects (Ayubi, 2019: 217–220). While hierarchy may seem like a logical or natural order for society, often the criteria used to determine who counts as elite or worthy of occupying higher status perpetuates the exclusion of women and non-elites (Ayubi, 2019: 270–272). It is also based on a definition of rationality that is as cyclical as it is exclusionary: elite men are most rational, and rationality is defined as perfected manhood.

Ethics of care Ethics of care has its roots in feminist philosophy, but has made an appearance in Islamic thought. Coined by Carol Gilligan and further detailed by Nel Noddings, “the focus of the ethics of care is on the compelling moral salience of attending to and meeting the needs of the particular others for whom we take responsibility” (Held, 2007: 10). An ethics of care offers a framework to derive moral values from Muslim women’s work to resist oppression and address the needs of their communities. For example, wadud frames African American Muslim women’s grass-roots initiatives that respond to community needs, like T.R.U.T.H. and Muslim Women United, as an ethics of care that pre-dates slavery and is reflected in the African idiom, “It takes a village to raise a child” (2006: 103). wadud identifies two dynamics present in an ethics of care: “the need of one member, one family, or the communities; and the development of collective help and support” (2006: 103). In detailing the work of black Muslim women leading grass-roots initiatives to address food insecurity, raise funds for medical care, and create support networks for fellow Muslim women, wadud proposes that these leaders’ work reflects an ethics of care defined by an approach to leadership that is “in concert with other Muslims,” does not impose authority, and emphasizes a unity that is “never used for uniformity, as demonstrated in the inclusive nature” of organization events. wadud’s assessment of black Muslim women’s community work suggests that a Muslim ethics of care is concerned with addressing community needs in a manner that does not recreate social hierarchies or oppressive power dynamics. Like wadud’s framing of black women’s community leadership as representative of an ethics of care, Amaraah Decuir uses a Muslim ethics of care to frame women’s leadership in Islamic schools. Drawing on interviews with Muslim school leaders, Decuir proposes that participants’ leadership represents a critical ethics of care that uses the act of caring to “transform a community” and resist everyday oppression (2019: 8). Decuir proposes that school leaders’ commitment to establishing equitable school practices, resisting oppression within and outside of their school communities, nurturing or “other mothering” students, and approaching their work as an Islamic obligation to address community needs represents a “Muslim-centered conceptualization of a critical feminist ethics of care” (2019: 20) This Muslim ethics of care is also consistent with black feminist critical ethics because school leaders’ social justice advocacy is displayed in their choice “to lead in ways designed to establish equity in the presence of injustice” (DeCuir, 2019: 19). 64

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wadud and Decuir’s assessment of Muslim women’s community leadership offers an example of the morals and values that have the potential to define equitable social relationships. Their work demonstrates social relationships derived from an ethics of care prioritize community needs over maintaining authority, and center social justice advocacy over establishing uniformity. Ethics of care offers a distinct methodology for deriving Muslim feminist ethics, one that supplements the moral values derived from Islamic intellectual tradition with the moral values reflected in Muslim women’s social justice work to define egalitarian social relationships relevant to Muslims’ contemporary lives.

Love ethics Muslim love ethics is a new current of gender ethics that seeks to subvert oppressive practices out of love for the tradition and fellow Muslims with an eye toward the future. Muslim love ethics is not just concerned with assigning moral language to everyday women’s resistance, as is the focus of an ethics of care, but in its contemporary use is concerned with imagining the moral language that characterizes an egalitarian future. This definition of Muslim love ethics draws on contemporary and black feminist scholarship that approaches love and love politics as a guide for identifying the values and practices that ought to define a utopian future (Nash, 2011) and assign “normative moral language for what should and should not be the case” (Fitz-Gibbon, 2011: 41). For Muslim feminist ethics, love ethics turns its focus to the moral language and values represented in Muslims’ work to create and imagine alternative communities absent of oppression, rather than focusing on the moral language derived from their experiences of oppression. For example, Iman AbdoulKarim’s work on Muslim women’s participation in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement finds that Muslim women are creating “their own practice of a love ethic, one that aims to create alternative communities and spaces that … adopt a radiating approach towards inclusion that works to center the margins of the marginalized” (2017: 67). AbdoulKarim argues that BLM activists’ commitment to centring the margins of the marginalized is a moral value that defines their vision of an egalitarian community. Her work demonstrates that love ethics can be used to consider the moral values Muslim women develop in an attempt to create egalitarian communities, in addition to those derived from their work to resist oppression. Love ethics’s emphasis on assigning moral language to oppression-free communities is also reflected in the emergence of Muslim futurism in contemporary art movements that propose a gender and race inclusive ethical framework. Drawing on Afro futurism, Muslim futurism is concerned with the practices, events, and trends that characterize a future in which Muslims emerge from and evolve past contemporary social conditions of oppression. Under the banner of queer Muslim futurism, artist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s multi-media and performance series, “Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth,” centres the narrative of a Muslim drag character leading a queer rebellion who discusses “contemporary politics in a future that signals a different dimension” to present a reimagined, future expressions of Muslim masculinity where “gender and sexuality are undefined and identities are left unclear” (Yerebakan, 2018). Like Bhutto’s aim of redefining the parameters of a Muslim identity, Mipsterz’s, an artist and culture collective, short film, Alhamdu, aims to reimagine a Muslim future through “a vibrant and joyous future where Muslims exist unapologetically” (Mipsterz, 2019). In the film, various expressions of Muslim identities are embodied by a racially diverse cast dressed in gender and ethnically fluid clothing. The film is set in urban New York City and a California dessert and accompanied by a song that combines hip-hop 65

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and Egyptian musical styles in a manner that further emphasizes the film’s aim to imagine a future absent of a uniformed expression of a Muslim religious identity. Mipsterz and Ali Bhutto’s works not only resist mono-dimensional constructions of Muslims, but echo love ethics’s focus on identifying the moral language that characterizes oppression-free communities. By using art as a medium, Mipsterz and Ali Bhutto’s work suggest that an egalitarian Muslim future is characterized by fluid religious and gendered identities and a constant interrogation of what expressions of Islam are privileged over others. Muslim futurism and love ethics propose that Muslim feminist ethics can derive egalitarian moral values by not only defining what is and is not representative of an Islamic ethos, but through embracing that a single definition of Islam and what it means to be Muslim may not be possible. Ethics of care and love ethics make two important contributions to Muslim feminist ethics. First, both frameworks allow feminist scholars to explore what moral language and virtue practices can be defined through social relationships and Muslim women’s social justice work, not just textual analysis. Thus as I discuss above, if the Islamic intellectual tradition emerged within patriarchal social conditions and produced gender ethics that privilege and maintain male authority, assigning moral language to Muslim women’s acts of resistance and imaginings of an oppression-free futures offers a new, woman-centered method for deriving moral values that support egalitarian social relations within an Islamic framework. As I propose in Gendered Morality, moving forward, attention to the category of gender requires a reimagination of Islamic ethics that is inclusive of women, non-elites, and individuals who may be marginalized on the basis of their gender, race, sexuality, physical or cognitive abilities, etc. (Ayubi, 2019: 273–274). New currents in Muslim ethical thought and praxis such as love ethics and ethics of care are frameworks that are already doing this work: with origins in black feminist theory, they require Muslim feminist ethics to account for race, sexuality, and other marginalized aspects of human existence in considering the moral language that support radically egalitarian social relationships. In accommodating the varieties of human experience that are gendered, at stake is accessibility to the good life according to a Muslim ethos.

Further reading Ali, K. (2016). Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith, and Jurisprudence, Oxford: Oneworld Publications. A ground-breaking exploration of multiple topics related to sexuality and the ethics and lawfulness of sex in the Islamic tradition such as sexual relations in marriage, outside of marriage, homosexuality, and more. Ayubi, Z. (2019). Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society, New York: Columbia University Press. This book is an extended feminist critique of pre-modern Islamic philosophical ethics treatises that argues for feminist philosophical engagement with the perennial philosophical questions that the texts raise. wadud, a. (2006). Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam, Oxford: Oneworld Publications. This book raises several feminist ethics questions of Muslim approaches to the Qurʾan, relationship with the Divine, and gender justice work in Muslim communities.

References AbdoulKarim, I. (2017). “Islam is Black Lives Matter:” Muslim Women on the Frontier of Islamophobia and Anti-Blackness. BA Thesis, Dartmouth College, Hanover. Ali, K. (2003). Progressive Muslims and Islamic Jurisprudence: The Necessity for Critical Engagement with Marriage and Divorce Law. In O. Safi, ed., Progressive Muslims on Justice, Gender and Pluralism, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, pp.163–189. Ali, K. (2016). Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith and Jurisprudence, rev. edn. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.

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Ayubi, Z. (2019). Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society, New York: Columbia University Press. DeCuir, A. (2019). Toward a Muslim Ethics of Care: Leadership in American Islamic Schools. Journal of Islamic Faith and Practice, 2(1), pp.8–23. Deighton, R. (2019). Four Muslim Women on Laury Silvers’ the Lover: A Sufi Mystery. Review of the Lover: A Sufi Mystery, by Laury Silvers. AltMuslimah, viewed 03 October 2018, Available at: www. altmuslimah.com/2019/09/four-muslim-women-on-laury-silvers-the-lover-a-sufi-mystery/. Fitz-Gibbon, A. (2011). Intersectionality and Love. In D. Poe, ed., Communities of Peace: Confronting Injustice and Creating Justice. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp.35–42. Geissinger, A. (2015). Gender and Muslim Constructions of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Quraeˉ n Commentary, Boston: Brill. Held, V. (2007). The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global, New York: Oxford University Press. Hidayatullah, A. A. (2014). Feminist Edges of the Quran, New York: Oxford University Press. Lamptey, J. T. (2018). Divine Words, Female Coices: Muslima Explorations in Comparative Feminist Theology, New York: Oxford University Press. Mernissi, F. (1991). The Veil And The Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam, New York: BASIC Books. Mipsterz. (2019). ALHAMDU. [online] Kickstarter. Available at: www.kickstarter.com/projects/mip sterz/alhamdu [Accessed 1 Oct. 2019]. Mir-Hosseini, Z. (2003). The Construction of Gender in Islamic Legal Thought and Strategies for Reform. Hawwa, 1(1), pp.1–28. Mir-Hosseini, Z., M. Al-Sharmani and J. Rumminger (2015). Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Nash, J. (2011). Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality. Meridians, 11 (2), pp.1–24. Shaikh, S. (2007). Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community. In D. Maguire and S. Shaikh, eds., Violence against Women in Contemporary World Religions: Roots and Cures, 1st ed. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, pp.69–89. Shaikh, S. (2009). In Search of al-Insan: Sufism, Islamic Law, and Gender. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77(4), pp.781–822. wadud, a. (2006). Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam, Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Yerebakan, O. (2018). Imagining a Queer Muslim Futurism. [online] Garage. Available at: https://garage. vice.com/en_us/article/59jmed/imagining-a-queer-muslim-futurism [Accessed 1 Oct. 2019].

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4 MUSLIMA THEOLOGY Jerusha Tanner Rhodes

Introduction Muslima theology arises in response to ongoing discourses within and outside of Muslim communities. It seeks to build upon existing Islamic feminist contributions by outlining and deploying a new methodology that is simultaneously constructive, theological, and comparative. This chapter introduces the approach of Muslima theology, with a particular emphasis on the ‘why’, ‘how’, and ‘what’. It traces the reasons for, the methodology of, and an example of the constructive content of Muslima theology related to theological anthropology. Throughout this chapter, the primary emphasis is on the comparative component of Muslima theology, underscoring the necessity and strategic value of interreligious feminist engagement.

What is Muslima theology? Muslima theology is a label I use to describe my work as a Muslim scholar, theologian, and activist. This label arises in conversation with – not rejection of – diverse formulations of feminism.1 While I consider my work to be feminist, I am also interested in asserting particular characteristics of my location, approach, and concerns. Therefore, I use the term Muslima (meaning, in Arabic, a female who submits to God, a female Muslim) to highlight my personal positioning as a female, as a Muslim, and as an individual committed to critical reappraisal and interpretation of the Islamic tradition in pursuit of egalitarianism and justice. I also use the label to highlight my theoretical positioning as a scholar who draws upon gender theory and feminist discourses to interrogate the value assigned to various forms of human difference, including – but not limited to – gender and biological sex. I do not apply this label to other scholarship but recognize similar strands of work and the possibility that others may employ this label to describe their own contributions.2 The approach of Muslima theology is simultaneously constructive, theological, and comparative. The first two characteristics – constructive and theological – are already evident in some existing work of Muslim women scholars and Islamic feminists. Their value is recognized, as is the need for further expansion and integration of these areas. The third 68

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characteristic – comparative – is novel. However, as I will argue, it is not wholly new and likely invaluable.3 To begin, Muslima theology is constructive. It is not solely focused on retrieval or purification of what already exists in the tradition and sources; it aims to go beyond exegetical work and historical ressourcement. As a result, it is rooted in – but not limited to – reinterpretation of the central sources and historical figures. This characteristic responds directly to a number of contemporary critiques of existing Islamic feminist discourse, including those of Kecia Ali, Aysha Hidayatullah, and Hibba Abugideiri, that call for structural revision of the entire legal system, consideration of the egalitarian limits of the Qurʾan, and movement beyond deconstructive analysis alone.4 This characteristic aims to foster constructive rethinking of the tradition, methods, and approaches. Muslima theology is also theology. My usage here of ‘theology’ does not align holistically with the field of kalam (speculative Islamic theology), which focuses on questions related to divine attributes, free will and predeterminism, sin, and authority. I use the term theology to indicate the project of articulating integrated interpretations about God and God’s relation to creation, including humanity. The goal is to contextualize discussions of women and gender within a broader theological exploration of the nature of the Divine, the types of interactions between the Divine and humanity (including topics such as creation, revelation, prophethood, morality, and ethics), and the nature and purpose of humanity itself (theological anthropology). Theological exploration serves to problematize and destabilize assumptions that have gained traction in the tradition. The Muslima approach uses theological concepts and the integration of these concepts to assess existing practices, laws, and interpretations, and to suggest new practices, laws, and interpretations. Elements of the theological enterprise already exist in the writings of amina wadud, Asma Barlas, Riffat Hassan, and Sa’diyya Shaikh.5 Even more such intentional, extensive, and – to borrow Shaikh’s term – ‘creative’ theological reflection is needed to uncover and evaluate the implicit theological assumptions of existing interpretations and methods. In keeping with the constructive characteristic of Muslima theology, these reflections serve as a basis for reformulating practice, law, and ethics. Finally, Muslima theology is comparative. It is carried out in critical conversation with other discourses on religion, women, and gender, particularly those articulated by women in other faith traditions. Explicit engagement with other traditions is a unique feature of my formulation of Muslima theology; it is not something that is used by all Muslim women scholars, activists, or theologians. In my view, however, comparative engagement is necessary and advantageous. Before turning to a detailed examination of the comparative approach of Muslima theology, I will endeavour to outline some of the reasons for its value and necessity.

Why? Muslima theology as intervention and response Muslima theology is both an intervention and a response. It is an intervention into ongoing and ambivalent debates over the relationship between Islam and feminism. This relationship is complex. There are many Muslim scholars who promote women’s equality. Ambivalence, though, arises from the concern that dominant forms of feminism and feminist theology are not expressive of – and potentially oppressive to – the experiences, challenges, and liberative strategies of Muslim women. In this way, ambivalence is an assertion of identity, autonomy, and voice that highlights diversity among women and among religious traditions. Ambivalence, though, is not simply an assertion of identity, autonomy, and voice. It is also 69

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a position adopted in reaction to various discourses that emerge from outside of and within the Islamic tradition. These include external critiques of Islam that are grounded in notions of cultural superiority and that propagate negative stereotypes of Islam and Muslim women. These critiques can give rise to efforts that ostensibly aim to improve the situation (typically singular and homogeneous) of Muslim women, but rarely attend to the voices and concerns of diverse Muslim women. Islam is often portrayed as ‘other,’ ‘backward’ or devoid of egalitarian possibilities. Muslim women are often portrayed as being in need of rescue from Islam and Muslim men. And, as a result, rigorous and extensive efforts by Muslim women to search for and reclaim egalitarian resources within Islamic traditions are ignored and dismissed. From within the Islamic tradition, ambivalence is fueled by the existence of patriarchy and androcentrism – that is, male rule or dominance and male normativity. As part – although certainly not all – of Islamic tradition, these realities result in texts and practices that enshrine, normalize, and operationalize hierarchical views of humanity. They also result in attacks on and rejections of interpretations of the Islamic tradition that promote egalitarianism, equality, and women’s rights. Such interpretations are often labelled ‘feminist,’ ‘Western,’ ‘deviations,’ and ‘un-Islamic.’ The authority of egalitarian interpretations is effectively undercut by presenting such interpretations as external impositions upon a ‘pure’ Islam. Muslim scholars are well aware that their work can be dismissed and, more significantly, rendered impotent (incapable of changing anything) when it is caricatured as a product of external forces, external forces that have concrete, historical, and contemporary records of negatively approaching Islam and Muslims. These external and internal discourses append specific – and frequently oppositional – definitions to Islam and feminism, and thereby seek to dictate what counts as an authentic expression of Islam. In doing so, they fuel the ambivalence of Muslim scholars toward feminism in general, and also obscure valuable possibilities, specifically those related to interreligious feminist engagement. These discourses stifle deep conversations and informed solidarity among women across religious traditions. They pit women and various formulations of feminism against each other, they capitalize off of superficial knowledge of traditions and feminisms, and they convince many that such conversations are of abundant risk and little benefit. Why does all of this matter? Because Muslima theology is also a response. A response to growing calls within Islamic feminist and egalitarian scholarship for new, constructive methods and approaches. As Abugideiri observes, the deconstructionist approach remains the dominant method of Islamic feminists. Part of the reason for this relates to limitations of the academic disciplines in which many Muslim women scholars in the United States are situated. This positioning is not always amenable to scholar-activists or scholar-theologians who advocate constructive possibilities related to Islam, women, and gender. Deconstructive challenges to patriarchy, androcentrism, and hegemony are invaluable, yet constructive rethinking is also required for egalitarian interpretations to become more robust and transformational. In line with more recent contributions from wadud, Ayesha Chaudhry, and Shaikh, new approaches that go beyond textual interpretation, historical reclamation, and identification of past egalitarian precedent must be articulated and implemented, not only to contend with negative stereotyping and male dominance, but also to articulate new ways of asserting authority both within and outside of the Muslim community.6 It is my contention that interreligious feminist engagement is a central resource for developing one such new approach. In stating this, I am not overlooking existing tensions surrounding interreligious feminist engagement. Interreligious feminist engagement is not actually new; it is already ongoing. While sometimes implicit, sometimes unnamed,7 and 70

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sometimes premised upon unproductive caricatures, the discourse on Muslim women is embedded in an inherently comparative setting. This is evident in the tensions of negative othering, patriarchy, and androcentrism, as well as in debates over Islamic feminism.8 It is also apparent in the comparative ‘distinctions’ employed by some Muslim women scholars, including Azizah al-Hibri and Riffat Hassan, in an effort to purify the Islamic tradition of nonegalitarian texts, interpretations, and laws.9 More pertinently, it has not always been a productive endeavour. We must acknowledge the challenges and realties of much interreligious feminist engagement, especially Muslim– Christian engagement. As Aysha Hidayatullah and Zayn Kassam aptly note, while assumed to be beneficial, Muslim–Christian engagement can be a site of harm and jeopardy due to power and structural issues.10 It is often characterized by language and concerns being drawn from or determined by Christian traditions, a framing of rivalry, myths about liberating Muslim women, and a persistent lack of knowledge across traditions. All of these create expectations and assumptions of parity across traditions, for example, that Muslim and Christian women would have similar questions about and approaches to their respective scriptures (the Qurʾan and the Bible). Therefore, I am arguing that if historical, comparative, and epistemological challenges are identified, confronted, and skilfully navigated, then interreligious feminist engagement can be a rich source of insights in the ongoing development of Islamic feminist and Muslima theology.

How? Muslima theology as comparative feminist theology How do we do this? Is there a method or form of engagement that would mitigate against common challenges and open doors to meaningful interreligious feminist engagement? The specific ‘how’ (the method) that I propose and use is the approach of comparative feminist theology. Comparative feminist theology builds critically upon the more general method of comparative theology. As defined by Francis X. Clooney, S.J., comparative theology is simultaneously comparative and theological. It describes acts of faith seeking understanding which are rooted in a particular faith tradition but which venture into learning from one or more other faith traditions … for the sake of fresh theological insights that are indebted to the newly encountered tradition/s as well as the home tradition.11 Comparative theology is the process of learning deeply about and from other traditions, and then returning to one’s own tradition(s) with new insights, questions, and perspectives. This process grows out of commitment to a particular tradition(s) – not lack of commitment – and is impelled by the idea that there is something profound to be learned about, from, and with other traditions. More specifically, it is a process that begins with deep learning about other traditions. Such learning requires openness, humility, and development of competency in another tradition. Learning about and from the other is described as learning about them on their ‘own terms,’ that is, as listening to and taking seriously what people in the other tradition say about themselves and their tradition.12 This type of leaning is not superficial, and therefore requires time and thorough study. The process is one of depth, not of width. Competency is vitally important because it is a way to maintain respect and responsibility. By learning deeply about another tradition, the comparative theologian develops and expresses respect 71

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for its integrity, its theological infrastructure, and its internal concerns. Comparative theologians strive for a dual accountability in this regard; they strive to present their own and the other tradition in a way that is recognizable and meaningful to members of the respective communities.13 This implies that competency in one’s own tradition is also a requirement of the process. Collapsing of particularities or presenting all traditions as ‘pretty much the same’ or as holistically different does not add to the process. In fact, both render the process ineffectual and even harmful.14 On the basis of competency, the next step in the process is to place the knowledge of the other tradition in conversation with one’s own tradition(s) through limited acts of comparison. This frequently involves side-by-side reading of authoritative texts from the two traditions. However, the focus of comparative explorations is beginning to broaden to include oral theologies, aesthetic and emotive representations, and embodied ritual.15 The process cultivates a refined sensitivity to both similarities and differences between the traditions; it identifies substantial but provocatively incomplete instances of resonance.16 Crucially, identification of similarities and difference is not a polemical exercise; the other tradition is not a negative foil for or simple proof of the beauty and abundance of one’s own tradition(s). In comparative theology, the overlaps and the ruptures – as well as every nuance in between – are significant because they produce a creative tension capable of prompting new theological considerations.17 As James Fredericks explains, the other comes to us with stories that we have never heard before, with questions we have not asked, ways of responding to life that we have not imagined. New stories, new questions, and new customs, by expanding our horizons, allow us to see ourselves and our own religious tradition in new ways.18 This is the central objective of comparative theology: to produce new theological insights, questions, and approaches. This process is risky and destabilizing. Particular perspectives are not always confirmed, and there is always the possibility of seeing something in the other that is beautiful and religiously meaningful. This same destabilization, however, is the precise payoff of comparative theology; we understand ourselves in new ways in the ‘light’ of the other.19 It is important to emphasize that this does not mean that the objective is appropriation, direct cooptation, or abandonment of one’s own tradition(s).20 It is an assertion that we see new facets of ourselves, our traditions, our sources, and our practices when they are illuminated by comparative engagement. We ask new questions of our traditions and ‘discover patterns hidden beneath the grooves of well-worn narratives.’21 We see new possibilities. Of vital importance to comparative feminist theology, we are prompted to imagine new legitimate and rooted options beyond the dominant forms of theology and interpretation within our traditions.22 The comparative lens assists in penetrating the ‘unthought’ and the ‘unthinkable,’ that is, those aspects of and possibilities within our own traditions that are obscured or rendered invisible by prevailing formulations of orthodoxy and interpretations of texts and practices.23 The goals of comparative theology therefore are transformation, imaginative theological reconstruction, and even transgression within and in conversation with the tradition(s) of the comparative theologian.24 Comparative feminist theology follows this basic process with a few key modifications. First, it centres, what Michelle Voss Roberts calls, the ‘outsider within’ traditions. While some works in comparative theology – including Clooney’s own Divine Mother, Blessed Mother – deal with female figures and the feminine, the field overall does not focus on 72

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feminist discourse, texts, and practices.25 Voss Roberts argues for such a focus in order to destabilize generalizations, move beyond texts, and offer new sites of comparison by centring the ‘outsider within’ various traditions.26 Comparative theology, with its emphases on deep learning about and accurate representation of traditions, has the unfortunate side effect of excluding voices and perspectives that are not part of the authoritative canon of traditions. Women feature prominently in this category. They are often excluded in texts, scriptures, interpretations, and as competent scholars of their own traditions. Comparative theology is typically focused on authoritative ‘insider’ to ‘insider’ engagements, but comparative feminist theology seeks to contest the ‘traditional enough’ standard and bring outsiders within into the conversation.27 Voss Roberts also contends that the method of comparative theology can have a positive impact on feminist theologies. Specifically, comparative theology can enhance feminist theologies by drawing attention to ongoing colonial legacies and power dynamics among religious traditions, and by emphasizing competency in other traditions and thus avoiding superficial generalizations and assumptions of parity.28 It is worth noting that these are primary concerns voiced by many Muslim women scholars in relation to interreligious feminist engagement. Comparative feminist theology also revisits the way in which the ‘fruits’ – the fresh insights – comparative theological engagement are received by and resonate with the original tradition.29 Feminist outsiders challenge the structures of authority within their respective communities; they do not desire to uphold the structures as they are. While feminist theologians aim to resonate with their traditions and religious communities in pursuit of change, history demonstrates that reception of their ideas will be a combination of resonance and disregard (if not outright resistance). Therefore, the idea of communal reception must be reconfigured. Communal resonance remains important, but feminist theologians are more interested in provocative communal resonance, that is, in stirring people to embark upon difficult, yet imperative conversations. Finally, comparative feminist theology is especially attentive to expectations of parity in concerns, methods, and theologies. It does not rest on the foundations of sameness or familiarity, and it endeavours to be deliberately conscious of explicit and implicit norms. For Muslima theologians, in particular, comparative feminist theology is a means to conscientiously and critically engage other feminist theologies without glossing important differences or universalizing a particular feminist theological perspective. It also provides a counterpoint to discourses that foster ideas of interreligious corruption, contamination, and opposition. Comparative feminist theology – while unpredictable and dynamic – ironically provides a more stable and safe structure for interreligious feminist engagement, which is too often characterized by power, stereotypical or superficial depictions, and limited knowledge. The goals of comparative feminist theology therefore are transformation, transgression, and imaginative theological reconstruction within and in conversation with the tradition(s) of the comparative theologian. At the same time, comparative feminist theology provides a way to learn with other traditions, and to gain new and indispensable insights related to egalitarianism. Interrogations of power, attentiveness to on-the-ground realities, and a thrust toward liberation become empowering aspects of comparative feminist theology. Engagement among traditions becomes a theologically sound, theologically rich, and practically effective means of change. It reveals new resources crucial to our own struggles. Rather than a risky distraction or side project, comparative feminist theology recasts interreligious feminist engagement as an invaluable resource for reflection and action.

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What? Muslima theology, divine words, and theological anthropology Two of the most powerful aspects of the method of comparative feminist theology are, first, that it is premised upon deep knowledge, and, second, that it is not premised upon expectations of absolute parity or sameness. Why does this matter? Simply, it allows comparative feminist theologians to identify better points of analogy, better places to start productive and strategic comparative conversations. In my recent work on Muslim and Christian comparative feminist engagement, the unique starting point that I adopt is reorientation around the analogy of two ‘Divine Words,’ that is, centring comparative theological reflection on the analogy between the Qurʾan and Jesus, instead of the more common alternatives of Muhammad and Jesus (the central figures) or the Qurʾan and the Bible (the scriptures).30 This is not a new comparative analogy; in the US context, Seyyed Hossein Nasr identified it in the 1960s in his book Ideals and Realities in Islam.31 While not originally voiced by feminist theologians and scholars, it is notable that those who employ this theological analogy do so on the basis of their deep knowledge of both traditions and their frustrations with the ‘confusion of categories’ that occurs with other analogies.32 This analogical starting point is deeply relevant to and fruitful for comparative feminist conversations among Muslim and Christian theologians. Why? Because when one looks at this analogy from the perspective of the diverse concerns voiced by theologians and scholars in both traditions, overlap is readily discernible. What are their concerns? What are their primary sites of struggle? What questions disturb them? The diverse responses to these questions reveal something striking. They point back to the analogy of the Words. Even when the terminology and concept of ‘Word’ is challenged, concerns in both traditions swirl around the Divine being in the world in all of its contextual messiness and the way value has been assigned to various markers of that worldly ‘messiness.’ More concretely, similar concerns are raised in relation to the Qurʾan and Jesus Christ, questions about Divine inbreaking in a limited, worldly/human form and context; questions about historical contextualization and universal relevance; questions about patriarchy and maleness. Based on this organic – albeit productively imperfect – overlap in concerns, the analogy of the two Divine Words becomes an invaluable place to start a new conversation. I use this new starting point to reorient the entire comparative conversation and explore central theological concerns. I begin by placing approaches to the Qurʾan in conversation with Christology, and then extend the analogy to explore the hadith corpus in conversation with Biblical exegesis, and Prophet Muhammad in relation to the Virgin Mary as feminist exemplars. I also use the analogy to examine the topics of theological anthropology and ritual change (specifically women-led prayer), topics that are often sites of comparative jabs, hegemonic assertions, and horizontal violence in interreligious feminist engagements. With each of these topics, I provide a critical analysis of existing Islamic feminist and Muslima scholarship on the topic; then I engage – listen and learn from – diverse Christian theologians; and then I articulate constructive Muslima theological takeaways. To concretely illustrate this, I will explore some details related to the topic of theological anthropology.33 Theological anthropology is a prime site of much feminist grappling in both traditions and also is a prime site of less than productive comparative jabs across traditions. The contours of Islamic feminist theological anthropology are extremely positive and optimistic.34 Humans are created equal in the sight of God and in relation to each other. They are only distinguished from one another on the basis of taqwā (God consciousness) not on the basis of sex or gender. They can fulfil their purpose and choose to manifest taqwā . 74

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Their basic human nature (fiṭra) begins in perfect relationship with God, and while this relationship can certainly be disturbed through forgetfulness and arrogance, the core fiṭra (or human nature) that inclines toward God can never be eradicated. This is a very positive theological anthropology. It is also a theological anthropology that is phenomenally well rooted in the primary texts and sources, and phenomenally well suited to egalitarian argumentation. It is a theological anthropology on which I have based the majority of my constructive Muslima writing.35 It is beautiful, empowering, and human-positive. However, there is a nascent discussion of whether this theological anthropology is attentive enough to the realities of human constraint and limitation. Based on their research among Muslim women in South Africa, Nina Hoel and Shaikh explore the intersections between theological anthropology and religious subjectivity. They specifically engage the theological concepts of ʿ abd Allah (servant of God) and khalifah (moral agent, vicegerent).36 Acknowledging the importance and empowering role of these concepts, they argue that the concepts ‘need to be analysed in relation to complex and embodied social contexts characterized by hierarchical gender power relations.’37 Hoel and Shaikh, for example, outline the ways in which servitude as a positive theological concept can be detrimental in situations of power and gender asymmetry. They also argue that even khalifah should be placed in conversation with the fact that some women do not have any control over their physical body. Their research points to ‘implications for women’s individual cultivation of religious piety and moral action when … capacities to act and make decisions … are bound up with symbolic and real patriarchal power.’38 Hoel and Shaikh’s research raises questions about human freedom and constraint. As such, it also raises questions about dominant Islamic feminist and Muslima formulations of theological anthropology. Are these beautiful, positive, optimistic theological anthropologies founded on the intersections of tawḥīd, fiṭra, khilafah, and taqwā attentive enough to the realities of human constraint and limitation? If not, how might Muslima theological anthropology be expanded to be more attentive, while retaining the powerful and deep roots already articulated? To consider these questions – in line with the method of comparative feminist theology – I engage with perspectives on theological anthropology articulated by M. Shawn Copeland, Delores S. Williams, and Jeannine Hill Fletcher.39 These three Christian theologians focus specifically on issues of freedom, suffering, embodiment, and systemic and relational constraint. Copeland and Williams do so by foregrounding the atrocities and survival strategies of black women in slavery and post-slavery contexts. Copeland seeks to make the damage ‘visible’ and proposes a more ‘realistic’ anthropological subject: exploited, despised, poor women of colour.40 This move is not simply an effort to include overlooked experiences, nor to restate earlier models – sometimes proposed even by feminist theologians – of theological anthropology based on androgyny, unisex ideals, or complementarity. The new anthropological subject, rather, provides a more robust, realistic, and responsible model of a human being; it is a model of a human who is made by God, situated in social relationships with other humans, ‘capable of working out essential freedom in time and space,’ unafraid of difference and interdependence, and willing to engage in the necessary daily struggle.41 Williams describes her focus on the faith, experiences, thought, and life struggles of African American women as not simply cathartic but as a theological corrective to even liberation theologies. Womanist theology critiques black liberation theology’s participation in making some experience ‘invisible,’ challenges doctrines of redemption and salvation based on ‘bloody surrogacy,’ and introduces a of new ethical model.42 She also emphasizes how the survival, quality of life tradition – in distinction from liberation traditions – centres 75

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female agency in the person of Hagar and describes God’s response not as liberation but as presence and participation in survival and amidst oppression.43 Hill Fletcher uses the metaphor of motherhood and argues that the human condition is one in which relationality precedes the individual, constraint challenges freedom, and interreligious knowledge is a form of sacred knowledge.44 While modern theological anthropology imagines the human person to be free, autonomous, and independent, even capable of reaching outside of their own selves or conditioning, the reality is that each individual is born into and found in a ‘web of relationships and responsibilities.’45 Freedom without any constraints is an illusion. Rather, humans exist in ‘constrained creativity.’ They are always characterized by some constraint, but no particular system of constraint is fixed, static, true, or universal.46 These three, diverse Christian perspectives present a significant challenge to other dominant Christian theological anthropologies and provide an invaluable dialogical lens for Muslima reflections on the extent of freedom and capacity. How does engagement with these perspectives impact Muslima theology? What are some of the constructive theological takeaways or insights? I will highlight only three. One is the theme of visiblization and invisiblization. These Christian theologians ask what is rendered visible and invisible in dominant – even feminist and liberation – models of theological anthropology. Applying this question to Islamic feminist perspectives and Muslima theology, it is clear that existing formulations emphasize individual value, freedom, and capacity. In doing so, they stress ideal relationships between humans and between humans and God. However, claims to an aspirational ideal are not the same as attending to the descriptive reality on the ground, the real. A realistic model is not simply an embrace of whatever the on-the-ground reality may be; it is not just description. A realistic model, though, needs to be in conversation with the descriptive, embodied reality, particularly the reality of the most marginalized in any society. If a model of theological anthropology is too distanced from or out of touch with the reality on the ground, then no matter how many beautiful claims it makes to equality, freedom, and responsible relationality, it can serve to further marginalize. A theological anthropology of freedom, choice, and capacity can be irrelevant and oppressive to those who are not free, cannot choose, and are not capable. The complexities of constraint and relationality are somewhat obscured in existing Islamic feminist and Muslima anthropologies. A second takeaway relates to the subject or exemplar of theological anthropology. The central concept of fiṭra (human nature) puts forth a fairly robust idea of unrestrained autonomy and individuality. One way it does so is through connection to the model of Abraham. In many ways, Abraham becomes the exemplar of a fiṭra-based theological anthropology.47 He is entangled in social, familial, and ideological constraints, but he extricates himself from those constraints. Drawing upon Hill Fletcher, Abraham’s fiṭra and natural capacity enable him to escape – cut constraints from – both his context of relationality and his sociocultural economy of knowledge. And this ability is extensively praised. Abraham is the model of faith, the model even for Muhammad (Qurʾan 6:123). The exemplarily model of Abraham thus promotes the idea that people can actually escape embodied realities of relationality and constraint. While I find this Abraham-centric theological anthropology empowering in the way that it validates basic individual human integrity irrespective of context, it is also true that it fails to grapple sufficiently with constraint and can thus function as a sort of theological rugged individualism. This brings me to a third takeaway, a question: could there be another model of theological anthropology? Another exemplar? A model that would simultaneously attend to the 76

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real, aim for the ideal, and impel the gritty and continuous work of transforming structural and systemic constraints? One answer is found in an overlap in the writings of Williams and wadud: they turn to the example of Hagar or Hajar.48 Hagar/Hajar provides a more realistic, relational, constrained, embodied model of theological anthropology. But, this is the fascinating part. The overlap is valuable because it is partial and incomplete. Williams and wadud do not invoke the same exact Hagar or Hajar. She is situated differently within each tradition, and therefore her potential as an anthropological model is unique in each. Hajar is in relation to God. Hajar acts socially. Hajar is situated in and not extricated from a tangle of social and relational constraints. In addition, though, Hajar in Islamic tradition is the ignored, but hypercentred exemplar. She the mother of Islam, is known and ritually centred, is romantically praised and honoured, yet her example is not deeply considered. Every Muslim longs to run in her footsteps in the rites of hajj, but not every Muslim considers the realities and implications of that running. wadud, herself, bemoans the fact that few actually reflect on Hajar’s experience and manifestation of engaged surrender.49 Hajar thus complicates the theme of visiblization. She is very ‘visible,’ but she is not always ‘seen,’ ‘understood,’ ‘accounted for’. This is part of the reason why even raising questions about how she felt or struggled can be seen as problematic; these questions seek understanding and accountability. In this position, Hajar can expand existing models of Islamic feminist and Muslim theological anthropology. She is an active agent who engages in constrained creativity and responsible relationality. However, she is also an exemplar that challenges norms and makes an ethical demand. Hajar cannot manifest taqwā within dominant or romanticized social norms; she cannot even survive within these norms. Hajar’s creative deviance, therefore, is a challenge to the value and authority of singular and static norms of action and relationship. The ethical demand that she makes is a call to become aware of constraints that we may not notice or know, a call to social conscientization. In short, the payoff of centring Hajar is that she foregrounds action, deep sustaining relationship with God, constrained and relational creativity, and social accountability. She thus enhances – but does not abandon – the existing foundations of Islamic feminist and Muslima theological anthropology. This brief example provides a glimpse into the process and payoffs of Muslima theology as comparative feminist theology. It is a messy yet rich process of listening, learning, and thinking with diverse scholars, of hearing stories one has not heard, of considering questions unasked, and of imagining new possibilities. It is an approach that acknowledges interreligious tensions, responds to calls for new methods, and seeks to articulate constructive theological and practical takeaways aimed at change and equality.

Notes 1 See Jerusha Tanner Lamptey (Rhodes), Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism (New York: Oxford, 2014). 2 For example, Ednan Aslan, Marcia Hermansen, and Elif Medeni, eds., Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013). The editors use ‘Muslima theology,’ yet acknowledge that it is not used or used in this sense by all Muslim women scholars, activists, or theologians. 3 For a more detailed description of these characteristics, see Jerusha Tanner Lamptey (Rhodes), ‘Toward a Muslima Theology: Constructive, Theological, and Comparative Possibilities,’ Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 33, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 27–44; Jerusha Tanner Lamptey (Rhodes), Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima Explorations in Comparative Feminist Theology (New York: Oxford University, 2018).

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Jerusha Tanner Rhodes 4 Kecia Ali, ‘Progressive Muslims and Islamic Jurisprudence: The Necessity for Critical Engagement with Marriage and Divorce Law,’ in Progressive Muslims: on Justice, Gender and Pluralism, ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 164–167; Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (London: Oneworld, 2006); Aysha Hidayatullah, Feminist Edges of the Qur’an (New York: Oxford University, 2014), 147–151; Hibba Abugideiri, ‘Revisiting the Islamic Past, Deconstructing Male Authority: The Project of Islamic Feminism,’ Religion & Literature 42, no. 1/2 (Spring-Summer 2010): 137–138. 5 amina wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006), 24–37, 39–42, 158–162; Asma Barlas, ‘Believing Women’ in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 13–15; Riffat Hassan, ‘Feminism in Islam,’ in Feminism and World Religions, ed. Arvind Sharma and Katherine K. Young (Albany: State University of New York, 1999), 253, 257–261; Sa’diyya Shaikh, ‘Islamic Law, Sufism and Gender: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate,’ in Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, ed. Ziba Mir Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger (London: Oneworld, 2015), 106–131, here 106–107, 128–129. 6 amina wadud, ‘The Ethics of Tawḥīd over the Ethics of Qiwamah,’ in Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, ed. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger (London: Oneworld, 2015), 256–274; Ayesha S. Chaudhry, ‘Producing Gender-Egalitarian Islamic Law: A Case Study of Guardianship (Wilayah) in Prophetic Practice,’ in Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, ed. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger (London: Oneworld, 2015), 89; Sa’diyya Shaikh, ‘Islamic Law, Sufism and Gender: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate,’ in Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, ed. Ziba Mir Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger (London: Oneworld, 2015), 106–131, here 107. 7 Marcia Hermansen, ‘Introduction: New Voices of Muslim Women Theologians,’ in Aslan, Hermansen, and Medeni, Muslima Theology, 18. 8 See Valentine M. Moghadam, ‘Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents: Toward a Resolution of the Debate,’ Signs 27, no. 4 (Summer 2002): 1134–1171, esp. 1142; Margot Badran, ‘Between Secular and Islamic Feminism/s: Reflections on the Middle East and Beyond,’ Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 1, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 6–28, esp. 6; Haideh Moghissi, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis (London: Zed Books, 1999), 6; miriam cooke, Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism through Literature (New York: Routledge, 2001), ix; Fatima Seedat, ‘When Islam and Feminism Converge,’ Muslim World 103, no. 3 (July 2013): 404–420, Fatima Seedat, ‘Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability,’ Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 25–45; and Aysha Hidayatullah, Feminist Edges of the Qur’an (New York: Oxford, 2014), 36–45. 9 See Azizah Y. al-Hibri, ‘An Introduction to Muslim Women’s Rights,’ in Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists in North America, ed. Gisela Webb (Syracuse: Syracuse University, 2000), 51–71; Hassan, ‘Feminism in Islam,’ 254–261; Aysha Hidayatullah, ‘The Qur’anic Ribectomy: Scriptural Purity, Imperial Dangers, and Other Obstacles to the Interfaith Engagement of Feminist Qur’anic Interpretation,’ in Women in Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille and Jillian Maxey (Eugene: Cascade, 2013), 152–154, here 150–151. 10 Hidayatullah, ‘The Qur’anic Rib-ectomy,’ 150–167, 150–151; Aysha Hidayatullah, ‘Inspiration and Struggle: Muslim Feminist Theology and the Work of Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza,’ Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 25, no.1 (2009): 162–170, here 170; and Zayn Kassam, ‘Constructive Interreligious Dialogue Concerning Muslim Women,’ in Women in Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille and Jillian Maxey (Eugene: Cascade, 2013), 127–149. 11 Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2010), 10. 12 James Fredericks, Faith Among Faiths: Christian Theology and Non-Christian Religions (Mahwah: Paulist, 1999), 164; James Fredericks, Buddhists and Christians: Through Comparative Theology to Solidarity (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004), xii. 13 Clooney, Comparative Theology, 13. 14 Fredericks, Faith Among Faiths, 163. 15 Michelle Voss Roberts, Tastes of the Divine: Hindu and Christian Theologies of Emotion (New York: Fordham, 2014); Jeannine Hill Fletcher, ‘What Counts as “Catholic?” What Constitutes “Comparative”?’ and ‘Response to Daria Schnipkoweit,’ Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 24, 1 (2014): 78–85, 91–93.

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Muslima theology 16 Zayn Kassam, ‘Response to Daniel Madigan,’ in Catholicism and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. James L. Heft, S.M. (New York: Oxford University, 2012), 75–77, here 75; Francis X. Clooney, The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation (London: T & T Clark, 2010), 199; Clooney, Comparative Theology, 16–19. 17 Clooney, Comparative Theology, 7; Fredericks, Faith Among Faiths, 169. 18 Fredericks, Faith Among Faiths, 175–176. 19 Clooney, Comparative Theology, 16; Voss Roberts, Tastes of the Divine, xxii; Reid B. Locklin and Hugh Nicholson, ‘The Return of Comparative Theology,’ Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78, no. 2 (June 2010): 477–514, here 499. 20 Fredericks, Faith Among Faiths, 178; Peter Phan, ‘From Soteriology to Comparative Theology and Back: A Response to S. Mark Heim,’ in Understanding Religious Pluralism: Perspectives from Religious Studies and Theology, ed. by Peter Phan and Jonathan Ray (Eugene: Pickwick, 2014), 260–264, here 262; John J. Thatamanil, The Immanent Divine (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 23–24; Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier, ‘Comparative Theology as a Theology of Liberation,’ in The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation, ed. Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (London: T & T Clark, 2010), 129–150, here 139. 21 Michelle Voss Roberts, Dualities: A Theology of Difference (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 18. 22 Voss Roberts, Tastes of the Divine, xxii; and Francis X. Clooney, S.J., ‘Afterword: Some Reflections in Response to Teaching Comparative Theology in the Millennial Classroom,’ in Comparative Theology in the Millennial Classroom, ed. Mara Brecht and Reid B. Locklin (New York: Routledge, 2016), 219–234, here 227. 23 Mohammed Arkoun, The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002). 24 Locklin and Nicholson, ‘The Return of Comparative Theology,’ 493. 25 Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 26 Michelle Voss Roberts, ‘Gendering Comparative Theology,’ in The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation, ed. Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (London: T & T Clark, 2010), 109–128, here 114–115; Voss Roberts, Dualities, 4–5. 27 Voss Roberts, Dualities, 12; Voss Roberts, ‘Gendering Comparative Theology,’ 116. 28 Voss Roberts, ‘Gendering Comparative Theology,’ 127. 29 Voss Roberts, ‘Gendering Comparative Theology,’ 118–124. 30 See, Lamptey (Rhodes), Divine Words, Female Voices. 31 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam (Chicago: ABC International Group, 2000). See also Joseph Lumbard, ‘Discernment, Dialogue, and the Word of God,’ in Criteria of Discernment in Interreligious Dialogue, Interreligious Dialogue Series 1, ed. Catherine Cornille (Eugene: Cascade, 2009), 143–152; Daniel Madigan, ‘Muslim Christian Dialogue in Difficult Times,’ in Catholicism and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. James L. Heft, S.M. (New York: Oxford University, 2012), 57–74, here 58; Daniel Madigan, ‘Jesus and Muhammad: The Sufficiency of Prophecy,’ in Bearing the Word: Prophecy in Biblical and Qur’anic Perspective, ed. Michael Ipgrave (London: Church House Publishing, 2005), 90–99, here 95; Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1985), 24. 32 For example, see Nasr, Ideals and Realities, 30; Lumbard, ‘Discernment, Dialogue,’ 144; Daniel A. Madigan, ‘Mutual Theological Hospitality: Doing Theology in the Presence of the ’Other’,’ in Muslim and Christian Understanding: Theory and Application of ‘A Common Word’, ed. Waleed ElAnsary and David K. Linnan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 57–68, here 5, 7; Madigan, ‘Jesus and Muhammad,’ 93, 95. 33 For a more detailed exploration of this topic, see Lamptey (Rhodes), Divine Words, Female Voices, 156–189. 34 Central texts include, amina wadud, Qurʾan and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Position. New York: Oxford University, 1999, 19–26; Barlas, ‘Believing Women’ in Islam, 133, 136; Hassan, ‘Feminism in Islam,’ 253–260; Lamptey (Rhodes), Never Wholly Other, 142–154, 237–238. 35 See, Lamptey (Rhodes), Never Wholly Other. 36 Nina Hoel and Sa’diyya Shaikh, ‘Sexing Islamic Theology: Theorising Women’s Experience and Gender through ‘abd-Allah and khalifah,’ Journal for Islamic Studies 33 (2013): 127–150, here 128–135. 37 Hoel and Shaikh, ‘Sexing Islamic Theology,’ 135.

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Jerusha Tanner Rhodes 38 Hoel and Shaikh, ‘Sexing Islamic Theology,’ 128. 39 See M. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, Being (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010); Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Motherhood as Metaphor: Engendering Interreligious Dialogue (New York: Fordham University, 2013); Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-talk (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993). 40 Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 9, 38, 92. 41 Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 92. 42 Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 144–177. 43 Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 2–5. 44 Hill Fletcher, Motherhood as Metaphor, 5. 45 Hill Fletcher, Motherhood as Metaphor, 40. 46 Hill Fletcher, Motherhood as Metaphor, 131. 47 See Lamptey, Never Wholly Other, 194–197, 212–217, 228–232. 48 wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 143. 49 wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 143.

Further reading Barlas, Asma. ‘Believing Women’ in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.This groundbreaking work opened up new modes of reading the Qurʾan and other Islamic texts that challenged patriarchal and androcentric interpretations. Clooney, S.J. Francis, X. Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2010.This book sets out the key methodologies in comparative theology and provides important examples of how comparative theology works in practice. Lamptey (Rhodes), Jerusha Tanner. Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima Explorations in Comparative Feminist Theology. New York: Oxford University, 2018.In this book, Jerusha Rhodes shows how interreligious feminist engagement is essential for Muslim feminist theology. Voss Roberts, Michelle. ‘Gendering Comparative Theology.’ In The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation, ed. X. Francis Clooney, S.J., 109–128. London: T & T Clark, 2010.This important piece argues that comparative theology needs to account for unequal social power relations around gender and other marginalized identities, by delving more fully into the lived experiences of these communities. wadud, amina. Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.Through an intersectional perspective, amina wadud explores the challenges and possibilities for working toward gender justice in Muslim communities and in our world today. ———. Qurʾan and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Position. New York: Oxford University, 1999.Another foundational text, this book sets out a new exegetical framework for interpreting the Qurʾan, demonstrating the gender egalitarian vision of the text and its potential for guiding gender reform in contemporary Muslim communities.

References Abugideiri, Hibba. ‘Revisiting the Islamic Past, Deconstructing Male Authority: The Project of Islamic Feminism.’ Religion & Literature, vol. 42, no. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 133–139. al-Hibri, Azizah Y. ‘An Introduction to Muslim Women’s Rights.’ In Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar-Activists in North America, ed. Gisela Webb, 51–71. Syracuse: Syracuse University, 2000. Ali, Kecia. ‘Progressive Muslims and Islamic Jurisprudence: The Necessity for Critical Engagement with Marriage and Divorce Law.’ In Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism, ed. Omid Safi, 163–189. Oxford: Oneworld, 2003. ———. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith and Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006. Arkoun, Mohammed. The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought. London: Saqi Books, 2002. Aslan, Ednan, Marcia Hermansen, and Elif Medeni, ed., Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013. Badran, Margot. ‘Between Secular and Islamic Feminism/s: Reflections on the Middle East and Beyond.’ Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 6–28.

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Muslima theology Barlas, Asma. ‘Believing Women’ in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Chaudhry, Ayesha S. ‘Producing Gender-Egalitarian Islamic Law: A Case Study of Guardianship (Wilayah) in Prophetic Practice.’ In Men in Charge?; Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, ed. Ziba Mir Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, 88–105. London: Oneworld, 2015. Clooney, S.J., Francis, X. Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ———. Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2010. ———, ed., The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation. London: T & T Clark, 2010. ———. ‘Afterword: Some Reflections in Response to Teaching Comparative Theology in the Millennial Classroom.’ In Comparative Theology in the Millennial Classroom, ed. Mara Brecht and Reid B. Locklin, 219–234. New York: Routledge, 2016. cooke, miriam. Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism through Literature. New York: Routledge, 2001. Copeland, M. Shawn. Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, Being. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. Fredericks, James. Faith among Faiths: Christian Theology and Non-Christian Religions. Mahwah: Paulist, 1999. ———. Buddhists and Christians: Through Comparative Theology to Solidarity. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004. Hassan, Riffat. ‘Feminism in Islam.’ In Feminism and World Religions, ed. Arvind Sharma and Katherine K. Young, 248–278. Albany: State University of New York, 1999. Hidayatullah, Aysha. ‘Inspiration and Struggle: Muslim Feminist Theology and the Work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.’ Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 25, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 162–170. ———. ‘The Qurʾanic Rib-ectomy: Scriptural Purity, Imperial Dangers, and Other Obstacles to the Interfaith Engagement of Feminist Qurʾanic Interpretation.’ In Women in Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille and Jillian Maxey, 150–167. Eugene: Cascade, 2013. ———. Feminist Edges of the Qurʾan. New York: Oxford University, 2014. Hill Fletcher, Jeannine. Motherhood as Metaphor: Engendering Interreligious Dialogue. New York: Fordham University, 2013. ———. ‘What Counts as ‘Catholic?’ What Constitutes ‘Comparative’?’ and ‘Response to Daria Schnipkoweit.’ Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, vol. 24, no. 1 (2014): 78–85, 91–93. Hoel, Nina and Sa’diyya Shaikh. ‘Sexing Islamic Theology: Theorising Women’s Experience and Gender through ‘abd-Allah and khalifah.’ Journal for Islamic Studies, vol. 33 (2013): 127–150. Kassam, Zayn. ‘Response to Daniel Madigan.’ In Catholicism and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. L. James S. M. Heft, 75–77. New York: Oxford University, 2012. ———. ‘Constructive Interreligious Dialogue Concerning Muslim Women.’ In Women in Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille and Jillian Maxey, 127–149. Eugene: Cascade, 2013. Lamptey (Rhodes), Jerusha Tanner. Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism. New York: Oxford, 2014. ———. ‘Toward a Muslima Theology: Constructive, Theological, and Comparative Possibilities.’ Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 33, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 27–44. ———. Divine Words, Female Voices: Muslima Explorations in Comparative Feminist Theology. New York: Oxford University, 2018. Locklin, Reid B. and Hugh Nicholson. ‘The Return of Comparative Theology.’ Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 78, no. 2 (June 2010): 477–514. Lumbard, Joseph. ‘Discernment, Dialogue, and the Word of God.’ In Criteria of Discernment in Interreligious Dialogue, Interreligious Dialogue Series 1, ed. Catherine Cornille, 143–152. Eugene: Cascade, 2009. Madigan, Daniel S.J. ‘Jesus and Muhammad: The Sufficiency of Prophecy.’ In Bearing the Word: Prophecy in Biblical and Qurʾanic Perspective, ed. Michael Ipgrave, 90–99. London: Church House Publishing, 2005. ———. ‘Mutual Theological Hospitality: Doing Theology in the Presence of the ’Other’.’ In Muslim and Christian Understanding: Theory and Application of ‘A Common Word’, ed. Waleed El-Ansary and David K. Linnan, 57–68. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. ———. ‘Muslim-Christian Dialogue in Difficult Times’ and ‘Responses’.’ In Catholicism and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. James Heft, 57–87. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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Jerusha Tanner Rhodes Moghadam, Valentine M. ‘Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents: Toward a Resolution of the Debate.’ Signs, vol. 27, no. 4 (Summer 2002): 1135–1171. Moghissi, Haideh. Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis. London: Zed Books, 1999. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Ideals and Realities of Islam. Chicago: ABC International Group, 2000. Phan, Peter. ‘From Soteriology to Comparative Theology and Back: A Response to S. Mark Heim.’ In Understanding Religious Pluralism: Perspectives from Religious Studies and Theology, ed. Peter Phan and Jonathan Ray, 260–264. Eugene: Pickwick, 2014. Schimmel, Annemarie. And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1985. Seedat, Fatima. ‘Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability.’ Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 29, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 25–45. Shaikh, Sa’diyya. ‘Islamic Law, Sufism and Gender: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate.’ In Men in Charge?: Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, ed. Ziba Mir Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, 106–131. London: Oneworld, 2015. Thatamanil, John J. The Immanent Divine. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Tiemeier, Tracy Sayuki. ‘Comparative Theology as a Theology of Liberation.’ In The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation, ed. X. Francis S.J. Clooney, 129–150. London: T & T Clark, 2010. Voss Roberts, Michelle. Dualities: A Theology of Difference. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010. ———. ‘Gendering Comparative Theology.’ In The New Comparative Theology: Interreligious Insights from the Next Generation, ed. X. Francis S.J. Clooney, 109–128. London: T & T Clark, 2010. ———. Tastes of the Divine: Hindu and Christian Theologies of Emotion. New York: Fordham, 2014. wadud, amina. Qurʾan and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Position. New York: Oxford University, 1999. ———. Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006. ———. ‘The Ethics of Tawḥīd over the Ethics of Qiwamah.’ In Men in Charge?; Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition, ed. Ziba Mir Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, 256–274. London: Oneworld, 2015. Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993.

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5 GENDER AND THE STUDY OF ISLAMIC LAW From polemics to feminist ethics Fatima Seedat

Introduction Over the past 40 or more years, scholarship on women, gender and sexuality in Islamic law has developed to produce varied approaches to law reform and different narratives of gendered legal subjectivity. Scholarship has expanded and evolved, and perspectives have changed reflecting increasing awareness of the complexities that animate the legal consequences of gendered and sexual aspects of social difference. This chapter presents an overview of three approaches to law reform and four discernible narratives of sex difference that have emerged in the study of gender in Islamic law. Collectively they indicate toward the richness and the nuances of this field of work. Theoretically, I argue, they indicate a move toward the deconstruction of a received notion of shariʿa as a metanorm that regulates individuals in both their outward behaviours and their internal self-discipline (Salvatore 2000). While the regulation of behaviours is possible through legal systems, the latter, which is internal discipline relies on systems of social accountability which remain illusive in the context of legislation and law making in the nation state. Following a brief survey of early studies on women in Islamic law, this chapter outlines a series of gender-based reform efforts to suggest here that reform approaches of the late 20th and early 21st centuries which take the gender concerns of society seriously have taken a different route from earlier efforts. Whereas 19th and 20th century reforms utilised a concept of shariʿa as a hardened ‘civilising kernel’ (Salvatore 2000), the approaches discerned in this chapter offer instead an opening-up of the concept of shariʿa and the gendered underpinnings supporting Muslim understandings of legality in the context of women and sexuality, offering a variety of new approaches to gendered legal subjectivity. The three approaches to genderbased reform which I discern here do this by either offering different interpretations of the law, by deconstructing legal concepts (including shariʿa) or by offering an alternate ethics-based approach to the law. They emerge alongside some discernible narratives of gendered legal subjectivity. I offer only a brief tracing of these four narratives of women’s legal subjectivity here with the intention of expanding this analysis in later work; these are namely a narrative of complementarity, an equality narrative cast in human-rights discourses i.e. a rights-based narrative, a disability or deficiency narrative that is primarily textual and a narrative of women as wives

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in marriage. The most recent aspect of this scholarship also offers deep interrogations of the historical texts casting a feminist lens on historical Muslim law and practice. Collectively, trajectories of development in the study of gender in Islamic law reflect a maturing and a deepening deconstruction or opening of the categories supporting gendered understandings of Islamic law; while they still speak to a common interest in the idea of a historical shariʿa, they also open it up to contemporary scrutiny reflecting the gendered politics of knowledge production. “Who studies what” and “what is studied” are elements of this development, and the nature and form of the scholarship presented below demonstrates how the study of gender in Islamic law has shifted to reflect emerging gendered legal subjectivities, as well as the need for further developments in this vein.

Theorising reform Theorizing the developments in 19th-century state formations and attendant legal reforms, Armando Salvatore has argued that what emerged was a reformed “kernel-like” understanding of the law of shariʿa as a “normative and at least, potential legal system” (2000, p. 105). What emerged was a notion of shariʿa as a metanorm imploded into a hardened and “authentic normative and civilising kernel”, dislodged from its institutional structures, focused on state forms of accountability, yet also intended to regulate the inner-self through the processes of self-discipline, however unreachable by legislative decree (2000, p. 105). Further, Amira Sonbol’s (1998, 2006, 2016) work argues that legal reforms of the 19th and 20th centuries functioned through the patriarchal norms of nation states, which also combined Victorian, Napoleonic and other colonial and modern perspectives with contemporaneous paradigms of sex difference, thus significantly transforming Muslim legal marriage practices, namely polygyny and marriage contracts. Sonbol’s work on legal transformations of the colonial period studies the development of laws determining the relationship between husbands and wives, illustrating how “nation state reforms” deteriorated the status of women (Sonbol 1998, 2006). Amongst the accretions of this age were the emergence of the concept of bayt al-ta’a’ and the consequent requirement for wifely obedience. Through colonial period transformations husbands received rights to physical, sexual and mental aspects of a wife’s person, which they did not previously have. Thus emerged the concept bayt al-ṭā’a (house of obedience), an institution “unheard of before the last decades of the nineteenth century”, which limited a wife’s capacity to exit her husband’s marital authority and thus the marriage (Sonbol 1998, pp. 293–294). Similarly, modern legal change transformed the legal flexibility of marriage contracts and placed women under the “custody” of their husbands, severely curtailing their historical capacity to negotiate or to exit marriage (Sonbol 2016, p. 90). The process of transformation therefore extended beyond the structural mechanisms for the application of law, but also functioned in its conceptual apparatus, affecting paradigms of sex difference and producing a redefinition of gender that drew from modern forms of state authority and subjectivity. Not only were existing gendered power dynamics formalised, but also new understandings of sex difference were simultaneously innovated and adopted into the transformed legal systems. The regulation of these applied to the material legal situation in terms of the discipline of wives, now newly enforceable through the state, but also relied on the discipline of the husband’s inner self, however unenforceable.

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Cast in the mould of a civilising discourse of shariʿa (Salvatore), the gendered nature of these reforms meant that new gender norms were also associated with ideas of “holiness” and there after rendered “untouchable” (Sonbol 1998, p. 285). In a similar fashion, presentday Muslim states, including those signed to international human rights treaties, appeal to a notion of shariʿa which they claim does not permit change in gender relations. Conceptualised as law imbued with the religious normativity and immutability (Sonbol 1998, p. 285), shariʿa comes to function as a terministic screen that can broach no change. Gender norms receive equally terministic treatment in the argument that Islamic law postulates a definitive understanding of gender difference. Together, terministic concepts of shariʿa and gender function as two vital axes through which religious authority is produced in Muslim communities. In contrast to colonial-era and nation-building reform efforts which funnelled a wide range of diverse legal interpretations into a single kernel-like notion of shariʿa, easily identified in legal codes, but unenforceable in moral codes, more recent gender-based legal reform, I argue here, moves in the opposite direction to interrogate the limited scope and selectivity of codified law and in the interest of a wider range of historical legal interpretations with the effect of figuratively “exploding” the received concept of shariʿa and reclaiming the inner dimensions of the law including an appeal to its ethics. These reform voices represent the increasingly voluble voice of scholarship guided by women-centred legal concerns, namely the tension between law’s promises of justice and women’s lived experiences of injustice. Characteristically they surface the tensions in and between the historical archive and contemporary experiences or theories of the law, and between the letter and the spirit or ethics of the law. The two elements central to gender-based law reform are a re-engagement with the historical legal tradition and a call for accountability or recognition of the ethical aspects of legal obligations. I trace three discernible approaches to gender based legal reform here, namely an approach that allows reinterpretation of the historical laws in contemporary contexts, an approach that reconstructs historical legal concepts and paradigms and finally an approach that centres on ethics to realign historical understandings of difference and sexuality for contemporary sexual ethics. Further, within these reform efforts there are also discernibly different legal subjectivities. Below I explore these three reform approaches and offer a brief presentation of four narratives of gendered legal subjectivity, namely: a subjectivity based on complementarity, a human rights-based equal subjectivity, the notion of women as disabled subjects, as well as the emergence of a fourth, which is the subjectivity of a wife based on women’s sexuality.

Early Studies of Islamic law with a focus on Women Prior to the series of gender-based reform approaches highlighted discussions that follow, during the 1980s and the 1990s, the analysis of women’s position in Islamic law was largely represented by the works of Murtaza Mutahhari (1981), Abdur Rahman Doi (1989), Jamal Badawi (1999), Kaukab Siddique (1994), Asghar Ali Engineer (2001, 2008) and to some extent the work of Hassan Turabi (1973). Some of these scholars represented a polemic response to Western critics and some offered a critical response to gender difference in the practical and textual representations of Muslim women. Amongst the themes that connect these scholars are ideas of Muslim exceptionalism and an argument that Islam is compatible with ideas of modernity together with the impetus to explore ways in which Islamic law illustrated this compatibility.

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Doi’s Women in Shariʾah (1989) was the earliest of these and quickly became popular in English-speaking South Asia and its diaspora. The book is detailed and legalistic, intended to show Islam’s progressive stance on women’s spiritual status and property and contractual rights vis-à-vis Christianity. For a time Badawi’s Women and Islam (1999) was the standard reference text for newly immigrant North American Muslims trying to adapt to their new environment and English-speaking Muslims. Mutahhari’s Status of Women in Islam (1981) was inspired by the fervour of the Iranian Revolution to affirm the contributions Iranian women made to the Revolution. Badawi and Mutahhari repeated Doi’s assessment of Islam’s progressive stand in comparison to Christianity and Western society. The three were also united in their understanding of gender complementarity – advocating that men and women hold complementary roles in social life, that these are divinely ordained roles and ideally suited to realising the fullness of a properly Muslim life. Their solutions to the problems that Muslim women experienced in their encounters with the law lead toward a romantic Islamic exceptionalism. In their view, Islam, having granted Muslim women freedoms now associated with modernity over 1,400 years prior to modern times, continues to be exceptional in its treatment of women. Until modern times, neither Christian society nor Western nation states granted women rights to own property or to exercise political independence in the manner that Islam had. The responsibility of Muslims, therefore, was to adhere to the parameters of femininity and masculinity defined by these freedoms and to avoid aspiring to the Western modes of freedom. Kaukab Siddique (1994) represents a slight shift in this narrative by highlighting the political impetus that motivated a narrative of women’s rights aligned to social transformation and the idea that Islam’s message is revolutionary. Similarly, Mutahhari’s revolutionary Iranian context shares some of this political motivation. The works of Badawi and Doi, as well as later scholars, include the idea that Islam brought social change into Meccan and Madinan societies. Siddique’s writing however does not take a conciliatory tone but displays a revolutionary motive evident in his book title, The Struggle of Muslim women, and an argument that makes direct links between the transformations brought by prohibitions on alcohol and usury and directives regarding the relationship between husbands and wives. Siddique illustrates methodological inconsistencies in the interpretations of these three directives, namely that scholars fail to apply the same reasoning of gradual elimination and final prohibition of the normative pre-Islamic practice of drinking alcohol to the discrimination against women. Asghar Ali Engineer (2001) has had the most sustained and evolving analysis of women and Islamic law and is more critical than these previous works; his early writings are cast in much the same framework as these above, but later, Engineer offers a bolder critique that also recognises the need to challenge normative gender dynamics, offering robust support for a rights-based narrative. Hassan Turabi’s (1973) work held influence in terms of his leadership of the Sudanese reform movement. It was also promoted largely by women in his own family and, as perhaps the most declaratory statement on Muslim women at the time, Turabi’s arguments came to be integrated into the Muslim reform movements of the time, motivated by arguments that connected the historical downfall of the Muslim society and its necessary resurgence and revival along the lines of a historically reclaimed model of the Sunnah. Turabi’s value in the study of women in Islamic law is his argument for women as equal subjects of Islamic law. He differs in this from previous scholars who maintained an argument that difference was to be understood as complementarity (Turabi 1973).

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Badawi, Mutahhari and Doi appear to be aligned in the gendered subjectivities of complementarity which they produce, Siddique offers some variation on this, while Engineer and Turabi, more so the latter, offer more radical awareness of the uncritical associations of gender, sexuality and legality.

Gender-based approaches to Islamic law reform Characteristically, the gender-based reform approaches outlined below all return to the archive of Islamic law either to offer a reinterpretation of historical legal frameworks or to deconstruct and reconstruct the archive of concepts and assumptions that inform the law. The reinterpretation framework adapts historical legal paradigms to contemporary legal and social circumstances. Deconstructing and reconstructing the archive also works with the historical legal record, but this time to mine it for historical alternatives to normative readings of past theoretical and legal paradigms. Representing the first is the work of Azizah al-Hibri (2000). The second approach is represented by Ziba Mir Hosseini (2004, 2009, 2003) who suggests conceptual deconstruction, as well as Kecia Ali (2006) who offers a rereading of the historical record. The more recent approach has been to take a broad view of the ethics of the law and rests on an early impetus in Muslim women’s analysis of Islamic law that discerned an analysis of the ethics over the legality of the law, which was initiated by the work of Leila Ahmed (1992) and taken on in various forms by a number of scholars, Kecia Ali (2006) and Sa’diyya Shaikh (2012) amongst them. An important aspect of this reform scholarship is their alignment with rights-based activism.

Reinterpretive approach Representing a reinterpretive approach, Azizah al-Hibri is an American lawyer whose scholarship for reform advocacy is also channelled through “Karamah”, an American charitable organisation which she established in 1991, which advocates for the “gender-equitable principles of Islam”.1 In her early work, al-Hibri argued for legal reform by explaining that while Muslim women cannot “reject even a single word of the Qurʾan” if they are to continue calling themselves Muslim (al-Hibri 2001, pp. 39–40), they are also “bewildered” by laws and judicial systems which are supposed to be Islamic but offer little legal protection (2001, p. 37). This tension is evident in that while they have rights to inheritance, property, divorce and lifelong financial support from the males in the family, the law also fails women at significant points in their life as for example when the law allows women to be easily divorced and left penniless even after years of marriage (2001, p. 47). Al-Hibri’s analysis of Muslim women’s experiences with Islamic law leads her to argue that even though Muslim societies dispense injustices to Muslim women under the guise of Islam, “the hallmark of Islam is justice” (al-Hibri 2000, p. 37). In Al-Hibri’s view, the problem with the law is not a fundamental one but a matter of legal interpretation. A large portion of her argument is to challenge what she considers “obsolete cultural interpretations”, patriarchal aspects of earlier juristic interpretation, misinterpretation and questionable interpretation (Al-Hibri 2001, pp. 107, 109, 121 and 125). These include misunderstanding and misapplication of the Qurʾan, and “cultural distortions or patriarchal bias” that have produced “problematic jurisprudence” (Al-Hibri 2001, p. 40). To illustrate, she explains that a woman is not required by law to do housework, yet in many Islamic cultures today housework is considered a wife’s duty. Further, while the 87

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Islamic law does not obligate women to breastfeed, social consensus demands that a mother breastfeed her baby, even at the expense of her education and career (Al-Hibri 2001, pp. 52–53). For Al-Hibri, misinterpretation and cultural bias are at the root of the Muslim woman’s legal dilemma, and these stem from the patriarchal bias of the law that is a relic of an earlier pre-Islamic patriarchy “that survived the clear injunctions of the Qurʾan to the contrary. It prevented interpreters from seeing the simple truths of the Qurʾan and seriously delayed the advent of the ideal Muslim family and society” (2001, p. 55). The premise of this analysis is that the Qurʾanic text, and some of the hadīth literature too, incorporate a latent sense of justice for women that the juristic tradition failed to capture. The result is a comprehensive historical failure to realise the Qurʾanic vision of gender, family and social authority. Consequently, in this approach solutions are directed at legal interpretations and the scholars who formulate them. Outmoded interpretations indicate the persistent adherence to outmoded ideas in the face of modern conditions and may be remedied by textual reinterpretation (Al-Hibri 2001, p. 41). A reinterpretive approach relies on an adherence to the “internal rules” of Islamic jurisprudence, namely the use of historical jurisprudential methods and tools such as theories of public interest (maslaha) and avoidance of harm (la darar wa la dirar) which may be used to perform the sorts of legal reasoning (ijtihad) necessary to arrive at better laws for contemporary times (al-Hibri 2001, pp. 93–94). This requires some structural reform in terms of opening the doors of juristic learning to women. This would facilitate women’s knowledge of the law, of juristic rules for change and ultimately allow women to be vocal and socially influential in promoting legal change, as they were in the times of the Prophet and soon thereafter (al-Hibri 2001, p. 94). Included in this commitment to the traditional mechanisms of Islamic law is also the revival of the Islamic marriage contract. Amira Sonbol’s (1998, 2006, 2016) work has contributed significantly in this area. Raising the profile of historical marriage contracts and illustrating these as mechanisms of legal control over the power dynamics of marriage, Sonbols work provides a valuable resource for the use of marriage contracts as a point of legal reform. Finally, a reinterpretive approach also argues for a distinction between religious and cultural norms, the latter considered un-Islamic. Reflecting reformist geo-political loyalties, a reinterpretive approach accords non-Arab or non-traditional Muslim women a special role in these processes of change. Hibri, for example, considers American Muslim women as “free from local quasi-religious politics”, unbound “by tribal custom of faraway places nor by values of past colonial powers” (al-Hibri 2001, p. 98) and so their application of internal juristic rules in the interests of reform could demonstrate the flexibility of Islam to the Muslim world. They could, she argues, “provide a prototype of jurisprudence that is liberating, modern, yet authentic” to invigorate other Muslims and usher in an age of reform in the Muslim world (al-Hibri 2001, p. 99). Summarily, while a reinterpretation approach traces problematic contemporary legal practices to inferior or outmoded legal interpretation, it offers reforms which maintain the existing foundations of the law, “modernising” it by exposing and eliminating outmoded ideas though not through an outright separation of the law from its traditional paradigm (al-Hibri 2000, p. 41). The argument is that the ideal, Qurʾanically intended, gender egalitarian Muslim community was never realised, and certainly never implemented to the point where egalitarian legal norms were formalised. Generally, reinterpretive reform approaches are characterised by a commitment to the traditional systems and structures of law and reinterpretation in the light of contemporary progressive values. This is largely committed to the extant Islamic law framework with some changes, mostly including women amongst classically trained legal 88

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scholars and redeploying classical legal tools to illicit new interpretations in line with contemporary needs. This is by far the most popular approach to the study of women and Islamic law; it offers new readings of the classical legal tradition, adapting to contemporary concerns. It applies historical legal techniques, principles and practices to contemporary Muslim legal concerns. The work of Asifa Quraishi (1997, 2013) and Hina Azam (2013, 2015) also represents a reinterpretive approach. And, as we will see below, much like Al-Hibri, they also offer conceptual reframings of Islamic law. Azam for example examines “doctrines in the Islamic law of rape” to point to modern “misunderstandings” of historical juristic conceptions of rape. Both also work between reinterpretation and conceptual deconstruction.

Conceptual deconstruction approach Representing a conceptual deconstruction approach is the work of Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an anthropologist and independent scholar. Her work has been increasingly well received in international Muslim women’s rights advocacy work, at first by the network Women living Under Muslim Laws, then the Malaysian group Sisters in Islam and the more recently established and highly successful international advocacy group Musawah. Mir-Hosseini’s work represents the disjuncture between women and the law as historical, namely as a result of “the inner contradictions between the ideals of Islam and the social norms of the early Muslim cultures” (2004, p. 4). Much like Al-Hibri, Mir-Hosseini explains that Muslim women experience the law as an imperfect representation of the Qurʾan; therefore what is required is a distinction between the concepts shariʿa and fiqh. The inequality in fiqh, she argues, is not “a manifestation of divine justice”, but a construction of male jurists “contrary to the very essence of divine will as revealed in the sacred texts” (Mir-Hosseini 2003, p. 20). Like al-Hibri, she contends that the Qurʾanic ideal is not the reality of contemporary Muslims but that the Qurʾanic ideal does hold the capacity for justice for women. She draws attention to the distinction between shariʿa and fiqh in a manner that separates revelation or religious normativity from legal science and allows for a critique of the latter while maintaining the integrity if not sanctity of the former. In terms of their similarities, both Al-Hibri and Mir-Hosseini make a distinction between more and less authentic historical representation of justice or women’s rights. For al-Hibri, the Qurʾanic norm was never realised in Muslim society and for Mir-Hosseini, legal interpretation has distorted the Qurʾanic norm. Both narratives of justice for women remain within a normative notion of shariʿa or a normative religiosity that was either overlooked by the patriarchy of early Muslim society or thwarted by the patriarchy of later juristic society. In her approach Mir-Hosseini argues that to adapt the law to new and changing social circumstances historical concepts must be re-examined, which requires that the male monopoly on knowledge-making be broken and that women participate in the production of knowledge. The aim of this approach is to bring women’s knowledge and experiences into the conceptual production of Islamic law. Central to this approach is a challenge to historical understandings of women’s sexuality in order to sever the implicit link between rights and sex difference, which Mir-Hosseini does (2003, p. 20). Rather than defining women’s sexuality and associated gender specific rights in terms of “woman’s nature” and “divine will”, she suggests a social constructionist view that meets with contemporary familial and social circumstances (Mir-Hosseini 2003, p. 20). This shift is designed to release reformers from “old fiqh wisdoms” and allow for

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“new questions and new answers” reflecting contemporary realities (Mir-Hosseini 2003, p. 21). Conceptual deconstruction in Mir-Hosseini’s work applies to ideas of justice and female sexuality. In reconstructing concepts of justice she distinguishes between shariʿa (considered to be imbued with justice) and fiqh (considered as a human endeavour). Similarly, she distinguishes between the demand for legal justice in the present and the moral justice in the afterlife. Some aspects of classical Muslim family law that were reproduced in modern legal codes, she explains, have become empty; they are now only legal shells and no longer in line with ideas of justice associated with the notion of shariʿa (2009, p. 47). Her idea of justice in the historical law is further qualified by attention to the historicity of gender equality. Contemporary notions of gender equality and human rights, she argues, had “no place and little relevance to the classical jurists’ conceptions of justice” (2009, p. 37). More than the letter or the systems of the law, this approach is concerned with the concepts underpinning the application of the law. For example, a change in the foundational understandings of sex difference and equality, Mir-Hosseini argues, would expand a wife’s rights and limit a husband’s arbitrary powers over his wife (2003, p. 25). The separation of enforceable legal rights and unenforceable moral obligations reflects essentialist notions of sex difference and the links drawn between rights and sexuality. In another example, in highlighting the intersecting boundaries between moral and legal rights she draws attention to the connection between a man’s legal right to wide-ranging marital powers which are legally enforceable, and the discourses of morality intended to restrain these powers which are legally unenforceable. The potential for this argument is evident in her more recent work with Musawah – an international non-governmental organisation that advocates for equality and justice for women as Muslims and citizens; here Mir-Hosseini explains that the concept of justice in Islamic law was not historically contingent upon gender equality (Mir-Hosseini et al. 2015). Because historically Islamic law did not include gender equality in its understanding of justice, she argues that contemporary assessments of the law must be premised upon new ideas of justice, including gender equality. Al-Hibri and Mir-Hosseini, much like Sonbol earlier, argue that Islamic law is redeemable through an authentic message of justice found in the Qurʾan. While they argue for reform responsive to contemporary gender concerns, we cannot tell the degree to which their suggestions might allow reform efforts to entirely abandon Qurʾanic norms of sex difference. My analysis is that a reinterpretive approach would be less flexible in the degree of change allowed. Unless there is room to formulate a new jurisprudence, if juristic reinterpretation is the preferred route for reform, then the degree of reform is limited to the parameters of historical jurisprudence. Comparing the two, al-Hibri works with a legal framework drawn exclusively from traditional understandings of sex difference, namely complementarity and equity rather equality. Mir-Hosseini’s work appears to align more with an international human rights law paradigm that she brings to bear upon the practice of Islamic law. In her recent work with Musawah, Mir-Hosseini’s analysis of Islamic law functions in the space where an international human rights-based framework is combined with Islamic legal reasoning. Moving away from arguments for reinterpretation, this approach offers a conceptual and deconstructionist turn in that it separates shariʿa and fiqh, reframes the divisions between law and morality and separates contemporary and historical notions of gender and sexuality. In

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advocating for notions of justice that include gender equality and distinguishing a specifically human rights legal paradigm that includes the concerns for “equality in the Muslim family”, which is also the by-line of Musawah, Mir-Hosseini’s approach represents the beginnings of a turn toward a conceptual deconstruction in women-centred legal reform. Other more recent work in the vein of conceptual deconstruction includes the work of Saadia Yacoob whose doctoral thesis (2016) deconstructs categories of male and female through a study of sexual desire. The discursive construction of gendered legal subjectivity illustrates how legal norms pivot around the centrality of the “gaze and experience of the male body” (Yacoob 2016, p. 14). Seeking to rationalise legal precedent, the result is a set of gendered legal norms that display conceptual inconsistencies and tensions designed to maintain the “legal fiction” of the desiring male and desirable female, which holds together the internal world of the legal text (Yacoob 2016, p. 12). Marion Katz too has interrogated the category woman to conclude that it is not a universal category exclusive of age or other aspects of social status (2015). And in other work I (Seedat 2015) have examined the female legal subject of historical legal theory concluding that the woman of Islamic law is neither singularly nor uniformly constituted, and nor does the female legal subject of Islamic law move in time with the identity “woman”.

Ethics-based reform approach Offering a third approach, Kecia Ali is a professor of Islamic law whose primary work lies in the area of marriage and divorce law, first published in an anthology Progressive Muslims (Ali 2003). Part of her doctoral study, this innovative analysis of marriage and divorce law in early legal literature drew conceptual links between legal treatment of marriage and slavery. Her earlier writing online, featured through the Brandeis University’s Feminist Sexual Ethics Project, offered a new path of thinking on the intersections of sex difference, sexuality and law, including an ethical analysis of sexuality focused legal norms. She concretised these ethical concerns in her book Sexual Ethics and Islam (Ali 2006). Ali’s work on sexual ethics extends beyond marriage and divorce to sexual, racial and religious difference and discrimination. She analyses not only the limits to which Islamic law can accommodate change in the field of marriage and divorce, but also, more generally matters of sexual difference, power, authority and the hierarchical relationship between the believer and the Divine. To illustrate the ethical dilemma in its most significant form, she questions the role of slavery in the Qurʾanic paradigm of justice, a permission which requires a much more critical assessment of the notion that the Qurʾan represents a universally applicable notion of justice. These arguments are drawn out further in her study of marriage in early Islam. Extending the questions that Mir-Hosseini raised regarding sexuality and equality as well as the link between legal and moral obligations, Ali approaches the law as an ethical system, attending to the relationship between enforceable duties and ethical obligations in the context of contemporary social and economical determinates of marriage, family and sex (2006, pp. xxi and xxii). Accordingly, I characterise this as an ethics-based reform approach. She focuses on normative legal doctrine and prioritises classical textual sources because, as she observes, the arena of sexual ethics is precisely the arena where “normative Islamic texts and thought have been, and continue to be most influential” (Ali 2006, p. xix). An ethical analysis requires an engagement with the Islamic intellectual heritage aimed at renewing and invigorating Muslim ethical thought (Ali 2006, p. xx). However, Ali is cognisant of the limitations of the Islamic heritage and cautions against blind optimism and 91

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romanticism (2006, p. 153). Pragmatic in her approach, Ali puts the utility of the Qurʾan as a source for egalitarian reform in perspective, arguing that the “Qurʾan itself poses challenges for those committed to egalitarian social and intimate relationships” (2006, p. 153). MirHosseini’s incursions into accountability and sexuality receive detailed attention when Ali reflects on the limits of “revelatory support” for women as “fully sexual in a way that recognises their status as moral agents” (2006, p. 154). Ali is equally wary of uncritical Muslim feminist exegesis and cautions against the uncritical adoption of an equality paradigm as the foundation of justice. She is concerned that contemporary reformers do not become as dogmatic about the assumption “that equality is necessary for justice”, as classical exegetes were in their assumptions of male superiority (Ali 2006, p. 133). Arguing for a comprehensive rethinking of Islamic sexual ethics she suggests an “ethics of sexual intimacy” based on “meaningful consent and mutuality”; neither, she argues further, are possible within the classical jurists’ understandings of lawful sexuality (2006, p. 151). This ethics-based approach is critical of other approaches, which Ali calls neo-conservatist and apologist, based on their commitment in the first instance to women’s primary construction as wives whose main responsibility is household management, and in the second to “women’s protections under Islamic law”; namely, the dower as a deterrent to divorce and an economic safety net, and the exemption from housework as a right or a sign that women are “companions” and not maids to their husbands (Ali 2003, pp. 107, 174, 177–179). For an ethics-based approach, the analytic frames of patriarchal legal thought are unsuitable to gender justice, if not “entirely inadequate” to the legal aspirations of Muslim society today (Ali 2003, p. 182), demonstrated through an appraisal of traditional jurisprudence and the fundamental assumptions that form the basis of family structure in Islamic law. Ali’s bold treatment of same sex relationships makes obvious the sorts of interrogations necessary to make historical legal paradigms relevant for contemporary Muslim ethics. Summarily, Ali argues for nothing less than “a new jurisprudence” (2003, p. 183). Rather that “piecemeal modification” of doctrines “until we come up with something we can live with”, reform processes must be comprehensive, necessarily begin anew, using new assumptions and shape new laws to recognise “that men and women are ontologically equal, and that ultimately our equality as human beings in the sight of God matters more than any other distinctions based on social hierarchy” (Ali 2003, p. 182). In my analysis, Ali’s approach comes from a direct confrontation with the discomfort entailed in asking difficult questions. This is much like the discomfort that Al-Hibri talks about in describing Muslim women and the impossibility of rejecting even a single word of the Qurʾan. Ali questions the Qurʾan, not in a manner that dismisses its sacrality or centrality to Muslim thought, nor its utility thereto; rather her questioning is the demand for an engagement on the limits of historical norms for contemporary ethics. An ethics-based approach does not question the Qurʾan as a source of legal guidance but reflects on its positionality in the reform process. Primarily it questions the existing structural assumptions that the law is built upon, namely gender and religious difference and the concomitant loci of authority that they produce, which are primarily androcentric. At the centre of this approach is firstly the ethical challenge of contesting the immutability of laws and then challenging the limits that these laws establish on women’s moral agency over their sexual subjectivity. Ali’s suggestions are transformative, expansive and hold the potential for far-reaching ethical reform, which Sa’diyya Shaikh’s (2012) work has also pre-empted in her presentation of a philosophy of sex difference sourced from the writings of Ibn Arabi. Shaikh examines the 92

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meanings of humanity for males and females, the impact of gendering the divine-human relationship and consequently “intimate relationships between the sexes” with a view to unpacking an “ethical core of Islamic values” that speak to concerns for gender justice amongst contemporary Muslim communities (2012). Similarly Zahra Ayubi (2019) examines historical and contemporary understandings of masculinity and femininity through a study of equality. Islamic cosmologies are examined for the gendered ontologies underpinning the consequent hierarchies of difference. Her conclusions on “an instrumental femininity in relation to a rational masculinity” (Ayubi 2019, p. 7) offer critical readings from an Islamic feminist philosophy of gender.

Narratives of sex difference Further to these reformist approaches, amongst the collectivity of the study of women and Islamic law there are important distinctions emerging in the ways that scholars analyse sex difference in Islamic law. While the modernist narrative of gendered legal subjectivity in Islam has presented sex difference in a paradigm of sexual complementarity, more recent narratives emerging from feminist interpretations of the law have also produced new and contested alternative understandings of Muslim women as subjects of Islamic law. I identify a normative narrative of complementarity prevalent in modernist scholarship of which Abdurrahman Doi’s (1989) work is illustrative. Next, are Shaheen Sardar Ali’s equality based human rights narrative and two further narratives represented by Judith Tucker and Kecia Ali. Respectively Tucker and Ali illustrate to us what I call a narrative of disability, and a narrative of sexuality or alternately a narrative of marriage.2 The normative modern narrative in studies on women and Islamic law has been that men and women are complementary to each other; the female subject of the law complements a normative male subject.3 By contrast, critical studies have taken issue with the normalisation and subsequent privileging of the male legal subject that the complementary narrative is founded upon to argue against sex difference as the primary distinction between men and women as subjects of law.4 Commonly, however, both normative and critical studies constitute the female legal subject through a narrative of tension between women and men or matters of equality and inequality. Though each suggests a different approach to women as legal persons, they come together in positing a female legal subject in tension with a male subject, who operates in a dual and at times contradictory manner.5 Without devaluing the potential for a rights-based analysis, I find the narrative that distinguishes the subjectivities of a wife from other gender-based subjectivities to be the more productive of the four narratives in the struggle for equality through the paradigms of Islamic law. While the disability narrative uses the concept of a female legal subject with an “impeccable” textual pedigree yet circumscribed by patriarchal social norms, the narrative does not hold well for reform efforts once we recognise that even the textual pedigree of the female legal subject is formulated in a patriarchal paradigm.6 Working with Kecia Ali’s analysis, it is evident that the unique legal incapacities imposed upon women’s sexuality cause “marriage” or “being a wife” to function as potential impediments to women’s full legal capacity such that marital and sexual status qualifies or delimits female legal subjectivity (Seedat 2015). At this point in legal developments on women and Islamic law, recognising this last narrative may be most productive for Muslim women’s equality-based reforms.

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The politics of knowledge production and further studies A large part of the legal reform work above rests on the lived experiences of Muslim women who inhabit various measures of conformity or resistance to the strictures of Islamic law. The two elements central to gender-based law reform are a re-engagement with the historical legal tradition and a call for accountability or a recognition of the ethical aspects of legal obligations. The profiles of some scholars demonstrate that they are also engaged in national and international activist communities; amongst these are the international networks Women Living Under Muslims Laws (based in the UK) and Musawah (based in Malaysia), as well as Karamah in the USA and Sisters in Islam in Malaysia. Activists have been deeply embedded in academic circles and vice versa, both similarly responsible for the maturing and deepening of knowledge and understanding of gender and Islamic law. Reflecting on the politics of knowledge production to recognise how intellectual and pedagogic motives align to the processes of empire and colonisation, the question of who studies Islam and who is studied in Islam may similarly be applied to speak to the politics of the study of gender and Islamic law (Chaudhry 2015). The male gaze is central to the production of Islamic law in the colonial and post-colonial presentations of Islamic law; early approaches to Islamic law were premised upon the “kernel-like” understandings of shariʿa, and in contrast, recent Muslim women’s engagements have worked in the opposite direction, namely to open up the study of the law, its categories and in so doing also its assumptions. The various approaches to gender-based reform and the different ways in which gendered subjectivities are shaped in the discussions above indicate the rich contours of the field of gender and Islamic law. The collective effect of this work has been to trouble easy acceptance of a static notion of shariʿa, in effect to “pop” the received kernel of normativity and piety that it represents, and in its place to show the inner workings of the law, namely the gendered systems that produce the law and the gendered assumptions that the law rests upon. Gender-based law reform efforts question the laws’ processes and also the laws’ understanding of women, gender and sexuality. In imperial, colonial and neocolonial practice, law and gender are two vital axes through which religious authority is produced in Muslim communities. Collectively, the response to the historical law and its colonial and nation state transformations has worked with a notion of shariʿa premised on the gendered aspects of its civilising pretensions, namely the assumption that historic gender norms, further managed by the norms of patriarchal colonial or nation states, are appropriate for contemporary Muslims in general and for contemporary Muslim women more specifically. The reform approaches and narratives highlighted here include a separation of fiqh and shariʿa, the reformulation of gender norms, the separation of moral and legal accountability and the demand that both be justiciable, potentially reformulating the concept of marriage and ideas of sexual, religious and other aspects of social difference. And so, the law has become open to critical assessment, in this case from a feminist critique of the gendered biases that historical and modern developments in Islamic law impose upon contemporary Muslim women. This nuanced and complex engagement with the law is a potentially productive step toward reopening of the shariʿa as a critical lens through which to examine the place of the state and other formal and informal legal authorities in determining gender norms. It recognises the historicity of shariʿa and its employment as a means of social control beyond the parameters of legislation and into realm of the self, highlighting the limitations of contemporary legal systems in managing the inner dimensions of the self. It also recognises how the notion of shariʿa fails to address the historically pejorative representations of sex difference. It 94

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argues for reform to make the law relevant to the concerns of contemporary Muslim society, specifically in its entanglements with ideas of sex difference, women’s rights and Muslim women’s aspirations for justice. Ali expresses it as a call for increased, expanded and expansive conceptual paradigms, and a restoration of “philosophical and ethical complexity” (2006, p. 154). While the approaches and narratives highlighted here have appeared over a period of almost 20 years, they are now also present concurrently. Together they offer a variety of alternative feminist approaches to the law and, with some creativity, may be even used collectively. Among the collective effects of this new scholarship is its success in dispelling the simplistic understandings of the relationship between women and the law. Further, by challenging the authority of those who claim the right to determine the law, they have also changed the nature of the discussions on reform, producing a more complex interrogation of the treatment of the notion of shariʿa itself as law and of the law’s treatment of sex difference. Some trajectories for future work will no doubt include more engagement with issues of sexuality and trans-embodiment. The scholarship is still thin in this area but in the area of male homosexuality what exists already is also rich. Less work has been done on female homosexuality and on transsexuality. While the historical archive offers some options there remains much room for critical work on intersexuality in the context of Muslim understandings of legality. More broadly, questions pertaining to the nature and forms of gendered legal subjectivity are likely to be most relevant to the immediate concerns for gender-based reforms in Islamic law broadly.

Notes 1 The organisations website: http://karamah.org/ 2 For this see Shaheen Sardar Ali, Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law: Equal before Allah, Unequal before Man? (The Hague and Boston: Kluwer Law International, 2000); Judith E. Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). 3 For studies that take this approach see, Doi, Women in Shariah; M. Mutahhari, The Rights of Women in Islam, 1st ed. (Tehran, Iran: World Organization for Islamic Services, 1981); Lamya Loisa alFaruqi, Women, Muslim Society, and Islam (Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publication, 1991). 4 For studies that take this approach see, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law: Iran and Morocco Compared (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1993); Azizah Yahia al-Hibri, “Muslim Women’s Rights in the Global Village: Challenges and Opportunities,” Journal of Law and Religion XV, no. 1&2 (2000) pp. 37–66; Nayereh Tohidi, “Women’s Rights in the Muslim World: The Universal-Particular,” Hawwa 1, no. 2 (2003) pp. 152–188; Riffat Hassan, “Members, One of Another: Gender Equality and Justice in Islam,” www.religiousconsultation.org/hassan. htm#contents. 5 For this tension see the works of Doi, Women in Shariah; Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender; Ali, Marriage and Slavery. 6 Specifically Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender; Ali, Marriage and Slavery.

Further reading Ali, Kecia (2010) Marriage and slavery in early Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kecia Ali investigates how 8th–10th century Muslim jurists conceptualized marriage as analogous to slavery, showing how this parallel emerged out of scriptural interpretation, local practice, and precedent. Azam, H. (2015). Sexual violation in Islamic Law: substance, evidence, and procedure (Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In this book, Hina Azam traces six

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centuries of Muslim jurists’ writings on sexuality and sexual violation, explaining how two divergent positions emerged over whether to provide compensation to victims and the tensions that such positions produced. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba (1993) Marriage on trial: a study of Islamic family law: Iran and Morocco compared. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.This important book shows how Muslim women navigated family law systems and found ways to advocate for themselves and their children in cases concerning divorce, child custody, and other family issues.

References Ahmed, Leila (1992) Women and gender in Islam: historical roots of a modern debate. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. al-Faruqi, Lamya Loisa (1991) Women, Muslim society, and Islam. Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications. al-Hibri, Azizah Yahia (2000) Muslim women’s rights in the global village: challenges and opportunities. Journal of Law and Religion XV(1&2), pp. 37–66. ——— (2001) Redefining Muslim women’s roles in the next century. In Democracy and the rule of law. Edited by Norman Dorsen and Prosser Gifford. Washington, DC: CQ Press, pp. 90–100. Ali, Kecia (2003) Progressive Muslims and Islamic Jurisprudence: the necessity for critical engagement with marriage and divorce law. In Progressive Muslims on justice, gender and pluralism. Edited by Omid Safi. Oxford: Oneworld, pp. 163–189. ——— (2006) Sexual ethics and Islam: feminist reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith, and Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld. ——— (2010) Marriage and slavery in early Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ayubi, Zahra (2019). Gendered morality: classical Islamic ethics of the self, family, and society. New York: Columbia University Press. Azam, Hina (2013). Rape as a variant of fornication (Zinā) in Islamic Law: an Examination of the Early Legal Reports. Journal of Law and Religion 28(2), pp. 441–466. ——— (2015). Sexual violation in Islamic Law: substance, evidence, and procedure (Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Badawi, Jamal (1999). Gender equity in Islam: basic principles. Plainfield, IN: American Trust Publications. Chaudhry, Ayesha (2015). Domestic violence and the Islamic tradition: ethics, law, and the Muslim discourse on gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doi, Abdur Rahman (1989) Women in shariah (Islamic Law). London: Taha Publishers Ltd. Engineer, Asghar Ali (2001) Islam, women and gender justice. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. ——— (2008) Rights of women in Islam. New Delhi: Sterling. Katz, Marion (2015) Women in the mosque: a history of legal thought and local practice. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba (1993) Marriage on trial: a study of Islamic family law: Iran and Morocco compared. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. ——— (2003) The construction of gender in Islamic legal thought and strategies for reform. Hawwa 1 (1), pp. 1–28. ——— (2004) The quest for gender justice. Emerging feminist voices in Islam. Islam 21(36). Available online at: www.fu-berlin.de/sites/gpo/tagungen/tagungfeministperspectives/Mir_Hosseini.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2019]. ——— (2009) Towards gender equality, Muslim family laws and the shari’ah. In Wanted: equality in the Muslim family. Edited by Zainah Anwar. Petaling Jaya: Musawah, pp. 23–64. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, Al-Sharmani, Mulki, and Rumminger, Jana (2015). Men in charge? Rethinking authority in Muslim legal tradition. London: Oneworld. Mutahhari, Murtaza (1981) The rights of women in Islam. 1st ed. Tehran, Iran: World Organization for Islamic Services. Quraishi, Asifa (1997) Her honor: an Islamic critique of the rape laws of Pakistan from a woman-sensitive perspective. Michigan Journal of International Law 18, pp. 287–320. ——— (2013) A meditation on Mahr, modernity, and Muslim marriage contract law. In Feminism, law and religion. Edited by Marie Failinger and Elizabeth Schlitz. Ashgate Publishing Co, pp. 173–196.

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Salvatore, Armando (2000) The Islamic reform project in the emerging public sphere: the meta normative redefinition of shariah. In Between Europe and Islam: shaping modernity in a transcultural space. Edited by Almut Hefert and Armando Salvatore. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, pp. 89–108. Sardar Ali, Shaheen (2000) Gender and human rights in Islam and international law: equal before Allah, unequal before man? The Hague and Boston: Kluwer Law International. Seedat, Fatima (2015) Sex and the legal subject: woman and legal capacity in Hanafi law. PhD Dissertation McGill University. Available online at: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA/R/?func=dbin-jumpfull&object_id=130731 [Accessed 9 December 2019]. Shaikh, Sa’diyya (2012) Sufi narratives of intimacy: Ibn Arabi, gender, and sexuality. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. E-book. Siddique, Kaukab (1994). The struggle of Muslim women. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Jamaat al Muslimeen. Sonbol, Amira El-Azhary (1998). Ṭ aeˉ ʻa and modern legal reform: a rereading. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 9, pp. 285–294. ——— (2006) Mixed and other courts: women and the modern patriarchy. In Beyond the exotic: women’s histories in Islamic societies. Edited by Amira Elazhary Sonbol. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press, pp. 198–226. ——— (2016). Marriage contracts in Islamic history. In Changing God’s law: the dynamics of Middle Eastern family law. Edited by Nadjma Yassari, Lena-Maria Möller, and Imen Gallala-Arndt. London: Routledge, pp. 225–244. Tohidi, Nayereh (2003) Women’s rights in the Muslim world: the universal-particular.”Hawwa 1(2), pp. 152–188. Tucker, Judith E. (2008) Women, family, and gender in Islamic law. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Turabi, Hassan (1973) Women in Islam and Muslim society. translation of Turabi’s 1973 publication available online at: soundvision.com/book/export/html/2765 [Accessed 9 December 2019].

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PART II

Sex, sexuality, and gender difference

6 APPLYING GENDER AND QUEER THEORY TO PRE-MODERN SOURCES1 Ash Geissinger

What can gender and queer theory contribute to the historical study of pre-modern Muslim sources? What do we lose if we fail to consider the questions that gender theory and queer theory raise for our approaches to these sources, and our understandings of them? Gender theory challenges the presumption that gender categories such as ‘man’ or ‘woman’ exist outside of specific historical circumstances, cultural contexts, and power relations (e.g. Butler, 1999). Queer theory critically examines gender and sexual identities, as well as categorizations of sexual desires or practices as ‘normative’ or ‘deviant,’ asking what such classifications foreground, marginalize, or erase, where and how they do so, and why (Jagose, 1996). Gender and queer theory have been utilized in the academic study of religion in North America for several decades (for an overview see Schippert, 2011). More recently, a growing number of scholars are fruitfully applying gender theory and queer theory to the study of late 19th and early 20th century Muslim writings (e.g. Najmabadi, 2005; Mian, 2019), as well as to contemporary Muslim societies, communities, and discourses (e.g. Amar and El Shakry, 2013; Kiriakos-Fugate, 2019). A small number of studies have analysed some pre-modern Muslim sources in light of questions suggested by gender theory or queer theory (e.g. Ze’evi, 2006; Babayan and Najmabadi, 2008; for some methodological issues involved see Traub, 2008). Yet, this is still uncommon, particularly in the case of texts typically regarded by Muslims as most religiously authoritative. These typically continue to be read, analysed, and taught by academics in ways which are both heteronormative and based on the presumption that the gender binary familiar to contemporary North Americans, Western Europeans, and people in many other parts of the world, including many Muslim-majority communities, is universal across time and space. This state of affairs is beginning to change (e.g. Geissinger, 2015, 2017; Seedat, 2018; Ali, 2019a), yet the potential for analysis informed by gender and queer theory to contribute to more historically grounded understandings of such texts is still not widely recognized. This chapter first discusses some of the factors that interact in order to produce the appearance of a body of texts that are heteronormative and solidly based on a binary view of gender – which Fatima Seedat aptly characterizes as a ‘straightened’ classical tradition that ‘exclude[s] fluidity and ambiguity’ (2018, p.153). Then, it demonstrates some of the ways that utilizing questions suggested by gender and queer theory can result in more careful

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analysis of representations of space, power and authority, social status, and intracommunal boundary negotiations in hadiths and tradition-based classical Muslim sources. In order to do this, several texts from hadith compilations as well as one from a biographical work which refer to several different gender categories will be read analytically in order to determine what types of ‘cultural labor’ these references perform (for this type of reading see Najmabadi, 2005, 2006). As will be shown, minority gender categories or gender presentations as well as what today we would term nonheterosexual desires are not marginal to these particular texts. Rather, their constructions of space, power and authority, proto-Sunni and Sunni ‘orthodoxy,’ and social status actually depend on these things – a point that has rarely been recognized (for literary representations of heterosexuality which rely on male–male sexual desire see Sedgwick, 2008). This chapter will not attempt to date any of these hadiths and traditions attributed to early Muslim figures, and nor will it be presumed that they can be traced back to the Prophet Muhammad or to the persons who are credited with transmitting them. Academic approaches to hadiths have often overemphasized the question of their origins, while paying little attention to their lengthy and complex histories of reception. Even in a case where it is possible to determine that a given saying circulated in mid-7th century CE Arabia, it does not necessarily follow that the person to whom it is attributed actually uttered it. Even more crucially, regardless of what its ‘originally’ intended meaning might have been, we now have access to it as part of an archive of texts which has a complex relationship to historical debates. The formation, organization, and interpretation of this archive was decisively shaped by empire. Therefore, these hadiths and traditions will be examined here with these factors in mind. During the first few centuries of Muslim history, the weight that hadiths ought to have was extensively debated. The claim of the Partisans of Hadith that hadiths provide authoritative guidance for every facet of existence was made in contradistinction to those early Muslims who doubted the reliability of hadiths or had limited use for them (El-Omari, 2012, pp.234–235). As the hadith compilers gathered and organized their hadith collections, they positioned themselves as the true heirs of the Prophet Muhammad’s legacy and the practice of the early generations (the salaf) – over against other Muslims with whom they disagreed. These compilations portray the perspectives of some free Muslim male scholars on one side of these debates as normative for the community. One result is that when other gendered figures are made textually visible, it is typically in relation to this imagined norm. Constructions of gender categories as well as of normative sexual desires and practices are central to empire (McClintock, 1995; Gopinath, 2005). For our purposes here, two imperial moments are particularly salient: the 7th century CE Arab conquests and their aftermath, and the present. The first of these moments decisively shaped how words and deeds credited to the Prophet Muhammad as well as the lives and opinions of the early generations of Muslims came to be remembered. Later generations recalled, circulated, and recorded these in order to address questions that arose in their own Muslim imperial contexts. In addition, the present Western neocolonial moment shapes the ways that classical Muslim texts are read.

A ‘straightened’ tradition According to Mā lik, Hishā m b. ʿUrwa reported from his father that a transgender man (mukhannath) was with Umm Salama, the wife of the Prophet (pbuh). He said to ʿAbd Allā h b. Abı̄ Umayya while the Messenger of God (pbuh) was listening, ‘ʿAbd Allā h, if God grants you victory at Ṭā ʾif tomorrow, I will show you the daughter of Ghaylā n: when she walks toward you, she is a real beauty, but when 102

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she turns her back to you, she is even more of a sight to behold!’ The Messenger of God (pbuh) then said, ‘Men such as these are not of the sort who should be present with you in private.’ (as quoted in Katz, 2019) A milestone in Muslim legal studies was reached at the close of 2019 with the completion of a new translation into English of the Muwattaʾ, a legally focused compilation of traditions credited to the eponymous founder of the Maliki legal school, Malik b. Anas (d. 795). This translation was sponsored by the government of Morocco and carried out by an international team of translators. In order to mark this august occasion, ten specialists in the study of Islamic law were invited to present their reflections at a roundtable held at Harvard University. In her contribution, Marion Katz quotes the above hadith (henceforth, ‘the Ghaylan’s daughter tradition’). Calling attention to the editors’ decision to translate two words, ‘mukhannath’ and ‘muʾannath’ (the latter appears in the sub-chapter heading) as ‘transgender,’ Katz comments that [t]he word’s obvious advantages are its familiarity and its inoffensiveness. The flip side of these benefits is its erasure of difference, both between the gender categories of the modern English-speaking world and those of seventh-century Arabia, and between the two Arabic terms muʾannath and mukhannath. (Katz, 2019) While I would agree that the editors likely aimed to provide a nondenigrating English equivalent for ‘mukhannath,’ translating this word as ‘transgender man’ is not only anachronistic, but incorrect. In contemporary North American English, a transgender man is a person who was assigned female at birth (typically, due to the appearance of their genitalia), but identifies as male – which usually involves some degree of social transition (e.g. adopting a male name and masculine pronouns, wearing male attire), and possibly also medical transition (e.g. taking testosterone, undergoing gender confirmation surgeries). However, as Everett Rowson’s pioneering research demonstrates, mukhannaths were a class of persons in early Muslim history (and likely also in pre-Islamic Arabia) who had been born with a penis, yet they habitually spoke, moved, behaved, and adorned themselves in ways that were deemed to more closely approximate what was regarded as appropriate for females (1991, pp.672–675). Nor would the term ‘transgender woman’ – meaning a person who was designated male at birth (due to the appearance of their genitals) but identifies as female (which typically entails some level of social and possibly also medical transition) – have been accurate. Mukhannaths evidently did not regard themselves as female, and nor did others categorize them as such. While the Ghaylan’s daughter tradition as well as some anecdotes in Arabic literary texts depict them socializing with free elite secluded women who usually did not mingle with free adult males not closely related to them, this was allowed due to the presumption that mukhannaths did not have sexual interest in females (Rowson, 1991, p.675). ‘Mukhannath’ evidently constituted a gender category on its own (Rowson, 2003, p.56; Geissinger, 2015, p.34). A simple solution would have been to leave this word untranslated and provide an explanatory footnote. However, its (mis)translation as ‘transgender man’ can be said to do several types of cultural work. It both acknowledges that some sort of nonnormative gendered behavior is involved, while at the same time presenting gender as inevitably binary and always determined by genitalia. It also implies that the lustful description of 103

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Ghaylan’s daughter’s body was voiced by a man, which banishes the specter of any sexual desire which does not fit into a heteronormative and cisnormative framework from the hallowed space of the Prophet’s household (for same-sex sexual desires in some mostly later classical texts, see e.g. El-Rouayheb, 2005; Habib, 2009). These moves help sustain the construction of early Muslim Medina as a usable past which today’s English-speaking conservatively pious Muslim readers can experience as reassuringly familiar and as a source of inspiration, rather than as unsettlingly strange. They are also designed to minimize obstacles to the ready comprehension and appreciation of the Muwattaʾ by academics who are not specialists in Muslim legal history but seek to gain insight into early Muslim legal thinking. Ultimately, they reflect the apprehension that both types of readers are ill-equipped to encounter ‘too much’ alterity in the text (Ali, 2019b; Katz, 2019). As this example illustrates, several factors interact in order to produce the appearance of a ‘straightened tradition’: neocolonial power dynamics, still-common presumptions that gender and sexuality are ‘natural’ and have no history to be investigated, and the difficulty experienced by many when attempting to think beyond binary views of gender. Available evidence points to the existence of a degree of variety in human genital configurations, in their correspondence with internal reproductive organs, hormone levels, and chromosomes (Blackless et al., 2000), as well as with gendered self-understanding and comportment. The social meanings given to such diversity have differed and continue to differ, depending on historical and cultural context (e.g. Westphal-Hellbusch, 1997; Nanda, 1999; Gesink, 2018). Yet, the following beliefs are still widely treated as commonsensical in North America and Western Europe: ‘that there are only two genders, that one’s gender is invariant and permanent, that genitals are essential signs of gender, that there are no exceptions, that gender dichotomy and gender membership are “natural”’ (Shapiro, 1991, p.257). While the increased visibility of intersex, trans, and nonbinary persons in Western Europe and North America are beginning to unsettle such reflexive assumptions in those regions, Western neocolonial political, military, and economic power as well as cultural influence worldwide often still construct and reaffirm such claims as normative in multiple ways. Presumptions of these types have resulted in misreadings of the ways that classical Muslim texts present gender as well as sexual desires and acts. Such misreadings appear in academic publications, as well as in Muslims writing from confessional perspectives from the 19th century onward (Najmabadi, 2005; Ze’evi, 2006; Gesink, 2018). While the hadith corpus as well as other hadith-based sources do not present what we would regard as a unitary gender system, they do construct a hierarchical view of gender, in which the freeborn Muslim adult, sane and able-bodied man, embodies hegemonic masculinity – the normative, ‘most honoured way of being a man’ in a given society, over and against various subordinated masculinities (for hegemonic and subordinated masculinities, see Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005; for constructions of Muhammad’s masculinity see Roded, 2006; Knight, 2016). This status is associated with certain abilities, traits, legal entitlements, and responsibilities, which follow from the belief that of all human beings, such a man is the most religiously, intellectually, and physically complete. It is correlated with reason and eloquence, as well as courage, virility, and strength. Legally speaking, it is linked to the maximal ability to act independently, to exercise control over one’s own body, movements, and domicile, to sexual entitlement to the bodies of his wives and female slaves,2 and to the obligation to protect, supervise, and discipline dependents of lesser status – particularly wives, children, and those who are enslaved. All other categories of persons are positioned at various removes below (Geissinger, 2015, 2017). Gender categories

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are not presented in monolithic terms in such sources; they are ‘internally fractured’ (Najmabadi, 2006, p.12) due to important distinctions such as free/enslaved status, age, and lineage (Katz, 2016).

Queering constructions of ritual space Subchapter: Prayer Leadership by One Who is Beguiled (al-maftū n) and One Who Innovates Al-Hasan said, ‘Pray (behind him), and his innovation will be counted against him alone.’ … ʿUbaydallah b. ʿAdi b. Khiyyar, that he visited ʿUthman b. ʿAffan while he was under siege, and said to him, ‘You are the imam of the community, and you see what has happened to you. An imam of fitna leads us in prayer, and we shun (it).’ (ʿUthman) responded, ‘Prayer is the best deed that people perform, so when people do good, then do good along with them. If they do evil, then keep away from their evil.’ … al-Zuhri said, ‘In our opinion, one does not pray behind a mukhannath unless out of necessity, (meaning that) there is no avoiding it.’ … Anas b. Malik said (that) the Prophet said to Abu Dharr, ‘Hear and obey, even if (your leader) is an Abyssinian whose head is like a raisin!’ (Al-Bukhā rı̄ , 1979, vol.1, p.376)3 The first mention of mukhannaths in al-Bukhari’s (d. 870) Sahih appears in this subchapter (henceforth, ‘the prayer leadership subchapter’). While other subchapters in this work which discuss aspects of congregational prayers in mosques or elsewhere present free male adult protoSunni Muslims as the normative prayer leaders and congregants, the prayer leadership subchapter momentarily includes mukhannaths in such spaces. But this temporary unsettling of the textual norm serves to construct proto-Sunni rituals and beliefs as correct and authoritative by linking them with hegemonic masculinity, as well as with cosmic and imperial order. In this subchapter, political, sectarian, and ritual concerns are fused, as the ritual-legal question of whether a proto-Sunni worshipper’s prayer in a congregation led by an innovator or a mukhannath is valid is addressed by hadiths about civil war and the duty of obedience to the ruler. It begins with a legal ruling attributed to a well-known Successor al-Hasan (d. 728), who opines that if a person prays behind an innovator – in other words, a heretic – then the latter’s sin of heresy accrues only to him. The first tradition quoted presents the third caliph, ʿUthman (r. 644–656), under siege in his house by the rebels who would soon assassinate him. It is under these dire circumstances that ʿUthman is questioned about the acceptability of praying behind an unnamed man who is described here as an ‘imam of fitna’ (chaos, civil war) who had not been designated by him to lead the congregational prayers. That the situation has come to this makes undeniable the crisis that now faces Muhammad’s followers. Nevertheless, ʿUthman directs the questioner to pray behind the unauthorized imam, while keeping his distance from any wrong actions that the latter or his supporters are involved in. Next, a legal ruling attributed to the well-known Successor al-Zuhri (d. 742) declares that a mukhannath is not to be taken as a congregational prayer leader unless this is unavoidable for some reason. Finally, this subchapter concludes with a hadith in which Muhammad instructs one of his Companions to obey the leader even if he is not from the Quraysh tribe. In early Islamic history, Qurayshi descent was among the prerequisites for a legitimate caliph (Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalā nı̄ , 2001, vol.2, pp.268–269; for this hadith see Crone, 1994; Juynboll, 2007, p.488). 105

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Here, al-Bukhari associates those whose beliefs he deems heretical (including Kharijis, Shiʿis, and Muʿtazilis; for classical commentators’ elaborations of this point see e.g. Ibn Baṭṭā l, 2003, vol.1, pp.386–387) with the rebels who infamously instigated the First Fitna (civil war). Sunni retellings present this event as a calamity. Therefore, al-Bukhari’s affirmation that in the absence of an alternative, one can perform prayers in a congregation led by a heretic is not an expression of tolerance; his aim is to prevent further weakening of the community due to internal strife. By quoting al-Zuhri’s reported ruling, he scornfully emphasizes the distance between ‘correct’ belief and groups he deems heretical by implicitly comparing the latter to mukhannaths. Two subchapters earlier, al-Bukhari asserts that enslaved men, freedmen, prostitutes’ sons, or boys can be followed in prayer if they know more Qurʾan. Significantly, he does not include mukhannaths in that list of subordinated masculinities. While it seems that in his view, as mukhannaths have penises they are similar enough to men to be considered as possible prayer leaders (al-Bukhari does not discuss female prayer leaders even for other women), they are too proximate to femaleness to be allowed to do so except in unusual circumstances. He presents the the mukhannath as a figure who is maftū n, beguiled, led astray – a grammatically passive word. However, ‘maftū n’ has the same root as ‘fitna,’ which implicitly links the mukhannath to the ‘imam of fitna’ mentioned in the first hadith. As has often been pointed out, ‘fitna’ is associated with femaleness in more than one sense; this grammatically feminine word can mean ‘beautiful woman’ as well as ‘temptation’ (for sources see Geissinger, 2015, p.147, n.154). Mukhannaths at the ʿAbbasid court in Baghdad were often associated with joking (which at times involved offense to some people’s religious sensibilities) as well as playing receptive roles in anal intercourse (Rowson, 2003, pp.56–65). Such characteristics – frivolousness, deficiency in religion, sexual receptivity – were associated with femaleness (Geissinger, 2015, pp.38–53). In his discussion of the prayer leadership subchapter in his commentary on al-Bukhari’s Sahih, Ibn Battal (d.ca. 1052–3) polemically asserts that this means that a mukhannath has been misled into imitating women, while prayer leadership according to all the scholars is a position for the sound (kamā l, lit. ‘complete’, ‘perfect’), and one chosen by the virtuous. The mukhannath resembles women (and) so has a lower (nā qiṣ, lit. ‘deficient’) standing among whoever is eligible for prayer leadership. (Ibn Baṭṭā l, 2003, vol.2, p.387) The mukhannath and the heretic alike are constructed here as feminized figures who prefer their misguided ways, seductively threaten to tempt the community away from the right path, and therefore should not be followed in prayer by proto-Sunnis except in extenuating circumstances.

Queering household order and religious authority Subchapter: The Woman Who Resembles a Man … Ismaʿil, that ʿAʾisha would forbid women who had husbands to leave their shins unadorned, and she would say, ‘The woman should not neglect to use dye (khiḍā b), for the Messenger of God used to detest the rajula.’

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… Fatima bt. al-Mundhir said, ‘I saw Asmaʾ wearing safflower-coloured [clothing] until she met God, and if she wore a shift it would be dyed with safflower.’ … Haram b. ʿUtla, that his aunt informed him that she had seen ʿAʾisha, Mother of the Believers, (adorned) with dye (and) wearing red garments. He said, ‘And I saw Safiyya bt. Shayba (adorned) with dye (and) wearing safflower-coloured garments.’ (ʿAbd al-Razzā q, 1970–2, vol.7, pp.487–488) This subchapter (henceforth, ‘the rajula subchapter’) in the Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzaq (d. 826) utilizes the specter of the rajula – literally, ‘man(like) female’ – in order to delineate the bounds of acceptable comportment for married free women. Here, ʿAʾisha bt. Abi Bakr (d. 678), the wife of the Prophet Muhammad, believed by Sunnis to have been his favourite, instructs women to adorn themselves for their husbands, and also enacts this imperative upon her own body, wearing brightly colored clothing and decorating her hands or feet with henna. In addition, several other early Muslim women either wear appropriate adornments themselves, or recount that others did so – in contradistinction to an abjured figure, the rajula. In the hadith corpus in general, the use of henna as well as other dyes for hair, utilizing henna in order to adorn certain parts of the body or for medicinal purposes, as well as colors which can be used when dyeing clothing, are much-debated issues. Hadiths about such matters function in various ways, drawing boundaries between Muslims and religious Others, subsuming new, post-conquest practices within Muhammad’s sunna, and negotiating ‘correct’ gender performance (Juynboll, 1986). Cloth dyed with safflower (ʿuṣfur) seems to have been associated at times with rebels (Fierro, 1993). Part of what is at issue here is distinguishing between normative and nonnormative gender presentations, sexual desires, and acts. Putting on colorful clothing and henna are presented in this subchapter as a duty for married women, who should beautify themselves for their husbands. This reflects the legal notion that wives owe their husbands sexual submission (Ali, 2010). Such adornments signal that within the social and familial hierarchy, a free married woman’s position is privileged in some important ways (in contradistinction to enslaved men as well as enslaved women), yet also subordinate to their husbands. The implication that rajulas do not adorn themselves with henna or the like hints that their sexual desires or behavior violate the norms upheld by this subchapter in some way. While the likely implication is that they fail to comply with their husbands’ sexual demands, another possibility is that they are suspected of same-sex desires or acts. While some classical commentators mention the latter as one reason that Muhammad reportedly cursed ‘women who resemble men’ (e.g. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalā nı̄ , 2001, vol.10, pp.470–471), it is unclear whether such claims extend as far back as ʿAbd al-Razzaq’s time, much less what connection to reality they might have had. The rajula subchapter also constructs religious authority. The early Muslim women named in this subchapter are granted varying degrees of religious authority as exemplars, as well as hadith transmitters. Asmaʾ bt. Abi Bakr (d. 692) was divorced by her husband and then reportedly lived to a ripe old age, so for a significant portion of her life, the colorful garments and henna that she is said to have worn would not have been intended for his delectation. Rather, they appear to be understood here as having been meant to set a ‘proper’ example of a praiseworthy moderation that avoided both luxury and ‘extreme’ ascetic practices. The attire attributed to her half-sister ʿAʾisha, worn decades after the prophet’s demise, plays a more complex role. The word used for ‘red’ here, ‘muḍarraj,’ can also mean daubed or stained with blood (Ibn al-Athı̄ r, 1963, vol.3, p.81)—which would remind the audience/ 107

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reader of her leading role in the Battle of the Camel (656) during the First Civil War.4 It would also evoke the long history of Sunni-Shiʿi polemics associated with the charge that in so doing, she had sinfully transgressed the limits placed on the prophet’s wives (Spellberg, 1994). But in this textual context, ʿAʾisha’s red clothing is reframed so that it primarily signals her eternal status as Muhammad’s wife who will be reunited with him in Paradise, reminding the audience/reader of her unparalleled religious merits in proto-Sunni eyes. It also paradoxically highlights her religious authority as a reliable source and exemplar of the sunna, in contradistinction to the rajula, whose lack of proper adornment here polemically signifies the reversal of the divinely intended social order. The hadith corpus contains a few other (negative) mentions of rajulas (e.g. Abū Dā wū d, 1994, vol.4, p.28; ʿAbd al-Razzā q, 1970-2, vol.11, p.243), and some brief condemnatory references to mutarajjilā t (‘masculine women’), and ‘those among women who resemble men’ (al-mutashabbihā t min al-nisā ʾ bi-l-rijā l, e.g. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalā nı̄ , 2001, vol.10, p.470; Abū Dā wū d, 1994, vol.4, p.27). It is uncertain if these terms or expressions were ‘originally’ equivalent (though these sources often treat them as such). Whether such figures constituted an identifiable group in Muhammad’s Medina, or if anyone in early Muslim history actually used words such as rajula, mutarajjila, al-mutashabbiha bi-rijā l (or for that matter, mudhakkara— more on the latter word below) in order to describe themselves is unknown. Nor is it clear whether the use of male garb by some girls (most of whom were enslaved and aiming to attract male lovers) in ninth century Baghdad (Rowson, 2003) had any direct connection to such hadiths or terminology. The rajula subchapter presents the rajula as a figure whose disavowal is necessary in order to construct ‘proper’ familial and cosmic order, and as the pious female religious authority’s polar opposite. It reflects profound anxiety over the possibility that free and particularly elite women might not stay in their assigned place within the gender hierarchy. Nonetheless, several works on obscure vocabulary found in hadiths penned from the tenth century onward state, ‘kā nat ʿĀʾisha rajulat al-raʾy’ (lit. ‘ʿAʾisha was a man(like) woman of opinion’)—meaning that the judgments that she made on legal matters were as good as men’s (e.g. AlHarawı̄ , 1999, vol.3, p.721). Majd al-Din Ibn al-Athir (d. 1210) explains that the hadiths stating that the prophet cursed the rajula and the mutarajjila refer to women whose attire or comportment resembles men’s. However, if a woman is like a man in her level of knowledge, good sense, and understanding, then this is praiseworthy; the word ‘rajula’ can be applied to her in a laudatory sense, as it is to ʿAʾisha (Ibn al-Athı̄ r 1963, vol.2, p.203). This latter use of the word ‘rajula’ is an example of an ancient topos which is appears in some late antique Christian writings and classical Muslim texts that speak of a few extraordinarily praiseworthy women as ‘male’ in some sense. While as Cameron Partridge notes, the androcentric aspects of this topos have been well studied, it also requires a critical reading which is not based on cisnormative presumptions (2018, p.72, n.14). Calling ʿAʾisha a rajula in order to praise her as superlatively knowledgeable reflects a hierarchical view of gender, in which intellectual acumen and religious authority over all members of the community are constructed as masculine. This also explains why the word ‘rajula’ (unlike ‘mukhannath’) could be used by classical Muslim authors in order to enhance the prestige of a revered figure. It also illustrates the relational and malleable nature of these gender categories, and their relationship to power. In calling ʿAʾisha a rajula, Ibn al-Athir affirms Sunni beliefs about the authority and reliability of the knowledge that she is said to have transmitted from the prophet—in contradistinction to Shiʿi views, which not only denigrated ʿAʾisha but celebrated their (male) imams as the true custodians of Muhammad’s teachings. At the same time, Ibn al-Athir seems to be concerned about the possibility that 108

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free (and most likely, elite) women might utilize ʿAʾisha’s example in order to transcend some of the gendered limits placed on them. Through delimiting what types of ‘male’ activities or characteristics they can permissibly aspire to, he reaffirms his claim (and by extension, the claims of his fellow male scholars) to hegemonic masculinity and therefore to rightful authority.

Some Basran masculinities: enslaved man, mudhakkara, sā ʾiba, elite freeborn male Abu l-ʿAliyya al-Riyahi: his name was Rufayʿ. A woman from the Banu Riyah freed him sā ʾiba. ʿArim b. al-Fadl—Hammad b. Zayd—Shuʿayb b. al-Habhab—Abu l-ʿAliyya said: A woman bought me. She wanted to manumit me. Her paternal uncle’s sons said to her, ‘If you free him, then he will depart to Kufa, and separate.’ (Abu l-ʿAliyya) said: She brought me to a place in the mosque—if you want, I will show it to you—and she said, ‘You are sā ʾiba.’ Abu l-ʿAliyya made a will for the entirety of his wealth. Hajjaj b. Nusayr—Abu Khalda—Abu l-ʿAliyya said: ‘Whatever gold or silver or property that I leave behind (after I die, I bequeath) a third of it in the path of God, a third of it for the household of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and a third of it for the poor of the Muslims. And give my wife her due.’ Abu Khalda said: I said to him, ‘That is up to you—but where are your patrons?’ (Abu l-ʿAliyya) replied, ‘I will tell you my story. I was a slave of a m-dh-k-ra Bedouin. She met me on Friday and said: ‘Where shall we go, slave? I replied: Let’s go to the mosque. She asked: Which of the mosques? I responded: The central mosque. She said: Come, slave.’ (Abu l-ʿAliyya) said: So she went, and I followed her, until she entered the mosque. The imam met us at the pulpit. She grasped me by the hand and said, ‘O God, preserve him with You as a treasure. Bear witness, o people of the mosque, that he is sā ʾiba for the sake of God. Nobody has any claim against him beyond what is commonly accepted as fair.’ Then she let go (my hand) and left. We did not see each other again. Abu l-ʿAliyya said, ‘And the sā ʾiba resides wheresoever he wishes’ (Ibn Saʿd, 2001, vol.9, pp.111–112) In his Tabaqat, a well-known biographical compendium on early Muslims, Muhammad b. Saʿd (d. 845) begins the entry for the Basran Successor, Qur’an reciter and jurist Abu l-ʿAliyya b. Mihran al-Riyahi (d.ca. 712) by briefly identifying him by name and status. These are intertwined, as ‘al-Riyahi’ refers the tribe—the Banu Riyah, which was a branch of Tamim (Al-Dhahabı̄ , 1981, vol.4, p.207)—of the person who manumitted him, which marks him as a mawla in two senses. A ‘mawla’ means a formerly enslaved man who had been set free, but in early Muslim history it also referred to a non-Arab inhabitant of the newly conquered territories who had (or whose forebears had) affiliated himself to an Arab tribe as a client. These clients (mawā lı̄ ) were deemed part of the early Muslim community, but Arabs often looked down upon them. There were consequential distinctions of status among formerly enslaved persons. Abu l-ʿAliyya is described here as a sā ʾiba, meaning that his owner had set him free without clientage (walā ʾ). The two retellings of the story of his 109

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manumission, both ostensibly recounted in his voice, explain how he attained that status, vividly describing the process of transformation from enslaved man to freedman of a particular type. In the first retelling, Abu l-ʿAliyya is purchased by an unnamed woman, who subsequently wishes to free him. Her paternal cousins object that he will head to Kufa and ‘separate’ – which in this context appears to mean that he will move to that bustling garrison town and effectively disappear, so that she would not be able to exercise her right as his patron to inherit from him. Nonetheless, she takes him to a mosque and declares that he is now sā ʾiba, meaning that she relinquishes any rights over him. Mirroring his enslaved status, Abu l-ʿAliyya is the apparently silent and passive object of others’ actions, discussions, and decisions, as he is purchased, debated about, brought to the mosque, and finally emancipated. It is only after he is freed that he speaks, retelling his story. Furthermore, his status as a sā ʾiba enables him to perform a symbolically laden act: making a will in which he disposes of all his property as he wishes. While Kecia Ali has shown that slavery is integral to constructions of marriage and legally legitimated sex in classical Muslim legal texts (2010), the role of slavery in constructions of gender categories has received scant attention to date. The first retelling provides an example of the role of slavery in shaping the category of ‘free woman’ in these sources, who if she has the means to do so can wield economic and social power through buying and selling enslaved persons, extracting labor and services from them, and exercising mastery over them. The second retelling begins with Abu l-ʿAliyya making his will. But his interlocutor asks where his patrons are – meaning, how can he as a freedman divide up all of his property without acknowledging their rights over any part of it? This question reminds Abu l-ʿAliyya (and the audience/reader) that a freedman is not a freeborn man’s equal in all aspects of life, while also creating an opening for him to explain how it is that he acquired the freedom to make such a will. Abu l-ʿAliyya recounts the story of how he was manumitted by his former owner, who he describes as an ‘aʿrā biyya m-dh-k-ra’ – literally ‘a masculine female Bedouin.’ While the 2001 edition of Ibn Saʿd vocalizes the latter word as ‘mudhkara,’ an earlier undated edition renders it as ‘mudhakkarra’ (the extra ‘r’ is evidently a mistake) and refers the reader to a well-known classical dictionary, the Lisā n al-ʿArab, which defines ‘mudhakkara’ as a woman who resembles men, or a female camel that behaves like a male one (Ibn Saʿd, n. d., vol.7, p.128; Ibn Manẓū r, 1955-56, vol.4, p.309; for the printing history of Ibn Saʿd’s Tabaqat see Lucas, 2004, pp.205–206). The meaning appears to be the same regardless of the vowelling; ‘mudhakkara’ will be employed here. The progression of the tale mirrors the momentous shift between the modes of masculinity that Abu l-ʿAliyya is permitted to inhabit. Beginning from the abject position of an enslaved man, he is finally able to lay claim to the autonomous masculinity of a sā ʾiba. Perhaps with a nod to his imminent change in status, his owner elects to ask for his opinion as to where they should go in order to carry out his manumission, and when he selects the main mosque (likely so there will be many witnesses), s/he accepts this. Nonetheless, his subordinated status remains clear in he/r address to him as ‘slave’ and his silent following of he/r to the mosque and up to the pulpit. There, s/he grasps his hand and pronounces a formula for the emancipation of a sā ʾiba before the imam and the congregation. The change in his status is immediate; s/he relinquishes his hand, departs, and ceases to have any rights over him. As Abu l-ʿAliyya triumphantly declares, a sā ʾiba can live where he pleases. Now, he is free to settle wheresoever he chooses in the new and expanding empire. 110

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Several masculinities are depicted or implied in these two retellings. Enslaved masculinity is unambiguously presented as a subordinated category which Abu l-ʿAliyya gladly transcends. Whether the masculinity imputed to his owner in the second retelling refers to attire, rough mannerisms, physical features, not marrying (no husband or children are mentioned), an aggressive personality, or another factor is unclear. That there is no suggestion that this figure is deemed impious or unsuited to enter the mosque and speak before the congregation is interesting. If Abu l-ʿAliyya’s owner is to be read as female, this might reflect an accepting attitude to women’s mosque attendance in 7th-century Basra (for women and mosques, see Katz, 2014). But if ‘mudhakkara’ refers to another gender category, then the imam, the congregants and/or later transmitters might have deemed the debates about women’s and men’s roles within mosques irrelevant to this particular situation. It is also possible that the audience/reader is presumed to understand that other concerns would have taken precedence, such as the need for urban Muslims to be forbearing when uncouth Bedouins enter sacred space, or the merits of facilitating the freeing of an enslaved person – especially an expert Qurʾan reciter. Whatever the case, it should be noted that in the second retelling, this figure is made visible and exercises power through their ownership and control of an enslaved man. For his part, Abu l-ʿAliyya’s transformation is marked by a decisive and publicly witnessed break with the mudhakkara, another now-transcended lesser form of masculinity – though a trace of this no-longer-existent tie nonetheless persists in his name. The tension between the subordinated masculinity to which the mawali were relegated and the hegemonic masculine ideal of the freeborn Arab tribesman haunts both retellings – and it is the latter against which all other masculinities are implicitly measured in this text. Ibn Saʿd’s entry goes on to recount an incident in which Abu l-ʿAliyya pays a visit to the governor of Basra, ʿAbdallah b. ʿAbbas (d. 686–7), a prominent Companion who was also one of the Prophet Muhammad’s cousins. Ibn ʿAbbas takes him by the hand and seats him at his side, on the same level. A man from the tribe of Tamim who is apparently taken aback exclaims, ‘He is a client!’ (Ibn Saʿd, 2001, vol.9, p.113). Here, this text depicts a contest over whose ideal of masculinity can rightfully lay claim to hegemony – that of freeborn Arab elites who claimed noble descent, or of leading religious scholars, even those who were mawali. This anecdote likely ‘originally’ reflected mawali resentment against the discrimination they suffered (a situation that famously contributed to the success of the Abbasid revolution in 660). Another version of it makes the point even more bluntly: the seat Ibn ʿAbbas provides for Abu l-ʿAliyya is higher than those given to the members of Quraysh who are present. When the Quraysh mock Abu l-ʿAliyya, Ibn ʿAbbas responds that knowledge increases the nobleman’s nobility and places even the slave on an elevated seat (e.g. Ibn Abı̄ Ḥā tim, 1952, vol.3, p.510; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, 2013, vol.2, p.34).

Concluding remarks Utilizing questions suggested by gender and queer theory when analysing classical Muslim texts such as hadith compilations and other tradition-based writings calls attention to a number of significant features of them which have not received sufficient attention. What may at first glance seem to constitute a ‘straight’ classical tradition which is heteronormative and based on a binary and inflexible genitally determined understanding of gender is revealed as significantly more complex. It becomes apparent that gender categories in texts of this type are not ‘natural,’ or above history, or monolithic. Nor do they stand alone; they are relational, and as such cannot be studied in isolation. 111

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Nor can representations of gender minorities or gender nonnormativity be treated as incidental or dismissed as irrelevant to how the categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ are constructed, or to major themes of the text. On the contrary, references to or depictions of gender minority as well as gender nonnormative figures in the texts examined here perform important types of cultural labor. Gender minority and gender nonnormative figures play noteworthy roles in these textual constructions of other genders and claims to hegemonic masculinity, as well as of ritual spaces, household order, social status, intracommunal boundaries, and religious authority. Taking such figures into account suggests a significantly different set of research questions to ask about much-discussed issues such as gender and prayer leadership, women’s attire, marriage, and women’s religious authority – as well as new ways of approaching other topics which have received less scholarly attention and/or tend to be seen as having little to do with gender. The relationship of gender to power is apparent in the texts examined here, as well as in contemporary readings of them. This includes the power to name and categorize (or ignore) wielded by classical authors and compilers, as well as by academics, translators, and authors writing from confessional perspectives today. In these sources, gender serves as a way to express, negotiate, and voice anxieties about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ relations of power. Economic, political, and social realities, such as imperial systems of governance and practices of slavery, as well as beliefs about how power should function, whether cosmically, politically, socially, and ritually shape the ways gender categories are constructed and are in turn shaped by them. Making such considerations a central focus of analysis is a step towards making the histories we write more reflective of these texts’ gendered complexities.

Notes 1 I would like to thank Marion Holmes Katz and Walid Saleh for their respective comments on some issues related to the translation and interpretation of texts quoted in this chapter. All errors are mine alone. My thinking about how gender categories and same-sex sexual desires work in classical Muslim texts continues to be influenced by various people’s work from within the academy, and at times outside of it. Some years ago, Bernadette Brooten’s Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) led me to begin thinking about some of these issues. Among more recent sources of questions to ask when queering history was Kent Monkman’s art exhibition on Indigenous history in Canada at the University of Toronto in the spring of 2017 entitled ‘Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience’ (last accessed Jan. 9, 2020). 2 The matter-of-fact discussion in this article of how enslavement is portrayed in these sources should not in any way be taken as normalizing this historical horror. 3 In the interests of clarity, I have slightly adjusted the translation. 4 I owe this point to Walid Saleh.

Further reading Babayan, K., and A. Najmabadi, eds., 2008. Islamicate Sexualities: Translations Across Temporal Geographies of Desire. Cambridge, MA and London, UK: Harvard University Press.This now-classic collection of articles examines the ways that sexuality and gender are constructed in select classical literary and historical texts as well as in some poetry. Geissinger, A., 2017. ‘Are Men the Majority in Paradise, or Women?’ Constructing Gender and Boundaries in Muslim b. al-Ḥajjā j’s (d. 261/875) Kitā b al-janna, in Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam, eds. S. Günther and T. Lawson, Leiden and Boston: Brill, vol.1, pp.311–340.This article pioneered the use of gender theory in reading classical hadith compilations as well as hadith commentaries.

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Gesink, I., 2018. Intersex Bodies in Premodern Islamic Discourse: Complicating the Binary, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 157–173.This article is an important corrective to previous scholarship on the ways that classical Muslim legal texts position intersex persons within the community. Gesink points to evidence that some jurists recognized three or perhaps five genders. Najmabadi, A., 2006. Beyond the Americas: Are Gender and Sexuality Useful Categories of Historical Analysis? Journal of Women’s History, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 11–21.This foundational article calls attention to some of the problems and misreadings that result from presumptions that gender has always and everywhere been understood as binary.

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7 INTERSEX IN ISLAMIC MEDICINE, LAW, AND ACTIVISM Indira Falk Gesink

Introduction Pre-modern Muslim authors recognized the existence of a third sex, ‘khunthā ,’ which described people whose physical sexual characteristics were ambiguous. Lexicographers, jurists, physicians, and biographers acknowledged that sexual ambiguity was one natural outcome of conception. Jurists crafted rulings to help khunthā s integrate into gendered societies, physicians described procedures for gender-confirming surgeries, and biographers extolled the mastery of scholars whose wisdom helped khunthā s. The most commonly discussed ambiguities were those in which a person developed external genitalia that were both male and female (Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953 213), and aplasia in which neither penis nor vagina developed (Al-Ṭū sı̄ 1970: 356-357; Rispler-Chaim 2007: 105–106). The word khunthā was also used more broadly for persons with varied conditions: males who appeared to urinate in the feminine manner due to displacement of the urinary meatus to the underside of the penis, the scrotum, or the perineum (hypospadias); masculineappearing women with penis-like clitorises and scrotum-like labia, heavy musculature, facial hair, and male pattern baldness (congenital adrenal hyperplasia); persons with ambiguous phallus, vagina and testes, and breasts (partial androgen insensitivity syndrome); or persons who appeared to be female at birth but developed male secondary sexual characteristics at puberty (5-alpha-reductase deficiency). Many jurists generally understood such persons to be functioning with a disability (Rispler-Chaim 2007: 70; Scalenghe 2014: 124–125), as God appeared to address Himself through the Qurʾan to males and females. However, the Qurʾan was not the sole source informing the conceptual world of premodern Muslim intellectuals, who often sought to harmonize what they found in scriptural sources with cultural precedent (Sadeghi 2013: xii), including Hellenic medicine, in the process conceptualizing sex as non-binary and fluid (Zeʾevi 2006: 16–47). By the 12th century, this conceptualization affected even Qurʾan interpretation. From the earliest documented cases, jurists allowed intersex persons to choose a legal sex by which they then functioned socially, from three options: male (khunthā ), complex or ambiguous (khunthā mushkil), or female (khunthā ). I place ‘khunthā ’ in parentheses to indicate that a khunthā ’s legal sex was always subtextually inscribed as fluid – khunthā sex could change. Physicians described treatments to assist intersex patients achieve comfort in their

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sexual roles. When sexual reassignment surgery became more widely practiced in the late 20th century, jurists ruled such surgeries permissible. This legacy of non-binary, fluid sex characterization provides a rich archive from which activists may draw to promote intersex and trans* rights and protection of children from involuntary sex assignment.

Earliest original sources and the problem of attribution The earliest documentary source that describes the term khunthā is a late 8th-century Arabic dictionary attributed to Khalı̄ l ibn Ah ̣mad, the Kitā b al-ʿAyn. Its entry for the Arabic roots kh-n-th states: ‘The khunthā is that which is neither male nor female [al-khunthā : wa huwwa alladhı̄ laysa bi-dhakar wa lā unthā ] and from which is derived mukhannath’ (Ibn Ah ̣mad 1984: 248), or effeminate male. This passage is usually read as referring to a person who is neither male nor female (Rowson 1997: 63). The passage suggests that the word itself, which ends in ā lif maqsū ̣ ra, is indeclinable and has no inherent masculine or feminine gender (see also Al-Bustā nı̄ 1987: 257). The entry explains that the root connotes doubling, as in the upper and lower molars or the folded neck of a waterskin, or delicacy, as in having folded the waterskin’s neck too often (see also Al-Zabı̄ dı̄ 1969: 242; Ibn Manz ̣ū r 1997: 320). Ibn Ah ̣mad then goes on to explain how one would vowelize the root if addressing a man, woman, or mukhannath. The word khunthā as referring to intersex is widely attested in other sources from the same region and time period (see below), suggesting that the term was already in common use. Later literature mentions incidents prior to the Kitā b al-ʿAyn in which a leading Muslim figure is approached to rule on cases of ambiguous sex, but as we have no contemporary documentary evidence of those cases, we must treat them as attributions, whose purpose was either polemical or to justify customary rulings, rather than as verbatim transmissions (Calder 1993: 13, 17–18, 37, 44, 49, 53, 54, 78, 82, 84, 104, 179). These attributions introduce the issue of intersex rights as a problem of inheritance. Islamic legal tradition assigned daughters half the inheritance of sons, as the Qurʾan directed males to support females. How then should a khunthā inherit? These kinds of legal questions were resolved by petitioning a jurist, who would formulate an answer based on local custom, perusal of relevant primary texts such as Qurʾan, hadith, and, if available, rulings of prior jurists, and consideration of the social good of various outcomes (Sadeghi 2013). If a case became notorious, those involved might be called before the local magistrate for investigation, or even before the caliph. Jurists also liked to ponder hypothetical legal questions, for which ambiguous sex provided a good case study. Jurists whose attributed rulings came to form the core of the Ḥanafı̄ school of legal reasoning (madhhab) were the first to debate intersex inheritance rights. A man had died leaving behind one son and one khunthā : how should the man’s property be divided? Abū Ḥanı̄ fa (d. 775), the eponymous founder of the Ḥanafı̄ legal school, reportedly assigned the khunthā a daughter’s share, with three shares total, two for the son and one for the daughter. The khunthā was not male unless proven to be so (attribution in Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 336; Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953: 215–217). A 12th century jurist, al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ , rationalized that Abū Ḥanı̄ fa wished to establish the khunthā ’s right to at least the share of the daughter. The khunthā ’s right to inherit the son’s share being subject to doubt due to sex ambiguity, the inheritance should be treated the same as any case in which there was doubt: the smaller of the possible shares should be granted, in this case the share of a daughter (Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 673–674). Abū Ḥanı̄ fa’s ruling that only two inheritance options were possible, son or daughter, upheld the Qurʾanic binary sex paradigm. 117

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Abū Ḥanı̄ fa ’s protégé, Abū Yū suf, reportedly disagreed with him. Abū Yū suf, who served as chief qadi (judge) under the ʿAbbasid caliph Hā rū n al-Rashı̄ d and died in Baghdad in 798, ruled the property should be divided into seven shares, four shares for the son and three shares for the khunthā . Then Abū Yū suf’s own protégé, Muh ̣ammad al-Shaybanı̄ (chief qadi in the new capital Raqqa, from Abū Yū suf’s death until 803) ruled that the property be divided into 12 shares, seven shares for the son and five for the khunthā . Both these rulings awarded the khunthā half the son’s share and half the daughter’s share (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 317; Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 672–673; Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953: 217; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 103–106; Ibn Qudā ma 1972: 115–118). Abū Yū suf and Muh ̣ammad al-Shaybanı̄ constructed the khunthā as a medial sex, as described in the contemporary Kitā b al-ʿAyn, neither male nor female, but somewhere in the middle, somehow both. Abū Ḥanı̄ fa may not have initiated this debate. Some Ḥanafı̄ jurists claimed that Abū Yū suf and al-Shaybanı̄ were simply fleshing out the mathematics of a ruling already offered by al-Shaʿbı̄ , a hadith transmitter born in Medina a decade after the Prophet’s death (AlḤalabı̄ 1989: 317; Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953: 217; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 103). Ibn Qudā ma, a Ḥanbalı̄ jurist, claimed the medial sex ruling for the progenitor of the Ḥanbalı̄ legal school, Ah ̣mad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855), based on transmitted dicta from al-Shaʿbı̄ , Ibn ʿAbbā s, Ibn Abı̄ Laylā , al-Thawrı̄ , al-Luʾluʾı̄ , Sharı̄ k, Ḥasan ibn Ṣā lih ̣, Yah ̣yā ibn ʿĀdam, and the folk of Mecca and Medina, with Abū Yū suf and Abū Ḥanı̄ fa at the end of the list (Ibn Qudā ma 1972: 115). However, the authors making these claims lived hundreds of years after these debates took place, and no documentary evidence remains to us other than their attributions. The early Ḥanafı̄ jurists are also said to have pondered what a khunthā should wear on pilgrimage. Abū Yū suf admitted that he did not know, because the ritual requirements for male and female pilgrimage dress were mutually exclusive. Men had to wear garments with no sewn seams (izā r and ridā ʾ, sheets wrapped around the waist and shoulders). Women could not wear izā r and ridā ʾ, but had to wear sewn seams (attribution in Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 668; AlSarakhsı̄ 2001: 119). Muh ̣ammad al-Shaybanı̄ argued that a khunthā should dress as a woman on pilgrimage because that was the more restrictive of the two options: a woman had to ‘cover nakedness’ to remain ritually pure, whereas if a khunthā later became a man, his failure to wear izā r and ridā ʾ on a prior pilgrimage could be excused as an exceptional circumstance (Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 668; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001, 119; see also Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335). We can infer from these early debates that jurists were concerned about the rights and religious obligations of khunthā s. Khunthā s were not monstrosities as construed in later European societies; they were simply people who could not easily be identified as male or female (see for example Ibn Ah ̣mad 1984, 248; Ibn Qudā ma 1972: 115; Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990, 12:663; Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953: 213; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001, 30: 116–118). In European societies, people with intersex genitalia were figured as hermaphrodites, semi-mythical beings who merged male and female in one body. In the 19th century, European physicians policed sexual binaries by reassigning sexes based on medical exams that revealed hidden testicles, and media whipped up social paranoia about intersex as a disguise for homosexuality (Dreger 1998). The sources in my survey evidence no such paranoias before the late 19th century and no attempts to alter legal sex against the self-asserted identity of an intersex individual (for example, see discussion of intersex minor marriages and court-sanctioned sex changes, below). However, these sources cannot tell us whether individual khunthā s lived their lives undisturbed. Because many rights, obligations, and social rules were gendered, a khunthā ’s life would be easier if the khunthā inclined toward male or female sex. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many khunthā s lived socially as males or females until some obstacle appeared: inability to have intercourse, inability to conceive, or suspicion that the person 118

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was claiming a right to which they were not entitled (for the latter, see Ibn al-Ḥimsı̄ ̣ 1999: 99). In such cases, or when the sex of a child was ambiguous, jurists recommended a number of tests to see whether the khunthā inclined toward one sex or the other. In the earliest such tests described, the caliph ʿAli (d. 661) proposed determining sex by casting lots or observing whether the khunthā could direct the flow of urine. The ʿIbadi jurist Jā bir ibn Zayd (d. circa 721) proposed that the khunthā urinate against a wall. If the khunthā could direct urine at the wall, the khunthā was male. If not, the khunthā was female (Al-Ṭū sı̄ 1970: 353-354, 355-356; Ibn Qudā ma 1972: 115). In the urine-direction test, someone possessing a penis with a displaced meatus (hypospadias) could be considered female. The Ḥanbalı̄ imam Ah ̣mad ibn Ḥanbal preferred methods derived from scriptural reports, so he suggested counting the ribs. A male should have one fewer than a female, as Adam had donated one of his ribs to create Eve (Ibn Qudā ma 1972: 115). ʿAli was said to have employed this method to grant a khunthā ’s claim to male legal sex (Al-Nuʿmā n 1969: 388; Al-Ṭū sı̄ 1970: 354-355). Neither of these methods conferred certainty, however. By the 10th century, jurists advised direct observation of the urinary exit. If the khunthā had a penis and a vulva, a witness would observe the person urinating, on the assumption that functioning urination indicated functioning sexual organ. If the urine exited from a meatus in the penis, the khunthā inclined toward maleness and could claim male legal sex. If the urine exited from a meatus in the vulva, the khunthā inclined toward femaleness and could claim female legal sex. If the urine exited from both a penis and a vulva at the same time, or if the khunthā had no external genitalia indicating sex (as in genital agenesis), the khunthā would be assigned the legal sex of khunthā mushkil, meaning ‘complex khunthā ,’ as in an ambiguous complex of male and female (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 334; Al-Qudū rı̄ 1952: 213; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 115–116; Al-Ṭū sı̄ 1970: 354). The 10th-century Fā timid Ismā ʿı̄ lı̄ judge al-Nuʿmā n attributed this test of urination to ̣ the caliph ʿAli (d. 661). Five brothers whose father had died approached ʿAli. One of the brothers had two urinary exits: one in his penis and another in his perineum. His brothers claimed that he should inherit as a daughter because of the perineal exit. ʿAli ruled that if urine exited first from the penile meatus, the brother inherited as a man; if from the perineal meatus, as a woman; and if the urine came from both at the same time, he inherited half the male and half the female share (Al-Nuʿmā n: 388). This echoes the Ḥanafı̄ rulings on inheritance from the previous century, and the story’s absence in al-Ṭū sı̄ , who reported Imā mı̄ Shiʿı̄ rulings, suggests that the story is a polemical attempt to claim juristic precedent for the Ismaʿili Shiʿi legal lineage. Writing a few decades later, in Baghdad, the Ḥanafı̄ jurist al-Qudū rı̄ claimed that the Ḥanafı̄ s had initiated the test of urination: Abū Ḥanı̄ fa, Abū Yū suf, and Muh ̣ammad alShaybā nı̄ had disagreed as to whether the legal sex of a complex khunthā should be determined by amount of urine coming from the organ or by first exit (Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953: 213). The 11th-century Persian jurist al-Sarakhsı̄ would likewise claim this test for the Ḥanafı̄ legal lineage but projected its origins further into the past. According to al-Sarakhsı̄ , the test of urination was based on a narration by Abū Yū suf, from Al-Kalbı̄ , from Abū Sā lih ̣, from Ibn ʿAbbā s, from the Prophet Muh ̣ammad himself, who was asked to rule on the inheritance portion of a child born without external genitalia. Muh ̣ammad reportedly told the family to determine sex by the site of urination, though commentators judged that chain of narration weak. Al-Sarakhsı̄ also related that the phrase, yarithu min haythu yabū l, or ‘one inherits by the place of urination,’ appears in narrations by ʿAli, Jā bir ibn Zayd, Qatā da ibn Nuʿmā n, and Saʿı̄ d ibn al-Musayyib, and that it was a pre-Islamic practice (2001: 115–116, 119

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notes 1 and 2). Like Al-Qudū rı̄ , al-Sarakhsı̄ claimed that the early Ḥanafı̄ jurists elaborated the details of the test. Abū Yū suf and Muh ̣ammad al-Shaybā nı̄ had ruled that if the khunthā urinated from both organs, legal sex would be assigned by the organ with the strongest flow (117). Al-Sarakhsı̄ wrote that Abū Ḥanı̄ fa had rejected that on two counts: first, that amount of urine might result from wideness of the exit, and the female meatus is generally wider than a male’s, so that method was insufficient, and second, that ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ amounts of urine are characteristics of urination rather than the place of urination (117; see also Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 663–664). Al-Sarakhsı̄ then related a conversation in which Abū Ḥanı̄ fa took Abū Yū suf to task over adjudicating this based on insufficient evidence (2001: 117). For our purposes, who elaborated the test and whether it existed in pre-Islamic times has less significance than the fact that these debates existed – that intersex was acknowledged to exist and that intersex people had rights and obligations just as men and women did. Furthermore, al-Qudū rı̄ and al-Sarakhsı̄ both acknowledged that khunthā sex could change. Al-Qudū rı̄ wrote: If the khunthā reaches maturity and grows a beard, or has intercourse with women, he is a man, and if there appears on him breasts like the breasts of women, or the breasts lactate, or he menstruates or becomes pregnant or is able to have vaginal intercourse, he is a woman. If none of these signs appear, he is a khunthā mushkil. (Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953: 213) Unlike al-Qudū rı̄ , al-Sarakhsı̄ ruled that ambiguity ended at puberty. Al-Sarakhsı̄ wrote that functioning urination indicated that the other organ was ‘extra’ and not indicative of sex (2001: 116). He also ruled that legal sex could not be altered by proof of urination from the ‘extra’ organ (116). Khunthā sex was therefore an aberration. Furthermore, at puberty a khunthā would manifest signs that would remove any ambiguity, such as a beard, nocturnal emission, feminine breasts, menstruation, vaginal sex, lactation, or pregnancy (117, 126). AlSarakhsı̄ reported that he had never witnessed any evidence of persistent ambiguity (117), and he was commenting on the Mukhtasaṛ al-kā fı̄ of Muh ̣ammad al-Marwā zı̄ (d. 945), which stated a khunthā would not be ‘mushkil’ after signs of sex appeared (126). Unlike al-Qudū rı̄ , al-Sarakhsı̄ ruled that a khunthā who developed none of these signs was legally male, ‘because failure to grow breasts is legal evidence that he is a man’ (126). Given that a khunthā might have no external genitalia, this meant that it was possible for a khunthā to be declared legally male without a penis. The ruling that a non-urinating penis was ‘extra’ also meant that possession of a penis did not make one male. Such extremes had profound legal implications. According to al-Sarakhsı̄ , if a khunthā committed a crime that entailed a payment in lieu of retaliation (qisā ̣ s),̣ such as murder or severing of a limb, the victim’s family would be unable to claim the payment, because there was no such thing as a mature adult khunthā , and prepubescent minors were immune from retaliation (2001: 121). Al-Sarakhsı̄ was also at pains to reconcile the existence of the khunthā with Qurʾanic addresses to men and women. ‘It is known,’ he wrote, ‘that God Most High created the children of Adam male and female,’ as stated in the Qurʾan: ‘He dispersed among them many men and women’ and ‘He grants to whom He wills females and He grants to whom He wills males.’ The Qurʾan had rules for men and rules for women and He did not establish rules for a person who is male and female, and so we know from that that He did not join the two characteristics together in one person, for 120

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how could He, there being between them such difference as to be opposites of one another. (2001: 103) There being no evidence that God had created such a person, it could not be so; therefore God had created each person with sufficient signs to determine a provisional sex until puberty eliminated the doubt (103).

Conception and medical literature Al-Sarakhsı̄ remained a minority voice on the question of khunthā medial sex, along with jurists who took Qurʾanic binarism as their starting point, such as al-Shā fiʿı̄ (1987: 98). But even the 12th-century Ḥanafı̄ al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ , who ruled that functioning urination indicated ‘true sex,’ also ruled that ambiguity could persist after puberty (1990: 663, 665). By his time, Muslim authors had begun describing models of conception derived from Hellenic philosophy as well as regimes for surgical treatment. Hellenic theorists of conception acknowledged that both the father and mother of a child contributed ‘semen’ to its development, although they differed on the mechanism of contribution. According to Hippocrates and Aristotle, if the mother’s semen was stronger, the child would be female. If the father’s was stronger, the child would be male. If either parent failed to dominate, the child might be intersex, an effeminate male, or a masculine female, or it might resemble the parent of the opposite sex (Aristotle 1953; Hippocrates 1978: 322; Musallam 1983: 43–45). According to Galen and Muslim physicians who accepted Galen’s ideas, a foetus that grew on the right (drier, hotter) side of the uterus would be male, on the left (wetter, colder) side, a female, and in the middle, any possibility between all-male and all-female (Galen 1992: 187, 191; Ragab 2015: 436–437; Zeʾevi 2006: 16–47). Hadith reflected these ideas as well (Ragab 2015: 434). Such ideas about conception provided ready explanations of non-binary sex. One might therefore read al-Sarakhsı̄ ’s insistence that God had not created anything between male and female as defence of the Qurʾan against an intellectual discourse that increasingly accepted other texts as sources of legitimate knowledge. For example, the famed Persian physician Ibn Sı̄ nā stated in 1025 that a child would resemble the parent whose semen dominated the womb (1593: 570). The physician al-Rā zı̄ (d. 1210) stated that failure of either to dominate produced intersex (khinā th) (Rosenthal 1978: 54). The Mamluk lexicographer Ibn Manz ̣ū r (d. 1312) explained, in the entry for dh-k-r in his dictionary, Lisā n al-ʿArab, that male sex resulted when the father’s semen dominated the womb (1997: 465), and, in his entry for khn-th, Ibn Manzur explained that a khunthā ‘was not limited to male or to female’ but ‘had what was male and female both’ (1997: 320), the position al-Sarakhsı̄ explicitly rejected. The physician Ibn Sı̄ nā also suggested medical treatments for patients whose conditions affected their sexual functioning. He warned that inability to satisfy lust could cause patients to seek satisfaction outside the legal options (Ibn Sı̄ nā 1987: 1613). Thus his recommending these treatments should not be seen as policing sex boundaries but rather as assisting in restoration of pleasurable intercourse. His masterwork Qā nū n fı̄ al-tibb ̣ discusses intersex conditions in the chapter on the male reproductive system: some patients have no sexual organ and some have organs of both sexes. In the latter, the organs may be hidden inside the body or obstructed in some way, or they may all function sufficiently to allow both insertive and receptive vaginal intercourse. In cases where one of the organs does not function, it may be surgically excised (Ibn Sı̄ nā 1987: 1612). Ibn Sı̄ nā also discusses similar conditions in the 121

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chapter on female reproductive organs: obstructions of the vaginal opening or clitoral enlargement sufficient to ‘approximate penetrative sex,’ both of which could be treated with surgery: banding of flesh that obstructs the vagina and excising the penis-like clitoris ‘from its base in order to prevent hemorrhage’ (Ibn Sı̄ nā 1593: 595). Ibn Sı̄ nā does not appear to recognize the clitoris as necessary for female orgasm, but he also does not mandate excision. These surgeries were to allow patients to feel comfortable as women. Abū al-Qā sim al-Zahrā wı̄ , an Andalusian physician of the same time period, describes three types of khunthā patients. One ‘male’ khunthā had a penis, testicles, and an opening like a vagina in the perineum. Another ‘male’ khunthā urinated from the skin of the scrotum (penoscrotal hypospadias). A ‘female’ khunthā had a vagina and small appendages resembling penis or testicles (Albucasis 1973: 455). Like Ibn Sı̄ nā , al-Zahrā wı̄ also described a ‘female’ condition in which the clitoris grows ‘beyond the natural order until its appearance becomes loathsome and ugly: in some women, it grows greater until it becomes erect like the male organ to the point where it is capable of coitus’ (Albucasis 1973: 457). For the male with a perineal opening and the female with extra appendages, al-Zahrā wı̄ and Ibn Sı̄ nā were writing from the same playbook: ‘extra flesh’ could be surgically excised (Albucasis 1973: 455). For the ‘loathsome’ clitoris, al-Zahrā wı̄ advised physicians to grasp the superfluous part of the clitoris [faḍl al-baz ̣ar] with your hand or a hook and excise it. Do not overdo the excision, especially at the bottom of the shaft, in order to prevent hemorrhage. Then treat it as any surgical wound until it heals. (Albucasis 1973: 457) Patients identifying as male also sought surgery for unperforated labia and swollen breasts (Albucasis 1973: 363, 459). Both physicians exhibited concern for patients’ safety, performance of unobstructed vaginal intercourse, and comfort in their gender roles.

Qurʾan commentary Awareness of intersex conditions eventually influenced interpretation of the Qurʾan. At issue are the very verses that al-Sarakhsı̄ quoted as evidence that God created only males and females. The Qurʾan chapter known as Sū rat al-Shū ra, verses 49–50, reads: God has dominion over the heavens and the earth. He creates what He wills. He grants to whom He wills females, and He grants to whom He wills males. Or He pairs them male and female (yuzawwijuhum dhukrā nan wa inā than), and He makes those whom He wills to be ineffectual (ʿaqı̄ m). Indeed He is the Knowing, the Powerful. Prior to the 11th century, Qurʾan interpreters always glossed these verses the same way: God gives to some people all daughters, some all sons, some daughters and sons, and some none (Al-Thaʿlabi 2002: 324). The most elaboration offered examples of offspring of prophets – Lot had only daughters; Abraham had only sons; Muh ̣ammad had sons and daughters; Jesus had none (Al-Thaʿlabi 2002: 325). No one had yet suggested that ‘pairing’ of male and female might occur in one body. However, the Andalusian Mā liki jurist Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , who wrote his Ah ̣kā m alQurʾā n a century after Ibn Sı̄ nā and al-Zahrā wı̄ , cited hadith literature on conception and sex of the foetus to inform his interpretation – hadith literature that is not cited in earlier 122

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tafsı̄ r and that echoes the ideas of Ibn Sı̄ nā and al-Zahrā wı̄ . Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ wrote that whereas God created the world from nothing, human acts of creation come from something. The Prophet said: ‘If the fluid of the man precedes the fluid of the woman, [the foetus] will be male, and if the fluid of the woman precedes the fluid of the man, [the foetus] will be female’ (qtd. in Al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ 2006: 503), or alternatively, ‘If the fluid of the man dominates [ʿalā ] the fluid of the woman, the child will resemble its paternal line, and if the fluid of the woman dominates the fluid of the man, the child will resemble its maternal line’ (503, citing the Sah ̄ ̣ıh ̣, note 3 attributes the second hadith to Thawbā n). Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ elaborated that if a man’s fluid was emitted first, and the woman’s was emitted second but was of greater amount, the child would be male but resemble its mother’s family, and vice versa. Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , however, did not mention intersex. One hundred years after Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ , the Mā liki jurist al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ (who was born in Cordoba but moved to Cairo) elaborated upon Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ ’s tafsı̄ r. Al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ reported that Mā likı̄ ʿulā mā connected Ibn al-ʿArabı̄ ’s discussion specifically to Sū rat al-Shū ra 50, to the phrase ‘He pairs them male and female.’ ‘There was,’ al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ wrote, ‘during the Jā hiliyya a physiognomy [khilqa] that was at once male and female, the khunthā .’ He then related the hadith in which the Prophet Muh ̣ammad was asked to determine the inheritance of a khunthā infant, and stated that the test of urination the Prophet recommended was a pre-Islamic practice. He also asserted that there were khunthā among the Ansar of Medina. He claimed that the hadith reports of Muh ̣ammad’s intersex ruling (absent in earlier juristic discussions) were widely transmitted (Al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ 2006: 506), and were taken up by the early formulators of Islamic legal precedents, especially Mā lik ibn Anas, Muh ̣ammad alShaybā nı̄ , Abū Yū suf, and al-Shā fiʿı̄ (Ali 2011, loc. 268 and 334; Al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ 2006: 506). Al-Qurtubı devoted half his explication to conception theories and accounts of khunthā s, ̣ ̄ which allowed his readers to come to a very different conclusion than al-Sarakhsı̄ had offered: that ‘He pairs them male and female’ could mean that God gives daughters, sons, and intersex (503–506). Law historians Norman Calder and Behnam Sadeghi have argued that jurisprudence was less derivation of law from sources and more use of sources to justify existing legal practice (Calder 1993; Sadeghi 2013). Al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ ’s interpretation of al-Shū ra 49–50 provides Qurʾanic sanction for juristic and medical practices that recognized nonbinary sex.

Postformative legal tradition It should be clear by this point that there were at least two strands of thinking about intersex in premodern Islamic societies. One, epitomized by al-Sarakhsı̄ , considered intersex a temporary condition that would always resolve into male or female, which meant a jurist had to take every available step to assign male or female sex and rule on issues relevant to the pre-pubescent khunthā mushkil, such as inheritance. The second and more widespread strand of thinking considered intersex to be one of at least three possible natural outcomes of conception that persisted after puberty, which meant that jurists had also to elaborate social rules for adult khunthā s that would enable them to obtain their rights and perform their religious obligations without violating ritual purity for others in the community. The topics discussed included (in addition to inheritance and pilgrimage dress) circumcision, communal prayer, required and forbidden items of dress, travel, manumission, adult and child marriage, blood payment, positioning for burial prayer, and burial in a common grave. On these topics, jurists of different sects and legal schools from the 11th to the 16th centuries expressed relative unanimity, although not all jurists ruled on all issues. 123

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Circumcision posed a problem because men typically circumcised boys, and women girls, to avoid opposite-sex exposure of genitals. Exposure of the genitals was problematic for sex identification as well, but the Shiʿı̄ imam ʿAli al-Hā dı̄ (d. 868) had proposed a solution – viewing the genitals through a mirror (Al-Qurashi 2014: 142). Mirrors being unwieldy for circumcision, the jurist al-Qudū rı̄ ruled that a bondmaid be purchased for the child’s circumcision. If the child had insufficient resources, the slave should be purchased with funds from the state treasury and then sold (Al-Qudū rı̄ 1953: 215). Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ agreed, adding the rationale that a female could view a female’s genitals without shame, and a slave could view her master’s genitals (Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 227). This was still the consensus view by the time the Syrian jurist al-Ḥalabı̄ included these rulings in his legal manual, Multaqā alabh ̣ur, in the 16th century (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335). Jurists also agreed that khunthā s should be able to pray in community with others, but because women had to stand behind men, khunthā s should stand in between the lines of men and the lines of women (Abū Bakr Effendi 1971: 67; Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335; AlQudū rı̄ 1953: 215). Ḥanafı̄ jurists reasoned that medial positioning would ensure the khunthā ’s presence did not accidentally nullify the prayers of those in the same row or his/her own prayers, in the event that emerging secondary sexual characteristics would later clarify sex as male or female (Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 665–667; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 120). On clothing, as with the ritual dress of pilgrimage, jurists felt it prudent for a khunthā mushkil to observe the stricter requirements for women (male-inclined khunthā s would be legally male and dress as males). According to al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ , a khunthā mushkil should veil during prayer and prostrate in prayer like a woman, for if he is a man, this is merely a deviation from custom that is generally permissible [an interesting comment], but if he is female, failure to do so would be reprehensible, for covering [satr] is required for women. If he prayed without a veil [qinā ʿ], it would be best for him to repeat the prayer because of the possibility he may be female, this being the most prudent course, though the prayer is still valid if he does not. (1990: 666–667; see also Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 119) Some jurists also required the khunthā to veil while mixing with marriageable men – as women generally did – and while mixing with women, as men did not (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 122). However, silk and jewellery were makrū h (reprehensible) for khunthā s rather than h ̣arā m (forbidden) as for men (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335; Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 667; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 119, 122 has ‘gold or jewellery’). Khunthā s were also generally subject to travel restrictions on women: they could not travel without the company of a spouse or unmarriageable relative (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335; Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 122). But khunthā s clearly were not women – only potentially women. Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ and alḤalabı̄ reported Ḥanafı̄ consensus that a manumission document that stated ‘all my male slaves are free’ or ‘all my female slaves are free’ would not manumit a khunthā , because a khunthā ’s sex was always in doubt (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 336; Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ 1990: 668). AlMarghı̄ nā nı̄ clarified that if the manumission document read ‘all my male and female slaves are free,’ the khunthā would be manumitted, for the khunthā was at least one or the other (1990: 668), but that clarification is absent in al-Ḥalabı̄ ’s later text. Both jurists were summarizing what they felt to be consensus of the Ḥanafı̄ school, and neither provides any context for these rulings. However, their overriding concern appears to be advice to those 124

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scribing manumission documents so as to prevent accidental injustice to a khunthā slave whose owner intended manumission. On marriage, the jurists differed. Most Ḥanafı̄ jurists tacitly accepted khunthā marriage when they ruled on cases in which khunthā s inherited from spouses (Al-Ḥalabı̄ 1989: 335; Al-Ramlı̄ 1857: 207–208). Al-Sarakhsı̄ dealt explicitly with the question, objecting only to marriage of khunthā minors, since they might mature as the same sex as the spouse, resulting in a legal quandary as to which spouse was responsible for maintaining the other (2001: 104, 119). Only the Ḥanbalı̄ Ibn Qudā ma denied the khunthā mushkil the right to marry (Ibn Qudā ma 1972: 74). If a khunthā died without claiming male or female sex, the body could not be washed by man or woman but would be purified with sand. Al-Sarakhsı̄ explained that this was analogous to the situation of a woman who died among men, where there was no other woman to wash her body (Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 118). Even another khunthā could not wash the body, for that khunthā ’s sex was mutable too. If the funeral service included other bodies that were male and female, the male body was to be positioned closest to the imam, the khunthā next, and the female farthest, in accordance with a hadith that said the ‘most favored’ (afḍal) among them should be closest to the imam. Men, according to al-Sarakhsı̄ , were more worthy (ah ̣aqq) of this honor than women (2001: 120). If the khunthā were buried in a common tomb with men and women, the bodies should be separated by layers of cloth or barriers of earth, to preserve modesty even in death (Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 118, 121). Al-Sarakhsı̄ stated that a khunthā ‘had no sex’ or had ‘unknown sex’ (Al-Sarakhsı̄ 2001: 118). But sex is not merely biological fact: sex is also cultural construction (Butler 1993). When jurists positioned the khunthā in communal mosque prayer in a line between the men and the women, the khunthā is positioned as medial sex. Publicly and iteratively, the khunthā performed a medial role that told the khunthā and the public where that sex fitted into the social hierarchy; likewise in burial, and in the recommendation to always veil, and in public discussions that positioned the khunthā as something other than merely male or female.

Intersex as cultural work Khunthā s also figure in polemics and biographical anecdotes. Shiʿı̄ texts relate a case that stumped the qadi of Kufa, Shurayh ̣ ibn al-Ḥarı̄ th. A wife had petitioned for separation from her husband on grounds that she was a man. Inquiry revealed that the petitioner was a khunthā , and that ‘she’ had impregnated a female slave. The judge consulted with the Commander of the Faithful, ʿAli, who called the husband and wife in for questioning. The husband confirmed his wife had impregnated the slave girl, but he wished to remain married. ʿAli then summoned two women to count the khunthā ’s ribs, and they reported that the khunthā had only eleven ribs on the right side. ʿAli proclaimed the greatness of God, dissolved the marriage, and declared the khunthā a man (Al-Nuʿmā n 1969: 387-388; Al-Ṭū sı̄ 1970: 354-355). We may interpret this case as an example of legal fiction (Ali 2015: 83), in which a case is resolved in a way calculated to avoid severe punishment of crimes, in this case sex between women. However, khunthā s often appear in this kind of literature as a problem whose resolution proves the solver’s great wisdom. Notably, this particular anecdote appears only in Shiʿı̄ sources that seek to depict ʿAli as the ideal adjudicator. Sixteenth-century accounts of a Shā fiʿı̄ Sufi ascetic named Muh ̣ammad ibn Salā ma also employ the khunthā in polemics. In 1506, Ibn Salā ma got married. Suspicion surfaced, 125

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however, as to the sex of the bride, and a complaint reached the local amir, Ṭarā bā y. When the couple appeared before the amir, the bride claimed to be a khunthā . The amir ordered investigation of the bride’s sex, concluded that the bride was male, and ordered the bride beaten to death. Cairene historian Ibn al-Ḥimsı̄ ̣’s account of this event favoured the couple, stating that the bride was ‘an obvious khunthā woman’ (1999: 99) and highlighting the amir’s unjustified brutality. The account of Damascene historian Ibn Ṭulū n, however, placed the story in the context of campaigns against Sufi gazing cults: Muh ̣ammad ibn Salā ma had been associating with Sufis who contemplated the Divine as reflected in the faces of beautiful beardless youths, and his bride had in fact been one of those youths. The bride’s claim of khunthā identity had been an attempt to legitimize marriage between men: he had even wounded the base of his penis so that he would appear to be menstruating. In Ibn Ṭulū n’s telling, the amir had used the incident to rile up the public against the Sufis and plunder their property (Ibn Tulun 1962: 297–298). The story was told a third time by biographer al-Ghazzı̄ , who was himself a supporter of gazing cults (Al-Ghazzı̄ 1979: 51; ElRouayheb 2005: 83); he framed Amir Ṭarā bā y’s brutal response as a warning that the amir would not tolerate ‘gazing’ that crossed the line into illicit sex. The biographical dictionary of al-Muh ̣ibbı̄ (d. 1699) employs khunthā s to promote the image of Ottoman legal scholars as ideal Muslims, guiding and protecting the community with their wisdom. His accounts highlight the mutability of khunthā sex. Women grow beards, penises, and testicles, sometimes on their wedding nights, and bearded men turn out to be women. Al-Muh ̣ibbı̄ ’s biography of the judge Muh ̣ammad Akmā l al-Dı̄ n tells how the court resolved the case of ʿAlı̄ ibn al-Rifā cı̄ , a beardless bookbinder from Damascus who fell in love with a man. Court investigation revealed that ʿAlı̄ was a khunthā whose vulva was obstructed by a ‘protuberance.’ The obstruction was surgically removed, and ʿAlı̄ assumed female legal status under the name ʿAlı̄ ya. ʿAlı̄ ya married her lover and bore ‘numerous’ children (Al-Muh ̣ibbı̄ 1867: 341–342). Sometimes jurists presented their own fatwas on khunthā s as evidence of their superior abilities. The Palestinian mufti Khayr al-Dı̄ n al-Ramlı̄ (d. 1671) related how he had upheld a khunthā ’s claim to be male despite inability to urinate from his penis. The khunthā had grown a beard and emitted semen; hence al-Ramlı̄ determined that the khunthā was actually male with an ‘obstructed’ penis. In a case of minor marriage between two khunthā s, the ‘groom’ had matured as female and the ‘bride’ as male. The family had asked a jurist whether the marriage was still valid, but the jurist had been unable to determine the answer and had sent the case to al-Ramlı̄ . Al-Ramlı̄ ruled the marriage valid but used the fatwa as an opportunity to explain why khunthā s should not marry before puberty (Al-Ramlı̄ 1857: 207–208; Scalenghe 2014: 143–146). Once again the khunthā was a complexity, the resolution of which demonstrated someone’s claim to great wisdom.

Premodern scholarship as a platform for new activism Perhaps these scholars wrote about khunthā s because intersex births tend to be more prevalent in regions that practice consanguineous marriage (Lubani et al. 1990: 391; Özbey et al. 2004; Soheir et al. 2012: 284). Medical reports suggest that most intersex children born in Middle Eastern countries now undergo surgical sex assignment (Dessouky 2001; Özbey et al. 2004; Taha and Magbool 1995). However, since the late 1990s, a global activist consensus has emerged that intersex infants should not undergo surgical ‘correction’ or other irreversible procedures before reaching an age of consent but should rather receive counselling. In the 2010s, various international organizations described involuntary sexual ‘correction’ as torture that should be illegal under international law 126

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(Human Rights Watch 2017). United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raʿad Al Hussein made the following statement at the Human Rights Council: Far too few of us are aware of the specific human rights violations faced by millions of intersex people. Because their bodies don’t comply with typical definitions of male or female, intersex children and adults are frequently subjected to forced sterilization and irreversible surgery, and suffer discrimination in schools, workplaces and other settings. (Raʿad Al Hussein 2015) Muslim activists have tended to frame intersex in terms of sexual assignment surgery, using rationales that play on the binary sex paradigm and construct transsex as illness (Whitaker 2016) or as deviance undeserving of the same consideration as intersex (Alipour 2017b; Dessouky 2001: 500, 513). Jurists responding to sexual reassignment petitions, such as Shaykh al-Ṭantā ̣ wı̄ ’s now-famous response to Sayyed/Sally ʿAbdullah, have characterized transsex as an illness or physical disability justifying surgical ‘treatment’; in the Sayyed/Sally case, an Egyptian court ruled that transsex could be considered ‘psychological intersex,’ despite media hysteria about surgeons making men into ‘hermaphrodites’ or ‘artificial women’ (Skovgaard-Petersen 1995). Physicians attempt to advocate for patients, but against a background of social preference for male or female assignment (Dessouky 2001; Kuhnle and Krahl 2002: 94; Özbey et al. 2004) and Qurʾanic binarism, which promote determining of ‘true’ sex by chromosomal analysis (Zainuddin and Mahdy 2017). Rarely do reports advocate cultural responses that permit flexible gender roles (Kuhnle and Krahl 2002: 94–95), although Ayatollah Khomeini reportedly advised that an intersex petitioner for surgery could remain intersex and ‘practice Islam as such’ (Alipour 2017a). However, if we engage ‘the Islamic’ position on intersex as a debate, in which jurists might recognize as many as five sexes, binary sex was a minority paradigm until the 20th century, courts permitted individuals to live in their chosen socio-legal sex, and these permissions constructed those who authorized them as wise, ideal Muslims – that engagement would provide a powerful platform for both intersex and trans advocacy.

Further reading Alipour, M. 2017b. ‘Transgender Identity, the Sex-Reassignment Surgery Fatwas and Islamic Theology of a Third Gender.’ Religions & Gender 7, no. 2: 164–179. Insightful discussion of sex reassignment and intersex fatwas and the possibility of considering these as a third gender. Ragab, A. 2015. ‘One, Two, or Many Sexes: Sex Differentiation in Medieval Islamicate Medical Thought.’ Journal of the History of Sexuality 24, no. 3: 428–454. Describes medieval theories of conception and sex differentiation, with particular attention to the ideas of al-Rā zı̄ . Sanders, P. 1991. ‘Gendering the Ungendered Body: Hermaphrodites in Medieval Islamic Law.’ In Keddie, N. and Baron, B., eds. Women in Middle Eastern History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 74–95. Although Sanders reached different conclusions than those presented here, this was the first study to point out that jurists ‘gendered’ intersex bodies. Scalenghe, S. 2014. ‘The Khunthā .’ In: Disability in the Ottoman Arab World, 1500–1800. New York: Cambridge University Press. A compelling case for considering khunthā as a disability.

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Albucasis. 1973. Kitab al-Tasrif: Albucasis on Surgery and Instruments; A Definitive Edition of the Arabic Text with English Translation and Commentary. Spink, M. and Lewis, G. eds. and trans. Berkeley: University of California Press. Al-Bustā nı̄ , B. 1987. ‘Kh-n-th.’ In: Muh ̄ ̣ıt ̣ al-muh ̄ ̣ıt.̣ Beirut: Maktabat Lubnā n. https://ia800502.us.arch ive.org/6/items/waq71540/71540_text.pdf Al-Ghazzı̄ , N. 1979. Al-Kawā kib al-sā ʾira bi ʿayā n al-miʾa al-ʿā shira. Vol. 1. Beirut: Dā r al-Afā q al-Jadı̄ da. Al-Ḥalabı̄ , I. 1989. Multaqā ʾ al-abh ̣ur. Vol. 1. Beirut: Muʾassasa li-al-risā la. Ali, K. 2011. Imam Shafiʿi. London: Oneworld. Kindle. Ali, K. 2015. Sexual Ethics and Islam. London: Oneworld. Kindle. Alipour, M. 2017a. ‘Islamic Shariʿa Law, Neotraditionalist Muslim Scholars and Transgender Sexreassignment Surgery: A Case Study of Ayatollah Khomeini’s and Sheikh al-Tantawi’s fatwas.’ International Journal of Transgenderism 18, no. 1: 91–103. Al-Marghı̄ nā nı̄ , B. 1990. Al-Hidā ya, with al-ʿAini, Banā ya fı̄ sharh ̣ al-hidā ya. Vol. 12. Beirut: Dā r al-Fikr al-ʿArabı̄ . Al-Muh ̣ibbı̄ , M. 1867. Khulasā t al-athā r fı̄ tarā jim ahl al-qarn al-hā di-ʿashar. Vol. 3. Cairo. http://babel.hathi trust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89038439782. Al-Nuʿmā n, A. 1969. Daʾā ʾim al-islā m wa dhikr al-h ̣alā l wa al-h ̣arā m wa al-qaḍā yā wa al-ih ̣kā m ʿan ahl bayt Rasū l Allā h .Vol. 2. Cairo: Dar al-Maʿā rif. Al-Qudū rı̄ , A. 1953. Le statut personnel en droit musulman hanefite. With Arabic text. Bousquet, G. and Bercher, L., trans. Paris: Recueil Sirey. Al-Qurashi, B. 2014. The Life of Imam ʿAli al-Hadi: Study and Analysis. Qom: Ansariyan. Al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ , A. 2006. Tafsı̄ r al-Qurtubı ̣ ̄ : Al-jā miʿ li-ah ̣kā m al-Qurʾā n. Al-Turkı̄ , ʿA., ed. Vol. 18. Beirut: Al-Risā la. Al-Ramlı̄ , K. 1857. Al-Fatā wā al-khayriyya li nafʿ al-barriyya. Vol 2 of 2 vols. in 1. Cairo: n.p. Al-Sarakhsı̄ , A. 2001. Kitā b al-mabsū t.̣ Vol. 30. Beirut: Dā r al-Kitā b al-ʿIlmiyya, 103–127. Al-Shā fiʿı̄ . 1987. Risala. Khadduri, M. trans. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society. Al-Thaʿlabı̄ , A. 2002. Al-Kashf wa al-bayā n ʿan tafsı̄ r al-Qurʾā n. Vol. 8. Beirut: Dā r al-Ih ̣yā al-tura ̣ ̄ th al-ʿArabı̄ . Al-Ṭū sı̄ , A. 1970. Tahdhı̄ b al-ah ̣kā m. Vol. 9. Tehran: Dā r al-Kutub al-Islā miyyah. Al-Zabı̄ dı̄ , M. 1969. Tā j al-ʿArū s. Vol. 5. Kuwait: Matba ̣ ʿat al-Ḥukū ma. Aristotle. 1953. Generation of Animals. Peck, A. trans. Rev. and repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that Matter. London: Routledge. Calder, N. 1993. Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dessouky, N. 2001. ‘Gender Assignment for Children with Intersex Problems: An Egyptian Perspective.’ Egyptian Journal of Surgery 20, no. 2: 499–515. Dreger, A. 1998. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. El-Rouayheb, K. 2005. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500–1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Galen. 1992. On Semen. De Lacy, P., ed. and trans. Berlin: Akademie. Hippocrates. 1978. ‘The Seed.’ I. Lonie, I. trans. In Lloyd, G., ed. Hippocratic Writings. London: Penguin, 317–323. Human Rights Watch. 2017. ‘A History of Intersex Activism and Evolution of Medical Protocol.’ www. hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2017/07/25/history-intersex-activism-and-evolution-medicalprotocol (accessed 25 June 2018). Ibn Ah ̣mad, A. 1984. Kitā b al-ʿayn. Vol. 4. Qom: Dā r al-Hijra. Ibn al-Ḥimşı̄ , A. 1999. Hawā dith al-zamā n wa-wafayā t al-shuyū kh wa al-aqrā n. Vol. 3. Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAsriyya. Ibn Manz ̣ū r. 1997. ‘Kh-n-th’ and ‘dk-k-r’. Lisā n al-ʿArab. Vol. 2. Beirut: Dā r al-Ṣadr. Ibn Qudā ma, M. 1972. Al-Mughni wa al-sharh ̣ al-kabı̄ r. Vol. 7. Beirut: Dā r al-Kitā b al-cArabi. Ibn Sı̄ nā . 1593. Al-Qanū n fı̄ al-tibb. ̣ Vol. 3, pts. 20–21. Rome: In Typographia Medicca. http://ddc.aub. edu.lb/projects/saab/avicenna/contents.html. Ibn Sı̄ nā . 1987. Al-Qanū n fı̄ al-tibb. ̣ Al-Fash, E. ed. 3rd ed. Vol. 3, pt. 20. N.p.: Muʾassassat ʿIzz al-Dı̄ n. Ibn Ṭulū n. 1962. Mufā kahā t al-khillā n fı̄ hawā dith al-zamā n, tarı̄ kh Misṛ wa al-Shā m. Musṭ afa, ̣ M. ed. Vol. 1. Cairo: Al-Muʾassassa al-Misriyya al-ʿAmma li al-Taʾlı̄ f wa al-Tarjama. ̣ Kuhnle, U., W. Krahl. 2002. ‘The Impact of Culture on Sex Assignment and Gender Development in Intersex Patients.’ Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 45, no. 1: 85–103.

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8 SEXUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS Actors and arguments Anissa Hélie

In December 2018, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) celebrated its 70th anniversary. With the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s endorsement of UDHR in 1948, the international community asserted that every person, everywhere, by virtue of their being human, should be granted a set of rights. This collective articulation of rights – which the UDHR defined as ‘universal, inalienable, interdependent, indivisible and interrelated’ – was nothing short of revolutionary then and has continued to inform various struggles from the mid-20th century onwards. These struggles have been fought in arenas as diverse as anti-colonial efforts and self-determination claims post 1945 to, more recently, women’s rights or disabled people’s rights. Since 1948, countless advocates around the globe have worked, and continue to work, in order to make human rights – both in their focus and impact – more relevant to our evolving world. While certainly not perfect in terms of their implementation, human rights nevertheless constitute a powerful and valuable international framework. The UN system was established to ensure that every person be protected in the enjoyment of their human rights, and in order to equip those seeking redress with tools to hold accountable perpetrators of human rights violations, no matter how powerful these perpetrators may be. Indeed, human rights have enabled people throughout the world to contest discrimination, legitimize their claims and mobilize to demand justice. Human rights defenders have used the UN system creatively, as well as relied on human rights values outside the UN system – leading to great achievements, but also expanding the reach of the human rights framework in the process. Those drafting the UDHR in 1948 were keen to ensure that fundamental human rights be achieved for the widest possible constituencies: ‘without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status’ (UNDHR 1948: Art. 2). Yet, they most likely could not foresee, for example, that trans and intersex people would claim their human rights half a century later, including through using UN mechanisms in innovative ways. A key strength of the human rights system is precisely that it is fluid enough to incorporate the claims of social actors who are starting to organize collectively. It is an evolving framework, shaped by state and non-state actors alike – both those attempting to restrict its reach, and those relying on it to build a world ‘free from discrimination, coercion and violence’.1

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However, human rights abuses continue to be deeply entrenched globally, with people being especially vulnerable on account of their sex and sexuality, gender and gender identity, bodies, class, wealth, ethnicity, religion and a host of other factors. Women and nonconforming people remain particularly at risk, especially where sexual conduct and gender expression are concerned, and despite the fact that many countries formally provide guarantees of gender equality (including, for some, trans and intersex rights). Indeed, while international law asserts states’ obligation to protect both individuals and groups from abuse, state actors regularly criminalize not only victims but also human rights defenders, with women human rights defenders being frequently targeted. This chapter focuses on women from Muslim backgrounds and on their sexual and bodily rights, in recognition of the fact that women are overwhelmingly affected by systemic inequalities, and that sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) remain among the most contested rights. Many commentators assume that sexual control is exercised more severely on women from Muslim communities, but in fact such restrictions apply throughout the world. Three recent examples from North America, Asia and Africa remind us that misogyny, homophobia and impunity are rife in all regions. In the United States, in October 2018, the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court (DAWN 2018) evidenced how little progress had been made – since the time of the Clarence Thomas appointment to that Court in 1991 (Pruitt 2018) – by women seeking to expose sexual violence. In Indonesia, in November 2018, the Supreme Court imposed a six-month prison sentence and a fine on a woman who documented her employer’s consistent sexual harassment (Paddock and Suhartono 2019) – again demonstrating that the highest institutions often fail to uphold women’s claims to equality. In Tunisia, in February 2019, a young man who filed a police complaint for attack and robbery was forced to undergo an anal test, then sentenced to six months in prison for ‘sodomy’ (Ghoshal 2019). However outrageous these cases may seem – with state actors blatantly engaging in victim-blaming – they are representative of injustices that occur daily across the world. In the face of injustices that are so deeply ingrained as to seem immutable, a key question is: how can we defend human rights principles and obtain redress when most national judicial systems are effectively biased? This chapter starts from the premise that international human rights often offer broader protections than national legal frameworks. However, human rights are being challenged across local, national, regional and global fora. The current political climate undermines the values of equality, solidarity and human dignity that are at the core of international human rights and we also witness major national leaders questioning commitments to justice both domestically and internationally. At this juncture, it is all the more necessary to examine some arguments and actions directed against the principles embodied in human rights, as well as the ongoing struggles for their protection and realization. First, I address arguments that are frequently used within and outside Muslim communities against the values of human rights, and especially against the principle of universality. Those arguments often invoke ‘culture’ and ‘Islamic traditions’, and juxtapose West and South in its challenge of the UN system and international agreements. Second, I offer examples of the ways advocates from Muslim contexts have promoted SRHR over the past 25 years. I envisage some advances within the UN system before referring to human rights principles and values as they find meaningful expressions outside the UN system, including as part of progressive interpretations of Islam. By doing so, I intend to show that the efforts deployed by human rights defenders constitute both a recognition that abuses persist on a large scale, as well as a powerful response to the criticisms expressed in in the first section of the chapter.

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It may be worth mentioning here that by sexuality, in this chapter, I refer to power relations, notions and practices that underpin both everyday realities and institutional arrangement of women’s (and men’s) lives. Thus I refer to both gendered hierarchies of and assumptions about female and male sexualities, as well as to the hierarchies and assumptions that regulate heteronormativity. Both aspects of sexuality – female/male distinctions, and hetero/homo distinctions – are embedded in the various international human rights frameworks, UN human rights resolutions and institutions. Both are under continuous attacks from various corners of secular and religious conservative and rightwing political actors, and both are consistently addressed in women’s struggles across the world. It is also worth citing the World Health Organization (WHO) (2010) broad understanding of sexuality, as being ‘influenced by the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical and religious and spiritual factors’. Conversely, sexuality is interwoven with countless aspects of our lives. Yet, because our lives are gendered, female bodies and desires are more scrutinized than male bodies and women’s agency constantly restricted by dominant notions of morality or modesty. As a result, women (along with non-conforming people) bear the brunt of punishment imposed by communities and governments for alleged sexual transgressions. A fact already noted in 2002 by the first Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Radhika Coomaraswamy, who pointed that: ‘Women who transgress the boundaries of appropriate sexual behavior are subject to direct violence of the most horrific kind’ and ‘the killing of women with impunity for these transgressions is perhaps the most overt example of the brutal control of female sexuality’ (UN 2002 E/CN.4/ 2002/83:para.100). Most recently, in 2017, the Human Rights Council expressed ‘serious concern that the application of the death penalty for adultery is disproportionately imposed on women’ (UN 2017 A/HRC/36/27: 3).

Criticisms of the human rights framework: challenging universality Despite the fact the HDHR vision is far from realization, over the past three decades, the human rights framework has been dismissed by many state and non-state actors keen to promote the notion of cultural relativism, at the expense of the principle of universality. These attacks have coincided to some extent with the unprecedented organizing around women’s human rights that occurred during, and following, the UN Decade for Women (1976–1985) which created opportunities for women from all over the world to identify issues of common concerns and network for change. It must be noted that the backlash against universality of human rights has been particularly fierce where women’s and LGBTTI2 rights are concerned. I briefly examine here three of the avenues through which human rights opponents operate to promote their conservative political agendas: (1) they undermine the universality principle by constructing human rights as an attack on non-Western cultures, religions and traditions; (2) they attempt to by-pass the UNDHR by proposing alternative frameworks, as is the case with the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights; and (3) various governments of Muslim-majority countries co-opt human rights mechanisms while rejecting gender equality, with the ‘reservations’ to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) providing a useful example.

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Undermining universality, promoting cultural relativism The current UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Karima Bennoune (a US citizen of Algerian heritage), remarks that women’s human rights are a key area of tension between human rights advocates and their opponents: As noted in a joint statement by United Nations human rights experts, in June 20173: Women’s rights are facing an alarming backlash in many parts of the world … We need more than ever to protect the fundamental principle that all rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated … Despite this unbreakable principle, upheld in the 1993 Vienna Declaration on human rights, we are witnessing efforts by fundamentalist groups to undermine the foundation on which the whole human rights system is based. Some of these efforts are based on a misuse of culture, including religion and tradition. (UN 2017 A/72/15517) Indeed, advocates of cultural relativism bolster their criticisms by claiming human rights are ‘foreign’ to a given nation, region, culture or tradition. While not all efforts to weaken the universality principle originate from Muslim-majority states, the most blatant opposition in the UN arena is often spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC promotes its conservative agenda by forging alliances across culturo-religious divides (including with the Vatican delegate at the UN, the Holy See, or representatives of the Christian right) and by relying on arguments of national sovereignty or about ‘preserving culture’. Under the guise of cultural rights or religious freedom, conservative and extremist social actors on local, national and international stages, aim at justifying harmful practices, which may be condoned by religion or culture, and which disproportionately affect women. Proponents of the Muslim right deploy such arguments as part of a two-fold strategy: first, they construct women’s human rights as foreign to all and any Muslim context – hence delegitimizing feminist aspirations arising from their own communities; second, they posit culture and traditions as static, hence delegitimizing any progressive attempt to promote societal change. Such arguments should be scrutinized by critically interrogating whose interests such claims serve, and by seeking responses formulated by feminist voices (past and present) originating from Muslim contexts. Various scholars have documented histories of women’s activism in Muslim contexts (Badran and Cook 1990; Mernissi 1994), with Pakistani sociologist and former UN Special Rapporteur, Farida Shaheed (2011a: xi, xiii, xxxiii), highlighting women’s struggles from the 8th to the mid-20th centuries in order to challenge the common misconception that feminism originated in the West: There is a dangerous myth, which must be challenged, debunked, and laid to rest. [It] suggests that women’s struggles for rights are alien to societies that have embraced Islam … this myth enjoys a surprising degree of credibility not merely outside but also within Muslim contexts … While contemporary concepts of ‘universal human rights’ are a distinctly 20th century development, there is ample evidence of women’s initiatives to promote or defend rights throughout history, even if the terminology as well as the understanding of rights differed … Labelling all rights discourses and attendant actions as inherently ‘western’, alien and of the 133

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Other, is an insidious way of suppressing women’s demands for rights and justice … [Yet] the strong and determined women, engaged in the struggle for women’s rights, emerging from the pages of history …, effectively refute the myth of the silent, cloistered, and acquiescent women of popular imagination. Historical examples of women’s rights advocates from Muslim backgrounds undermine conservative suggestions that cultures are fixed and frozen in time. Thoraya Obaid (2008), a Saudi UN advocate for global women’s rights,4 also notes: Culture is created by people, and people can change culture … Communities have to look at their cultural values and practices and determine whether they impede or promote the realization of human rights. Then, they can build on the positive and change the negative. Obaid recognizes that ‘values and practices that infringe human rights can be found in all cultures’ and advocates for ‘culturally sensitive approach’ that ‘encourages change from within’. But she warns that: ‘Cultural sensitivity and engagement do not mean acceptance of harmful traditional practices, or a free pass for human rights abuses’ – far from it. Understanding cultural realities can reveal the most effective ways to challenge harmful practices and promote human rights. Citing an example of female genital mutilation (FGM), she explains: ‘This harmful practice carries significant cultural meaning – it is seen as part of a girl’s transition to womanhood. Today, we are working with community leaders to keep the celebratory aspects of the tradition and remove the harmful aspect of cutting’. Shaheed (2011b: 2–3), former UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, points at structural power hierarchies when she deplores that ‘Women rarely – if ever – define the dominant culture, because they do not have the economic, social or political power to do so’. Hence, Shaheed calls for women to be recognized as active agents of culture ‘on an equal basis with men’, asserting that ‘Women have the right to access, participate in and contribute to all aspects of cultural life’, as well as to ‘actively engage in identifying and interpreting cultural heritage and deciding which cultural traditions, values or practices are to be kept intact, modified or discarded’ (UN 2012 A/67/287). She also reminds us that ‘No society ever has a singular culture. Each society, and every community, has both a dominant culture and multiple subaltern cultures’ (Shaheed 2011b: 3). Shaheed’s remark, of course, also applies to dominant sexual culture. Scott Long (2005: 2) – a pioneering sexual rights advocate, who researched the persecution of Egyptian men accused of same-sex conduct – pointed, over a decade ago, to the larger issues that fight against universal application of sexual rights target: A spectre is stalking the arenas where human rights activists work … The forces in question define themselves most often by what they claim to defend – and that shifts from time to time and territory to territory: ‘culture,’ ‘tradition,’ ‘values,’ or ‘religion.’ What they share is a common target: sexual rights and sexual freedoms. These are most often represented by women’s reproductive rights, the assault on which continues. The most vividly drawn and violently reviled enemy typically is homosexuality. ‘Gay and lesbian rights,’ the dignity of people with different desires, the basic principle of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation: all these are painted as incompatible with fundamental values, even with humanity itself. The target is chosen with passion, but also precision and care. Movements for the rights 134

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of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people, along with movements that assert sexual rights more generally, are arguably the most vulnerable edge of the human rights movement. In country after country they are easy to defame and discredit. But the attack on them also opens space for attacking human rights principles themselves – as not universal but ‘foreign,’ as not protectors of diversity but threats to sovereignty, and as carriers of cultural perversion. His arguments remind us that giving up the struggle for universality of one set of rights – such as sexual rights – endangers the values of all rights. The next example shows this clearly.

By-passing: the Cairo Declaration In 1990, conservative Muslim-majority countries joined to promote the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights. This initiative constitutes a deliberate challenge to the universality of human rights, and an attempt to delegitimize international human rights principles and institutions (Mayer 1994). The Cairo Declaration subjects human rights to be subordinated to shariʿa – i.e. Muslim jurisprudence – by positing shariʿa as ‘the only source of reference’. This is problematic on at least two counts. First, it betrays a common misconception regarding shariʿa, by ignoring the fact there is no homogeneous interpretation of Muslim laws which apply uniformly across Muslim-majority nations. In other words, there is no consensus among religious scholars regarding the ‘correct’ interpretation of shariʿa. In part because Islam has, over time, merged with local cultures and thus its postulates, scriptures and prescriptions are interpreted in a number of ways, differing according to contexts. To take one example among many, proponents of the Cairo Declaration would be hard pressed to identify one single ‘shariʿaapproved’ approach related to abortion. Using legal data from 42 Muslim countries, I highlighted the wide range of prescriptions regarding abortion – ranging from complete prohibition to allowing abortion for various reasons: either to preserve the woman’s mental or physical health, or on the basis of socio-economic factors, or even without any restriction, i.e. on request (Hélie 2012a). Second, proponents of the Cairo Declaration insist on religion being central to all individuals of Muslim heritage. This is a familiar trope, challenged by sociologist Maxime Rodinson (2002: 60) almost 50 years ago, when he denounced the essentialist approach to Muslim societies exemplified by the myth of homo islamicus: In the 19th century, the Oriental became something quite separate, sealed off in his own specificity … This is the origin of the homo islamicus, a notion widely accepted even today. [S]cholars believed that they could deduce the characteristics of the ‘Muslim mind,’ based on the assumption that all Muslims, from the rise of Islam until the present, were constrained to think and believe and act within the rigid limits set by the essential character of the civilisation to which they belonged – the ‘essential character’ here being Islam. Despite widespread claims positing Islam as the key marker of identity in Muslim communities, religion is far from being the only parameter impacting norms and practices (gendered, sexual or otherwise) in Muslim communities. Palestinian-American legal scholar Abu-Odeh (2017: 7) warns us that ‘turning the “Muslim” – a complex social being – into 135

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a homo Islamicus – a bearer of identity – is an islamist5 project’. Whether deployed within or outside the UN arena, it is clearly a political project promoted by the Muslim right. The insistence on a presumed ubiquitous relevance of religion which transcends borders and centuries, as well as race, class and gender – has direct implications for women, including their ability to enjoy bodily and sexual rights. Despite the diverse ways Islam is interpreted, legislated and practiced, the policing of sexuality is often justified through discourses of moral codes, cultural ‘authenticity’ and religion. In Muslim communities around the world, conservative forces and actors linked to the religious right rely on selective interpretations of Islam to oppose sexual diversity and gender equality. (Hélie 2012b: 3) Thus, understanding the (cultural, political, religious) diversity in ideas, everyday and legal practices, jurisprudence and contexts that exist among, and within, Muslim contexts is central to debunking arguments about the specificities of Islam as a religion that allegedly prohibits the universality of human rights.

Co-opting human rights: implications of ‘reservations’ to CEDAW The idea that ‘local cultures’ are inimical to universality of human rights (and hence should not be interfered with), and that Islam is the over-determining force in the lives of all people of Muslim descent, everywhere, are not promoted just by conservative or islamist forces. They are also a staple of Western right-wing politics, and sadly, also of many liberal and left-wing actors. Some Western liberal actors fall into the trap of supporting conservative, even extremist, constituencies because they believe their claims that gender hierarchies and discrimination are acceptable in Muslim countries and communities. Ironically, it is in the name of respect for other cultures and religions that such actors help legitimize opponents of women’s and LGBTTI rights. By so doing, they bolster the (mis)use of religion within the UN arena to promote political agendas that clearly undermine human rights values. Nowhere is this blindness clearer than in the case of religion-based reservations to the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). While it is worth noting that (among just a handful of countries) the USA has not yet ratified CEDAW, most Muslim-majority countries have – yet many undermine the Convention’s very spirit by introducing ‘reservations’, in other words by limiting its applicability. For example, Algeria, where Islam is the state religion, ratified CEDAW in 1996 but attached reservations to: Article 2 (general goal of tackling violence against women); Article 15(4) (freedom of movement or residence); and Article 16 (marital and family life) on the basis that these provisions contradict the national Family Code, itself inspired by a restrictive interpretation of Islam. Those ‘reservations’ to key CEDAW provisions face strong opposition from Algerian women’s groups and several discriminatory laws have been amended,6 although a long struggle against them still remains. However, the very fact that UN institutions tolerate governments paying lip service to human rights in general while rejecting those pertaining to women, thus eviscerating international instruments from their very meaning, raises serious accountability questions (Mayer 1996; Musawah 2011, on religion-based reservations to CEDAW). 136

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Outside the UN, too, some Western-based human rights and left organizations endorse islamist activists whose ideologies are antithetical to human rights (Tax 2012: 28–29, 55, 67–69). By doing so, they become complicit to a wide range of abuses justified on grounds of religion or culture, and undermine the work of local human rights defenders. Further, whether UN actors or mainstream human rights groups, these liberal entities participate in legitimizing a trend that feminists from Muslim backgrounds have denounced since the late 1990s, i.e. the shrinking spaces for secular politics. Interestingly, this same trend is noted again in locale as diverse as the UK and Israel, with British activist and author Pragna Patel (2008) deploring that: Civil society is actively encouraged to organize around exclusive religious identities, and religious bodies are encouraged to take over spaces once occupied by progressive secular groups and, indeed, by a secular welfare state. In the process, a complex web of social, political, and cultural processes are reduced by both state and community leaders into purely religious values, while concepts of human rights, equality and discrimination are turned on their head. For Israeli professor of constitutional law and religion-state relations Gila Stopler (2017: 474), the issue is widespread: ‘In recent years, many countries are experiencing a process of de-privatization of religion in which religions seek to strengthen their power and status in the public sphere as well as to gain more authority over their own adherents’. Indeed, reservations to CEDAW appear linked to a broader political agenda.

Summary Previous criticisms levied against the human rights system were primarily politically motivated, i.e. linked to attempts to undermine the universality principle. But one criticism – centering on who lectures whom about their human rights records – points to the power dynamics being levelled on a global scale and to the role played by discourses about human rights. There is no denying that human rights can be used, when politically expedient, to assert political dominance, as was seen when Laura Bush helped legitimize the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan by casting it as a ‘fight for the rights and dignity of [Afghan] women’. The deployment of human rights discourse as a tool of domination is clearly a threat to human rights values, and to women’s human rights in particular, especially given that many Westerners have, since colonial times, associated Islam with the subjugation of women, and stereotyped Muslim men as oppressive and Muslim women as submissive. The discursive constructions of a threatening, sexist and homophobic Islam – be it through discourses of ‘saving Muslim women’ or homonationalism – only add fuel to the backlash against human rights. As (former UN Special Rapporteur) Coomaraswamy points out: The fight to eradicate certain cultural practices that are violent to women is often made difficult by what may be termed ‘the arrogant gaze’ of the outsider. Many societies feel that the campaign to fight cultural practices if often undertaken in a way as to make the third world appear as the primitive ‘other,’ denying dignity and respect towards its people. (UN 2003 E/CN.4/2003/75) 137

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Noting the ‘message propagated by human rights groups and the media [asserting that] Muslim women need to be rescued’, anthropology professor Abu-Lughod (2002) denounces ‘the resonances of contemporary discourses on equality, freedom, and rights with earlier colonial and missionary rhetoric on Muslim women’. She argues against the impulse to ‘save’ Muslim women, and points at ‘the superiority it implies and the violence it would entail’. Her argument can be extended to the urge to ‘save’ Muslim lesbians or trans women: they may welcome external solidarity but they can think and save themselves, and have been engaged in many struggles for self-determination. Yet – despite their deployment in strategically hypocritical, geopolitical and domestic right-wing schemes – human rights offer the only international forum whose aim is to hold states accountable for upholding and protecting both individual and collective rights. However imperfect, human rights can only be what social actors make of it. As shown in the next section, many harmful practices and discriminatory legal provisions in Muslim countries and communities have been successfully challenged by local advocates using the human rights framework, often struggling against powerful state and non-state actors.

Promoting SRHR: global stages and local struggles In many contexts, women’s demands for autonomous decision-making about reproductive rights and sexuality – including challenges to heteronormativity – are met with strong opposition, demonstrating that sexual repression is not only acceptable but also enforced through various coercive measures. However, recent mobilizations in favour of sexuality, reproduction and gender-related rights have led to increased protections in the SRHR field, as articulated in various UN instruments (including at regional level7). While not all UN documents are binding, they provide necessary guidelines upon which human rights defenders can build to improve regional and national legal frameworks.

Significant advances on global stages Given this chapter’s limited length, only a few ground-breaking examples can be mentioned here and, reflecting back on my over three decades of engagement with SRHR advocacy, I can identify three defining trends at the international level. These trends, which I briefly address, include: the strengthening of women’s human rights movements; the emergence of sexual and bodily rights advocacy; and the recognition of the roles played by non-state actors. I start with the (second) UN World Conference on Human Rights (WCHR), held in 1993 in Vienna, where an unprecedented, bottom-up, global campaigning and networking effort forced the WCHR to finally, officially recognize women’s human rights. Successful international feminism mobilization, under the banner ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’, addressed the UN failure to acknowledge women or to recognize any specific gender aspects of human rights in its resolution mandating the holding of a WCHR (Bunch and Reilly 1994). A worldwide petition called upon the UN to ‘comprehensively address women’s human rights at every level of its proceedings’, and demanded that ‘gender violence be recognized as a violation of human rights requiring immediate action’. The petition gathered nearly half a million signatures (including fingerprints from illiterate women!) from 124 countries – before the generalization of internet and online petitions. It was translated into 24 languages and sponsored by over 1,000 groups, including advocates mobilizing across Muslim contexts to ensure that feminist voices from Muslim communities would 138

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provide testimonies to the Tribunal, also held in Vienna. Overall, these combined efforts were crucial in ensuring that the UN appointed, in 1994, its first Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. Around the same time, another major development took place: in 1992, homosexuality ceased to be listed as a disease by the UN WHO. Transsexuality remained stigmatized for another 25 years but, as of 2018, is no longer considered a mental illness by the WHO. Meanwhile, in 2001, six UN Independent Experts and Special Rapporteurs issued a joint statement urging activists in LGBT8 circles to assist with documenting violations – an unprecedented move at the time. A decade later, in 2012, the UN Human Rights Council hosted its first-ever high-level panel on violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)9. Then Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon delivered a pioneering message: Like many of my generation, I did not grow up talking about these issues. But I learned to speak out because lives are at stake – and because it is our duty, under the United Nations Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to protect the rights of everyone, everywhere … To those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, let me say, you are not alone … Any attack on you is an attack on the universal values the United Nations and I have sworn to defend and uphold. Today, I stand with you, and I call upon all countries and people to stand with you, too. A historic shift is under way. More states see the gravity of the problem … We must tackle the violence, decriminalize consensual same-sex relationships, ban discrimination and educate the public … I count on this Council and all people of conscience to make this happen. The time has come. (UN 2012 SG/SM/14145-HRC/13) How controversial these issues remain at the UN was evidenced when, during the Secretary-General’s speech, delegates from the OIC and various African countries staged a walk out. Nevertheless, ‘the time had come’: in 2015, a second UN SOGI report alerted to a pattern of ‘pervasive, violent abuse, harassment and discrimination affecting LGBT and intersex persons in all regions’ and insisted that ‘States have well-established obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all persons within their jurisdiction, including LGBT and intersex persons’ (UN 2015 A/HRC/29/23: 20, 5). In 2016, the first Independent Expert on SOGI was appointed, marking an important milestone in the LGBTTI struggle. Another crucial step was achieved in UN circles when threats to women’s human rights posed by non-state actors were recognized. Historically, human rights had been statefocused, because the UN system privileged political rights over economic, social and cultural rights. But, thanks to the painstaking work of documenting abuse (often carried out by civil society groups), violations by family members, employers, religious and community leaders, private companies, militias or armed groups, etc. became impossible to ignore. Holding private actors accountable proved key for safeguarding women’s SRHR. An example of early such documentation is a ‘shadow report’ submitted in 1999 to the CEDAW Committee by US feminist lawyers and the International Solidarity Network Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML/IWHRLC 2000: 5–6, 15, 18). It called attention to a grave threat facing Algerian women in the 1990s: islamist armed groups. These non-state actors terrorized civilians, targeting women especially through non-judicial killings and widespread sexual slavery. Authors deplored the human rights system’s ‘focus 139

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on … violations by the state’ leading ‘the international community [to] largely ignore the fundamentalist campaign of violence and atrocities.’ They insisted that ‘It is particularly urgent that this [CEDAW] Committee examine the impact of the fundamentalist insurgency’ given that ‘a cornerstone of the fundamentalist agenda is the imposition of genderapartheid’ and that Algerian women endure ‘rape, torture … including burnings, beatings and the mutilation of breasts and genitals’. The three trends identified here clearly result from ongoing efforts deployed by coalitions of women and gender rights activists. Such advances have been of immense importance for many regional coalitions involving advocates from Muslim contexts (such as the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies, Maghreb Egalité 9510 and many more). Their battles have been hard-fought – and remain a work in progress – but demonstrate the power of solidarity forged by like-minded human rights defenders across religious, cultural and ethnic boundaries.

Upholding human rights principles, localizing women’s human rights Activists are well aware that UN-based work is fuelled by local resistance against abuse. Former head of Amnesty International’s Gender Unit, Gita Sahgal (2004), highlighted the synergy between human rights advocacy at the international and domestic levels. Referring specifically to violence against women, she noted: The human rights framework assists our [local] work. It gives us a set of principles to act upon. Our work informs the human rights framework internationally as we are in turn informed by it, in the cases we bring to courts, when using CEDAW or other human rights tools. It is a two-way street. It is therefore crucial to recognize the expertise and agency of local actors: they must be given precedence in terms of identifying the most pressing issues and designing the strategies they see most fit. In polarized environments, using UN mechanisms may expose activists to increased pressure (from the authorities or civil society opponents). Nevertheless, where explicit references to the UN system appear too risky, people draw inspiration from human rights principles. I bring here examples, from different regions, of local struggles that have claimed SRHR against state and non-state actors in communities where ‘culture’ and ‘Islam’ have been put forward as justifications for restrictions and/or violations of those rights. In Chad in 1995, film director Zara Yacoub was facing threats as well as a fatwa, because her film11 depicted an FGM scene and was deemed blasphemous by the imam of the Grand Mosque of Ndjamena. An association, the Union of Young Chadian Muslims, declared the film was ‘against good morals, human values and divine law’. Once alerted, WLUML launched an Alert for Action (i.e. urgent mobilization to try uphold the human rights of an individual at risk). In October 1995, the Alert was circulated to WLUML’s contacts, with a focus on African and Muslim countries. It emphasized that Yacoub had simply ‘exercised her right to freedom of expression, one of the fundamental human rights recognized by the UN and the Constitution of the Republic of Chad’ and appealed to the government to protect Yacoub’s work because it upheld the rights of young women and girls potentially subjected to FGM. This targeted international support was ultimately ‘very effective’, according to Yacoub’s subsequent report: while ‘there was no official reaction’, she no longer felt the need to take security precautions given that ‘the President of the Republic told the imam to calm down and forget his case’.12 140

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This example from 1995 demonstrates that feminists from Muslim contexts have endorsed and used human rights for decades. They continue to do so through countless initiatives, adapting human rights values to their environments, whether battling sexual harassment and assault in Egypt (Nazra 2014), or creating women-friendly spaces in Pakistan as a way to address gender-based violence in the aftermath of environmental disasters (Shirkat Gah 2011). Besides cases where the struggles for human rights are triggered directly by violations of SRHR, there are other ways people in Muslim communities contribute to the recognition of sexual rights. One of those is research. Researchers have made sexuality more visible by unearthing evidence of a less sexually repressive past. For example academics, such as Palestinian scholar of gender and sexuality Samar Habib (2007), have written about homoeroticism and same-sex practices previously suppressed by mainstream historians (see also Ali 2006; Kugle 2010). Others link academia and documentation of current violations – such as the conference on ‘Prosecuting crimes committed by ISIS against women and LGBT persons’, held in New York in 2017 and involving the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda. While academic works are not necessarily accessible to those who most need this knowledge, numerous local non-governmental organizations are popularizing human rights values, including by producing comic books or short videos on social media. For example, since 2017 IraQueer offers short online (Arabic/Kurdish) videos aimed at youth which, it is claimed, have reached over 150,000 people. Topics include denouncing extra-judicial killings of LGBTTI Iraqis, but also reconciling one’s religion and sexuality, as illustrated in the following dialogue: I believe in God! But being Muslim and a lesbian is against each other. No it’s not! Being Muslim is about your relationship with God. Being a lesbian is about having feelings for someone else. Religion should be a source of peace and love, not a source of terror and fear. Real Muslims are the ones who promote peace.13 Another strategy for upholding SRHR within Muslim communities and resisting discourses positing Islam and human rights as incompatible are feminist and gay-friendly interpretations of Islam, as well as highlighting recognition of human right values in religious texts. There are nowadays several openly gay imams – such as imam Hendricks (2010: 34, 32), leader of the Inner Circle (a South African queer Muslim organization), who rejects ‘patriarchal views on gender and masculinity’ and stresses ‘the Quran’s inclusive nature which promotes equality and freedom of choice’. Other imams supportive of women’s and LGBTII rights include Daayiee Abdullah, who celebrates same-sex marriages in the US, renowned US scholar amina wadud and Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, of French-Algerian descent. Creating community remains key: over the past 15 years, worship places have sprouted that are more women and LGBTTI friendly, for example, the gender-equal Unity Mosques promoted in Canada, since 2003, and in the US, or the feminist-centred Inclusive Mosque Initiative, operating since 2012 in the UK, with affiliates in Malaysia, Switzerland and Pakistan. Meanwhile, Indonesian theologian Musdah Mulia (2009: 1), known for her opposition to polygamy and whose deep knowledge of Muslim jurisprudence informs her analysis, upholds values of equality and non-discrimination in ways that embrace the broadest constituencies:

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We must be uncompromising and passionate in our efforts to decrease stigma and improve access to service, to increase recognition of sexuality as a positive aspect of human life. Marginalized groups such as young people, transgender people, sex workers, people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual, child brides and girl mothers particularly need our compassion. Too often denied, and too long neglected, sexual rights deserve our attention and priority. Whether privileging strategies within or outside a religious framework, initiatives promoting SRHR in Muslim contexts are too numerous to name – an indication that local activists are translating gains at the international level into domestic settings, initiating debates within civil society and developing strategies grounded in their political realities. Conversely, local advocates remain instrumental in pressing UN institutions and mainstream human rights organizations to address violations faced by women, LGBTTI people or sex workers. Hence, human rights-affirming efforts at local, national, regional and international levels are complementary and offer promising responses to widespread gender discrimination.

To each according to hirs (consensual) desires? In conclusion, both a celebratory note and a word of caution are in order. First, the broadening of SRHR over the past three decades is indeed worth celebrating. A 1994 statement by the network Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML 1994: 3) acknowledged the crucial need to address sexuality: Recognizing the important role that sexuality can play in the construction of self, we see how the silence that envelops these questions ultimately creates for us, as for women elsewhere, true barriers that prevent our full enjoyment of human rights and development as human beings. Clearly, 25 years later – and thanks to the efforts of dedicated advocates within and outside the UN – the silence has been broken in many arenas previously mute on ‘these questions’. Yet, we must remain alert for the principle that human rights apply to all humans – no matter their sex, gender, body, gender expression, sexual orientation, health, wealth or status – to become a reality. Threats to women’s human rights are ongoing and there is a great need to resist the rise of identity politics, the assaults on universality and states’ accommodation of religion (including in diaspora communities, see Ashe and Hélie 2014). These serious challenges can be only met through building strong coalitions across our differences. As suggested by Tax (2012: 105): ‘How about recognizing that we all face an emerging conservative front in which Washington and the Muslim Brotherhood are more likely to be allies than adversaries, and human rights are no concern to either?’ In this difficult context, the strength of our solidarity will be invaluable.

Notes 1 As expressed in relation to ‘decisions related to reproduction’ in the ICPD Programme of Action. 1994. A/CONF.171/13, Para. 7.3. 2 LGBTTI: acronym referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual and intersex people. 3 Bennoune, in her July 2017 report, refers to ‘UN experts call for resistance as battle for women’s rights intensifies’ (28 June 2017).

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4 Obaid’s decades-long UN career led her to serve as the UN Population Fund under-secretary general and executive director from 2001 to 2010. 5 It is necessary to distinguish between the terms Muslim (people, believers in Islam), Islamic (that pertains to religion) and islamist (an ultra-conservative political stance). 6 The revised Family Code lifted some provisions that contradicted CEDAW, e.g. duty of obedience by wife to husband was deleted while the transmission of nationality via mothers is allowed. 7 Regional human rights instruments can offer robust protections. A relevant example being the Maputo Plan of Action 2016–2030 for the Operationalisation of the Continental Policy Framework For Sexual and Reproductive Health And Rights. The African Union Commission. 8 Note that the category had not yet expanded to englobe LGBTTI people. 9 Proof of the evolving nature of human rights debates, the initial focus was on ‘sexual orientation’ (SO), followed by the inclusion of ‘gender identity’ (GI). This is currently being expanded by intersex activists to include issues of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sexual characteristics (SOGIESC). 10 Since its inception in 1991, the Collectif 95 Maghreb-Egalité has grown into a network of over 80 organizations. A publication series, the Guide (2003), was developed to ‘respond to those who justify discrimination against women based on Islam’; with each Guide detailing ‘the current law, followed by religious, human rights, sociological, and domestic legal arguments for reform supported by relevant data’. https://learningpartnership.org/resource/guide-equality-family-maghreb-transla tion-series-book-english 11 Yacoub’s film was entitled ‘Dilemne au Feminin’ (‘Feminine Dilemna’). It is worth noting that the ten-year-old actress was also threatened and her ability to attend school was affected. 12 Both WLUML Alert and Yacoub’s letter thanking WLUML for mobilizing international support was, circa 2005, part of WLUML archives, to which the author had access. 13 Iraqueer, 2mns, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpShtgafZ2g&list=PLVmqDH3ec6DqL0EF2C_qVKFRRlDqYp9k

Further reading ARROW for Change. (2017). ‘Intersections: The Politicisation of Religion and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’. 23:1. http://arrow.org.my/publication/afc-religion-srhr/. This offers useful activist references and a feminist, intersectional, transnational glimpse at concrete struggles for SRHR in the Asian region, highlighting the threats posed by religious extremism. Justice for Iran/6Rang. (2014). Diagnosing Identities, Wounding Bodies – Medical Abuses and Other Human Rights Violations against Lesbian, Gay and Transgender People in Iran. JFI and 6Rang. This in-depth report into the pressures facing Iranian LGBTTI people provides a grounded critique of policies that criminalizes cross-dressing and adult consensual same-sex relations while encouraging sex reassignments surgeries. Mir-Hosseini, Z. and Hamzić, V. (2010). Control and Sexuality – The Revival of Zina Laws in Muslim Contexts. London: WLUML. Laws criminalizing zina (loosely referring to sexual relations outside marriage) are examined from a historical and cross-cultural perspective, as part of a feminist enquiry into the use of culture and religion to restrict gender justice. Musawah. (2011). CEDAW and Muslim Family Laws: In Search of Common Ground. Sisters in Islam: Petaling Jaya. www.musawah.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/CEDAW-MuslimFamilyLaws_En. pdf. Based on extensive reviews of governmental reports before the CEDAW Committee (2005–2010), this research critically examines discriminatory provisions and patriarchal justifications for states’ failure to promote gender equality while formulating more egalitarian proposals for Muslim women.

References Abu-Lughod, L. (2002). ‘Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others’. American Anthropologist, 104:3, pp. 783–790. Abu-Odeh, L. (2017). ‘Who Cares about Islamic Law?’. Al-Jumhuriya. 20 June. Ali, K. (2006). Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence, Oxford: Oneworld Publications.

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Anissa Hélie Ashe, M. and Hélie, A. (2014). ‘Realities of Religio-Legalism: Religious Courts and Women’s Rights in Canada, UK, and US’. UC Davis Journal of International Law & Policy, 20:2, pp. 139–209. Badran, M. and Cook, M. (eds.), (1990). Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana Uni. Press. Bunch, C. and Reilly, N. (1994). Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women’s Human Rights. CWGL/UNIFEM, NY/NJ. www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/docman/coalition-build ing-publications/283-demand-accountability/file DAWN. (2018). ‘Kavanaugh Sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice as Protesters Chant Outside’. Oct. 7. www.dawn.com/news/1437426 Ghoshal, N. (2019). ‘Victim Lands Behind Bars in Tunisia’. Human Rights Watch. [Online] 13th Feb. www.hrw.org/news/2019/02/13/victim-lands-behind-bars-tunisia [Accessed 14/02/19]. Habib, S. (2007). Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations. New York: Routledge. Hélie, A. (2012a). ‘The Politics of Abortion Policy in the Heterogeneous “Muslim World”’. Ravaghavan, C. and Levine, J. (eds.), Self-Determination and Women’s Rights in Muslim Societies. Boston: Brandeis University Press, pp. 3–36. Hélie, A. (2012b). ‘Introduction: Policing Gender, Sexuality and ‘Muslimness’’. Hélie, A. and Hoodfar, H. (eds.), Sexuality in Muslim Contexts: Restrictions and Resistance. London: ZED Books, pp. 1–14. Hendricks, M. (2010). ‘Islamic texts: A source of acceptance of queer individuals into mainstream Muslim society’, Equal Rights Review, 5, pp. 31–51. www.equalrightstrust.org/ertdocumentbank/ muhsin.pdf [Accessed 10/11/18]. Kugle, S. S. (2010). Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims, Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Long, S. (2005). ‘Anatomy of a Backlash: Sexuality and the ‘Cultural’ War on Human Rights’. Human Rights Watch. www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k5/anatomy/anatomy.pdf Mayer, A. E. (1994). ‘Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash of Cultures or a Clash with a Construct?’. Michigan Journal of International Law, 15:307. https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/ vol15/iss2/1 Mayer, A. E. (1996). ‘Cultural Particularism as a Bar to Women’s Rights: Reflections on the Middle Eastern Experience’. WLUML Dossier, 16, pp. 21–32. http://wluml.org/english/pubsfulltxt.shtml? cmd%5B87%5D=i-87-3204. Mernissi, F. (1994). Hidden from History: The Forgotten Queens of Islam. Lahore: ASR publications. Musdah Mulia, S. (2009). ‘Understanding LGBT Issues in Islam – Promoting the Appreciation of Human Dignity’. 2nd CSBR Sexuality Institute Proceedings. Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies. (11-18 Sep.). Nazra for Feminist Studies. (2014). ‘‘Qanun Nashaz’ – A Campaign on the Legal Issues Associated with Violence against Women in Both Public and Private Spheres’. Nazra Position paper, Cairo. http:// nazra.org/en/node/388 Obaid, T. (2008). ‘The State of the World Population 2008’. The United Nations Population Fund. November. www.raonline.ch/pages/bt/ecdu/bt_ecostats002.html Paddock, R. C. and Suhartono, M. (2019). ‘She Recorded Her Boss’s Lewd Call. Guess Who Went to Jail?’. New York Times. [Online] 12th Jan. www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/world/asia/indonesiasexual-harassment.html [Accessed 15/1/2019]. Patel, P. (2008). ‘Defending Secular Spaces’. New Stateman, 4 August, n.p. www.newstatesman.com/ukpolitics/2008/08/religious-state-secular Pruitt, S. (2018). ‘How Anita Hill’s Testimony Made America Cringe—And Change’. History, Sep. 26. www.history.com/news/anita-hill-confirmation-hearings-impact.html Rodinson, M. (2002). Europe and the Mystique of Islam. London: I.B. Tauris. Sahgal, G. (2004). ‘Raising Standards to Tackle Violence against Black and Minority Women’. Southall Black Sisters conference. London, (15 Nov.). Shaheed, F. (2011a). Great Ancestors: Women Claiming Rights in Muslim Contexts. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Shaheed, F. (2011b). ‘Cultures, Traditions and Violence against Women: Human Rights Challenges’. Geneva, Panel March 7 (convened by IWRAW AP, PLD, AWAID, VNOC). Shirkat Gah. (2011). Keeping Adrift: Documenting Best Practices for Addressing Gender Based Violence from the Platform of Women Friendly Spaces. Lahore: SG.

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9 MIXITÉ, GENDER DIFFERENCE, AND THE POLITICS OF ISLAM IN FRANCE AFTER THE HEADSCARF BAN Kirsten Wesselhoeft

The so-called ‘Muslim question’ looms large in French public discourse and policymaking (Hajjat and Mohammed 2013). Islam is regularly invoked as a social problem to be solved. It is used as an explanatory factor for social segregation, a justification for policing, suspicion, and discrimination, and as a way of indexing myriad forms of difference: not simply of religion, but of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. Islam forms the grounding for what many critics have termed ‘respectable racism’ – exclusionary and discriminatory views that are embraced in polite society because of their justification through culture and religion rather than phenotype (Bouamama 2004; Wolfreys 2018). In these discourses, Islam is invariably gendered in ways that draw on longstanding Orientalist and colonial anxieties and fantasies about virile men and submissive women. Two figures stand out most prominently. On the one hand, there is the ‘urban youth’, imagined as Arab or Black, hypermasculine, sexist, and dangerous, whether through his delinquency or through his piety. His feminine counterpart is the ‘veiled young woman’, imagined as alienated from her femininity by virtue of the patriarchal culture to which she has been subjected, beset by false consciousness, aggressive in the political intrusion of her visible difference into French space, and yet potentially available for liberation through French gender norms (Guénif-Souilamas 2006). Both of these characters are framed as ‘difficult’ subjects who pose real threats to ‘public order’. They are placed outside the bounds of civility and thus of cultural citizenship. In an effort to tame to these unruly Muslim subjects, correct performance of French norms of gender difference and sexual expression has become the central component of the racial project of integration in France (Amiraux 2008). The racial project of integration is a component of the broader ‘French racial project’ (Beaman 2017). It refers to the pedagogical efforts of political elites to articulate and impose a ‘French way of life’, targeted at racial and ethnic minorities but not at white immigrants, for example. This conceptualization of the French way of life goes beyond canonical Republican values of freedom, equality, and solidarity to encompass ‘consumer citizenship’. Authentic Frenchness is claimed to

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be marked by particular cultural practices, foods, media, leisure activities, articles of clothing, and gendered habits of embodiment and interaction. Analogous political patterns can be observed in many Western multicultural societies. Whether in the United States, the Netherlands, or Germany, public discourse on Islam is likewise often inflammatory, nationalist, and motivated by gendered anxieties. And yet, France retains a certain specificity with respect to public attitudes towards Muslim women’s modest dress, especially but not only the Islamic headscarf or hijab. Since the 1990s, there has been an overwhelming focus in French culture on the headscarf, and on other forms of modest dress ranging from the face veil (niqab) to maxi skirts. Observers from other countries, especially the United States, often profess smug bafflement at this particular French preoccupation as a way of claiming liberal innocence and openmindedness, despite the long record of Islamophobic policymaking and sentiment in the United States. Correspondingly, French Muslims sometimes idealize the ‘openness’ to religion that they imagine or experience in Anglophone societies where, despite widespread Islamophobia, modest dress produces somewhat less of a political spectacle. The difference, many French and American observers say, is laïcité – a term that is often taken, by its partisans and its critics alike, to be so uniquely French as to be untranslatable. Laïcité, the French term for secularism, refers to ‘the separation of church and state through the state’s protection of individuals from the claims of religion’ (Scott 2007: 15), and carries an emphasis on state blindness to citizens’ religious identities, as opposed to the American secular emphasis on free religious expression and the protection of religion from government interference or preference. In France, the legal principle of secularism originated in the 1880s through a series of educational reforms, when free and obligatory national education was established, disentangled from the Catholic Church. Over the past three decades, however, the meaning of secularism has become inextricable from the logic of opposition to the headscarf, not only in the traditionally secular spaces of public schools and government buildings, but in myriad domains of French society. Critics of this new formulation of secularism have identified the emergence of a ‘radicalized’, ‘exclusionary’, or ‘identitarian secularism’, marked by an insistence on the absence of religion in public life and a particular preoccupation with Islam, distinct from the historical secular commitment to neutrality and freedom of conscience (Almeida 2017; Bauberot 2015). However, an exclusive focus on secularism misses the heart of the problem. French objections to Muslim modest dress are made primarily in terms of gender equality and appropriate male–female relations, of which secularism is framed as the only guarantor. But as Joan Scott has decisively shown, the foundational discourses of secularism not only did not include gender equality, but also produced new conceptualizations of women’s inferiority, including the feminization of religion and the relegation of both women and religion to the private sphere (Scott 2017: 30–43). In fact, the idea that secularism both entailed and was necessary for women’s equality only emerged late in the 20th century, through the ‘clash of civilizations’ paradigm and in relief against a Muslim other, at once imagined and, in the colonial North African context, highly concrete. In this context, the specifically French understanding of secularism became fused with another claimed ‘French singularity’ – a version of feminism that depended upon celebrating sexual difference, rather than undermining or minimizing it. In the 1990s and the early decades of the 21st century, during and after the heyday of the ‘headscarf affairs’, a new articulation of French gender values emerged, focused on giving greater depth and valence to the heterosocial interactions that the headscarf was understood to threaten. 147

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The value of mixité, or the normative principle of co-mingling between the sexes, rose in prominence in political discourse. In a 2018 interview, French President Emmanuel Macron, founder of the center-left party La République en Marche, made this connection explicit: Why does it bother us, this veil? It’s because it is not in conformity with the civility that we have in our country. That is, it doesn’t conform to the relations between men and women in our country … We can’t understand this difference, this distance, this separation. That’s what the veil is, and that’s what unsettles our deep philosophy, our common existence. So we have to explain it, we must convince, we must use the pedagogy of the school. (Macron 2018) The contemporary mixité that Macron invokes here is an amalgam of French gender discourses from the 15th century to the 1990s, including some that have historically been opposed to one another. This is not to say that mixité is a timeless Gallic trait, but rather that it draws on a deep historical repertoire of the shifting meanings of sexual difference in French political history in order to construct a pastiche of the moral and political goods served by heterosocial interaction. Mixité is not simply a way to describe social mixing between men and women. It is a normative valuation of heterosociality – an assertion that certain patterns and qualities of social interaction between men and women as men and women are not incidental, but that these patterns of interaction themselves constitute an important social good, carrying moral benefits for men, women, and shared political culture. Mixité is framed variously (and often simultaneously) as a pedagogy, an aesthetic, an important element of manners and civility, the guarantor of women’s rights, and an eroticized experience. Unlike laïcité, mixité is a term with no obvious translation into English. In the primary sense of mixing of the sexes used here, the closest English equivalent is ‘coeducation’, as gender mixité long referred exclusively to school settings. However, the contemporary discourse of mixité goes well beyond the question of educating girls and boys together, referring to a whole range of social interactions, or to the precise qualities of those interactions. In a different sense, mixité refers to co-mingling between any heterogenous groups, notably social classes and racial and ethnic groups, and is close to the English term ‘diversity’. In this context, mixité is opposed to ‘communalism’ (communautarisme), which invokes a set of racialized fears about ‘ethnic enclaves’ and ‘Anglo-American multiculturalism’. This other sense of the term is often implicit in discussions of gender mixité and Muslim dress, as these discussions carry racialized implications. In this chapter I use mixité, gender mixing, and heterosociality interchangeably. There are complex intersecting reasons for the politicization of Muslim women’s dress in France, including the long colonial legacy of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism, and the related Republican suspicion of ‘communalism’. More recently, the politicization of Islam has contributed to the development of an ‘antipolitics’ of retreat from French society among a minority of French Muslims, further reinforcing a cycle of exclusion (Parvez 2017). In the years since the 2004 law on religious signs, however, political discourse has consolidated around mixité, gender equality, and sexual difference as the primary grounds on which to critique Muslim practices and develop a new conception of secular public order that these practices would menace. The 2010 Gerin Report that led to the total ban on the face veil (niqab) already understood that the principle of secularism provided inadequate legal justification for the type of policies that many lawmakers envisioned, designed to regulate broad 148

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spheres of society (Wesselhoeft 2011, 2019). The authors of the Gerin Report thus developed a focus on femininity, sexual difference, and gender mixing as part of the new legal and political critique of Islam. The move to both enlarge and transcend secularism is further developed in the 2016 Jouanno Report, and in a wide range of discourses by political and media elites over the past five years. Recent controversies over modest dress have focused on contexts that are not currently regulated by secularism, such as private workplaces, universities, beaches, and the consumer market, and cultural artifacts that are not inherently ‘religious’, such as maxi skirts and women’s gyms. Attending to mixité situates these recent incidents in a French model of heterosociality as a set of behaviors and sentiments that underscore embodied sexual difference and the latent eroticization of male–female relations, behaviors and sentiments that have been claimed as part of mythic national identity at various moments in the history of the Republic. These identity claims are entwined with the long history of colonial management of male–female relations among Muslim subjects, ranging from public unveilings to social welfare policy. Modest Muslim dress and patterns of homosocial interaction challenge the ‘French conjugal model’ and the normative performance of gender difference. This is the case despite the fact that many Muslim women who dress modestly do so precisely in order to cultivate and perform their femininity as a virtue and a psychosocial resource, and despite the fact that many feminist activists in France are working to articulate and enact alternate understandings of gender difference, offering intersectional critique of the racial and gender ideologies of dominant state discourses, and making secular arguments for non-mixité. In what follows, I offer a brief timeline of the politicization of Muslim modest dress in France, with a focus on the new frontiers and discursive developments of the 2010s. I situate these incidents in a longer history of gender discourses in France, and show how contemporary discourses of mixité draw on diverse and competing ideas about male–female relations, the place of the erotic in democracy, and consumer culture. I show how mixité underpins the emergent reconceptualization of public order. Finally, I show how a range of feminist actors have challenged these understandings of gender difference, and organize around ‘sartorial freedom’ and women’s rights. The contemporary discourse of mixité shows how social norms and political discourses of gendered secularity, while they have emerged against the foil of the modestly dressed Arab Muslim woman, shape the behavior, dress, and interactions of people of all genders, ethnicities, and religions who appear in French public space. As we will see, mixité requires the participation of all in heterosocial norms of public interaction, in order to produce a successful gendered pedagogy of the social body.

History of the politicization of Muslim women’s dress in France Since 1989, political controversies over Muslim women’s dress have been a constant feature of French political life. France is home to a significant Muslim minority population, the result of decades of colonial rule over Muslim-majority societies. Large numbers of migrants from former French colonies in North Africa arrived in France in the 1960s and 1970s, first as male manual labor and then as families, with later waves of immigration from West and Central Africa. Most immigrants from North Africa, and many from West and Central Africa, were of Muslim heritage. Virtually all were coming from countries with a French colonial past, in which the Code de l’indigénat created a legal hierarchy between ‘natives’ (indigènes), in some cases specifically ‘Muslim natives’, and French citizens. Among all the French colonies, Algeria played an especially prominent role, both during the colonial period and since independence. Algeria was often the laboratory for 149

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colonial policies implemented elsewhere. It was home to the largest number of resident French colonists, was the last colony to gain independence, and sent the largest number of immigrants to mainland France. Long after the end of formal colonial rule, France maintained special policies towards Algerians living in France, often in continuity with the colonial ‘civilizing mission’ (Lyons 2013). As immigrant families arrived in France in larger numbers after the family reunification law of 1975, many were housed in new social housing projects in the banlieues, or ‘outer cities’, of major French cities. The working-class banlieues, isolated from the economic and social capital of the center cities, struggled with high unemployment and aggressive policing. This racial, ethnic, and economic segregation produced a cluster of political, media, scholarly and activist discourses on Islam and the banlieues in the latter part of the 20th century. By the mid-1980s, the political contours of the ‘Muslim problem’ and the ‘problem of the banlieues’ were established, framed through anxieties about hyper-masculine ‘virilism’ and women’s oppression (Mack 2017). In this context, the headscarf served as ‘convenient short-hand for a wider field of gendered practices, from seclusion and arranged marriage, to polygamy and sexual violence’ (MacMaster 2010: 126). State actors, particularly school administrators, saw the headscarf as a growing practice among teenage girls that needed to be curtailed. Scattered prohibitions on wearing head-coverings in school culminated in the 2004 ban on ‘ostentatious religious signs’ in public schools. While the law banned students from wearing Jewish yarmulkes and Sikh turbans as well as Muslim hijabs, it was framed from the beginning around the headscarf, and is widely referred to as the ‘headscarf ban’ by supporters and detractors alike. Since 2004, the scope of legislation concerning Muslim women’s modest dress has expanded. Once focused on public schools and government buildings, policies and legislation circumscribing Islamic dress now encompass public beaches, educational field trips, and workplaces in the private sphere, which are permitted to discriminate on the basis of religious expression (see the timeline below). The expansion of these policies shows no signs of stopping. In recent years, prominent politicians have called for a ban on headscarves in French universities and even in public space generally, either of which would almost certainly require constitutional amendments. Laws curtailing Islamic dress enjoy bipartisan consensus in the French political establishment, and widespread support in the French public (Beyer and Leclerc 2013). A timeline of French laws and policies on Muslim modest dress1 is as follows: 1989 Three Muslim girls in Creil, a suburb of Paris, are suspended for refusing to remove their headscarves at school. This is followed by a series of similar events in schools around the country in ensuing years. 1994 A directive issued by Minister of Education François Bayrou clarifies that ‘religious signs so ostentatious as to separate certain students from the shared life of the school’ are unacceptable in public schools. This directive leaves enforcement to individual administrators, and encourages them to try to ‘convince rather than constrain’. Nevertheless, over 100 girls wearing the headscarf are suspended from schools around the country. Similar incidents continue over the ensuing decade, although the French High Court (Conseil d’Etat) clarifies that students should only be suspended if they abstain from classes or cause unrest, but not for covering their hair with a ‘light scarf’ or bandana. 2004 After an investigation and report by the ‘Stasi Commission’, the French National Assembly passes a law that bans ‘ostentatious religious signs’, including any form of head-covering, in public schools, in line with the interpretation of secularism offered by the Bayrou directive. 150

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2008 Fatima Afif, an employee at Baby Loup, a private preschool, is fired after she begins wearing a headscarf to work. The Baby Loup case moves through the French court system for the next six years, with several decisions overturned on appeal, raising legal debates about the extension of secularism or religious neutrality to private workplaces. 2010 After an investigation and report by the Gerin Commission, the French National Assembly passes a law banning the wearing of the face veil in all public spaces in France, arguing that the face veil poses a threat to public order. Under this law, women wearing the face veil will be given a ticket and punished by a 200 euro fine and a citizenship class. Men found guilty of ‘forcing another person to cover her face by reason of her sex’ will be punished by a 20,000 euro fine and a year in prison, rising to 30,000 euros and two years in prison if the crime concerns a minor (Assemblée Nationale 2010; Gerin et al. 2010). 2013 The Paris Appeals Court rules against the employee in the Baby Loup case, arguing that because of the public service mission of the preschool, Baby Loup can be considered a ‘business of conviction’, and is allowed to impose religious neutrality on its employees in order to ‘avoid confronting young children with ostentatious manifestations of religious belonging’, and in order to ‘transcend the multiculturalism of the people it serves’ (Cour d’Appel de Paris 2013). This ruling is confirmed by the Cour de Cassation in 2014. 2015 Over the course of the year, over 150 Muslim students are sent home from school for wearing maxi skirts, on the grounds that these skirts, like headscarves, constitute ostentatious signs of religious belonging. 2016 Throughout the summer, numerous Muslim women wearing full-coverage bathing outfits known as ‘burkinis’ are refused access to public pools and beaches across France, and mayors pass local ordinances banning full coverage bathing costumes. In one incident, on a beach in Nice, police force a woman to remove her bathing outfit. An image of this confrontation is widely publicized, causing controversy in France and abroad. The French High Court rules that the ‘burkini bans’ are unconstitutional infringements on personal freedoms. Prominent politicians, such as Prime Minister Manuel Valls, express sharp dissent. 2016 After chairing a research commission into social confrontations over modest dress and male–female relations, Senator Chantal Jouanno prepares a report on this subject, outlining legislative recommendations for the further regulation of mixité and modest religious dress in France. 2018 The Ministry of Education issues a report clarifying that long skirts and ample garments can be forbidden in public schools, if ‘worn not simply out of aesthetic concerns, but out of the will to manifest a religious belonging’ (Ministère de L’Education Nationale 2018: 18). On the series of ‘long-skirt cases’ in public schools, see Wesselhoeft (2017). 2019 Major French athletic retailer, Decathlon, plans to begin selling a ‘running hijab’, already on the market in its stores in Morocco. Faced with immediate boycotts and critique from French people opposed to the normalization of the headscarf, they reverse their decision and do not sell the running hijab in France. 2019 The French Senate passes a law with an amendment prohibiting women wearing the headscarf from accompanying their children’s classes on field trips, on the grounds that they are temporary agents of the state during these trips. This amendment is struck down one month later by another Senate vote (Senate 2019).

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Across these 30 years of policies, a few patterns stand out. First, local administrators and functionaries are often the vanguard of national policymaking. By enacting bans that are within a grey area of current law, but are guaranteed to have a certain amount of public and political backing, local officials produce momentum for a national conversation that often ends in new legislation that first restrain, then eventually reaffirm, their exclusionary policies. We see this pattern in the case of the headscarf in schools, the long skirt cases, the field trip cases, and the burkini cases. In the Baby Loup case, we see the same pattern at work in the private sector and judicial system as well. Second, there has been a progressive expansion of the terrain regulated by secularism – both an expansion of the spatial settings where legal secularism applies and an expansion of the type of comportments that contravene it. The fact that this expansion is historically disconnected with secularism as articulated in French constitutional law does not concern its strongest contemporary proponents, who argue explicitly for this evolution of secular legal logic. Third, we see the introduction of several new or reimagined concepts in order to progressively develop the legislative resources to curtail the individual liberties of Muslim women. These include the idea of a ‘business of conviction’ that, by virtue of the type of value-based work it performs, or the perceived vulnerability of its public, is permitted to discriminate on the basis of religious expression; the understanding of a garment’s ostentatious religiosity in terms of its wearer’s inner motivations, which must nonetheless be externally determined; and a conception of public order that has not only ‘material’ dimensions, such as safety and security, but ‘immaterial’ ones, such as a certain understanding of moral values, that must be protected by law. We also see across this legislation the persistence of certain arguments, for example that modest Muslim dress is itself a moral argument and performed speech that functions, whatever its wearer’s stated intentions, to proselytize a particular view of virtue and to indirectly stigmatize other forms of dress as ‘immodest’.

Mixité, gender difference, and public order While the specific policies and ideological justifications shift, the practical effect remains the same: to marginalize and diminish the phenomenon of modest Muslim dress, and to encourage Muslim and Arab women to dress and behave in the manner of an ideal-typical ‘française’, who embraces her femininity, understands it as a source of power in heterosocial environments, and feels comfortable showing a bit of skin. In this discourse, the style of the idealized Frenchwoman is often emblematized by the short skirt. As a direct sartorial counter to the headscarf, the skirt is understood to both stand for and cultivate an array of heterosocial attitudes – patriotic friendship, romantic flirtation, mutual respect shot through with erotic tension, political parity, consumer domesticity – that are all components of gendered citizenship in France. This understanding of French gendered/sexual citizenship itself only emerged through the colonial encounter. Todd Shepard argues that the French ‘sexual revolution’ of the 1960s and 1970s was defined through the Republic’s contentious relationship with Algeria – that ‘highly sexualized claims about “Arabs” were omnipresent in important public discussions in France, both those that dealt with sex and those that dealt with Arabs’ (Shepard 2017: 1). Algerian women, during and after colonial rule, were encouraged to adopt French femininity through the avenues of political theatre and domestic consumption. Through welfare services, education, incentives, and at times violent physical constraint, Muslim women were urged or forced to abandon coverings and adopt European patterns of dress and domesticity. This mission of transforming Algerian society through its women’s 152

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domestic and sartorial practices was crucially important for colonial governance: ‘a wide range of colonial actors insisted that “it is through women that we can get ahold of the soul of a people” and “bring frenchification to their hearth”’ (Lyons 2013: 5). Neil MacMaster (2010) describes the deployment of both ‘soft’ persuasion and violent coercion in the political production of elaborate public unveiling rituals, in which young women were offered incentives, such as the freeing of a brother from prison, if they would publicly remove and even burn their head-coverings. Amelia Lyons (2013) details how the same project of transforming the performance of sexual difference was continued by the French welfare state through the years following Algerian liberation. The uncovering of Algerian Muslim women was also embedded in racialized sexual fantasies that fueled the demand for men’s visual access to women’s forms (Alloula 1986). Contemporary discourses of heterosociality, forged through this quickly forgotten recent past, continue to use sexual difference and sexual expression as a barometer of cultural and political belonging, even as their authors would sharply disavow the sexual culture of colonial rule. A 2016 Senate report on secularism and male–female equality, prepared by Senator Chantal Jouanno, offers a window into current state discourse on mixité and Islam in France, drawing together numerous public controversies over modest dress and sex separation in the years since the 2004 law banning religious signs in schools. The Jouanno Report is grounded in the claim that in order to better prevent and sanction the attacks on male-female equality that are currently multiplying, there must be a more rigorous application of the rule of law, when it exists, and an adaptation of legal texts when that becomes necessary. (Jouanno 2016: 13) The report is wide ranging: it analyses YouTube sermons that enjoin wifely obedience, considers ‘worrying’ developments such as the rise in prominence of female athletes wearing headscarves and the growth of the ‘modest fashion’ industry, and addresses a wide variety of workplace regulations and hypothetical problems concerning male–female relations, including the Baby Loup case. It makes legislative recommendations aimed at curtailing sex segregation, religious dress, and religious discourses of sexual difference in diverse domains of French society, from hospitals to the internet to a potential Paris Olympics (111–119). The report is quite conscious of the history, detailed by Joan Scott and others, in which secularism was long opposed to the cause of women’s rights, and has only recently been mobilized to defend them (90–95). It recognizes the ideological shifts that have happened in recent years, including the development of novel, expanded understandings of secularism and public order, and the use of mixité and gender equality as markers of both (95–101). While the report is framed in terms of secularism and religious neutrality, it argues that secularism needs to be clearly linked to reimagined understandings of public order, gender equality, and gender mixing in order to provide adequate legal grounds for the kind of policies limiting modest dress that the authors envisage, and it recommends constitutional and legal amendments to this end. Drawing together an examination of the range of controversies over modest Muslim dress and sex separation (at swimming pools and gyms, for example) that have marked French political discourse since the 2004 headscarf ban, the Jouanno Report argues that The exclusion of women from public space is linked to the question of sartorial prescriptions and habits consisting of hiding women’s bodies, so that women are 153

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only authorized to leave the private domain of the home if they wear outfits that shield them from the regards of others. (Jouanno 2016: 43) In the report, Danielle Bousquet, president of the High Council on Equality, emphasizes ‘the political question posed by modest fashion, [which] constitutes one more instrument in service of a social project that is not only sexist, but that seeks the enclosure and the control of women’s bodies’ (45). The Jouanno Report makes clear that the sartorial value of modesty, whether or not it includes head-covering, is deleterious to a public sphere characterized by open male–female interaction, and is part of a ‘commercial offensive’ (45) of the modest fashion industry. It quotes a 2016 press release opposing modest fashion, signed by numerous feminist organizations, asserting that ‘neither the elegance, color, nor size, neither the richness of the fabrics nor their texture will be able to change the meaning of this symbol’ (46). This emphasis on the symbolic meaning of modest Muslim dress recalls the language of the 2010 Gerin Report, which was specifically focused on the face veil. ‘What does the burqa signify?’ asked André Rossinot, long-time French politician, in his testimony, quoted in the Report: It signifies that a woman is the property of her husband, of her father, or of her brother, and that she should not be seen by other men. It indicates that women are not owners of their image, that they are not free to show themselves, to exist for the exterior world, even less to seduce. (Gerin et al. 2010: 110) This ‘freedom to seduce’ was linked to the emblem of the short skirt as the idealized alternative to modest dress. The skirt, symbolizing an openness to gender mixing and civilized flirtation, was not only threatened by the headscarf, but also by girls’ masculine dress. Feminist activist Olivia Cattan and philosopher Elisabeth Badinter both testified in the report about the paucity of skirts among Arab and Muslim girls in middle and high schools of the banlieues (Wesselhoeft 2011). In Cattan’s words, ‘In a class of twenty students, there might be one girl in a skirt. The girls comport themselves like boys, because they have no choice’ (Gerin et al. 2010: 135). In a more recent example, prominent journalist Jean Quatremer posted the following on Twitter, in the midst of the Decathlon running hijab controversy: What does the veil signify? The absolute refusal of mixing, and the rejection of the other. This woman proclaims in public space that she will never have a sexual or romantic relationship with a non-Muslim. It’s violent. In short, the exclusion is not where people claim it to be. Quatremer’s tweet repeated the language of the Gerin Report about the importance of the veiled woman being ‘seen by other men’, and inverting accusations of ‘exclusion’, framing the modestly dressed woman as excluding non-Muslim men. This commentary recalls the racialized sexual logic of the colonial unveilings and erotic representations analysed by Alloula (1986). The focus on the short skirt and traditionally feminine dress as a key component of mixité has not been limited to political reports and social media. From 2009 to 2016, the Springtime of the Skirt and Respect (PJR), a pedagogical program to combat sexual harassment and promote mixité, was organized annually in middle and high schools across the 154

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Lyon area. The Springtime of the Skirt and Respect was inspired by the 2008 film Journée de la Jupe (Skirt Day), in which a school teacher in the Parisian banlieues holds her class hostage at gunpoint over her simmering outrage at the sexual harassment she endures when wearing a short skirt. The programming of PJR encompassed a wide range of youth-led conversations around sexuality, dating, gender relations, and, in the later years of the program, gender and sexual identity. In many of the promotional materials for PJR, the program is symbolized by an image of a light-skinned young man and one or more brown-skinned young women wearing mini skirts, exchanging friendly and flirtatious glances.2 This racialized imagery of mixité, while it may not reflect the pedagogical content of the program, reinforces the emphasis of certain French intellectuals and politicians on the ‘freedom to seduce’ and the value of the latent eroticization of gender-mixed social space as a distinctively French social experience. This understanding of mixité as eroticized socialization that shapes a distinctive national culture has been developed by numerous French intellectuals of the late 20th century, nostalgically recalling the era of courtly gallantry and the salon culture of the 18th century. For historians such as Claude Habib and Mona Ozouf, heterosocial flirtation was the very foundation of French civility and intellectual culture. ‘The society of women’, Ozouf writes of the 18th century salons, ‘was a school for intelligence and mores, where the desire to please sharpened the mind unbeknownst to itself … In short, feminine arts civilized men, and from one end of the social ladder to the other’ (Ozouf 1997: 231). Ozouf emphasizes the importance of romantic and erotic tension for the production of civility, echoing Norbert Elias’s understanding of the ‘civilizing process’ as a process that develops through the sublimation of inter-group tensions and rivalries, or the internalization of self-restraint. Echoes of this model can be heard in the pairing of ‘the skirt’ and ‘respect’ as corresponding feminine and masculine rights and responsibilities. For advocates of mixité in this sense, male civility and respect cannot be properly developed or expressed if women behave too modestly. Women’s dress and behavior is not only a marker of their own freedom, it has a pedagogical role for men in their society, producing a dynamic of desire that elicits their moral and intellectual best. The notion of heterosocial interaction as a ‘French singularity’ is also linked to consumer practices and framed as a national export. French femininity was understood as an important national resource not only in the intellectual culture that Ozouf discusses, but in the arena of ‘consumer citizenship’ (Tiersten 2001). France became known as ‘the country that gave the bikini to the world’ (quoted in Wolfreys 2018: 88), a status that has been repeatedly invoked in controversies over Muslim women’s full-coverage swimwear. The Jouanno Report invokes this consumer sense of gender difference when it describes the ‘commercial offensive’ of the modest fashion industry, which the report portrays as seeking profit from wealthy Middle Eastern (i.e., Muslim) consumer markets at the expense of upholding French gender values (Jouanno 2016: 45). At the same time, many of the contemporary partisans of mixité would strongly denounce the mythology of French courtly civility and gallantry, as well as the consumerist version of feminine difference. For some French feminists, the importance of mixité is instead anchored in the access to power that it provides to women in a male-dominated society. In the 1990s, a revolutionary law on electoral parity mandated equal numbers of male and female candidates in virtually all elections in France. For the advocates of parity, sex segregation, even when motivated by feminist political projects, played directly into the hands of patriarchy: ‘Nothing would be more dangerous’, wrote Michelle Perrot, ‘than the establishment of separate domains … new ghettos where women, enjoying the pleasure of being together, 155

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avoided confrontation and as a result, lost all influence’ (Perrot 1984, quoted in Scott 2006: 355). These activists formulated a new conceptualization of feminine sexual difference, not as the pedagogical frame of men’s moral cultivation, nor as the fruitful territory for consumer nation-building, but as a universal and unchangeable embodied condition. Through the parity law and the surrounding debate, binary gender difference was enshrined in French law as prior to, and more natural and universal than, any other form of difference, whether of race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. This only intensified the longstanding dynamic in which gender difference, properly expressed, served an important index for all other differences. As we can see, the contemporary discourse of mixité and gender difference draws on multiple ideas about gendered citizenship, some of which have historically been opposed to one another. This generates internal contradictions that actually strengthen the concept of mixité by allowing it to appeal to many constituencies – the political right, left, and center, overt defenders of the patriarchy and ardent feminists, elite and working-class French. For some, mixité marks the principled alternative to ‘multiculturalism’, for others, it offers a framework for multicultural harmony. Increasingly, this malleable concept of mixité has become a linchpin of an emergent understanding of ‘public order’ in the political discourse around modest Muslim dress. The Jouanno and Gerin Reports both note the difference between the traditional ‘material conception of public order’, which they describe as ‘narrow’, guaranteeing peace, health, and safety, and a novel ‘immaterial conception of public order’, focusing on ‘the notion of attack on the dignity of the human person, and which would perhaps permit [the courts] to offer … greater protection for women’ (Jouanno 2016: 49). It was only after the French High Court had declined to ban the face veil, judging that it did not pose a threat to ‘material public order’, that the National Assembly took the issue up, in the name of the broader ‘immaterial public order’, which could include a moral understanding of human dignity that would include particular views on embodied gender difference (Alouane 2014; Fredette 2015). In her work on pious fashion, Elizabeth Bucar offers a useful framework for understanding this new conception of public order in the French context. She describes how in Iran, where the hijab is compulsory, modesty is not simply an individual virtue to be cultivated by those who value it. Rather, it is a social virtue whose success depends on all the bodies present in a given society, regardless of their personal views. These social virtues have a significant effect on the moral perception of everyone who engages with them – as Bucar describes, becoming accustomed to the sex segregation of Iranian society produces a jarring feeling upon arrival in a different country, like Turkey, where these norms are not observed in the same way. ‘Despite my lack of intention’, Bucar writes, ‘wearing hijab had made me more modest, or at least more aware of modesty’s social role … My clothing is just as important for public modesty as that of the most pious Iranian Muslim’ (Bucar 2017: 17). In other words, it is not enough to remark, as many have, that Iran oppresses women by imposing the hijab and France oppresses women by forbidding it. Instead, we should notice how both societies have a conception of public order that relates to authoritative views on how women should dress, and how men and women should interact, through gaze, touch, and conversation. The ethics of public mixité in France, just like the ethics of public modesty in Iran, depend on the participation of every person who appears in society, regardless of her personal beliefs. Embodying mixité, by women exposing skin and form, and men interacting freely and sometimes flirtatiously with them, is a way of teaching everyone in society how to behave ‘Frenchly’, in the same way as women’s mandatory hijab in Iran has

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a pedagogical function for everyone, man or woman, Muslim or non, who appears in public space.

Sartorial freedom and feminist coalitions The successive initiatives to regulate Muslim women’s dress have shaped the educations and political consciousness of two generations of Muslim women in France. Over the course of the past three decades, Muslim women and their allies have organized in response to these laws, and more broadly for social issues that concern them, from workplace discrimination to police violence. Building on earlier intersectional activist work, new feminist networks have developed in the past decade, mobilizing opposition to individual policies restricting Muslim women’s dress and developing a structural analysis of gendered Islamophobia. Prominent feminist intellectuals such as Christine Delphy have publicly critiqued the imbrication of sexism and racism in the various headscarf affairs. More recently, a range of feminist actors in France have been responding to the politicization of mixité. They are drawing connections between defending the rights of Muslim women to dress as they prefer, challenging sexual harassment through the #MeToo movement, and critiquing the gender binary as an organizing social principle. Secular feminists are defending and advocating non-mixité (in both a gendered and a racial sense) for many of the same reasons that some Muslim women do: as a way to cultivate sentiments, virtues, and pleasures that contribute to women’s flourishing, and as a way to establish safety in a social environment where women remain disproportionately exposed to sexual harassment and assault. Gender-based organizing among French Muslims will continue to emphasize the headscarf as long as this issue is repeatedly weaponized by political elites. The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), which was founded in 2003 and has been increasingly active since 2010, issues an annual report tallying Islamophobic incidents reported to their organization, in which women are disproportionately targeted. They draw together scattered local cases across France, provide legal support for those who wish to file discrimination complaints, and speak publicly in support of the rights of women to wear modest or religiously marked dress. Mamans Toutes Egales (All Moms Are Equal), founded in 2011, focuses on defending the rights of mothers wearing headscarves who want to accompany their children’s field trips, which has been subject to a ban that was quickly reversed. Lallab, a feminist organization focusing on Muslim women’s experiences founded in 2014, has offered a multi-pronged critique of the stigmatization of modest dress in French law and public discourse, including a high-profile televised debate between one of its organizers, Attika Trabelsi, and Prime Minister Manuel Valls, as well as the cultivation of single-sex spaces. These and other initiatives simultaneously combat individual anti-covering policies and offer a robust critique of the singular focus on Muslim women’s modest dress in French political discourse.

Conclusion Despite the various arguments that the partisans of mixité make to establish it as part of French national identity, mixité is not a timeless Gallic trait. Instead, it is a relatively recent discourse and social ethos, produced through a pastiche of numerous gender discourses from different strands of French history, and framed through the long colonial and post-colonial encounter with gendered and sexualized Muslim bodies. While arguments in favor of 157

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curtailing modest Muslim dress are often made in terms of secularism, in fact it is the parallel call for mixité – for a social ethos of male–female interaction anchored by the visible feminine body – that is most directly relevant to the politics of regulating modest dress. As French jurisprudence and legislation on modest dress evolves beyond the 2004 ban on headscarves in schools, and beyond public educational settings, mixité is becoming ever more important, bound to new articulations of public order and of human dignity itself. While a range of French activists critique and oppose these discourses, they command sufficient popular and political support that they are likely to continue to develop for the foreseeable future, in an endeavor to structure a gendered social space defined through the absence of Islam and the visibility of skin and hair.

Notes 1 Special thanks to Megan Wang for her assistance in researching this timeline. 2 See the archives of the Printemps du Jupe et de la Respect, especially years 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013. www.printempsdelajupe.com/archives.php

Further reading Guénif-Souilamas, Nacira. 2006. ‘The Other French Exception: Virtuous Racism and the War of the Sexes in Postcolonial France’, French Politics, Culture & Society 24(3): 23–41. This article shows how gendered ideals and norms are profoundly racialized in postcolonial France. By focusing on four gendered stereotypes that produce the belief that there is a form of sexism unique to segregated, majority non-white neighbourhoods, and that this sexism is ameliorated through Republican identity. Mack, Mehammed Amadeus. 2017. Sexagon: Muslims, France, and the Sexualization of National Culture. New York: Fordham University Press. This book explores the politics of Islam and sexuality in contemporary France. It shows how widespread stereotypes about the virility and hypermasculinity of Arab and Muslim men contribute to a redefinition of France and Frenchness through secular feminism, gay-friendliness, and the condemnation of working-class machismo. Scott, Joan. 2017. Sex and Secularism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. This large-scale transnational history shows how the development of secularism was not linked to gender equality but rather produced new conceptualizations of women’s inferiority. Rather, Scott argues, it was not until Islam became framed as the dominant cultural threat to European and North American societies that gender equality became a primary feature of the discourse of secularism.

References Alloula, Malek. 1986. The Colonial Harem. Translated by Myrna Godzich and Wlad Godzich. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Almeida, Dmitri. 2017. ‘Exclusionary Secularism: The Front national and the reinvention of laïcité’, Modern and Contemporary France 25(3): 249–263. Alouane, Rim-Sarah. 2014. ‘Bas les masques! Unveiling Muslim Women on behalf of the Protection of Public Order’, in The Experiences of Face Veil Wearers in Europe and the Law, edited by Eva Brems, 194–205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Amiraux, Valérie. 2008. ‘De l’Empire à la République: à propos de l’‘islam de France’’, Cahiers de recherche sociologique 46: 45–60. Assemblée Nationale de France. 2010. ‘Loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l’espace public’. October 11, 2010. Bauberot, Jean. 2015. Les sept laïcités françaises: Le modèle français de laïcité n’éxiste pas. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Beaman, Jean. 2017. Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Mixité, gender, and Islam in France Beyer, Caroline and Jean-Marc Leclerc. 2013. ‘Une majorité de français contre le voile islamique à l’université’, Le Figaro, August 9, 2013. www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2013/08/08/0101620130808ARTFIG00457-une-majorite-de-francais-contre-le-voile-islamique-a-l-universite.php Accessed August 1, 2019. Bouamama, Said. 2004. L’affaire du foulard islamique: la production d’un racisme respectable. Paris: Éditions Le Geai Bleu. Bucar, Elizabeth. 2017. Pious Fashion: How Muslim Women Dress. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Cour d’Appel de Paris. 2013. ‘Arrêt du 27 novembre 2013’. Fredette, Jennifer. 2015. ‘Becoming a Threat: The Burqa and the Contestation over Public Morality Law in France’, Law and Social Inquiry 40(3): 585–610. Gerin, André, et al. 2010. Document No 2262: Rapport d’Information fait en application de l’article 145 du Règlement au nom de la Mission d’Information sur la pratique du port du voile integral sur le territoire national [Informational Report in Application of Article 145, in the name of the Informational Mission on the practice of wearing the full-face veil on national territory]. http:// www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/rap-info/i2262.asp Last accessed July 7, 2020. Guénif-Souilamas, Nacira. 2006. ‘The Other French Exception: Virtuous Racism and the War of the Sexes in Postcolonial France’, French Politics, Culture & Society 24(3): 23–41. Hajjat, Abdellali and Marwan Mohammed. 2013. Islamophobie: comment les élites françaises fabriquent le ‘problème musulmane’. Paris: La Découverte. Jouanno, Chantal, dir. 2016. ‘Rapport d’information fait au nom de la délégation aux droits des femmes et à l’égalité des chances entre les hommes et les femmes sur la laïcité et l’égalité femmes-hommes’. Lyons, Amelia. 2013. The Civilizing Mission in the Metropole: Algerian Families and the French Welfare State during Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mack, Mehammed Amadeus. 2017. Sexagon: Muslims, France, and the Sexualization of National Culture. New York: Fordham University Press. MacMaster, Neil. 2010. Burning the Veil: The Algerian War and the ‘Emancipation of Muslim Women’, 1954–62. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Macron, Emmanuel. 2018. ‘Interview with Jean-Jacques Bourdin and Edwy Plenel’. www.bfmtv.com/ mediaplayer/video/retrouvez-l-integralite-de-l-interview-d-emmanuel-macron-sur-bfmtv-rmc-med iapart-1060153.html Accessed August 1, 2019. Ministère de L’Education Nationale. 2018. ‘Vademecum sur la laïcité à l’école’. Ozouf, Mona. 1997. Women’s Words: Essay on French Singularity. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Parvez, Fareen. 2017. Politicizing Islam: The Islamic Revival in France and India. New York: Oxford University Press. Scott, Joan. 2006. ‘Women’s History’, in The Columbia History of Twentieth Century French Thought, edited by Lawrence Kritzman, 355–358. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2007. Politics of the Veil. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2017. Sex and Secularism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Senate of France. 2019. ‘Projet de loi: pour une école de confiance’. Shepard, Todd. 2017. Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962–1979. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tiersten, Lisa. 2001. Marianne in the Market: Envisioning Consumer Society in Fin-de-siècle France. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wesselhoeft, Kirsten. 2011. ‘Gendered Secularity: The Feminine Individual in the 2010 Gerin Report’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 31(3): 399–410. ———. 2017. ‘On the ‘Front Lines’ of the Classroom: Moral Education and Muslim Students in French State Schools’, Oxford Review of Education 43(5): 626–641. ———. 2019. ‘Constraints of Choice: Secular Sensibilities, Pious Critique, and an Islamic Ethic of Sisterhood in France’, Sociology of Islam 7(4): 226–244. Wolfreys, Jim. 2018. Republican Islamophobia: The Rise of Respectable Racism in France. New York: Oxford University Press.

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PART III

Gendered authority and piety

10 GENDERING THE DIVINE Women, femininity, and queer identities on the Sufi path1 Merin Shobhana Xavier

Introduction I am sitting in the bi-weekly gathering of the Canadian Institute of the Sufi Studies, a Rifaʿi Sufi community, in Toronto, Canada. The community, led by Murat Coskun, is a Sufi space that welcomes Muslims and non-Muslims. It is also a gender and LGBTQ-affirming space. Salat (ritual prayer), when it is completed, is mixed-gender, and often a female member performs the call to prayers (adhan) or leads the prayers. Still, notwithstanding these gender egalitarian practices, on this particular night as I listened to sohbet (mystical discourse), it is the question of gender and femininity that led to a robust dialogue. The question raised was whether there are differences between males and females on the Sufi path. The responses to this question dithered around ideas of biological or essential features that could be ascribed as feminine or masculine in nature, which many disciples highlighted were attributes that are in fact socially constructed and thus not real. Other students added that gender is fluid, and not dependent on ones’ sex or biology. After an intense discussion, which included some disagreements with these above points, the shaykh finally concluded that one’s gender ultimately does not matter on the Sufi path. I relay this dialogue to start our conversation on gender and Sufism because it magnifies the continued relevance of this topic under discussion. Furthermore, the vignette also highlights that the discussions we are entering below continue to be debated and are part of a wider complex and continually lived process, that is both individually and collectively negotiated. One of the challenges of studying gender and Sufism (or any religious tradition for that matter) is locating non-heteronormative voices amidst a tradition that has been penned by male teachers, scholars, leaders, and writers. Within Sufism, commonly known as the mystical, esoteric, contemplative, and spiritual tradition and expression of Islam, another layer of paradox emerges when women and femininity are discussed. On the one hand, the feminine ideal, both as a creative and theophanic principle, has been central to many Sufi thinkers’ theologies and metaphysics, as it has been interpreted as a necessity in cosmology (Elias 1988; Dakake 2002, 2000; Murata 1992; Murata, nodate; Shaikh 2012; Schimmel 1997). On the other hand, the necessity of the feminine as a principle in the cosmos and part of the divine plan did not, however, readily translate into gender equity for women as earthly, biological, and social creatures embedded in Islamic societies and cultures. These two

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simultaneous processes of understanding females and femininity resulted in dual and complex methodologies in the study and treatment of gender, sexuality, and women in Sufism, both in historical and contemporary contexts. Gendered norms in Sufism, thus, have been and continue to be ambivalent and are often instable, especially when it comes to the feminine and the female, in relation to the masculine, male, and the Divine (Allah).

Women in the history of Sufism When one examines early textual sources associated with the development of Sufism, there tends to be a clear discrepancy when it comes to female representation. There are instances where many male writers consciously included lives of women in their narratives. These inclusions are not without challenges, however, especially when read from our present-day lens of feminism and gender egalitarian frameworks, which are anachronistic to the sources under consideration (Shaikh 2012). Simply then the ‘voices’ of women in the history of early Sufism have been transmitted through male writers of hagiographies (narratives of holy and exemplary peoples). For instance, early mystic women or proto-Sufis, such as Rabiʿa alʿAdawiyya (d. 801), were deemed exceptional on the basis that they were ‘truly men’ because they transcended their ‘women-ness’ through rigor in mystical and ascetic devotion (Buturović 2001: 144; Cornell 2019). Farid ad-Din ʿAttar’s (d. 1230) Memorial of the Friends of God is one text in which Rabiʿa is memorialized. In this text, he calls attention to Rabiʿa as a woman who was part of the ‘ranks of men’ (saff-i rijal) (quoted in Sells 1996: 152). In Rkia Cornell’s monumental study of the textual and mythical legacies of Rabiʿa, she reminds us that the legacy of Rabiʿa is defined by the agendas of the authors who wrote about her, such as ʿAttar. As such, it is nearly impossible to definitively claim any historical details about Rabiʿa from such hagiographies (2019). What we do end up learning about are the intentions, agendas, and leanings of the hagiographers themselves. Rabiʿa and the different tropes constructed about her have come to define popular Sufism, both historically and at present. For instance, Rabiʿa was the first mystic figure introduced into Europe via literature, which was part of a broader literary trend in the colonial extraction of Sufism for a non-Muslim European audience, which framed Sufism as a non-Arab non-Islamic perennial Persian tradition (Cornell 2019; Schimmel 1975: 8). Another example of hagiographies written by males is found in Rkia Cornell’s (1999) groundbreaking translation of the 11th century Persian mystic Abu ʿAbd ar-Rahman alSulami’s (d. 1021) Early Sufi Women (Dhikr an-niswa al-mutaʿabbidat as-Sufiyyat). This text records many instances of Sufi women and their pieties, practices, and relationships (both human and divine). Though Sufi women’s narratives may be found in classical texts, they are by no means central. Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200), the author of Sifat al-safwa, critiques authors of Sufi hagiographical texts, such as Abu Nuʿaym (d. 1038) and his Hilyat al-awliya, for not including more women in their respective texts, explaining that the ‘omission of Sufi women is … detrimental to accounts of male Sufis’, who were connected to them (Küçük 2015: 109). There are instances where manuals were written or compiled by women. One example is of ʿAishah al-Baʿuniyyah (d. 1517) of Damascus, who compiled the Principles of Sufism as a guide to those on the path of Sufism (Homerin 2016). In hagiographies that include women’s lives, an interesting pattern is discernible, one that is noted by Arezou Azad in her article on this topic. According to Azad, one way in which Sufi women were framed by male biographers was through ‘reverse genderizations’ or by categorizing them as ‘being a man’ (2013: 81). This tendency to explain women on the path as truly men (i.e., ‘reverse genderizations’) has also been noted in other studies of Sufi 164

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women, such as by Jamal Elias (1988). Due to their extreme practices of self-discipline and asceticism, early women’s biological sexuality was reduced and thus they were viewed as asexual or gender-less (read men). Elias notes that women who reached a state of perfection were often said to have achieved the status of a man, such as the Indian saint Farid al-Din Ganj-i Shakar (d. 1266) who spoke of a ‘pious woman’ as ‘a man sent in the form of a woman’ (1988: 211). It must be noted that though hagiographies were written by men, they were transmitted mostly through oral history (i.e., music and storytelling) by women. Gender norms were implicated by other sociological factors, which demarcated women as mothers, wives, and daughters and it is within these gendered identities that Sufi women asserted their identity (Buturović 2001: 148; Silvers 2015: 29). As Amila Buturović explains ‘Sufi women’s participation in the mystical path was never simple: rather … it was predicated on their ability to navigate … social constructions – Sufi and non-Sufi alike – of gender and public/private space’ (2001: 135). These opportunities for female participation, even informally and in private domains, have been a well-documented tendency within the development of Sufism. For example, in the Bektashi Order in Ottoman Turkey, female participation was popular in Sufi ritual activities and was on par with men (Schimmel 1975: 423). Notable, in these references to the studies of Sufi women in historical contexts, is that men’s Sufi identities were not marked by ‘maleness’ as a biological and social category while ‘for a woman, however, the story is rarely told without reference to the dynamics of gender’ (Flueckiger 2006: 9). Laury Silvers adds that the ‘sheer number of extant reports of men compared to women in the formative literature means that some are read as marginal to the development, transmission, and preservation of Sufi practices, knowledge, and teaching’ (2015: 25). However, despite these varying social factors that have impeded access to voices of female Sufis in historical contexts, it must be recognized that pious, mystic, and Sufi women were engaged socially with one another. They visited each other at home, met at gatherings, travelled to spend time with each other, passed along accounts of each other’s knowledge or practices, worshipped with one another, and caught up with each other’s news. (Silvers 2015: 48) If unearthing the lived reality of Sufi women was one approach to studying women in classical and textual Sufism, theorizing the feminine principle as a cosmological reality was another.

The feminine ideal on the path Whereas the lives of historical Sufi women were usually qualified when included in the narratives of classical texts, the idea of the feminine was alternatively, at times, glorified. The feminine ideal was aptly put forth in the writings of the Arab Andalusian Sufi mystic, theologian, and philosopher, Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi (d. 1240), known also as al-shaykh al-akbar (supreme master). Ibn ʿArabi was known for having studied with formidable female Sufi teachers, including, Fatima of Cordoba, of whom he wrote: I served as a disciple of one of the lovers of God, a Gnostic a lady of Seville called Fatimah bint Ibn al-Muthanna of Cordova. I served her for several years, she being over ninety-fine years of age … She used to play on the tambourine and show such great pleasure in it. When I spoke to her about it she answered, ‘I take joy in 165

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Him Who has turned to me and made me one of His Friends (saints), using me for His own purposes. Who am I that He should choose me among mankind? He is jealous of me for, whenever I turn to something other than Him in heedlessness, He sends me some affliction concerning that thing.’ … With my own hands I built for her a hut of reeds as tall as she was, in which she lived until she died. She used to say to me, ‘I am your spiritual mother and the light of your earthly mother.’ When my mother came to visit her, Fatimah said to her, ‘O light, this is my son and he is your father, so treat him filially, and dislike him not.’ (quoted in Sultanova 2011: 44–45) Ibn ʿArabi presented the ‘celestial woman as a feature of the divine’ who stood above the male (Corbin 1998; Elias 1988: 217). Accordingly, then, to contemplate Eve, ‘the perfect image of God embodied,’ was for the mystic to contemplate the Divine (Elias 1988: 217; Dakake 2000, 2002; Hirtenstein 1999; Shaikh 2012). For Ibn ʿArabi the ‘spiritual woman’ epitomized the ultimate example of union with the Divine (Elias 1988: 216; Shaikh 2012). Figures, such as Maryam (Mary) the mother of ʿIsa (Jesus) and Fatima the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, became both real and symbolic examples in theological and literary traditions (i.e., the works of Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273) and Ibn ʿArabi) of this ideal of a ‘celestial woman’ (Murata 1992). For instance, references to Maryam in the Qurʾan have resulted in a rich tradition of Qurʾanic exegesis (tasfir) (Ali 2017). Many scholars and theologians have debated Maryam’s role as a prophet in line with other prophetic figures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jaʿfar al-Sadiq (d. 765), the prominent Shiʿa imam, jurist, and theologian, and held by some Sufis as a qutb (axial pole), writes in his Qurʾanic commentaries that Maryam’s role is significant for her absolute servantship. Her womb was the sacred vessel that brought forth the ‘divine-logos’ or the ‘nabi-kalimah’ (prophet-logos). Al-Sadiq understands her role as that of a prophet (quoted in Mayer 2011: liii). Her status as prophet is necessary to his ‘interfaced-hierarchy’ that is developed as part of God’s ‘divine display’ of Light which ‘erupts in a powerfully whirling vortex: Mary, Muhammad, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, all “muhammad” [praised] perfect ʿubudiyah, reascending to rububiyah whence they poured down’ (quoted in Mayer 2011: liv). The Andalusian jurist Ibn Hazam (d. 1064) claimed that Maryam, along with Moses’ mother and Asiyah (the wife of the Pharaoh) were all said to be prophets (Sands 2006). Many traditions developed, particularly in esoteric Islamic traditions, that portrayed Maryam as the soul in complete submission to Allah; for similar reasons Maryam has also been given the status of a saint. Though these theological debates about the exact nature of the status of Maryam persist in Islamic theology, in some Islamic mystical traditions, Maryam was distinctively married within a cosmological and metaphysical discourse. She became one of the exemplars of the nature of the feminine ideal, an ideal that led ʿAttar to write the following in his discussion of Rabiʿa: the holy prophets have laid it down that ‘God does not look upon your outward forms.’ It is not the outward form that matters, but the inner purpose of the heart, as the Prophet said, ‘the people are assembled [on the Day of Judgment] according to the purposes of their hearts’ … So also ʿAbbas of Tus said that when on the Day of Resurrection the summons goes forth, ‘O men,’ the first person to set foot in the class of men [i.e., those who are to enter Paradise] will be Maryam, upon whom be peace. (quoted in Smith 1994: 59) 166

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The above source has been significant to confirming the presence of women in Sufism historically and in contemporary contexts. In that it was indeed possible to be a woman following the path, as Maryam’s exemplary model was a state to be aspired to by all humans. Many women in classical periods aspired to the ideal state of Maryam or were associated with her, especially as seen in portrayals of Rabiʿa, who is mentioned by ʿAttar as the ‘one accepted by men as a second spotless Mary’ (quoted in Smith 1994: 21). And yet, even today in places like Pakistan, Rabiʿa is nicknamed ‘aadha qalandar’ (half a mystic) because of her gender. Still, this passage connecting Maryam and Rabiʿa motions us towards distinct esoteric traditions of Maryam that developed amongst Sufi thinkers, such as Rumi and Ibn ʿArabi. For Ibn ʿArabi, Maryam becomes, as Henry Corbin writes in his commentary, ‘the feminine [who is] invested with the active creative function in the image of the divine sophia’ (1969: 162). This sophia (wisdom) is necessary to participate in the ‘dialectic of love’ and so sophia (Maryam) is ‘theophany par excellence’ resulting in her manifestation of the divine qualities of ‘Beauty’ and ‘Compassion’ (1969: 145). Corbin continues: That is why feminine being is the Creator of the most perfect thing that can be, for through it is completed the design of Creation, namely, to invest the respondent, the fedele d’amore, with a divine Name in a human being who becomes its vehicle. That is why the relation of Eve to Adam represented in exoteric exegeses could not satisfy the theophanic function of feminine being: it was necessary that feminine being should accede to the rank assigned by the quaternity [group of four], in which Maryam takes the rank of creative Sophia. (1969: 164) Thus, where Eve and Adam represented ‘exoteric exegeses’ according to interpretations by Ibn ʿArabi, Muhammad and Maryam complete the quaternity – the primordial and eternal cosmic plan. In such interpretations, Maryam is no longer only the mother of ʿIsa, a model of chastity, purity, and an exemplar of absolute servitude to God, but her role according to these esoteric thinkers can only be seen wholly when understood in the larger cosmic plan. Maryam’s perfected status (kamal) is dependent on her being the fulfillment of the necessary creative feminine that God needs to complete creation. Though the above thinkers have framed insan al-kamil, or the perfected human being, in relation to figures that have outwardly been male (i.e., Prophet Muhammad) and female (i.e., Maryam), and inwardly having perfected femininity as a mode of serving the divine, one must note that in its ideal state, the perfected being is non-gendered, as it is a state that transcends any duality (Sharify-Funk, Dickson, and Xavier 2017). It is for this reason that the feminine in Islam, as discussed by Annemarie Schimmel, was not deemed the same as female in Islam (1997). The veneration of the celestial woman is complicated by the fact that the ‘perfect woman as Sophia or the creative feminine’ was not equal to the female human being because woman was also a mirror who reflects man’s contemplation of the Divine (Elias 1988: 218; Shaikh 2012). In the writings of early Sufis (such as hagiographies and poems), one sees the ‘role of the physical woman as human being … minimized so that she becomes an accessory to the course of events in mystic life’ while concurrently encountering the veneration of the ‘celestial woman as the ideal, the creative feminine’ (Elias 1988: 219). For example, in some Sufi poetic traditions, the feminine quality was sexualized or represented the lower nafs or ego (Schimmel 1997). We see this pattern in the works of Rumi, who employs women through multiple frameworks, at times venerating them, such as the Virgin Mary, as the most exemplary human being, while at other times equating women with the lower soul (nafs) and the world of the mundane, 167

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flesh, and wickedness (Küçük 2015: 117). Despite the use of varying gendered tropes in Rumi’s poetry, within Rumi’s order of the Mawlawi (Mevlevi), the transmission of the lineage (silsila) includes both males and females (chalabis [celebis], descendants of Rumi), and also female shaykhs (Küçük 2015:118). In other instances, male Sufi authors evoked the feminine voice as the ideal lover of God. The latter is evident when those on the path to God were referred to as brides of the ultimate groom and the beloved, God (Ahmed, Abbas, and Khushi 2013; Petievich 2007; Schimmel 1997). So, although the male as human being may hierarchically remain below the ‘ideal woman,’ he is, nevertheless, above the female human being (Elias 1988: 220). It is this complex hierarchical relationship between God, the ideal woman, man as Adam, and woman as Eve embodied in social gender norms that is crucial to grasp in the representation and experiences of Sufi women, and the literary discourses that surround them. These discussions and framings were further dependent upon cultural notions of patriarchy and implicated by religious ideals of purity and modesty. Still, the latter biological privileging of men in a metaphysical hierarchy did not stop some women from holding maleness accountable in similar genres of texts and historical sources. For instance, the 14th century Lalla, a poetess from Kashmir, was said to have walked around naked, because there was no man in front of whom she felt ashamed, that is until she met Sayyid ʿAli Hamadani (d. 1385), after which she began to wear clothes: ‘She had never before met a man, only people in masculine form who were in fact women’ (Murata 1992: 326). The 13th century Najm al-Din Razi relays a story of the famous Sufi saint Husayn b. Mansur al-Hallaj’s (d. 922) sister, who walked around Baghdad with only half her face covered. When asked about it, she reputedly replied: ‘You show me a man, and I will cover my face. In the whole of Baghdad there is only half a man, and that is [my brother] Husayn. Were it not for him, I would leave this half uncovered too’ (Murata 1992: 326). Male Sufis also subverted expected gender norms by wearing women’s clothing and referring to themselves as the bride of God or in the feminine form in literary and oral traditions, as seen in this line of poetry from the Punjabi Sufi Bulleh Shah (d. 1758): ‘I was a naïve little girl in my parents’ home/When he stole my heart away’ (quoted in Singh 2017: 186). These poems are still recited and sung today at Sufi shrines, especially in Pakistan, and have been popularized through Qawwali music globally, especially by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (d. 1997). The above examples signal us towards another critical way in which gender in Sufism was ambivalent, that is, how it has queered gender norms.

Queering historical Sufism The study of gender and Sufism has generally been synonymous with women, but this approach is a restrictive way to understand gender in historical Sufism. Sufi poetry readily evoked samesex, often male, sexual relations as an expression or metaphor for accessing divine love. The latter also manifested in ‘admiring male beauty’ as a conduit to experiencing and witnessing (shahid) the divine beauty, which led to focusing on ‘the beauty of male youths’ in literary traditions and also in societies (Najmabadi 2005; Penrose 2006). These literary traditions and societal practices reflect the reality of these problematic practices, which seem to range from gazing upon beautiful boys to actually engaging in illicit sexual relations with underage male youths (Penrose 2006). Other times one does see same-sex relations premised around spiritual practice and discipline unfolding between two consenting adults. Although the term ‘queer’ has been a result of modern gender and sexual discourses, it has been utilized to frame and understand historical Sufis such as Bulleh Shah and Madhu 168

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Lal Hussein (d. 1599), who were known for their homoerotic poetry, as well as poems that advocate religious pluralism and gender justice (Ahmed, Abbas, and Khushi 2013; Shaukat 2013; Singh 2017). When these poetic traditions were and are performed at Sufi shrines, male musicians at times utilize the falsetto voice as a means to represent the female voices evoked in the poetry, while cross-dressing was another common practice by male Sufis as a means to destabilize gender norms (Najmabadi 2005; Petievich 2007; Sultanova 2011: 47). This position of queer or non-gendered identity in the performance of Sufi poems, such as by Bulleh Shah, is maintained by the Qawwali singer Abida Parveen, who holds that gender does not limit access to the beloved (Dalrymple 2005b). More scholars are advancing our understandings of the ways in which non-binary genders and sexualities were experiences of some Sufis in historical contexts, as seen in the works of Scott Kugle. Sufis and Saints Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islamic Culture (Kugle 2007) explores both male and females’ experiences in the path of Sufism, while surveying how same sex sexual intimacies and love between male disciples, as in the case of Shah Hussayn (1539–1599 C.E), a Punjabi Qadiri Sufi poet who subverted sexual norms, was employed to access divine love and mystical knowledge. Other scholars, such as Sara Haq, have also been formative in bringing to the forefront relationships between Sufi tropes and queerness via the third gender, or hijra, communities in places like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Haq 2012). Thus, when considering classical literary and historical sources, we can note that there generally have been differing ways in which gender norms manifested both in texts and lived practices. These have included instances of glorifying the feminine (i.e., Maryam and Rabiʿa) particularly through a cosmological framework, which also led to and at times endorsed the ambivalence of women and men’s roles in everyday societal contexts, such as cross-dressing and the use of the female voice in poetic traditions. As we shift towards contemporary lived and embodied experiences of Sufis, these tendencies of complex gendered expressions continue to manifest, and are reinforced.

Rituals, shrines, and families: negotiating female presence and authority Contemporary studies of Sufi women across varying regions have been invested in documenting the complex ways in which Sufi women maintain and create leadership roles as they unfold within negotiated spaces and relationships, such as in and around Sufi shrines (Bellamy 2011; Flueckiger 2006; Hill 2010, 2018; Kugle 2007; Raudvere 2002; Schielke 2008). In South Asia, the role of female Sufi leaders has been an area of study which has gained much momentum, be it in the representations of female presence in ritual spaces and ritual activities (Bellamy 2011; Pemberton 2000, 2004) or as leaders in their own right, often due to familial ties to a male Sufi leader (Flueckiger 2006). Kelly Pemberton’s work calls attention to the role of women as ‘ritual specialists’ in the South Asian context, especially as they take place at Sufi shrines, but one that has not been without its criticisms: Although centuries-old debates over the nature of these ritual activities have never been settled among Sufis, or between Sufis and their critics, Sufism itself has really been condemned wholesale by those who decry its contemporary manifestations. Within the framework of devotion to Sufi saints, however, women’s ritual activities have, more often than not, been regarded as problematic. (2004: 4)

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Women, both historically (i.e., Ottoman Empire) and at times at present, are often read and found at the ‘periphery of Sufi activities’ and not at the center, which was itself a response to ‘exoteric scholars’ (jurisprudential and theological) response to Sufism (Küçük 2015: 115). Women’s bodies in Sufism have been valorized, and at times weaponized, as a means to ascertain legitimacy of Sufism itself, and its relationship to Islam (that is, is Sufism Islamic?) (Xavier 2018). Despite the historical amnesia that prompts this discussion, it is a question that nevertheless continues to unfold today and affects women the most. As evident in how women historically have had access to sacred spaces, such as Sufi shrines, but no longer do. This restrictive practice is a result of what some scholars have referred to as the talibanization of Islam (Sharify-Funk, Dickson, and Xavier 2017). Despite these contemporary theological debates of authenticity, Sufi shrines have been formative for women. By the 8th century, Sufi women were connected to shrines and centers, such as the tekke (Turkish for Sufi lodge) or zawiyah (Sufi space of worship, institution and/or shrine), and held positions of authority in them. For instance, it was reported that Hafsa bint Sirin (d. 719 or 728) did not leave her tekke for over 30 years (Küçük 2015:112). On the other hand, the above discussed esoteric interpretations of Maryam have been promoted by contemporary Sufi teachers such as Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (d. 1986) and Muzaffer Ozak (d. 1985), who were significant to the dissemination of Sufism in America (Ozak 1991). For example, not only did Bawa Muhaiyaddeen teach about Maryam to some of his senior disciples in America and Sri Lanka, he also dedicated a masjid to her in northern Sri Lanka (Xavier 2018). Many local Tamils, who are mainly Hindus and Muslims, along with his American disciples, hold that this is the resting place of Maryam and so perform pilgrimages to her shrine-mosque. While shrines such as Bibi Pak Daman, in Lahore, Pakistan are also believed by some to be the resting place of Fatima and her handmaidens, Bibi Pak Daman is a prominent site of pilgrimage for Shiʿa Muslims and many female pilgrims. The importance for female authority and participation in relation to Sufi shrines has been documented in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Bruzzi and Zeleke 2015), Indonesia (Birchok 2016), and Nigeria (Starratt 1995). This is not to suggest that all Sufi shrines are accessible to women. Some shrines in South Asia do not allow women to enter the main sanctuary where the tomb is located or have separate rooms for women altogether, such as the sanctuary of Nizam al-Din Awliya (d. 1325) in New Delhi, India. The latter trends may also be seen in other parts of the Islamic world, such as in Alexandria, Egypt (Schielke 2008). It must be said that Sufi shrines historically and at present have immense political power, especially for the families who are the keepers of the dargahs, as it not only enables them with spiritual prestige, but it is also a sign of immense wealth and social capital. We see this in contemporary contexts, where they have been sites of anti-Sufi violence, but also political tools for public figures, such as Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan and his wife, Pinky Peerni (Ingram 2018). As such, women who have various authority and access to sacred spaces in Sufism maintain such power. Accessibility to Sufi shrines also differed across socio-economic class for women. For instance, the Mughal Princess Jahanara (1614–1681), the daughter of Shah Jahan (d. 1666) (who built the Taj Mughal), was deeply involved in Sufi traditions and institutions, even writing biographical works on Sufi saints (Ernst 1999). She is buried outside Nizam al-Din Awliya’s shrine, with the following inscription:

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He is the Living, the Sustaining. Let no one cover my grave except with greenery. For this very grass suffices as a tomb cover for the poor. The annihilated faqir Lady Jahanara, Disciple of the Lords of Chisht, Daughter of Shahjahan the Warrior (may God illuminate his proof). (Ernst 1999: 194–195) Shrines have been formidable spaces of access for Sufi women, lower-class women, transpeople, and everyday women, who themselves have tended to be buried in such spaces, attracting further veneration from Muslim and non-Muslim adherents. Still, shrine visitations, or ziyaram, especially to local shrines by variously positioned women, is ‘a ritual practice simultaneously suspect and beloved,’ as ‘Men tend to frequent larger, more important shrines that are considered formally legitimate by religious authorities. Women predominate at small, back-street shrines, often ramshackle sanctuaries of doubtful antecedents, mocked by men’ (Betteride 1993: 227). Another way in which female Sufis negotiated their authority or participation in Sufism was through their familial ties. Such an example may be found with Nana Asmaʾu (d. 1864), the daughter of Usman dan Fodiyo (d. 1817), a Qadiri Sufi shaykh, in what is modern-day Nigeria. Asmaʾu was educated in Islamic traditions and texts, which she then trained her numerous students, especially female students, in. Her importance and fame would travel with those who were enslaved across the transatlantic ocean, and resulted in a formative influence for the AfricanAmerican community, especially in Pittsburgh (Boyd and Mack 2000). Similarly, Joseph Hill’s studies explore the role of muqaddama (feminine of muqaddam which means spiritual guide of the Tijani Sufi order) (2010, 2014, 2018). These female Sufi leaders are able to maintain authority due to their relationships with a male family member (i.e., husband or father) who is a muqaddam. Females develop leadership roles in which they may have disciples or even lead rituals, such as dhikr (prayer of remembrance), roles that have often been limited to males in this cultural context. But by oscillating between ‘domesticity’ and ‘publicity’ Hill highlights how female Sufis act as leaders in contemporary Senegal, based on the discretion or approval by a male Sufi shaykh in the order (2010: 383). Similar studies have also noted the importance of female Sufi leaders in Somalia (Declich 2000). In the above section, we moved from classical and textual manifestations of Sufism to lived and spatial experiences of Sufi women and marginalized peoples. Despite this shift, we continued to observe the tendency of instability in terms of gender norms in Sufism, especially in social and sacred spaces (i.e., shrines). These dynamics were also implicated by socio-economic status and familial affiliations, which further complicated the ways in which women practiced their Sufism. Another notable pattern in the above discussion was the ways in which binary gender norms were at times subverted, while other times they were reinforced. In the next section, we turn to contemporary examples of female Sufi leaders, as well as queer Sufi experiences.

Contemporary global female Sufi leaders Some scholars and adherents of Sufism have suggested that Sufism in Europe and America are more gender egalitarian as a result of Westernization, and not because of Sufism itself. The prevailing reasoning that Sufi women have more accessibility and mobility in comparison to Islam is rather reductive and pejorative, as it reduces the traditions of Islam and Sufism, and the experiences of Muslims and Sufis, especially women. The latter argument is not representative of the accessibility and flexibility that has existed in Sufism historically, as explored 171

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above. Be it in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, North Africa, United States, or Turkey and beyond, female Sufi leaders are leading the charge. They work with other male Sufi teachers, they travel, cater to their communities both locally and globally, publicly and privately. They have blog pages, Facebook groups, Twitter handles, and Instagram accounts. No longer are they being written about, they are speaking for themselves, and those who are interested are able to access them directly, and not through male mediators (usually). These realities are not necessary novel. Rather, they may be seen as continuous of some of the trends observed in classical and pre-modern eras, as explored above. Some of modes of leadership are indeed innovative, largely due to new forms of technology and how these tools have influenced how authority may be disseminated and experienced. The examples noted below continue to reflect the ways in which Sufi women negotiate their ever-evolving context, not merely in private spaces, but public ones too. Although in no way meant to be exhaustive, this section turns to surveying some examples of contemporary female Sufis globally.

Sri Lankan Sufism The presence of Sufism in Sri Lanka is one that has mostly been undocumented. This lacuna is in large part due to marginal treatment of Sri Lanka in the context of South Asian Islamic studies. But across the island, there are various Sufi tombs dedicated to numerous Sufi women and their handmaidens, many whose names have now been lost to the annals of history. In Slave Island, a district embedded in the capital city of Colombo, one finds a Sufi shrine to the Malaysian saint Hussein Bee Bee (dated to 1875), who according to oral history was believed to be the patron saint of Slave Island. This space is part of a broader mosque complex that includes a school, prayer hall, and much more. Spaces such as these remain a central site of veneration and activity for women, not only for Muslims, but Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians cultivating a religious pluralism that Sufis have been associated with. Additionally, the current trustee of Dafther Jailani, a significant pilgrimage site dedicated to Abdul Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166) in central Sri Lanka, is Roshan Aboosally. Aboosally is a Colombo lawyer by profession who inherited the office of chief trusteeship of Dafther Jailani from her father M. L. M. Aboosally (McGilvray 2016: 71). In recent years she has received push-back from Muslim communities in Colombo whose organizations are run mainly by males, not only because she is a female Muslim authority, but also because of Dafther Jailani’s Sufi significance. Since Sri Lanka is officially a Buddhist state, Dafther Jailani is nationally understood as a Muslim site. As a result, this site has received attention from Buddhist fundamentalist groups who see it as threatening Sri Lanka’s Buddhist hegemony (Xavier and Amarasingam 2016). Aboosally’s authority has received criticism not only from Muslims with anti-Sufi orientations, but also from the state and Buddhist nationalists’ groups who espouse Islamophobia. The latter pushbacks are in addition to the challenges she faces as a female Muslim Sufi leader. Still, despite these challenges, she has continued to maintain her spiritual, political, and legal authority over this important Sufi shrine in Sri Lanka.

Cemalnur Sargut of the Turkish Rifaʿi Turkey is another example of a country with longstanding relationships with Sufism, one that in the modern period has turned far more tenuous, as evident in Kemal Mustafa Atarkuk’s (d. 1938) outlawing of Sufism during his secularization project. Despite the fact that 172

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Sufism remains officially banned in Turkey, one can find numerous female Sufi authorities and activities. One of these women includes Cemalnur Sargut of the Turkish Rifaʿi of Kenan Rifaʿi (1867–1950). Sargut was first introduced to the traditions of Sufism as a child from her mother, Mesküre Sargut (d. 2013), but was also guided by other teachers, such as Samiha Ayverdi (d. 1993), who was a student of Kenan Rifaʿi, particularly through Rumi’s teachings (Buehler 2016; Sharify-Funk, Dickson, and Xavier 2017; Thaver 2017). Sargut is the president of the Turkish Women’s Cultural Association (TURKKAD). She lectures at universities globally, has published numerous books in Turkish, and hosts radio programs. Her teachings were translated into English, entitled Beauty and Light: Mystical Discourses by a Contemporary Female Sufi Master (Thaver 2017). Sargut established an Islamic Studies chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009, where she regularly gives lectures and is working towards establishing a similar chair at Peking University in China. Sargut’s students have been predominately female, but she also has male students.

Shaykha Fariha Friedrich and Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi order Grand Shaykh of the Halveti-Jerrahis, Muzzaffer Ozak (d. 1985), initiated two American disciples in the Masjid al-Farah in New York City: Lex Hixon (d. 1995), who later became known as Nur Al-Anwar al-Jerrahi in Sufi circles, and Phillipa Friedrich. Friedrich took the name shaykha Fariha al-Jerrahi and she currently leads the New York City center of this community, the Dergah al-Farah, embedded in the trendy neighborhood of Tribeca, Manhattan. They host regular Thursday evening gatherings, which includes dhikr, whirling, and salat, which are all gender egalitarian. Visitors are invited to participate within their levels of comfort, which includes flexible practices of veiling and participation in salat. The center hosts various events and lecture series, such as ʿurs (death anniversary of a Sufi saint) celebrations for Rumi and Ozak, as well as community lectures by religious leaders and academics on various Sufi topics. There are also monthly whirling classes offered by one of Fariha alJerrahi’s female students. This community is transnational and includes sites across America and globally, such as in Germany, Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. One of the students, Amina Ortiz, or shaykha Amina Teslima, was given permission to teach from authorities in the movement led by pir (teacher) Nureddin al-Jerrahi in Istanbul, Turkey and also studied with shaykh Nur al Anwar al-Jerrahi for 13 years. She is the leader of the center in Mexico City where she is active in interfaith work.

Female Sufi activists Sufi women remain active in public and civic spaces. An important modern example is of Noor Inayat Khan (d. 1944), whose father was Inayat Khan (d. 1927). Noor Inayat Khan became involved in the resistance movement against Nazi Germany by joining the British Special Operations Executive, and was eventually assassinated while in captivity. The Inayati Order, led by her nephew, Zia Inayat Khan, has been central in memorializing her teachings and life, as seen through the recent publications of her books and a documentary on her life (Garnder 2014). Zia Inayat Khan is also one of the leading contemporary Sufi teachers who initiates female leaders to teach, a continuation of his grandfather’s initiation practice which he introduced when he first arrived to the United States in 1910. One of the current leaders of the Toronto, Canada, Inayati Order is Ayeda Husain, a South Asian Canadian who leads regular mixed-gender dhikr sessions.

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Contemporary examples of such activism in public spheres include that of Dr. Nahid Angha, the daughter of Moulana Shah Maghsoud, a 20th century Persian Sufi of the Uwaiysi School of Sufism, who established a center in Novato, California. Angha, from Tehran, Iran, is an author and founder and leader of the International Association of Sufism (IAS) and also the founder of the International Sufi Women Organization (SWO) (Buehler 2016: 200). She is an activist who engages with Sufism and peace building, by speaking at various forums and conferences, such as at the United Nations. There are many Sufi women who are active beyond formal Sufi communities and spaces. Including those in the academy and translators of Sufi and Islamic texts, such as Laleh Bakhtiar, Gray (Aisha) Henry (of Fons Vitae), and Daisy Khan, the Executive Director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA). The brief examples highlighted in this section showcase some of the ways that Sufi women negotiate their ever-evolving complex contexts, not merely in private spaces, but also public and political spheres. The next section introduces another way in which gender norms are challenged in embodied Sufism in contemporary context, that is through ritual practice of whirling.

Whirling against gender norms Suleyman Loras (d. 1985), a Mevlevi Sufi master, was one of the early teachers who taught women to whirl in North America (Los Angeles and Vancouver), breaking with historical precedent that often did not allow for women to whirl, at least not publicly. There are some traditions that hold that Rumi taught his female family members (i.e., daughter-inlaw) to whirl (Reinhertz 2001). The tradition of whirling, associated with the Mevlevi order of Rumi in Turkey, has steeped into popular culture and tourism, especially with the popularity of Rumi and his poems in the global West. Other contemporary Sufi leaders, such as Kabir and Camille Helminksi of the Threshold Society, a Mevlevi Sufi Order which is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with centers in Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and shaykha Fariha, are also part of this process of disseminating the tradition of Sufism through Rumi and the contemplative ritual practice of whirling, while reinforcing gender egalitarianism. The latter practice is most evident with the leadership and efforts of the IranianCanadian semazan (whirling dervish) Farzad AttarJafari. AttarJafari, who is based in Toronto, Canada, inherited the tradition of Sufism, especially of Rumi, from his father. He has studied with many Sufi teachers, including the Helminskis and Zia Inayat Khan. He is the head of Rumi Canada, which organizes various events around the life and legacy of Rumi across Canada, but also globally. One of his teachers is Raqib Brian Burke, the Canadian sama‘ master based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Burke has been a whirling dervish for over three decades and also trained his daughter, Mira Burke (Dalrymple 2005b). It is his training and connections with Burke that led to a revolutionary practice of not only initiating female whirlers, but also whirling as mixed-gender, which he and his students now do regularly in various public and private events throughout Canada and beyond. In the early stages of this mixed gendered whirling, Sufi leaders in the Toronto community were initially displeased with this practice. When AttarJafari was invited to whirl at various Sufi community events, he refused to whirl without his female students, stating that in the deepest movements of this meditation one’s outer form does not matter, but only one’s inner state. Reflecting a similar argument, we found in our introduction when the historical ‘Attar qualifies that Rabiʿa’s outward form does not matter, only her inner state. For AttarJafari and his understandings of the teachings of 174

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Rumi, he sees no duality, just oneness that pushes him forward in his gender egalitarian practices in sama‘ traditions. After years of practicing mixed-gender whirling, AttarJafari expresses that leaders have slowly become more open to mixed-gender whirling. AttarJafari’s audience is not only Sufi communities and orders. Rather, they also include public and cultural spaces, such as museums and auditoriums, like the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, which is part of the Ismaili Shiʿa community that has provided a platform to share poetry of Rumi and the whirling dervishes. Tanya Evanson is one of the female whirlers that can be seen with AttarJafari regularly. She is an Antiguan-Canadian whirler based out of Montreal, Quebec. She is a poet, performer, and arts educator and director of the Banff Centre Spoken Word Program. She studied for 15 years under the Turkish Rifaʿi Marufi Sherif Baba Çatalkaya and Burke. She has whirled in public events in Europe, Turkey, Japan, India, and Kazakhstan with Vancouver Rumi Society, Rumi Canada and the disc jockey Mercan Dede, and the Iranian-American music group Niyaz. Evanson holds regular whirling workshops and meditation in Montreal (‘Mother Tongue’). Thus, popular interests in the traditions of Rumi (albeit in a Westernized manner) have given semazans, such as AttarJafari, a germinal platform to disseminate a form of Sufism that he understands as gender egalitarian, which may not have unfolded in the Turkish or Iranian context, where he has ties. Rumi’s prominence does not dwell only in the realm of ritual whirling, but has also been significant for the LGBTQ community and various social justice platforms, which the final section of this chapter discusses.

Queering contemporary Sufism Sufism and queer identities have been central to many grassroots movements with an emphasis on social justice. The Tanzanian-born Canadian refugee and immigration lawyer and activist, El-Farouki Khaki, orients his activism and human rights discourse within Sufi Islam. He was one of the co-founders of el-Tawhid Juma Circle Unity Mosque, which is an LGBTQ affirming mosque space in Toronto. For many contemporary Muslim and non-Muslims within the LGBTQ community, Rumi has even been hailed as one of the torchbearers ‘of homoeroticism and spirituality’ (Dalrymple 2005a). On blogs, such as ‘5 Queer Muslims in History,’ Rumi is often featured with Shams, his spiritual master, while Rumi and Shams appear on the list of ‘5 Queer Couples in Islamic History’ (Jama 2015). Similarly, on the ‘Gay Community Forum’ on Beliefnet community, one may find many posts about Rumi as empowering LGBTQ identity, rights, and spirituality. Similar blogs are written on ‘The Wild Reed’ which are ‘thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.’ Other forums such as ‘Maulana Rumi Online: Rumi on Gays and Lesbians’ or ‘thepersiancloset’ also focus on Rumi as a means to affirm diverse sexual and gender identities. Rumi is featured on websites like ‘LGBT History Month,’ and the ‘Jesus in Love Blog’ which is a space for ‘LGBTQ spirituality and the arts. Home of gay Jesus and queer saints. Uniting body, mind and spirit. Open to all’, on September 30, 2016, in honor of Rumi’s birthday, posted a blog entitled ‘Rumi: Poet and mystic inspired by same-sex love’ (Sharify-Funk, Dickson, and Xavier 2017; Unknown 2016). Aside from Rumi, the rich cultural and ritual lives of hijras in regions such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, and more, continue to be important in this discourse on Sufism and queer identity (Najmabadi 2005). The latter significance was evident in the outpouring of responses with the legalization of homosexuality in India in September of 2018. 175

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Many on social media platforms highlighted that laws against homosexuality were the result of colonial and imperial legal discourses, on cultures where non-binary genders and sexualities had existed already, pointing to examples of Sufi traditions to support their argument, as mentioned above. Despite the fact that these discussions around sexuality and Sufism historically need to be further nuanced, it is important to highlight the ways in which Rumi and Sufi queer identities are utilized and (re)read in the discourse of LGBTQ rights in the contemporary contexts, especially in popular culture and social media by Muslims and nonMuslims.

Conclusions Sufi women have been significant to the development of Sufism historically, and continue to be in contemporary times, though their voices and experiences often have not been centralized. The lack of representation is not because they have not been present, rather it is because they have been silenced. This contribution has then explored some of the ways in which Sufi women were framed in literary traditions and the ways in which such literary traditions and genres were complicated by metaphysical discourses on the ideals of the creative feminine in classical and pre-modern periods. As I shifted towards contemporary examples of Sufism, I engaged with transnational expressions of contemporary Sufi women, especially through lived reality, such as at Sufi shrines and rituals. In discussions of the presence of women, spaces are one critical lens through which to understand how Sufi women negotiate their religious and spiritual identity within particular social locations. This trend was found in studies mentioned above of Sufism and gender in Turkey, North Africa, and South Asia, while familial ties were also an important factor to accessibility and authority for Sufi women, such as in Senegal. Finally, though limited, this contribution also began to call attention to the ways in which queerness has been employed in Sufi expressions, either in literary voices and same-sex relations or in contemporary contexts, such as the example of the hijra community. Throughout this discussion of gender and Sufism I maintained that gendered norms in Sufism have been and continue to be ambivalent and often instable, because the feminine and female were differentially placed in relation to the divine, which then resulted in complicated manifestations in every day spaces for women and non-binary peoples. Thus, there is no singular pattern that is discernible when studying the terrain of women and gender in the development of Sufism. Rather, what can be said definitively is that it is complicated and dependent on various external factors, such as space, class, location, familial ties, and much more. Furthermore, because of the metaphysical and literary interpretations of the feminine (versus the female), both as tropes and fundamental cosmological ideals, gender norms were often subverted in every day spaces as critiques of established societal gender norms. That said, it is important to make clear that gender norms were subverted for deeply spiritual reasons, that is to access the divine through self-annihilation (fana). So, in the end, according to Sufis, these identities, forms, and social constructs that create duality are not real.

Note 1 A special thank you to Justine Howe, Zabeen Khamisa, Sara Haq, and William Rory Dickson for reading earlier versions of this draft and for their helpful feedback.

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Further reading Murata, Sachiko. (1992). The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. New York: SUNY Press. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of gender in the Qurʾan and early literary traditions, especially of classical Sufism. It captures juristic, theological, and metaphysical treatments of women and the feminine. Shaikh, Saʾdiyya. (2012). Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn ʿArabi, Gender and Sexuality. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. The book explores the hermeneutical traditions of Ibn ‘Arabi, especially his views on gender and its significance and consequence for Muslim women and discourses of Islamic feminism. Cornell, Rkia Elaroui. (2019). Rabiʿa: The Many Faces of Islam’s Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabiʾa AlʿAdawiyya (ca. 717–801 CE). London: Oneworld Publications. In this monumental work, Cornell explores the various historical and contemporary narratives and traditions that surround the life and enduring legacies of the Rabiʿa. ʿAʾishah al-Baʿuniyyah. (2016). The Principles of Sufism. Translated by Emil Homerin. new York: NYU Press. This Sufi manual on comportment and practice was compiled by the 15th century Damascene ʿAʾishah al-Baʿuniyyah. Selections or excerpts may be a useful resource to expose undergraduate students, especially to practice close reading of excerpts as a class exercise. Scott, Kugle. (2007). Sufis and Saint’s Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality, and Sacred Power in Islam. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Kugle’s book situates the study of historical Sufism through embodiment of various saints. By examining parts of human bodies, such as the heart, of various Sufi saints across North Africa and South Asia, Kugle queers the ways in which we discuss gender, sexuality, and Sufism.

References Ahmed, Zia, Abbas, Zubia, and Khushi, Qamar. (2013). Reimagining Female Role in Divine/Sufi Writing. Pakistan Journal of Islamic Research, 12, pp. 105–188. Al- Ba‘uniyyah, A’ishah. (2016). Emil Homerin trans. The Principles of Sufism. New York: New York University Press. Ali, Kecia. (2017). Destabilizing Gender, Reproducing Maternity: Mary in the Qurʾan. Journal of International Qurʾanic Association, 2, pp. 89–110. Azad, Arezou. (2013). Female Mystics in Medieval Islam: The Quiet Legacy. Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 56(1), pp. 53–88. Bellamy, Carla. (2011). The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyday Healing an Ambiguously Islam Place. Berkeley, CA: University of California. Betteride, Anne H. (1993). Muslim Women and Shrines in Shiraz. In: D. Bowen and E. Early, eds., Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East Early. Bloomington, IN and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 227–289. Birchok, Daniel Andrew. (2016). Women, Genealogical Inheritance and Sufi Authority: The Female Saints of Seunagan, Indonesia. Asian Studies Review, 40(4), pp. 583–599. Boyd, Jean, and Mack, Beverly. (2000). One Woman’s Jihad: Nana Asma’u: Scholar and Scribe. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bruzzi, Silvia, and Zeleke, Meron. (2015). Contested Religious Authority: Sufi Women in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Journal of Religion in Africa, 45, pp. 37–67. Buehler Arthur, F. (2016). Recognizing Sufism: Contemplation in the Islamic Tradition. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Buturović , Amila. (2001). Between the Tariqa and Shari‘a: The Making of the Female Self. In: F. Devlin-Glass and L. Mcredden, eds., Feminist Poetics of the Sacred: Creative Suspicions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 135–260. Corbin, Henry. (1969). Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Corbin, Henry. (1998, 1962). Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cornell, Rkia E., trans. (1999). Early Sufi Women: Dhikr an-Niswa al-Muta’abbidat as-Sufiyyat. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae Publishers.

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Cornell, Rkia E. Rabi‘a. (2019). Rabi‘a: The Many Faces of Islam’s Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi’a Al‘Adawiyya (ca. 717–801 CE). London: Oneworld Publications. Dakake, Maria Massi. (2000). ‘Guest of the Inmost Heart’: Conceptions of the Divine Beloved among Early Sufi Women. Journal of Comparative Islamic Studies, 3(1), pp. 72–97. Dakake, Maria Massi. (2002). ‘Walking upon the Path of God Like Men?’: Women and the Feminine in the Islamic Mystical Tradition. Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies, 8(2), pp. 117–138. Dalrymple, William. (2005a). What Goes Round … The Guardian. Available at: www.theguardian.com/ books/2005/nov/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview26 [Accessed November 4, 2018]. Dalrymple, William et al. (2005b). Sufi Soul: The Mystic Mystic of Islam. Brighton: Electric Sky. Declich, Francesca. (2000). Sufi Experience in Rural Somali. A Focus on Women. Social Anthropology, 8(3), pp. 295–318. Elias, Jamal. (1988). Female and the Feminine in Islamic Mysticism. The Muslim World, 78(3–4), pp. 209–224. Ernst, Carl., trans. (1999). Teachings of Sufism. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Evanson, Tanya. Mother Tongue. Available at: www.mothertonguemedia.com/ [Accessed November 9, 2018]. Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter. (2006). In Amma’s Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South Asia. Bloomington, CA: Indiana University Press. Garnder, Robert H. (2014). Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story. Baltimore, MD: DVD. Haq, Sara. (2012). Beyond Binary Barzakhs: Using the Theme of Liminality in Islamic Thought to Question the Gender Binary. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University. Hill, Joseph. (2010). ‘All Women are Guides’: Sufi Leadership and Womanhood among Taalibe Bay in Senegal. Journal of Religion in Africa, 40, pp. 375–412. Hill, Joseph. (2014). Picturing Islamic Authority: Gender Metaphors and Sufi Leadership in Senegal. Islamic Africa, 5(2), pp. 275–315. Hill, Joseph. (2018). Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar. Senegal and Toronto: University of Toronto. Hirtenstein, Stephen. (1999). The Unlimited Mercifier: The Spiritual Life and Thought of Ibn ‘Arabi. Oxford: Anqa Publishing. Ingram, Brannon D. (2018). Revival from Below: The Deoband Movement and Global Islam. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Jama, Afdhere. (2015). 5 Queer Muslims in History. LGBT Muslims: Information on Sexual Diversity in Islam. Available at: http://islamandhomosexuality.com/5-queer-muslims-history/ [Accessed December 23, 2016]. Küçük, Hülya. (2015). Female Substitutes and Shaykhs in the History of Sufism: The Case of the Mawlawiyya Sufi Order from its Early Phase to the Eighteenth Century. Mawlana Rumi Review, 4, pp. 106–131. Kugle, Scott. (2007). Sufis and Saint’s Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality, and Sacred Power in Islam. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Mayer, Farhana. (2011). Spiritual Gems: The Mystical Qurʾan Commentary Ascribed to Ja‘far al-Sadiq as Contained in Sulami’s Haqa’iq al-Tafsir from the text of Paul Nwiya. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae. McGilvray, Dennis. (2016). Islamic and Buddhist impacts on the Shrine at Daftar Jailani. In: D. Dandekar and R. Tschacher, eds., Islam, Sufism and Everyday Politics of Belonging in South Asia. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 62–76. Murata, Sachiko. (1992). The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. New York: SUNY Press. Murata, Sachiko. (no date) “Women of Light in Sufism”. The Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society. Najmabadi, Afsaneh. (2005). Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Ozak, Muazaffer Al-Jerrahi. (1991). Blessed Virgin Mary. Trans by Muhtar Holland. Westport, CT: Pir Publications. Pemberton, Kelly. (2000). Women, Ritual Life, and Sufi Shrines in North India. PhD. Columbia University. Pemberton, Kelly. (2004). Muslim Women Mystics and Female Spiritual Authority in South Asian Sufism. Journal of Ritual Studies, 18, pp. 1–23. Penrose, Walter. (2006). Colliding Cultures: Masculinity and Homoeroticism in Mughal and Early Colonial South Asia. In: K. O’Donnell and M. O’Rourke, eds., Queer Masculinities, 1550-1800: Siting Same-Sex Desire in the Early Modern World. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 144–165.

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Petievich, Carla. (2007). When Men Speak as Women: Vocal Masquerade in Indo-Muslim Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Raudvere, Catharina. (2002). The Book and the Roses: Sufi Women, Visibility and Zikr in Contemporary Istanbul. Sweden: Bjärnums Tyrckeri. Reinhertz, Shakina. (2001). Women Called to the Path of Rumi: The Way of the Whirling Dervish. Chino Valley, AZ: Homn Press. Sands, Kristen Zahra. (2006). Sufi Commentaries on the Qurʾan in Classical Islam. New York: Routledge. Schielke, Samuli. (2008). Mystic States, Motherly Virtues, Female Participation and Leadership in an Egyptian Sufi Milieu. Journal for Islamic Studies, 28, pp. 94–126. Schimmel, Annemarie. (1975). Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina. Schimmel, Annemarie. (1997). My Soul Is a Woman: The Feminine in Islam. New York: Continuum Publishing. Sells, Michael. (1996). Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qurʾan, Mi’raj, Poetic and Theological Writings. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Shaikh, Sa’diyya. (2012). Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn ‘Arabi, Gender and Sexuality. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Sharify-Funk, Meena, Dickson, William Rory, and Xavier, Merin Shobhana. (2017). Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. Shaukat, Usman. (2013). Sufi Homoerotic Authorship and its Heterosexualization in Pakistan. In: C. Chris and D. A. Gerstner, eds., Media Authorship. New York and London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 105–120. Silvers, Laury. (2017). Early Pious, Mystic Women. In: L. Ridgeon, ed., The Cambridge to Sufism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 24–52. Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur. (2017). Two Beloved Sufi Poets of the Punjab: A Case of “Hearing without Listening”. In: C. Bennett and S. Alam, eds., Sufism, Pluralism and Democracy. Sheffield and Bristol, CT: Equinox Publishing, pp. 177–200. Smith, Margaret. (1994). Rabi’a: The Life and Works of Rabi’a and Other Women Mystics in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. Starratt, Priscilla E. 1995. “The Veneration of Sufi Women Saints in Kano, Nigeria”. Issue 115 of Papers Presented at the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association. Sultanova, Razia. (2011). From Shamanism to Sufism: Women, Islam and Culture in Central Asia. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Thaver, Tehseen ed., (2017). Beauty and Light: Mystical Discourses by a Contemporary Female Sufi Master. Louisville, KT: Fons Vitae. Unknown. (2016). Rumi: Poet and Sufi Mystic Inspired by Same-sex Love. Jesus in Love Blog. Available at: http://jesusinlove.blogspot.ca/2016/09/rumi-poet-and-sufi-mystic-inspired-by.html [Accessed December 28, 2016]. Xavier, Merin Shobhana. (2018). Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism. London: Bloomsbury Press. Xavier, Merin Shobhana and Amarasingam, Amarnath. (2016). Caught between Rebels and Armies: Competing Nationalisms and Anti-Muslim Violence in Sri Lanka. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 7, pp. 22–43.

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11 GENDER AND THE KARBALA PARADIGM On studying contemporary Shiʿi women Edith Szanto

Introduction What is different about the study of Shiʿi women other than the fact that they are not Sunni, not members of the majority of Muslims in the world? Looking at the body of literature, which constitutes the academic study of Shiʿi women, we see a common allegory: Sayyida Zaynab and the Karbala Paradigm. This chapter explains the Karbala Paradigm, looks at how the interpretations of the Karbala Paradigm have changed over time, its applications to the study of Shiʿi women, and at the trope of Sayyida Zaynab and its various appropriations. In general, scholars of Shiʿism tend to draw on a specific paradigm, namely the Karbala Paradigm. According to this paradigm, Muharram practices and discourses can be interpreted in one of two modes, they can either reify or seek to change the status quo. The study of Shiʿi women, predictably, tends to look at how women appropriate Muharram practices and discourses in reference to these two modes. Interestingly, this approach exemplifies the approach that the late anthropologist, Saba Mahmood, calls for in her foundational work, Politics of Piety. Mahmood called upon scholars of Muslim women to look at the ways they inhabit, rather than subvert norms. This chapter argues that Mahmood’s call ought to be widened: scholars of the anthropology of women in Islam ought to also pay attention to the ways in which the very ideas of piety and religious norms change over time. The unrefined allegorical use of the Karbala Paradigm constitutes a parroting of informants’ views, rather than its analysis. This chapter consists of two main parts: first, it will discuss the Karbala Paradigm – its emergence and its role in the study of Shiʿism. Then, it will review the literature to date on Shiʿi women. In the second part, it will demonstrate how the trope of Sayyida Zaynab is used in sermons, political rhetoric, as a focal point for a changing town, and as a role model. The study of women in contemporary Shiʿism began roughly in the 1980s, following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which sparked interest in contemporary Shiʿism more generally. Since then numerous works have focused on Shiʿi women’s rituals, such as the sofre, women’s pilgrimages, and their interpretations of female saints, especially Fatima al-Zahra and Sayyida Zaynab. Geographically, most studies on Shiʿi women have focused on Iranian women, though much of the work on Iranian women does not focus on Shiʿism as such. Concurrently, there has been a growing body of literature on Shiʿi women’s pious practices

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in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Bahrain, and even the United States. Suffice it to say, there is a relatively large and growing literature on popular Shiʿi mourning practices. Sayyida Zaynab’s role has been interpreted as political and active or as emotional and passive and has been drastically reinterpreted on several occasions since the 1970s in Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran. In Iran in the late 1970s and early 1980s Zaynab supported the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic. In Lebanon Zaynab opposed the Israeli occupation, while in Kuwait she supported social progress and charities. From 2003 to 2009 in Syria Sayyida Zaynab was primarily seen as a woman who sought to educate those around her. After the Syrian Uprising began, Zaynab was portrayed as a defenceless woman who must be protected by Shiʿi militias. This latter interpretation mobilized Iraqi and Lebanese Shiʿa to join the fight in Syria. Portraying Zaynab as a defenceless sister whose honour was both communal and personal tugged on the strings of pious young men’s hearts. Lastly, this chapter will briefly examine the role that two other female characters from the Karbala narrative have played in Syria from 2003 to 2009. In general, the approach this chapter takes is a rather functionalist one. Sayyida Zaynab’s role has been interpreted as active and political or as passive and emotional and has been drastically reinterpreted on several occasions since the 1970s in Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran. What it is demonstrating here is that diachronic examinations of Shiʿi feminine ideals reveal a wide range of possibilities. Moreover, these exceed an easy binary view that many academics have adopted regarding Shiʿi discourses and rituals.1

The Karbala Paradigm The Karbala Paradigm is the single most important theoretical contribution by and in Shiʿi studies to date. Importantly for this chapter, the contribution of the Karbala Paradigm here is that it has been adapted to aid the analysis of Shiʿi women’s piety and their ritual practices. Before examining the intersections gender and the Karbala Paradigm, let us examine the Karbala Paradigm and its preceding formation in Shiʿi studies. How rituals and discourses are analysed is often a question of what anthropological theories are popular at the time and how context shapes both the ritual and the ethnographer. Early works such as those by Mahmoud Ayoub and Peter Chelkowski compared Muharram rituals to Catholic penitentiary practices and passion plays. Those were the days of comparative religion with regard to ritual. Muharram rituals and discourses have been a favourite topic of discussion among historians, anthropologists, and political scientists specializing in Shiʿi Islam. In the South Asian context, scholars have generally emphasized the communal and salvific aspects of Muharram mourning rituals (Schubel 1993; Pinault 1999, 2001; Howarth 2005). In the Middle Eastern context prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, academics usually framed their analysis in terms of the ‘Passion of Karbala,’ which they treated as a Shiʿi genus of the passion play common in Christian Easter observances (cf. Chelkowski 1979). Following the Revolution, however, scholars became interested in the politicization of Shiʿi Muharram practices and discourses at the hands of religious scholars and intellectuals, like ʿAli Shari‘ati. In 1981, the anthropologist Michael Fischer was the first to coin the phrase, the Karbala Paradigm, in order to distinguish Shiʿi Muharram practices from those of Catholic penitents. His construction pointed to the narrative’s rhetorical operation, dramatic form, and significance in differentiating Shiʿa from other surrounding communities, especially Sunni Muslims. The paradigm, according to Fischer, ‘provides models for living and a mnemonic for thinking about how to live’ (Fischer 1980: 21). By 1983, historian Nikki Keddie cast these 181

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models in terms of a duality with relationship to politics. ‘Quietism versus revolution’ became the dualism through which scholars came to view the Karbala Paradigm. Comparing Iran with Lebanon, anthropologist Michael Gilsenan referred to politically quietist versus revolutionary as passive versus active modes of piety (1982: 61). More recent studies have adopted these politically focused and dichotomous views of the Karbala Paradigm and have argued that there has been a shift over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century from traditional and salvific to modern and revolutionary interpretations (cf. Aghaie 2004; Deeb 2006; Pandya 2010). The dichotomous concepts these academics have employed largely mirror those of the religious Iranian ideologue ʿAli Shari‘ati (d. 1975), who in the decades prior to the revolution interpreted the Karbala narrative as a revolutionary manifesto. Shari‘ati proposed that there were two types of Shiʿism: the first type was the just, pure, and populist Shiʿism of ʿAli ibn Abu Talib, the first imam. The second was Safavid Shiʿism, the worldly, complacent, and corrupt piety of religious scholars. The clerics’ worldly Shiʿism implied that they were more concerned with the details of ritual observance than struggling against the corrupt regimes that had co-opted them (Aghaie 2004: 100–105). By holding up ʿAlid Shiʿism as the pure form of Shiʿism and delegitimizing scholarly authority, Shari‘ati called on Shiʿis to actively emulate Husayn and rebel against corrupt rulers. He transformed the Battle of Karbala from a religio-historical account, central to salvific practices, into an ongoing moral and political obligation to revolt against injustice (Aghaie 2004: 109–110). Shari‘ati’s dichotomy works well when analyzing Iran before the Revolution of 1979. At that time there were two kinds of scholars: quietist and traditional versus revolutionary and modern, who dealt with a secular ruler. Here, tradition not only implied political quietism, but also Judeo-Christian notions of otherworldly salvation, sacrifice, and the forgiveness of sins (cf. Ayoub 1978; Pinault 1999, 2001; Howarth 2005). Shari‘ati’s binary shows up in the rhetoric of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, along with their Lebanese protégés, Hezbollah and Ayatollah Fadhlallah. They think of themselves as modern, rational, and politically revolutionary. They imply that their opponents are traditional, even backwards, irrational and emotional, and politically passive. Applying Gilsenan’s categories, Hezbollah is active, while the Amal Movement is passive. Similarly, the Shirazis in Syria are passive and non-political, but even they – as I will explain in a moment – can be considered active if we widen the definition of what counts as political action. Hence, the binary interpretation of the Karbala Paradigm does not suffice for analysing Shiʿism in Syria where the traditional Shirazis appropriated and propagated bloody forms of selfflagellation, which they claimed induced healing, in order to rebel against Khamenei.

Studying Shiʿi women Shari’ati’s binary holds for gender ideals as well. The common analytical axis is to distinguish between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ forms of female piety or ‘revolutionary’ and ‘traditional’ interpretation of saintly ideals. Mary Elaine Hegland was one of the first to describe Shiʿi women in an Iranian village and later on the northern Pakistani frontier in the late 1970s and early 1980s as empowered by Zaynab’s example (1998: 240–266). Hegland’s general diagnostic of empowerment of women through Karbala rituals and discourses was soon adopted as the main methodological approach. According to Kamran Aghaie, there was a shift in the 1960s and 1970s in Iranian notions regarding womanhood. Aghaie writes that the previous ideal was Fatima Zahra, the subservient quiet daughter of the Prophet, and the sacrificing mother of Imam al-Husayn. 182

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Leading up to and following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the new female ideal became Zaynab, the revolutionary heroine (Aghaie 2004: 113–130). Lara Deeb describes a similar shift in Lebanon. Moreover, in Lebanon, Deeb describes an emergent fascination with Zaynab as a rational, modern example to be emulated (2009: 242–257). Deeb distinguishes how Shiʿi women versus men interact with saints: women ‘emulate’ Zaynab, while men aim to ‘embody’ Husayn. To emulate Zaynab is to be a rational, progressive, modern, but religious woman. Sophia Pandya identifies the same singular shift in Bahrain (2010). Pandya argues that in Bahrain women have, similarly to the women Deeb studied in Lebanon, reinterpreted Zaynab through a modernist lens. This, according to Pandya, explains the importance of social transformation and progress is central to their understanding of Karbala practices and discourses. Social progress, in other words, becomes the barometer according to which ‘religious activism’ is measured. More recently, this author has argued elsewhere that the very dichotomy of ‘modern, authenticated, and revolutionary’ versus ‘traditional, emotional, and soteriological’ is a false dichotomy (Szanto 2013a). First of all, a ‘traditional’ interpretation is always already a ‘neotraditional’ reading because it has already become aware of other options and has not remained unchanged. Second, even those that call for ‘emotional’ interpretations are politically motivated. ‘Revolutionary’ readings are not automatically ‘modern’ or ‘authentic’ – merely ‘authenticated’ by a particular group pursuing specific ends. In short, this author would like to draw attention to the reasons we as researchers and our interlocutors label some practices and discourses the ways we or they do. The reason Shiʿa themselves create such categories has both local contextual reasons and wider historical basis. Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as contemporary young Shiʿis in North America, have a vested interest in differentiating themselves from followers of their rival Shiʿi party, the Amal Movement in Lebanon, or their parents’ attitudes in the case of North America.2 Similarly to those following Shari‘ati, those following such ‘revolutionary’ and ‘rational’ interpretations are making judgement calls, implicitly describing their political engagement as superior and as more in line with Zaynab’s historic precedent than their opponents. What they are not doing is actually analysing original accounts and wading through the complexity of the materials. Studying Sayyida Zaynab’s changing role in Syria, however, can allow us to see this distinction more clearly and it permits us to see a more complex picture, which does not simply rely on Shari‘ati’s binary. In what follows below, this chapter will be examining the two important aspects to consider when studying Sayyida Zaynab: her discursive uses and her spatial expansion. There are more and less politically acceptable interpretations of particular hagiographic accounts. And there is the shrine town and the physical tomb where rituals and discourses take place (Abu-Zahra 1999; Zimney 2007: 695–703). I begin with the stories about Sayyida Zaynab as told from the Shirazis’ perspective. Their version is interesting because it opposes the hegemonizing discourse of the Iranian government, which is influential broadly across all Shiʿi communities in the Middle East.

Sayyida Zaynab’s story: the Shirazi version In the 1970s and 1980s, the Shirazis founded the first and biggest network of scholars, preachers, schools, and bookstores in the Syrian shrine-town of Sayyida Zaynab. And they told the story of Karbala as follows. When the first Umayyad caliph Mu‘āwiyah ibn Abi Sufyan died in 680 CE, his son Yazid wanted to consolidate his power. He wanted to force important men throughout his 183

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empire to pledge their allegiance to him. He especially sought the loyalty of Imam alHusayn, but he refused. In the meantime, Imam al-Husayn received letters from the people of Kufa. The Kufans opposed Umayyad rule and said they would revolt against Umayyad if Imam al-Husayn came to lead them. After first dispatching his cousin, Muslim bin ‘Aqīl, Imam al-Husayn left Medina for Kufa. Unbeknownst to Imam al-Husayn, Yazid had sent his troops to Kufa to intimidate the people and his plan worked. His cousin, Muslim bin ‘Aqeel, was killed and the people of Kufa did not come to help Imam al-Husayn. When Imam al-Husayn went to Iraq with his sister, his wives, his children, and his men, he knew he would be killed. After all, the imam knows the future. At least that was the Shirazis’ claim. Why would Husayn take along his family, including his sister and her sons, and his own wives and children, if he knew he was going to be killed? To make a statement, that is the Shirazi answer. Husayn would have done so to draw attention to the plight of the Prophet’s family, to increase the pathos, to turn it into a spectacle of a sacrifice. Therefore, the Shirazis’ aim was to also put on a sacrificial spectacle, to be seen by Shiʿis as well as the wider world. On ʿAshuraʾ, the tenth day of Muharram, Yazid’s imperial army massacred Imam alHusayn and his small group of men, with the exception of the next imam who was but a sick child. After the men had all been killed, they took the women and children to Damascus as prisoners. On the way, Sayyida Zaynab hit her forehead with a spear in grief. Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidīn saw it and did not prevent her. The Shirazis read this as tacit consent. Once in Damascus, Zaynab led morning gatherings in memory of her brother. In Damascus, Sayyida Zaynab ‘spoke truth to power.’ At Karbala, Zaynab lost both of her sons, her brothers, and her nephews. She witnessed the battle and lived to pass on the message to others. Umm Haydar al-Shiraziyya often told her students: ‘Sayyida Zaynab was the first to lead mourning gatherings in remembrance of Husayn’s martyrdom. And if it had not been for Sayyida Zaynab, the story of the Battle of Karbala would never have reached us. Islam would have died out!’ When the Shirazis tell the story, they emphasize that Sayyida Zaynab hit herself until she bled. They themselves also flagellate and ask others to do it, too. They flagellate – or perform taṭbīr – in order to show their undying devotion to Sayyida Zaynab and through her, Imam al-Husayn. It is demonstrative. The Shirazis also use this story and interpretation to protest against the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei who banned bloody forms of self-flagellation in the 1990s in Iran (Azizi 2015). They regularly call upon Shiʿis outside of Iran to perform taṭbīr as a form of protest. In 2009 they successfully convinced a group of South Asians residing in Sayyida Zaynab, who usually followed Ayatollah Khamenei, to perform taṭbīr. The South Asians wanted to emphatically show their disagreement with Khamenei’s backing of Ahmadinejad as presidential candidate for Iran (Szanto 2013a). The practice of bloody flagellation was also forbidden under Saddam Hussein in Iraq and then returned with vengeance as soon as Saddam was deposed in 2003. In Syria, taṭbīr was not only allowed but promoted by the Shirazis. They propagated it as the proper way of imitating Sayyida Zaynab, even though she is not maʿṣūm, that is infallible. At the Shirazi seminary, teacher ʿAliya once rhetorically asked: ‘Why should we follow Sayyida Zaynab?’ For Sunnis, Prophetic sayings and practices are a crucial source of jurisprudence, second only to the Qurʾan. Shiʿa widen this category to include the sayings and practices of all of the 14 infallibles: Prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima, her husband ʿAli, their sons Hasan and Husayn, and another nine imams. However, Zaynab is not one of the 14 infallibles. ʿAliya explained: 184

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Strictly speaking, Zaynab was not infallible. However, she was the granddaughter of the Prophet, the daughter of two infallibles, and the sister of two infallibles. Living with infallibles all your life leaves traces on you and shapes you. She was with them and one of them and that is why we say that she had minor infallibility. And since Imam ʿAli Zayn al-ʿAbidīn was present when Zaynab hit herself on the forehead, he would have stopped her if he’d disagreed with the practice. (Fieldnotes 2009) For ʿAliya, the ritual bears the endorsement of an imam, making it legal. By imitating Sayyida Zaynab and promoting her exemplary practice of flagellation, the Shirazis portrayed themselves as particularly pious Shiʿis who display their loyalty to the family of Prophet Muhammad not only by recognizing the semi-infallibility of Zaynab and but also by physically performing their loyalty by self-flagellating. Through these practices, they display their dedication and devotion and implicitly contrast themselves with their rivals, whether Khamenei or Hezbollah, who eschew these practices. Given especially Iran’s hegemonic power over Shiʿa in the Middle East, given their financial, institutional, and political resources, the Shirazis paint the official stance of the Iranian government as something akin to Yazid’s stance, while the Shirazis represent the underdog, i.e. Husayn’s camp. Around 2009, the Shirazis particularly encouraged women to flagellate, but not in public. In contrast to Lebanon, where female members and sympathizers of the Amal Movement will occasionally flagellate in public, the Shirazis organized for devoted women to do so in the privacy of a closed basement. There, women cut themselves, mourned, and walked with bare feet across hot coal. By organizing and participating in these women’s practices, the Shirazis once again portrayed themselves as the true followers of Zaynab, who defy public and governmental disapproval in order to emulate her example, while simultaneously upholding female modesty by organizing for women to flagellate in private. In short, the Shirazis promoted a particular narrative about Zaynab, which was ‘revolutionary’ but ‘traditional’ at the same time. It fundamentally opposed the official Iranian stance, which was being preached at the prayer hall of the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab.

The shrine and town of Sayyida Zaynab To further show their dedication, the Shirazis maintain a large seminary in the shrine-town of Sayyida Zaynab. As for the shrine, there are questions as to where Zaynab is really buried (Zimney 2007; Szanto 2013b). Some think she is buried in Cairo, while others think she is in Syria. Both shrines appear in medieval travel literature. The Andalusian traveller Ibn Jubayr (d. 1217 CE) reported that when he visited the Syrian shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, he noticed that Shiʿa outnumbered Sunnis. A century later, Ibn Battuta (d. 1368/69) mentioned Zaynab’s mausoleum near Damascus. While many Muslims recognized the grave in Syria as belonging to Sayyida Zaynab, the granddaughter of the Prophet, others doubted the tomb’s authenticity. For instance, the Sufi ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (d. 1731 CE) wrote about the Syrian shrine, though he was convinced that Zaynab lies buried in Cairo (Mervin 1996; Zimney 2007). Some of the Iraqis I spoke with were convinced that Zaynab lies neither in Cairo, nor in Damascus, but in Iraq. In the end, however, these doubts stopped them neither from visiting her shrine, nor from beseeching her for help (Szanto 2013b).

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In the 12th century, the shrine was renovated and expanded, beginning under the leadership of Muhsin al-Amin (d. 1952). In 1935, the notable Syrian Nizam family renovated the building by the west entrance. In 1950, following the recovery of his son, a Pakistani businessman, Muhammad ʿAli Habib, donated the grids decorating the tomb to fulfil a religious vow he made to Zaynab. Later, an Arab merchant from the Gulf paid for the mosaic, which covers the two minarets of the shrine. The shrine itself was donated by Iran and the golden door located at the western entrance of the tomb, which is now reserved for women, was a gift from an Iranian businessman (Mervin 1996). Unlike other religious sites, including the shrine of Zaynab’s niece, Sayyida Ruqayya, which lies within a few hundred metres of the Umayyad mosque, the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab was not directly run by the Syrian Ministry for Religious Endowments. The Murtadha family has managed it since the 14th century. Concurrently, both Zaynab’s and Ruqayya’s shrines were funded, renovated, and expanded by the Iranian government, especially following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (Mervin 1996). Friday sermons at both shrines’ prayer halls are said in the name of the Iranian supreme leader and Khamenei even has offices at the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, where Shiʿi men and women can come to ask legal questions. Khamenei’s preferred location is ultimately a show of solidarity between the Syrian state and Iran. Over the years, the shrine town has changed drastically. Virtually unknown in the first half of the 20th century, it grew as a place of pilgrimage, we well as refugee starting in the 1940s until the first decade of the 21st century. After 2011, however, the shrine town began its quick decline and transformation into a battlefront. Even before the Syrian Uprising, native Twelver Shiʿis were only a small minority in Syria at around 2 per cent of the population. Yet, the million or so Iraqi Shiʿi refugees that came to Syria from Iraq, as well as seminary students and their teachers, and pilgrims from all over the world, increased their numbers. The alliance with ʿAlawites, who make up between 10 and 15 per cent of Syria’s population, gave the Twelver Shiʿis added political and economic weight.3 The shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab is not a historic Shiʿi site. Prior to 1948 when Palestinian refugees settled in the area, it was no more than an unimportant shrine in the midst of farmlands and olive groves. Syrian internally displaced people (IDPs) from the Golan Heights were settled just to the north of the Palestinian camp in 1967. The town remained largely Sunni until Shiʿis started to congregate there in the 1970s. These first waves of Shiʿis included thousands of Iraqis whom Saddam Hussein accused of being ethnically Iranian. An estimated 40,000 were forced to leave Iraq and while some of those went to Iran, many came to Syria. In a sense, the shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab constituted a heterotopia. Foucault defines heterotopia as a ‘space of otherness,’ which exists in relation to normal spaces. They ‘have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect’ (Foucault 1967: 2). He enumerates several categories, which include heterotopias of crisis that are inhabited by individuals undergoing life altering transformations (e.g., boarding schools, pregnancy, military service) and heterotopias of deviation (e.g., asylums and hospitals). The shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab constituted a Foucauldian heterotopia of crisis because it inverted Damascene religious, social, economic, and political norms. It was a ‘traditional’ place in the sense that it memorialized history and celebrated tradition, though it did not have a long history. Like Damascus, Sayyida Zaynab constituted a space that was tied to religion and power. Yet, the shrine town also mirrored and reflected Damascus, the 186

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imperial Umayyad city, as its opposing other. Damascus was the city of thriving Syrian citizens, while Sayyida Zaynab was the city of stateless refugees, asylum seekers, and religious tourists. Damascus was Sunni, stable, and modern, while Sayyida Zaynab was Shiʿi, constantly changing, both traditional and postmodern. One could say that while Damascus looked to the West in idealizing ‘modernity,’ Sayyida Zaynab was oriented to the East, towards Iraq and Iran, commemorating ‘tradition.’ Both Damascenes and inhabitants of the shrine town contrasted and distinguished the two spaces religiously, socially, economically, aesthetically, and legally. I had classmates from the seminary who would wear a face-veil and Iraqi abaya in Sayyida Zaynab, but remove it in Damascus and downgrade from an abaya to a manteau, a more close-fitting long coat. The first Shiʿi seminary in Sayyida Zaynab was established by Sayyid Hasan al-Shirazi (b. 1934–d. 1983), who fled Karbala in 1970 because of his opposition to the Iraqi Baʿth Party. Several Afghan students who had been expelled from Iraq soon followed and they helped erect the Zaynabiyya seminary in 1973.4 The Shirazi brothers derived their religious authority from their learning and their ʿAlid lineage. But their support for transgressive rituals, such as bloody forms of self-flagellation and their populist writings, marked them as secondtier scholars at best in the eyes of the Shiʿi scholars of Najaf and Qum (Louër 2008: 88–96). After founding the Zaynabiyya, Hasan al-Shirazi did not stay in Syria but settled in Beirut where he was assassinated in 1983. Hasan’s elder brother Muhammad then inherited the Shirazi network including the Zaynabiyya, though he never lived in Syria. Instead, he relocated first to the Gulf and later to Qum, where he died under house arrest in 2001 (Mervin 1996). Following the establishment of the Zaynabiyya seminary, several Shiʿi scholars, such as Ayatollahs ʿAli Khamenei and Muhammad al-Sadr (d. 1999), followed suit and founded seminaries in Sayyida Zaynab. Aside from seminaries, Shiʿi scholars built offices and hospitals in order to attract followers. For instance, Ayatollah Muhammad al-Sadr, the father of Muqtada al-Sadr, intended to help lay Shiʿis in Syria by building the first hospital in the town less than 50 metres from the shrine.5 More recently, Khamenei also sponsored a hospital about one kilometre south of the shrine. By the time the Iraq war began in 2003, the shrine town was divided into two Sunni areas: the Palestinian camp, which was established in 1948, and the Golani area built in 1967 called Hijera. Both stood to the east of the main road connecting the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab to Damascus. To the west of the main road stood the two predominantly Shiʿi areas: an Iraqi and an Iranian neighbourhood. The Iraqi area grew with every wave of refugees until the tide turned in roughly 2009 and 2010.6 By 2011, the Iraqis had largely returned to Iraq. The Iranian area consisted of mostly hotels and markets geared towards working-class and elderly tourists. Many of the Iranians were visitors and they usually stayed in Sayyida Zaynab for less than a fortnight. The Iraqis settled for years, as did the South Asians and Afghans. Shiʿis from the Eastern Gulf typically came for a couple of months in the summer in order to escape the heat, visit the shrine, and take summer classes at seminaries. Those that remained for longer periods of time were most likely to attend seminaries, where stories about Sayyida Zaynab and other female figures from the Karbala narrative featured prominently. Moreover, large sections of Sayyida Zaynab were not Shiʿi, but Syrian and Palestinian Sunnis. In this aspect, the shrine-town is somewhat unique among other Shiʿi seminary towns.

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Having discussed the fact that the focus in the anthropology of Shiʿism has changed over time, and having contextualized the shrine and town of Sayyida Zaynab, let’s move on to the next question. How has Sayyida Zaynab as a symbol been re-appropriated over time?

Re-interpreting Zaynab’s role How have the roles of women in the Karbala narratives been re-interpreted over time? Historian Kamran Aghaie tells us that prior to the 1960s in Iran, Fatima al-Zahra was considered the ideal woman. She was the ideal figure Shiʿi women should try to emulate. At this time, Fatima was interpreted as a passive woman who watched the Battle of Karbala from heaven above, weeping over her son’s death. Ritually crying signified empathy with saints. By arousing sympathy, by enlisting a saint’s help, believers hope to attain what they desire. In the 1960s and 1970s, ʿAli Shari‘ati portrayed the family of the Prophet as proto-leftist political activists. For him, Imam al-Husayn and Sayyida Zaynab fought against political and social injustice. The shift from viewing Imam al-Husayn’s death at Karbala as a metaphysical sacrifice to a political tragedy went hand in hand with the shift from Fatima, the quietly suffering mother, as the ideal woman to Zaynab, the activist, as the ideal woman. During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Zaynab was portrayed mainly as a political and rights activist who would support the revolution. When Iran became the Islamic Republic, Zaynab became a supporter of the Iranian government. She became the ideal female citizen: pious, submissive, and yet revolutionary – at least rhetorically. In Bahrain and Lebanon, there was a shift over the last half a century from Zaynab and Fatima who cry over the loss of Imam al-Husayn and his men to a socially active Zaynab who is engaged in community improvement (Deeb 2006: 165–203; Pandya 2010). To some extent, scholars also reflect local discourses in their works. For example, for Lara Deeb’s Hezbollah-sympathizing Shiʿis in Lebanon, it was crucial that their form of piety be described as authenticated (muḥaqiq), revolutionary, and modern. True to her interlocutors, Deeb sublimated those terms and used them as analytical categories. In Syria, there were changes in the ways in which Zaynab’s actions were interpreted. Nevertheless, Zaynab’s actions remained an ideal for pious women to imitate. The changes in how Zaynab’s role was interpreted reflect larger transformations. Right after 2003, when Shiʿi and other Iraqi refugees poured into Syria, Zaynab was the suffering but still dignified Iraqi female refugee. There was even a Syrian film about her, ‘Mawkib al-Ibaʾ’ (or ‘Caravan of Pride’), which was released in 2005. It portrays the events following the Battle of Karbala. It was immediately banned, but was distributed online and was sold at the bookstore of the Shirazi seminary. The Iraqi women I conversed with viewed the film and its prohibition as a desire on behalf of Syrian Sunnis (for whose sake the movie was presumably banned) to hide their culpability and iniquity. Concurrently, they downplayed the historic role Iraqis played in the tragedy of Karbala, for instance, by skipping lines cursing Iraqis when reciting mourning poetry in ritual gatherings. By identifying with Zaynab, as well as the women and the children of Karbala, Iraqi Shiʿis in Syria conflated a historical event with myth and blurred the lines between past and present. Between roughly 2007 and 2010, after a downturn in the Syrian economy, Zaynab became the beneficent wife and mother. Umm Zahra was one of the most famous and sought after mullayāt in the shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab. Umm Zahra lead mourning gatherings at husayniyyāt and at private homes. She would always give a short lesson as part of her ceremony and often talked about Zaynab. For her, Zaynab was an ideal to be 188

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emulated because Zaynab mourned the dead, but also tried to practically contribute to the improvement of the situation. Zaynab was an engaged citizen, a helpful neighbour, and a teacher, while also embodying the pinnacle of virtue. One evening, Umm Zahra explained that like Zaynab, we should all care about the education of children. We should gather the children in the neighbourhood and tell them religious stories. Why? Because we should value education – like Zaynab did. According to Umm Zahra, Zaynab cared for education and communal improvement because she performed mourning gatherings, which Umm Zahra considered to be a mode of learning. This shows how a religious story has been utilized to propose modern values like universal education and development. The Shirazis continued to depict Zaynab like a saint, at whose shrine miracles sometimes occur. They emphasized that she was the first who self-flagellated. She is a minor infallible, whose precedent is to be followed. For them, self-flagellation signifies strength and piety, but it also signifies masculinity, raw muscle, youth, and power among young Shiʿis, especially among the working class. Since 2011, however, Zaynab has suddenly become a figure that symbolizes feminine weakness. She is now portrayed as a defenceless woman who needs to be protected by Shiʿi militias. This latter interpretation helped mobilize Iraqi and Lebanese Shiʿis to join the fight. They are primarily funded by Iran and generally side with the Syrian regime. ‘[T]he early presence of Iraqi [Shiʿi] fighters in Syria was largely heralded by a music video containing combat footage and set to Ya Zainab, a song by the Iraqi … singer Ali Muwali, who is associated with’ the al-Youm al-Mawud Battalion (Smyth 2015: 4). Since then, the video has been distributed on YouTube, where it bears the logo of the Abu alFadl al-‘Abbas Brigade in the top left corner (Ya Zainab [Zaynab] 2014). In the video, Shiʿi fighters symbolically take the place of Imam Husayn’s men. Meanwhile both Zaynab and real women are left out. In posters, Zaynab is symbolized by the dome of her shrine and surrounded by Shiʿi fighters. She is no longer a heroine but a place to be defended. ‘Labayka ya Zaynab!’ (‘We are here for you, oh Zaynab!’) has become their battle cry (Yonker 2013: 3). The poster clearly depicts a changed reality on the ground. Actual Shiʿi women are out of sight. Most left and returned to Iraq or travelled westward. But those that are left now are defenceless women in a warzone, who need fighters to protect them. It is an apt metaphor for the Syrian Civil War. In Syria and in other parts of the Middle East then, Zaynab – as the ideal female – has been reinterpreted in multiple ways. However, both within the academy and also among Muslim students in North America, Zaynab and the Karbala Paradigm continue to be seen in binary terms, which allows for young, rebellious, second or third generation immigrants to express their leftist political views (cf. Takim 2009).

Conclusion What does the anthropology of Shiʿi studies and specifically, the study of Shiʿi women have to offer to the study of women in Islam more broadly? The study of Sunni Muslim women has, as the late anthropologist Saba Mahmood noted, often focused on the veil, oppression, and the twin questions of agency and resistance (2005). To rectify this, Mahmood called upon scholars to examine the ways in which Muslim women inhabit norms. To some extent, scholarly works on Shiʿi women have already answered Mahmood’s call by analysing women’s Muharram observances. 189

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It should further be noted that following Mahmood, and her teachers, the anthropological study of Muslim piety has often conceptualized Islam as a method for cultivating pious subjectivities. This narrow view is another assumption that can easily be challenged by the study of Shiʿi women. This is so, not because cultivating pious selves isn’t important to Shiʿis, but it isn’t always a primary concern to even conservative Shiʿis in places like Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, and Lebanon. Though it can be the case, as Torab found in Iran (2006). War, violence, and the importance of the community can interrupt any simplistic understanding of Islam as a private, singular, and uni-directional method for self-cultivation. As such, this chapter not only provides a review of the state of Shiʿi women’s studies, but also suggests ways in which the study of Shiʿi women enriches the study of Muslim women in general. Furthermore, Shiʿi studies has something unique to offer with regards to its central focus and the most important theoretical contribution is the Karbala Paradigm, which allows divergent and also binary interpretations of the Karbala narrative. The Karbala narrative can be and has been interpreted in different ways in order to support particular political and social goals. This is particularly well illustrated by the example of Sayyida Zaynab. Sayyida Zaynab is central to the Karbala narrative, but she is also the centre of a once-thriving town. There, at the Syrian shrine and town of Sayyida Zaynab, female saints and symbols remain central to Shiʿi piety. For example, Zaynab’s role can be interpreted as politically active or as emotional and passive. It has been drastically reinterpreted on several occasions since the 1970s in Syria. From 2003 to 2009, Zaynab was primarily seen as a woman who sought to educate those around her. After the Syrian Uprising began in 2011, Zaynab was portrayed as a defenceless woman who must be protected by Shiʿi militias. This latter interpretation mobilized Iraqi and Lebanese Shiʿis to join the fight in Syria, as well as Iranian troops. Overall, this analysis shows that the development of interpretations of the Karbala Paradigm does not constitute a simple move from a ‘traditional’ model to a ‘modern’ model wherein self-cultivation becomes central, but that the story is much more complex.

Notes 1 It exceeds typical binary readings of the Karbala Paradigm, which argues that Shiʿa ought to either strive for otherworldly salvation or for a this-worldly revolution. 2 For an example of this modern authenticated approach among young North American and European Shiʿa, see: Inloes (2015). 3 The alliance between ʿAlawite leaders and Twelver Shiʿa in Lebanon and Iraq dates back to the 1910s and is rooted in their shared suffering under Ottoman Sunni administrative practices. Until then, the ʿAlawites were known as Nusayris and the question of whether they belonged to the fold of Islam was disputed. Under the French, the ʿAlawites gained a degree of self-rule, though they were divided into two groups: those who favoured autonomy and those who wanted to join a united Syria. By 1936, ʿAlawites were recognized as part of the Muslim community by the mufti of Jerusalem. By 1952, just six years after Syrian independence, ʿAlawite religious leaders became recognized as belonging to the Ja‘fari (or Twelver Shiʿi) school of law by the Syrian mufti (Mervin 2013). The Syrian government began supporting Twelver Shiʿism massively in the 1970s when the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood disputed the legitimacy of Hafez al-Asad’s presidency on the grounds that ʿAlawites are not Muslims and that the president had to be Muslim (Seale 1995: 173). 4 In theory, the marāja ‘al-ṭaqlīd are religious scholars who have attained the highest degrees of learning. In practice, however, personal, familial, economic, and political connections, as well as charisma, are crucial. Moreover, while the scholarly elites are theoretically open elites and there are always new scholars who join the ranks of the ayatollahs, the scene is dominated by large scholarly families, such as the Hakims, the Shirazis, the Khu’is, the Ha’iris, and the Sadrs.

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5 Muhammad al-Sadr had also sponsored hospitals and other institutions in Baghdad’s slums, which allowed him to gain popularity among Iraq’s poor urban Shiʿa. 6 In the 1980s it was ‘Iranian’ Iraqis who came. In the 1990s, Iraqis of all backgrounds fled as sanctions made life in Iraq difficult. After 2003, Sunnis as well as Shiʿa arrived. Many had been connected in one way or another to the Baʿth Party, though they seldom admitted it. Also, there were Baghdadis and religiously mixed families.

Further reading Aghaie, K., ed. (2005). The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shiʿi Islam. Austin: University of Texas at Austin Press. This edited volume consists of articles on a variety of interpretations of the trope of Sayyida Zaynab. Szanto, E. (2013). Beyond the Karbala Paradigm: Rethinking Revolution and Redemption in Twelver Shiʿa Mourning Rituals. Journal of Shiʿa Islamic Studies, 6(1), pp. 75–91. This article explains the Karbala Paradigm and critiques static binary interpretations of the Karbala Paradigm. Szanto, E. (2019). The ʿAlimahs of Sayyida Zaynab: Female Shiʿi Authority in a Syrian Sanctuary. In: M. Künkler and D. Steward, eds., Female Religious Authority in Shiʿi Islam: A Comparative History. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 307–322. This book chapter draws on the German sociologist Max Weber in order to classify religious authority among Twelver Shiʿa in Syria.

References Abu-Zahra, N. (1999). The Pure and Powerful: Studies in Contemporary Muslim Society. Reading: Ithaca Press. Aghaie, K. (2004). The Martyrs of Karbala: Shiʿi Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Ayoub, M. (1978). Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of “Ashura” in Twelver Shiʿism. New York: Mouton. Azizi, A. (2015). Iran targets ‘MI6 Shiites’. [online] Al-Monitor: Iran Pulse. Available at www.al-monitor.com/ pulse/originals/2015/04/iran-shia-shirazi-movement-secterian.html. [Accessed 28 February 2019]. Chelkowski, P., ed. (1979). Ta‘ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran. New York: New York University Press. Deeb, L. (2006). An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shiʿi Lebanon. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Deeb, L. (2009). Emulating and/or Embodying the Ideal: The Gendering of Temporal Frameworks and Islamic Role Models in Shiʿi Lebanon. American Ethnologist, 36(2), pp. 242–257. Fischer, M. (1980). Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Foucault, M. (1967). Of Other Spaces [online], J. Miskowiec, trans. Available at www.opa-a2a.org/dissensus/ wp-content/uploads/2008/03/foucault_michel_des_spaces_autres.pdf. [Accessed 13 August 2011]. Gilsenan, M. (1982). Recognizing Islam: Religion and Society in the Modern Middle East. New York: I.B. Tauris. Hegland, M. (1998). Flagellation and Fundamentalism: (Trans)Forming Meaning, Identity, and Gender Through Pakistani Women’s Rituals of Mourning. American Ethnologist, 25(2), pp. 240–266. Howarth, T. (2005). The Twelver Shiʿa as a Muslim Minority in India: Pulpit of Tears. New York: Routledge. Inloes, A. (2015) In The Footsteps of Sayyida Zaynab: Journey to Karbala – Episode 1. [online] Youtube Safeer Television. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUNpXb9KuHw&list=PLN39J1A47cwpUHz Mur7jvIUO9un2h8ZOU&index=4&t=0s&ab_channel=SafeerTelevision. [Accessed 28 February 2019]. Keddie, N. (1983). Religion and Politics in Iran: Shiʿism from Quietism to Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press. Louër, L. (2008). Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf. New York: Columbia University Press. Mahmood, S. (2005). The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Berkley: University of California Press. Mervin, S. (1996). Sayyida Zaynab: Banlieue de Damas ou nouvelle ville sainte chiite? Cahiers d́ etudes sur la Mediterrane ́ e orientale et le monde turco-iranieni: Arabes et Iraniens, 22, pp. 149–162. Mervin, S. (2013). L’étrange destin des alaouites syriens. Le Monde diplomatique, 706(1), p. 10.

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Pandya, S. (2010). Women’s Shiʿi Ma‘atim in Bahrain. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 6(2), pp. 31–58. Pinault, D. (1999). Shia Lamentation Rituals and Reinterpretations of the Doctrine of Intercession: Two Cases from Modern India. History of Religions, 38(3), pp. 285–305. Pinault, D. (2001). Horse of Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in India. New York: Palgrave. Schubel, V. (1993). Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam: Shiʿi Devotional Rituals in South Asia. Columbia: South Carolina University Press. Seale, P. (1995). Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. Berkley: University of California Press. Smyth, P. (2015). The Shiite Jihad in Syria and Its Regional Effects. Policy Focus 138. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Szanto, E. (2013a) Beyond the Karbala Paradigm: Rethinking Revolution and Redemption in Twelver Shi‘a Mourning Rituals. Journal of Shi‘a Islamic Studies, 6(1), pp. 75–91. Szanto, E. (2013b). Contesting Fragile Saintly Traditions: Miraculous Healing among Twelver Shiʿis in Contemporary Syria. In: A. Bandak and M. Bille, eds., Politics of Worship in the Contemporary Middle East: Sainthood in Fragile States. Leiden: Brill, pp. 33–52. Takim, L. (2009). Shiʿism in America. New York: New York University Press. Torab, A. (2006). Performing Islam: Gender and Ritual in Iran. Leiden: Brill. Yonker, C. (2013). Iran’s Shadow Warriors: Iraqi Shiʿi Militias Defending the Faithful in Syria and Iraq. Tel Aviv Notes, 7(23), pp. 1–5. Youtube. (2014). Ya Zainab [Zaynab]. [online] Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv5Bzo vaaHo. [Accessed 28 February 2019]. Zimney, M. (2007). History in the Making: The Sayyida Zaynab Shrine in Damascus. ARAM, 19, pp. 695–703.

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12 THE STABILIZATION OF GENDER IN ZAKAT The margin of freedom and the politics of care Danielle Widmann Abraham

The practice of taking care of those who are vulnerable is foundational to Islam. The Qurʾan obliges all of those who believe in God to give a portion of their wealth as zakat in order to provide for others, including those who are needy, those who are destitute, orphans, those who are on a journey far away from their own people, those who are in debt, and those who can be ransomed from slavery (Q9:60, 2:177). Contemporary calculations determine zakat as 2.5% of certain kinds of wealth that a person has held for more than a year, so zakat draws from surplus resources in order to make the lives of others more secure. In multiple verses in the Qurʾan, care of vulnerable people is conjoined to prayer, and these are named as dual actions of people who are steadfast in their faith. They express steadfast faith because they make that faith steadfast: both prayer and care establish, embody, and express Islam in the world. Care defines in part what it means to surrender to the divine, and there is no way to be Muslim without taking care of others. According to the Qurʾan, other normative obligations – prayer, pilgrimage, fasting, witnessing to the oneness of God – are incomplete without giving zakat in order to take care of the humans with whom we share our world. It is worth emphasizing that Qurʾanic care is embodied, material care. It is not a feeling, even a good feeling, or an affective experience. Care in the Qurʾan is provision, taking on the responsibility of redistribution, a need-based transfer of resources that makes a material difference in bettering the circumstances of a person’s life. To define oneself as a Muslim is to throw one’s lot in with those who are vulnerable by giving what one must to provide the necessities of human life. Zakat establishes the provision of care as a definitive act of Islam, yet while zakat is obligatory, it is also open. With the exception of those places where zakat is collected by the state, people have the latitude to decide how to give it and to whom (Zysow, 2002). Historian Kambiz GhaneaBassiri notes that we are witnessing a period of dynamic development of Muslim institutions and communal relations in the United States, and that can also be said of Muslims in India (GhaneaBassiri 2010, p.375). This chapter looks at three zakat projects which have emerged in recent years in order to trace how the construction of gender is negotiated in providing for others. In one zakat project from India, representations of women’s poverty serve to emphasize the dangers of a status quo which makes people’s live precarious. Another zakat project in Boston, in the United States, invokes women as aspirational strivers, establishing an ideal gendered subjectivity that seems to hold therapeutic potential for homeless women. Finally,

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the last zakat project considered here contextualizes women’s experience within an abolitionist project of transformation. These zakat projects from India and the United States, both places where Muslims are a minority, demonstrate that zakat constitutes a site of profound religious and social creativity in contemporary Islam. The projects described here fulfil the Qurʾanic mandate of care for others, while simultaneously reflecting their unique local, national, cultural, and organizational contexts. They reveal that Islamic practices of care emerge within a space in which people make choices about how best to respond to human suffering. This chapter demonstrates that in our contemporary moment, the obligation of giving zakat and caring for the poor stands as a foundation for the reconstruction of social bonds in the face of marginalization, structural violence, and state-induced vulnerability. Within these reparative efforts, defined gender roles function to emphasize and to inspire transformative ethical action. Each of the three zakat projects described here configures a distinct politics of care that centres particular experiences of violence and state failure. These projects engage gender through a logic of stabilization: they communicate and concretize a particular construction of gender as a significant element in their interventions of transformation and repair. When concretized representations of gender roles are shaped within the redistribution of resources through zakat, these fixed gender constructions are held out both analytically and practically as a way of entering into the ethical labour of responding to the suffering of others. In other words, the stabilization of gender clarifies the moral stakes of the broader zakat project. To trace gender in contemporary zakat practices is to understand that Islamic tradition is the ground for a plurality of gender constructions. Islamic studies scholarship in recent decades has occasioned the emergence of historical studies that describe the experience of Muslim women’s lives across geographical, cultural, and temporal contexts (Ahmed 1992; Badran 1994; MirHosseini 2000; Mahmood 2005; Deeb 2006; Karim 2008; VanDoorn-Harder 2010; Rasmussen 2010; Abdul Khabeer 2016, among others). Muslim feminist scholars have generated new normative expressions of Islam that support egalitarian interpretations of Islamic scripture, ethics, and ritual practice (Wadud 1999, 2006; Barlas 2002; Engineer 2004; al-Hibri 2005; Ali 2010, 2016; Chaudhry 2014; Hidayatuallah 2014; Mir-Hosseini 2015; Lamrabet 2016, among others). Scholars of Islamic textual traditions such as Kecia Ali have worked to ‘destabilize gender’ by offering interpretations of texts that push against ‘seemingly fixed boundaries’ of gender and sexual identity (Ali, 2017). These egalitarian interpretations of Islamic tradition stand in tension with prevailing notions of gender complementarity that have characterized patriarchal interpretations of Islam in the contemporary period (Chaudhry 2014, p.8). All of these scholarly interventions, including new studies of sexuality and masculinity (Kugle 2010, 2013, 2016; De Sondy 2014; Semerdijan 2016), have greatly broadened our understanding of how Islam impacts the variety of lived experiences of gender. To this growing body of scholarship on gender in Islam, this chapter adds an analysis of zakat practices from the perspective of existential anthropology. Michael D. Jackson defines existential anthropology as the ‘attempt to explore human lifeworlds as the sites of a perennial struggle for existence’, tracing the ‘dynamic relationship between the human capacity for life, and the potentialities of any social environment for providing the wherewithal of life’ (2005, p.xii). When we focus on ‘the problem of creating viable forms of existence and coexistence’, we can see people determine through experimentation how they can (and cannot) exercise the ‘“existential imperative” to convert givenness into choice, and live the world as if it were our own’ (Jackson 2005, p.xii, xxii). Framing the way that gender constructions are stable inside zakat projects brings into relief the existential work of gender as a means of navigating the struggle to be and coexist in a lifeworld with others. In 194

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a ‘world where being is mutable and unstable’, this analysis of zakat situates gender as a potentially stabilized mode of being (Jackson 2005, p.xx). As a practical transfer, zakat compels interdependence among Muslims. As an obligation, zakat frames the transfer of resources as a categorically moral act. To give the poor and the vulnerable their due is necessary and right. Within this ethical matrix of zakat, these projects present bounded representations of gender to propel Muslim attempts to redress oppression, marginalization, and violence. While we describe the everyday realities of Muslim women’s lives and feminist discourse about Islamic normativity, we can identify another aspect that is part of the gender plurality of Islamic tradition when see in the context of zakat: Islam affords the construction of gender as a way to stabilize acting morally in the world. Zakat projects stabilize gender in rebuilding lifeworlds disintegrated by long-term structural violence. Although these projects emphasize different intersections of religion and violence, they all take the creation of security in our neoliberal age of pervasive insecurity as an ethical commission in Islam. This methodology of analysing distinct practices of zakat side by side reflects the reality of lived Islam in our contemporary world: these different Muslim projects exist in the world, alongside each other, embodying distinct interpretations of Islam and gender. They all work within the ethical matrix, established through zakat, of providing for the vulnerable, and they stabilize gender as a way of activating that ethical matrix as they intervene in a particular structure of violence in the world, but they do so in unique ways. Recognizing the distinct constellations of Islam and gender in zakat helps to resist the temptation to represent Islamic ethics and practice in essentialized or singular terms. Instead, this intra-Islamic comparative methodology explicitly attests to the diversity of Islamic practices and Muslim constructions of gender. This comparative method also discloses the way that zakat connects to the possibility of human freedom: these different projects result from choices made by Muslims who are committed to living Islam in the context of their everyday contingent lives, which for them means negating the effects of intersecting structures of marginalization, domination, and violence.

‘Hands that help are holier than lips that pray’: The Imam-e Zamana mission In 1985, Twelver Shiʿa Muslims in Hyderabad, India founded the Imam-e Zamana Mission (IZM) to distribute direct monetary aid and medical assistance in slum areas in the city, many of which had large Muslim populations and were marginalized in the postcolonial surge of urbanization (Sherman 2015, p.19). The broad rubric of zakat allows us to consider projects from different interpretive communities of Islam. Twelver Shiʿas practice zakat, but there are also other modes of pious redistribution in Shiʿi tradition, including khums, a fifth of income surplus which is divided between descendants of Muhammad and religious leaders, and zamini, a payment given in thanks after prayers for protection and well-being (Aleem et al. 2004). IZM collects funds for these different categories of distribution from Muslims locally, in India, and globally, from Shiʿas in Canada and the United States. Like many religious projects in different Muslim contexts and across other religious traditions, IZM redistributes their funds to directly assist people who are poor while simultaneously trying to change the conditions of inequality which trap people in enduring poverty. Their construction of gender is related to these two interlocking dimensions of providing care for the vulnerable: helping the poor while transforming poverty. The following description of their redistribution shows how gender becomes stabilized in IZM’s zakat project as a means 195

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of communicating the importance of both immediate assistance to the poor and long-term transformation of poverty as ethical practices of Islam. The designated recipients of zakat include the poor and the needy – people who are in chronic conditions of need and people who have been thrown into circumstances that overwhelm their material resources. Prophetic sayings about ethical and pious action emphasize the value of providing care, characterizing those who help widows and orphans as being like those who struggle in the way of God or who pray at night and fast during the day (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2982). IZM follows this prophetic virtue of taking care of orphans, widows, and others in need, along with the Shiʿa obligation to provide for poorer members of the Prophet’s family. Their social media accounts include first-person testimonies of women – widows and wives – who are recipients of monthly financial assistance (IZM 2015). These testimonies begin with an account of the genealogy of a person’s poverty. One woman narrates how her husband, an autorickshaw driver, died of a heart attack. Another woman describes caring for her disabled husband and son. Each of these first-person accounts is presented by IZM as a ‘case’ and each case is designated with a number. These descriptive markers indicate to the media audience that IZM is tracking the distribution of resources (the number) as well as following a particular family’s hardship (the case). A representative of IZM prompts the woman to recount the story of her family’s poverty and also her day-to-day efforts to provide for her household. All of the women speak to their conditions of difficulty and deprivation, acknowledging that they do not have enough money to feed, clothe, and shelter their families. They close by saying exactly how much money they have been given by IZM and for how long – often, this monthly assistance continues over years. These are some of the first-person narratives presented in IZM’s online media; together the recorded stories of these women create a visual archive of the daily gendered reality of a subaltern Muslim underclass. There are a couple of such narrative videos of men, but most are of women and the details of their narratives bring into view the specific circumstances of everyday survival in contemporary India. One woman mentions that she does not have a ration card, which allows poorer people across India to buy food staples at a subsidized rate. She describes having her sister, who does have a ration card, help her buy rice to cook, thus showing the constant navigation of relationships and resources that people living in poverty undertake to survive. Even with the financial help from IZM, she has to find a work-around through family to buy affordable food. Another IZM case narrator describes her workplace injury: while making shoe boxes, she suffered an injury to her hand that resulted in the loss of several fingers. The genealogy of her poverty involved injury and lack of affordable medical care or worker’s compensation. The narratives of several women reveal the precarity of patriarchal family structure in which a woman works inside the house raising children and managing the household while her husband works for wages outside the home. When their husbands suddenly die or are disabled, these women are faced with the challenge of raising their children and providing for their household without preparation and sometimes without skills to find wage work themselves. And as one woman’s narrative reveals, even steady wage work may not be sufficient to provide for her family if it is labour in a feminized, low-compensation field such as embroidering or tailoring. IZM published these videos as a way of chronicling their provisioning, but these same videos also show us the everyday reality of India’s economy for the people who make up the poorest demographic in the country – Muslims (Prime Minister’s High Level Committee 2006). IZM produced this media archive of subaltern women’s narratives as a way of establishing their commitment to transparency, the current mechanism of legitimacy for any public organization (Lehr-Leonhardt 2005). They want people who give to see the people who 196

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get, thus shaping and satisfying a desire on the part of the givers to know the route their zakat travels and to whom it arrives. Tellingly, there is no media archive of narratives of givers. The narratives presented are from people who represent the Qurʾanic and prophetic categories of recipients, and they are all shown in their homes. At times, the video pans the walls and the IZM interlocutor will comment on the small size of the room or the conditions of disrepair. The record of their experience and genealogy of poverty also work to build a visual archive of the material conditions of the underclass. People in middle-class homes around the world can thus look into the conditions of a home in what are formally considered to be slums (Government of India 2013). At worst, this can be voyeurism into the condition of inequality. At best, it can occasion gratitude for material well-being. Such videos can be viewed by anyone in the world who has the technology to access the internet, something that is not available to many of India’s poorest people, both in terms of owning a device and affording connectivity. Recounting the difficulties of procuring food, medical care, housing, and education, these women narrators communicate the multidimensional experience of poverty as one of constant struggle. The visual record of seeing people in their homes evinces a sense of intimacy and concreteness. In both discursive and visual regimes, IZM’s media aesthetic is a realist one that seeks to present a true ‘case’. While all of the women profiled in their organizational media are legitimate recipients of material help according to Islamic tradition, they also speak to gendered family experiences of responsibility and provision (feeding and educating children) that are common across class and national boundaries. The struggles of IZM’s women recipients are comprehensible because the narratives describe trying to fulfil basic needs and common desires of parents the world over. Narratives of assisting widows and mothers anchor IZM’s zakat project in Islamic scripture and the legacy of the Prophet. They thus prove IZM’s commitment to fulfilling the obligation to provide material help to the vulnerable that Islam places upon Muslims, and to the distinct ways of fulfilling this obligation according to Shiʿa tradition. IZM has organized their redistributive project in recent decades to include schools. Building educational institutions thus extends their provision into intervening in the structures of poverty. In this regard, IZM is like many other Muslim projects in postcolonial contexts where people are grappling with transforming economies and seeking possibilities to expand well-being – or, in economic terms, seeking ‘opportunities’ to generate income and mobility. IZM has built four schools that educate boys and girls from kindergarten through grade ten (the completion of secondary education in India). This push to develop education is grounded in the struggle to counter the precarity of the Indian Muslim underclass. The struggle against precarity is also anchored in scripture and the legacy of the Prophet. According to IZM’s board members, there was ‘no concept of education’ in many slum areas of Hyderabad in the past – in part because there were no functional schools, and in part because many children started working for wages to help their families as soon they could (IZM 2017). Education is seen as crucial for moving people and communities out of chronic, endemic poverty (Jones 2006, p.62). As one board member put it, ‘spoon feeding charity is not the solution to poverty’ (IZM 2017). This statement reveals how Muslims living in the contemporary world, including in India where the Muslim minority makes up the poorest demographic group, see themselves in terms of a dual responsibility: to care for the poor and to transform poverty. We could, of course, collapse the transformation of poverty, its ‘solution’, under the rubric of providing material assistance: no doubt, eradicating poverty – making a world where no one struggles to provide the basic necessities for living – is first-order material assistance to the poor. Yet 197

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in communicating the work of their project to donors through first-person accounts, IZM presents the two aspects of help and transformation as distinct. The video narratives of women recipients – widows, poor women from Muhammad’s family, wives of disabled men – are a separate genre from IZM’s presentation of student ‘success stories’ (www.izm.in/success-stories.html). Narratives of success chronicle the progressive steps in a girl’s education, and often include economic terms such as ‘career’ as well as details about chosen fields of study and employment. Taking on the project of building schools, employing teachers, and funding schools, IZM has developed and institutionalized education in Muslim communities in Hyderabad. They are not alone in this work; other Muslim organizations from across the variety of Islamic communities have taken to building schools and colleges, both in the contemporary period and throughout the city’s history. But the development of schools from the ethical matrix of providing care for the vulnerable results in an approach that emphasizes education as an efficacious solution to poverty. IZM appeals to potential donors of zakat, sadaqa, khums, and zamini to sponsor a child in school as well as to provide financial assistance to widows, orphans, differently abled, and poor people. They affirm that enabling them to provide this material care brings blessings by Almighty Allah in the now and the herafter (www.izm.in/ index.html). But the potential of education to bring about ‘success’ is communicated in contrast to the lived experiences of poverty narrated by widows and wives of disabled men. Women’s testimonies of their gendered experiences of managing their families’ survival confirm the provision of assistance by IZM and therefore legitimize their pious redistributions, but these same testimonies function as a kind of cautionary example of what life is like if education doesn’t work (succeed, so to speak) to transform the circumstances of poor people. Stabilizing gender through the narratives of poor women struggling to survive and provide for their families communicates the stakes of IZM’s broader project of education as a strategy of poverty transformation. The experiences of poor women illustrate the damage and pain caused by the status quo, the wreckage of inequality on individual lives and families. Fixing representations of women’s lives through their narratives of unending efforts to cobble together necessities and their gratitude for the provisions given to them by IZM emphasizes the intractability of their poverty while simultaneously heightening the stakes of the transformation of poverty for the generation coming up. The women’s realities are contrasted to their children’s possibilities. They suffer, but students might succeed. The urban landscape that is being transformed by the information economy is also being held back by the failure of the state to develop equal social and physical infrastructure for all its citizens. Whatever success from education might look like, it does not look like what we see in the video of a woman struggling to buy rice without a ration card. Women’s narratives of poverty stabilize poverty and inequality, and not gender, as the primary social reality that needs to be transformed. The way their daily lives are represented secures a relationship between Muslims that affirms interdependence and the Islamic value of providing care for others. It does not secure discursive space or a lived, embodied social analysis of how their experiences have been shaped by patriarchy or misogyny – either in their lives more broadly or in their experience of their poverty. Representations of women reinforce IZM’s zakat project as pious action and as legitimate and moral redress of poverty, yet the stabilized presentation of women’s experiences forecloses any analysis of the operations of patriarchy and gender and its transformation. Within this project, it seems that gender must be stabilized without being analysed so that poverty can be destabilized and transformed. 198

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The charity of hope: Amal House for women In 2017, Islamic Circle of North America Relief opened its fourteenth transitional house for homeless women in Boston, Massachusetts. ICNA is one of the Muslim organizations that emerged out of Muslim student groups on U.S. campuses in the 1970s (GhaneaBassiri 2010, p.353). Its relief organization aims to provide services to the ‘underprivileged’ in the U.S. and to victims of natural disasters worldwide. Like Islamic Relief, another Muslim humanitarian organization, ICNA has emerged in a civil society in which religious organizations from many different traditions work in partnership with government agencies to provide social services (Occhipinti et al. 2010). ICNA Relief coordinates food pantries, shelters, medical clinics, disaster assistance, and programs that support children in school. This profile focuses on the opening of the Amal House in Boston, a transitional shelter for homeless women in order to look how the ethical matrix of zakat stabilizes gender through the figure of a self-improving aspirational woman. This aspirational gendered figure represents personal success and further symbolizes the success of Islam in the United States. For ICNA Relief, providing transitional housing for women is a way of fulfilling Islamic ethical ideals while also responding to community needs. In addition to the practical work of housing women who are trying to move out of homelessness, the opening of the shelter does the cultural work of demonstrating that Islam makes a community better. Providing services and humanitarian assistance thus attests to the capacity of Islamic tradition to build a viable lifeworld. The Amal House project comes out of the ethics of provision that is the core of zakat, yet in the contemporary context, service provision in the United States plays an important role of integrating diverse Muslim groups with each other and with the urban neighbourhood. ICNA Relief collects zakat and sadaqa from congregations and individuals to fund their various programs. Amal House was funded through the contributions of multiple local mosque communities. When the house was remodelled into a transitional housing shelter, each bedroom was funded as an independent project, and plaques affixed to the door designate the sponsor of the room. One bedroom was sponsored by ‘The Egyptian Community of Malden’ (a suburb of Boston), another by a group of Turkish Muslims, and another is sponsored in memory of a family’s late matriarch, so the room bears her name. The large multi-purpose room on the ground floor was funded by donations from the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the largest mosque in the northeast. These sponsorships are marked by plaques and signs throughout the building, so the space embodies the greater collectivity of Muslims in metropolitan Boston, tracing its multiple ethnic roots, congregations, and family legacies. The shelter becomes a home for local Muslim cultural diversity. It is a built environment that integrates a wide variety of groups, a shelter for unsheltered women and a cultural home for the various strands of Islam that sustain Boston’s Muslims. At the opening of Amal House, donors as well as colleagues from other religious communities were invited to preview the facilities, and to come together to pray for blessings on the work of helping women move out of homelessness. One of the talks addressed to the gathered crowd recounted the history of the place and building in order to situate the project in the cultural legacy of Muslim Americans. A white Muslim woman ICNA Relief staff member noted that they leased the building from Masjid al-Qurʾan, a majority Black congregation which is next door. She then went on to trace the history of the building, initially the home of a rabbi when the mosque next door was still a synagogue. The synagogue and the house were bought by the Nation of Islam, which used the house as living quarters for religious leaders. Malcolm X stayed there during his visits to Boston, as did 199

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Louis Farrakhan (ICNA Relief 2017). Muhammad Ali is also reported to have stayed there while passing through Boston. Recounting this series of transformations of the ownership of the building connected ICNA Relief’s project to the legacy of Black Muslim history. The ICNA Relief staff described their work as ‘paying homage’ to this history by ‘reviving the legacy’ of a ‘vibrant indigenous Muslim community’. Such words frame this effort as an evolutionary transformation of living Islam in Boston. The house substantiates both the ethical mandate to care for the vulnerable and multiple racial, cultural, and national legacies of Muslim Boston, thus situating ethics and history in one space. ICNA Relief’s description of the purpose of Amal House locates women in a discourse of self-improvement and upward mobility. Unsheltered women and their children can stay in the house as they transition their way to permanent housing. While they are at Amal House, they will be able to avail counselling for trauma, career development, and job training. Women who want to stay at Amal House must apply and are accepted after screening. Women who need treatment for substance abuse and women who are domestic violence victims are not eligible to stay at Amal, although case managers can help such women find appropriate resources for treatment and advocacy. A South Asian male ICNA Relief intern articulated the transformation that Amal aims to facilitate, stating that women ‘could come here and recognize this is somewhere they can go to better themselves on a daily basis’. This bettering-of-self would enable women to be ‘self-sufficient, sustainable, goal-oriented’. The intern went on to characterize this transformation as ‘executing that spirit of ihsan [beautification, excellence] that we have when we follow the Prophet’, which is a ‘spirit of great ambition’. The intern continued by imagining such a woman speaking of her own transformation: ‘We want to give them that ambition, that really “I can accomplish anything that I want to accomplish and I gain that spirit here at Amal. I gain that hope and vision”’. The intern’s words elaborate the prophetic example with a discourse that mixes self-help, (economic) optimism, and Islam. The possibility of making this ideal, self-transforming woman real is at the centre of Amal House. She is the figural embodiment of hope given as charity. When ICNA Relief describes itself as ‘zakat in action!’, a woman’s transformational selfimprovement testifies to the efficacy of action – both the organization’s and hers. ICNA Relief staff presented a vision of the possible transformation of women from homeless to self-actualized successes. After their short speeches constructed this shared purpose among those gathered to open Amal House, the event shifted into two distinct collective episodes. A question and answer about the practical logistics of the program followed first. Those gathered from the various congregations that sponsored the remodelling of the house asked about security, children, registration for subsidized long-term housing in the city, low-income housing access, community development corporations, whether women of all faiths would be welcome (yes), and whether the Muslim women would have space to pray (also yes, in the multi-purpose room). Questions came one after another, and those gathered in Amal House generated their own informal community-based education about social services and municipal low-income housing policy, sharing information and experiences related to how to help unsheltered people move into a home. The Amal House opening morphed into an impromptu civic education academy. Following this open exchange, ICNA Relief staff welcomed the imam of Masjid alQurʾan to ‘do a dua not only for the project, but for everyone who has supported the project and the women who will come to live here’. The Masjid al-Qurʾan congregation next door is a Black majority one and its imam is a Black man who has served the Boston neighbourhood of Dorchester for decades. His prayer was welcomed as a link between space and 200

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history, intention and action, donors and recipients, present and future. The Imam prayed first in Arabic and then translated his prayer into English: Oh Allah distribute between us the unnerving faith that is necessary to minimize the tribulations of this world. Oh Allah, sustain our hearing, our sight, our strength for us as long as we live, and make it so that when we have gone, those who we have benefitted amongst us remember to pray for us. And place our vengeance on those who have wronged us, and give us victory over our enemies, and try us not our faith. Neither make this world our greatest concern or the extent of our knowledge. Lord, give us power over those who would oppress us. Allah, give us good in this world and good in the hereafter and protect us from the eternal fire. Amin. The Imam’s prayer closed the opening of Amal House. After he prayed, people moved into the dining area for treats and chai. His closing discourse stands in contrast to that of the ICNA Relief intern that occurred at the physical and temporal centre of the gathering. Whereas the intern spoke of a self-actualized striving woman, the imam prayed against the oppressor. The intern spoke of ambition and accomplishment, while the imam prayed to minimize tribulation. The difference between their discursive registers was marked by gender – the intern’s discourse was a gendered one, speaking to the vision of what women might experience while staying at Amal, while the imam’s prayer did not explicitly mention gender or another marker of identity. What the imam did explicitly include in his prayer was strength, being remembered for benefitting others, and power over those who oppress. The imam was a Black man speaking as the leader of congregation of Black Muslims. The intern was a South Asian man speaking to the vision of an Islamic organization. There was no attempt to connect or reconcile their speech. They were laid out separately, as distinct ethical and devotional strands. At the Amal House opening gathering, ICNA Relief stabilized gender to create ‘the aspiration to strive’ as the core of Muslim community (Khan 2012, p.9). This stabilization of gender contrasted with the invocation of a Black Muslim legacy, and with the prayers of a local Black Muslim leader. Gender thus stabilized a fragmented, disintegrated understanding of Muslim lives and community: some Muslims were racialized, while other Muslims were gendered, and still others referenced in terms of ethnicity. Some Muslims were oriented to aspire, achieve, and overcome, while other Muslims were inspired to struggle, resist, and remember. Implicitly, success was discursively bifurcated into success as economic progress and success as transformation of oppression. Sister Clara Muhammad was acknowledged in terms of her Blackness, but not in terms of her gender, and she was not invoked as a possible model woman for the aspirations of women who would come live in Amal House in the future; the recollection of her life was paradoxically a gesture of anti-Black erasure. The imaginary future figure of a formerly unsheltered woman was invoked solely in terms of gender – as a woman – even though the women who were part of the gathering included women of different races, ages, marital status, class, and religious backgrounds. Those who spoke on behalf of the Amal House project thus referenced women in a onedimensional fashion, and did not analyse nor speculate about the forces that produce homelessness as a social reality in urban Boston (or the United States), although the women who heard the discourse of the ideal aspirational woman were women with complex social identities. While those gathered did exchange knowledge about public housing policy, it was only the Black male imam who mentioned in his prayer the mechanism of power to 201

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dispossess and to dominate: oppression. While this was an important and culminating moment, the Amal House opening mirrors the IZM project in eliding analysis about gender and the structural forces of power that produce women’s vulnerability to precarity.

Zakat, structural violence, and social justice: Believers Bail Out In 2018, a small group of Muslim women scholars and activists in the United States initiated a project during the month of Ramadan to use zakat to pay the bail bonds of Muslims who were in detention while awaiting trial. Dr. Suad Al-Khabeer, Dr. Kecia Ali, and Dr. Maytha al-Hassen were inspired by the Black-led and Black-centred National Bail Out collective which had started a campaign to #FreeBlackMamas (Bucar and Randone 2018). Drawing on the abolitionist politics of the bailout collective, these Muslim women activists and academic scholars of Islam came together to explore ways that Muslim communities in the United States could draw on Islamic tradition to join efforts to end mass incarceration (Abdul-Haqq 2018). Believers Bail Out (BBO) emerged from their desire to join the political work of abolition to the ongoing formation of Islamic ethics and Muslim practice. Although the Qurʾan specifies that zakat should be used to ransom captives from slavery, the use of zakat to pay bail of people who are awaiting trial was unprecedented in the United States. The Muslim women who started BBO wanted to extend abolitionist thought and politics in Muslim communities, and simultaneously re-centre the abolitionist ethics and practices that are foundational yet under-emphasized acts of worship in Islam. BBO founders thus learned from grassroots Black social justice movements committed to struggling against the systemic, structural violence which decimates Black and Brown communities – the prison-industrial complex, antiMuslim racism, and anti-Blackness – and focused on mass incarceration as a critical site of abolition (Believers Bail Out 2020). The formation of this zakat project is a result of what scholar Sa’diyya Shaikh calls a ‘tafsir of praxis’, the ‘expanding human conceptions of justice and equality’ which form the ‘social texts of Islam’ (2007, p.67). Unlike IZM, which began with the distribution of zakat and khums and then developed a broader program of education, and unlike Amal House, which came out of a national Muslim organization that provides social services and humanitarian assistance as a way of enculturating Islam in the U.S. public, BBO was formed out of a dialectic of political analysis and the desire to embody Islam. Compared to other zakat projects, BBO has a unique genesis as an extension into Muslim communities of Black-centred political struggle of abolition and liberation. BBO’s connection to Black abolitionist politics and its emergence out of praxis has influenced the way gender becomes stabilized as a commitment to intersectional solidarity and organization. Gender, in BBO’s project, is not separated from race, religion, class, carceral status, sexuality, ability, family obligation, community responsibility, moral obligation, and even political labour. The project thus reflects an intersectional analysis of oppression which ‘accounts for the multiple grounds of identity when considering how the world is constructed’ (Crenshaw 1991, p.1245). Gender is stabilized in the Believers Bail Out zakat project only insofar as intersectionality is stabilized – as a foundational commitment, as a strategy to counter anti-Black violence, and as a matter of value, principle, and practical organization. From its inception, BBO has positioned itself as a project that invites the participation of others. Their online social media presence enabled people to fill out a Google form to express their interest and indicate how they could possibly be involved. This inclusion of the public structures a different kind of relationship than merely giving zakat for BBO to distribute. BBO wants, rather, to involve people in multiple dimensions of their efforts, 202

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thus making theirs a new model of grassroots zakat movement building. They offered online instructions (a ‘toolkit’) for hosting an iftar gathering to break Ramadan fasting in order to promote education about the effects of mass incarceration (Believers Bail Out 2020). They encouraged people to volunteer beyond just paying their zakat, since there are many ways to assist people once their bail is paid and they are released from detention. One of the ways that BBO facilitates the development of a grassroots Muslim public is through the constant affirmation of their position as learners. Like IZM and Amal House, BBO places a value on education but their definition of education is different. IZM supports formal education for children who lack access to quality schools. Amal House explicitly describes the acquisition of knowledge in terms of the development of employability, while also creating space for informal knowledge building about public policy. BBO, however, broadcasts webinars (watched by thousands) about the various dimensions of mass incarceration, and they teach by learning – or learn by teaching – about the bail system, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the history of the carceral politics of racism (MPower Change 2017). A ‘recent updates’ blog post describes their efforts to establish means of communication with detainees, and includes an invitation to ‘Stay tuned for an upcoming article from us about what we’ve learned through that process’ (BBO 2019). This kind of ongoing non-formal education builds a common knowledge base and a shared socio-political analysis amongst those involved in BBO. It is the kind of knowledge building that gives social justice movements momentum since it broadcasts to partner organizations that BBO is interested in learning from them, both practically and ideologically, and is committed to the constant refinement of their understanding of the structural forces of violence and oppression. In their initial year, BBO collected thousands of dollars in zakat and focused on bailing out Muslims in Chicago. In 2019, BBO sought to branch out to other cities in the Midwest and East Coast, partnering with community organizations to end bail. All signs indicate that BBO will continue in the future, sustaining their efforts to bail out believers as well as educating Muslim communities about the reality of the wreckage of mass incarceration. Their work of building a shared analysis of the structural forces of precarity and state violence serves a similar function of intra-Muslim integration seen in the Amal House project. There is an important difference in the logic of this integration. In the Amal House project, multiple Muslim constituencies joined together in a common project of intervention with an identifiable object – homeless women. BBO, however, wants to promote intra-Muslim integration through a reflexive praxis that established a goal of understanding what was happening to people in the community. There is no external object of understanding or intervention. Instead, there is a circle of belonging – defined by believing – that encompasses the Muslim public as a forum for socio-political analysis of anti-Blackness, anti-Muslim racism, and the workings of the prison-industrial complex. BBO is a nascent project, but it seems likely that it will continue to expand and develop, in part because of its collaboration with Muslim advocacy groups such as MPower Change, and in part because it embodies a new model of intersectional Muslim movement for liberation. Its praxis of reflexive learning and its interpretation of zakat in terms of a response to structural violence have brought a dynamic new model of how to configure a Muslim public committed to social justice and liberation.

Zakat and the margin of freedom The elaboration of zakat demonstrates how the ethical matrix of Islamic tradition is animated in different contexts. IZM, Amal House, and BBO stabilize particular constructions of gender: through narratives of negotiating poverty, as an ideal of aspirational striving, and 203

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as intersectional praxis. Each project fulfils the Islamic obligation to provide for the vulnerable and needy. Yet they are very different. Their engagement of gender differs, as do their organizational forms, as well as their struggles to exist and coexist in the world, marked as it is by violence and injustice. These projects have elaborated Islamic obligation into projects that attempt to ‘transform the world through praxis’ (Jackson 2005, p.xxii). Such projects indicate that the obligation to provide for others encourages experimentation with how to live Islam as a moral truth in a balky world. The elaboration of zakat into projects that attempt to build a lifeworld not foreclosed by violence and suffering attempts to bring into being the justice, beauty, and devotion that Islam holds God wants for humanity. These projects further reveal how contemporary practices of zakat thus mark out in Islamic terms a space of human freedom. Through zakat projects, Muslims move into ‘“the margin of freedom”, wherein new possibilities are envisaged and struggles take place “over the sense of the social world, its meaning and orientation, its present and its future”’ (Jackson 2005, p.xxi) These projects can be characterized in terms of human freedom because they demarcate and crystallize the way that choice and action shape the dialectic of social life: they mark how the possibility of social reproduction intersects with the possibility of social transformation. They define a space in which people choose to either make history through repair or be made by history as damage. Islam defines zakat as worship of God. The praxis of zakat establishes the possibility of human freedom – not as unlimited power, but as the recognition of human subjectivity endowed with the capacity to act in the limits of finitude. ‘Life cannot be meaningful in a world in which the idea of God negates … freedom’, noted Indian Muslim thinker Alam Khundmiri. ‘The word of God needs an interpretation which does not totally restrict human freedom’ (Ansari 2001, p.298). These zakat projects are experiments of human creativity shaped by Islamic ethics. Providing material care for the vulnerable and freeing humans from captivity calls Muslims to engage the ‘external conditions’ of the world in the name of Islam (Jackson 2005, p.143). The Qurʾan states that in ‘freeing a human from bondage’ (Q90:13) a person draws closer to God, but the effort of abolition also positions a person in relation to the lived social world. Abolition itself is a project of rejection and refusal. It positions the abolitionist against the violent imposition of a status quo that tries to make our predatory, extractive social order seem like a natural one. ‘With word and deed we insert ourselves into the human world, and this insertion is like a second birth’, noted political theorist Hannah Arendt (2019, p.176). Zakat occasions this insertion for those Muslims who take up the work of care and abolition that is, in Islam, also a restoration to the grounds of our own being.

Gender and the politics of care The Islamic obligation to provision care affords Muslims latitude in deciding which others to care about and how to provide for them. There are specific categories of people who are legitimate recipients of zakat, but these categories must be translated into specific contexts and onto particular human lives. Such decisions, made in freedom out of a sense of responsibility, bring Islam into being in the world. Zakat grounds projects of social transformation, provisioning material care as a refusal of bondage, homelessness, and precarity. These projects shape constructions of gender that animate the ethical work of responding to suffering and violence. The figure of the woman struggling in poverty in IZM’s work communicates a sense of urgency in the ongoing efforts to dismantle the effects of inequality in the lives of Muslim children living in Indian slums. The striving woman invoked by ICNA staff at the 204

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Amal House opening is a spectral figure, an imagination of an ideal subjectivity that is efficacious, persistent, and achievement-oriented. She is a representation of mobility in a gendered human form. She has goals, momentum, and a trajectory that are her ‘shelter’ in the world. She is the optimism that haunts those who want to help others thrive. Believers Bail Out configures women in terms of a multi-dimensional self, engaged in the liberatory praxis of community as it arises out of intersecting identities and histories. Muslims operationalize zakat to transform ‘geographies of violence’ through moral action (Kitchin Dahringer and Brittain 2017). The minority status of Muslims in both India and the United States likely influences their interventions, all of which take up the provisioning of care in the shadow of the state: they move out of the ethical matrix of Islam to respond to the suffering in the margins and interstices of state neglect. They provision care to people who have been failed by the state with different degrees of resulting damage. The politics of care of IZM is shaped by the context of subalternity in which Muslims form India’s underclass. IZM fulfils the mandate to care for the poor, but theirs is a project of refusal – a rejection of entrenching inequality for Muslims marginalized in contemporary India. Amal House has been built to assist women living on the streets, who fall through the cracks of a thinning social safety net. These are women whose lives have been made vulnerable in a society of great wealth where government social provision is still deeply contested. BBO provides material assistance to those who are ground down by a criminal (justice) system, untrapping those who have been caged and disempowered of choice in the legal system. The women served by Amal House are held to be in need of support and opportunity, whereas those who are bailed out are in need of release. When these projects are compared, it brings into relief that some zakat projects operate independently of the state, provisioning care without explicitly indicting the limitations of the state, as in the case of IZM and BBO. Other projects seek to exercise their influence on local governance, such as ICNA does with Amal House, as their staff now participate in formal groups tasked with policy making around homelessness and social services. Considering zakat in terms of the state demonstrates that the provision of care and the securing of basic goods cannot be taken for granted by citizens who are Muslim minorities, but it can also reveal how liberal democratic states are failing their citizens on a broader level. The politics of care in Islam are, like its gender constructions, variegated. Different projects present different critiques of violence and state failure, and some not at all. This may be unsatisfying to those who seek to find in Islamic tradition a series of resolutions, of answers and templates and infallible maps of action. In relationship to God, Islam does offer such affirmative and definitive holds on the imagination. The gestures and words of prayer are formalized and specific. The Qurʾan affirms rewards for piety and devotion. But in relationship to other humans, in that social world where we hope to be given the wherewithal of life, the margin of freedom is marked by uncertainty and ambiguity. It is, however, that same margin of freedom that makes ethics possible, when we chose to fulfil our responsibilities to others, and it is the possibility of ethics that makes Islam a source of vitality in human community. Religious studies scholars note that religion takes shape in social, economic, cultural, and political contexts (Moore 2007). Perhaps the contextual formation of religion involves a parallel contextual formation of gender. In some expressions of Islamic tradition, gender becomes the primary frame of action and understanding. In the zakat projects addressed here, however, gender is a mode of stabilizing – communicating and animating – the ethical work of responding to suffering, even when that suffering is not necessarily analysed in terms of gender. This does not mean that gender cannot be a primary focus of zakat 205

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projects. It can be and sometime it is. But it shows us that zakat animates an ethical matrix in which gender constructions can greatly vary, both analytically and practically. The variegated moral geography of gender in zakat reflects the margin of freedom and the struggle over how to coexist in a shared world. The construction of gender in zakat thus works as both an affirmation and a negotiation of the truth of human interdependence. The ethical matrix of Islam does not yield a template of provision to be applied universally. Instead, we see that Muslims draw on zakat, even think with zakat, in defining the context of their lives as a moral domain. The freedom to establish the provision of care includes the freedom to make the analysis of power – including a gender analysis of power – explicit, or not. The provision of care is obligatory and good, everywhere and always. But the categories of legitimate recipients of zakat are multiple – one can give to orphans, or to the hungry, or to those who should be freed from bondage. Zakat brings together charity and freedom in a multifaceted ethical matrix which marks out space for moral reflection on the relationship between giving and liberation. This means that Islam offers multiple ways to fulfil the obligation of zakat, and this multiplicity is part of what establishes a margin of freedom and generates different politics of care. The ethical matrix of Islam thus holds against the resolution of Islam, including the resolution of gender in Islam. Instead, that matrix establishes Islam as a living force of human creativity in that it calls forth the ethical imagination of Muslims to respond to suffering, violence, precarity, and vulnerability. Within this ethical matrix, constructions of gender help make the world existentially legible because they work to provide us with moral traction in the struggle for coexistence.

Further reading Burkhalter Flueckiger, J (2006) In Amma’s Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. An ethnographic study of lived Islam focused on a woman practitioner of ritual healing in the urban landscape of Hyderabad, India. Hill, Joseph (2019) Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Traces the emergence and negotiation of women as authorities within the broader organization of Sufism in Dakar. Focuses on the ways in which Muslim women in urban landscapes mark out spaces and roles to include women in religious community. Khoja-Moolji, S (2018) Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia Berkeley: University of California Press. Thoughtful analysis of the way in which education becomes positioned as the hallmark achievement of both gender and modernity in the postcolonial context of Pakistan. Mittermaier, A. (2019) Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times Berkeley: University of California Press. An ethnographic study of food, solidarity, and the theological imagination that brings them together as evinced during the Arab Spring.

References Abdul-Haqq, K. 2018, ‘Believers Bail Out’ https://sapelosquare.com/2018/07/24/12330/ [accessed February 8, 2020]. Abdul Khabeer, S. 2016, Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States. New York: New York University Press. Ahmed, L. 1992, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate, New Haven: Yale University Press. Aleem, S. et al. 2004, http://www.anthropology.uci.edu/~wmmaurer/courses/anthro_money_2004/ ImamZamin.htm [accessed February 13, 2020].

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Mahmood, S. 2004, The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mir-Hosseini, Z. 1999, Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mir-Hosseini, Z., Al-Sharmani, M., and Rumminger, J. 2015, Men in Charge?: Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. London: Oneworld Academic. Moore, D. 2007, Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Religion in Secondary Education, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. MPower Change. 2018, https://www.facebook.com/MPowerChange/videos/believers-bail-out-webi nar/1665291363584402/ [accessed February 2, 2020]. Prime Minister’s High Level Committee. 2006, Social, economic, and educational status of the Muslim community of India. (Cabinet Secretariat) New Delhi, India: Government of India. Occhipinti, L., Adkins, J. and Hefferan, V. (eds.) 2010, Not by Faith Alone: Social Services, Social Justice, and Faith-Based Organizations in the United States, Lanham: Lexington Books, United States. Rasmussen, A. 2010, Women, the Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia, Berkeley: University of California Press. Ṣaḥı̄ ḥ Muslim. 2982. https://sunnah.com/muslim/55/51 [accessed February 6, 2020]. Semerdijan, E. 2016, ‘Off the Straight Path’: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Shaikh, S. 2007, ‘A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community’. In Violence Against Women in Contemporary World Religions: Roots and Cures, ed by Dan Maguire and Sa’diyya Shaikh. Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, 66–89. Sherman, T.C. 2015, Muslim Belonging in Secular India: Negotiating Citizenship in Postcolonial Hyderabad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. VanDoorn-Harder, P. 2006, Women Shaping Islam: Reading the Qur’an in Indonesia, Champaign: University of Illinois Press. wadud, a. 2006, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. London: Oneworld Publications. Zysow, A. 2002, ‘Zakat,’ Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill. II:409.

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13 MUSLIM CHAPLAINCY AND FEMALE RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY IN NORTH AMERICA Sajida Jalalzai Definitions of Islamic authority are vast and diverse, as are Muslim conceptions of gender. The relationship between gender and authority in Islam is, therefore, complex. Generally, however, Muslims have understood men and women to be essentially different, both in terms of biology and character traits. ‘Sex’, the biologically determined differences between men and women based on external genitalia and reproductive functions, and ‘gender’, the socially and culturally defined differences between men and women, are thus conflated in traditional Islamic discourses. Furthermore, the qualities associated with ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ (discussed later) are understood to be complementary. Domestic and social harmony result from members of both sexes carrying out their corresponding roles and responsibilities. Within this general division of labour, men occupy roles of public leadership, including positions of religious authority, based on what is thought to be their natural leadership potential. Thus, I argue that Muslim conceptions of gender and authority are mutually constitutive; religious authority is traditionally coded as masculine, while masculinity is also configured as essentially authoritative. Additionally, new forms of professional religious authority, such as Muslim chaplaincy, represent ground-breaking avenues for female religious leadership. However, by requiring qualities often coded as ‘feminine’, such as sensitivity, empathy, and compassion, the role of the chaplain further reinscribes traditionally held notions of femininity. As a result, chaplaincy destabilizes traditional notions of masculinity customarily associated with power, judgement, and action while maintaining traditional conceptions of femininity. This chapter first examines different definitions of authority in Islam, before advancing to a discussion of traditional conceptions of gender. With these definitions in place, I examine the relationship between gender and authority, outlining the ways in which women have historically been excluded from public religious leadership. The following section then analyses Muslim leadership in the contemporary North American context, surveying gendered negotiations around a particularly significant type of Muslim leader, the imam. The remainder of this chapter examines a new form of religious authority gaining traction in Muslim communities, Muslim chaplaincy. While chaplaincy affords Muslim women new leadership opportunities, the role simultaneously reinscribes socially constructed notions of ‘femininity’, while at the same time expanding and complicating traditionally held notions of Muslim masculinity. 209

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Authority in Islam Definitions of religious authority in Muslim communities are wide-ranging. For example, the Qurʾan (in Arabic, literally, ‘the Reading’ or ‘Recitation’) represents an example of scriptural authority, as Muslims believe it to be the literal speech of God, providing divine guidance for humanity. Prophets (anbiyaʾ) and saints (awliyaʾ) signify charismatic human authorities who have a unique intimacy with the divine, as do Shiʿi conceptions of the imam, understood to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and rightful spiritual leader of the Muslim community. Religious scholars (ʿulama) and jurists (fuqahaʾ) earn their authority through education in various Islamic sciences, such as the Qurʾan, Qurʾanic exegesis (tafsir), studying the life and example of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith), and training in religious law (fiqh). Political leadership, represented most clearly by the figure of the caliph (khalifa) indicates yet another form of authority. While this list is far from comprehensive, it describes various forms of religious authority derived from different sources, experiences, and ‘areas of expertise’ that characterize the Islamic tradition. Therefore, while Sunni Islam is often cited as a religion ‘without clergy’, given that there is no one clear authoritative religious hierarchy or body as there is in Shiʿi Islam or Catholicism, various forms of religious leadership do indeed exist and remain important to the formation of the Islamic traditions. These varied forms of leadership have been produced by the particular needs and challenges of fluid, complex traditions that span centuries and geographic locations.

‘And the male is not like the female’: Islamic constructions of gender While the aforementioned types of Islamic authority are indeed diverse, one common feature is that public leadership roles are reserved for Muslim men. Restrictions on female public authority are, in part, a product of Islamic understandings of gender. Islamic conceptions of gender vary in different geographical and temporal contexts, but the majority of classical Muslim scholars, reliant on the Qurʾan, hadith literature, and fiqh traditions, recognize both a biological and essential difference between men and women, while arguing for gendered complementarity. As stated in Sura Ali ʿImran: ‘And the male is not like the female’ (3:36). And classical scholars argue that while males and females are distinct, their differences do not necessitate a gender hierarchy per se, since traditional gender characteristics (and the subsequent roles that men and women play based on these characteristics) complement one another. In the Qurʾan, God states that he ‘creates everything in pairs’ (51:49). While exegesis of this verse does not restrict these ‘pairs’ to human sexual reproductive relationships, it nonetheless suggests the complementary nature of creation as proof of the existence of God and His perfection. Night and day, moon and sun, woman and man, each in their own way attest to the balance and parity of creation. In fact, the differences between women and men are imagined to reflect the diverse attributes of God, who is both majestic (Jalal) and beautiful (Jamal). These seemingly dualistic qualities, namely, the qualities of power and of tenderness, resolve themselves in the absolute oneness of God (tawhid). Similarly, many scholars uphold the belief that men and women should ideally play distinct but equally important functions in Muslim society, working in tandem to create harmonious families, communities, and societies at large. While Qurʾan 3:36 does not designate a hierarchization of genders, some scholars appeal to other verses of the Qurʾan, such as 4:34, to make the case for male dominance. The classical Muslim jurisprudential tradition cites this verse to affirm men as ‘guardians’ of 210

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women (qawwamun), requiring devout women to be obedient (qanitat) to their husbands. Likewise, Qurʾan 2:228 argues that men have a ‘degree’ (daraja) over women, which for many classical commentators indicated male superiority and responsibility over women. Omaima Abou-Bakr traces the historical development of these ideas in exegetical literature, beginning with al-Tabari (d. 923) and continuing throughout the classical period with alZamakhshari (d. 1144), al-Razi (d. 1209), al-Qurtubi (d. 1273), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), and into the 20th century with the works of Muhammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905) and Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) (Abou-Bakr, 2015: 46–56). Historically, legal traditions connected with this verse thus rest on an ‘ancient idea: men are strong, they protect and provide; women are weak, they obey and must be protected’ (Mir-Hosseini, Al-Sharmani and Rumminger, 2015: 1). Power and rationality are traditionally viewed as masculine characteristics, while femininity is associated with passivity and emotionality. In short, according to dualistic framings of gender, men exhibit natural leadership qualities that women lack, thus women should be excluded from positions of religious authority. amina wadud contends that the complementarity discourse, ‘while positively stressing relationships [between genders] … keeps their inequality central … leaving the relative power and privilege to men and male roles’ (wadud, 2006: 28). Muslim men are promoted not only as the guardians of their wives and children, but also the primary stakeholders in religious, political, and economic power. Women are barred from religious, community, and juridical leadership because of their supposed deficiencies in necessary authoritative qualities. According to the classical commentators, men are naturally equipped with more reason, wisdom, and strength, making them natural leaders. Women, in their perceived excessive emotionality and physical weakness, lack the rationality and biological strength to lead communities. This is the reason, according to these exegetes, that God only granted the status of prophethood to men, and granted all men the greater rights of inheritance, as well as the right to polygamy and unilaterial divorce (Lamrabet, 2015: 80). Indeed, according to medieval commentators, upsetting the ‘natural, divinely ordained order between the sexes’ was thought to threaten the ‘correct functioning of society’ at large (Bauer, 2015: 285). The constructions of gender and religious authority are therefore co-constitutive in classical Islamic frameworks. Those qualities configured as most essential for leadership are those that are used to define masculinity.

Muslim authority in contemporary North America I now turn to the particular context of contemporary North America, where one of the most prominent and influential forms of Muslim authority is the figure of the imam. In Arabic, the term ‘imam’ literally means ‘one who stands in front’. For Sunni Muslims, the term ‘imam’ is an honorific title for someone chosen by a congregation to lead prayers (salat), based on their knowledge of the Qurʾan and the Arabic language, as well as Islam more generally. The imam’s role in facilitating congregational life and worship ties them to the mosque (masjid) and mosque culture, requiring at the very least knowledge of the Qurʾan and the ability to lead prayers. Imams are influential in North America for a number of reasons, including the importance of the mosque as a central Muslim institution in the United States and Canada, which reflects and follows the history of congregational religious life in America. While the primary function of the imam, as stated above, is the facilitation of congregational life and worship, in most cases, the responsibilities of the imam in North American congregations extend well beyond liturgical matters. Imams are often expected to act as 211

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individual and family counsellors, Islamic educators, and community outreach specialists, whether or not they are actually trained or equipped to function in these roles. Historically, Islamic societies distributed many of these communal responsibilities in more diffuse ways, for example, amongst extended family members and society’s elders, who offered counselling, emotional support, and conflict mediation to individuals (Barakat, 1993). However, in the North American context, such social networks tend to be more limited, with more focused attention on the ‘nuclear’ family, compelling a reconceptualization and reorganization of traditional social norms. In this restructuring, the North American imam assumes many new social responsibilities outside of the purview of liturgical leadership. The history of immigration has also impacted the development of Muslim religious leadership in the United States. A series of laws passed by the U.S. Congress in the early 20th century drastically reduced immigration from Muslim-majority countries. However, in 1965, the Immigration and National Act (or, Hart-Celler Act) lifted immigration quotas from non-European countries. The Act, however, gave preference to skilled workers. As such, more of the Muslim immigrants that came to the United States after 1965 were white-collar professionals, physicians and engineers, rather than religious scholars and specialists. A lack of ‘classically trained’ religious professionals in North America thus led to what commentators have called a ‘crisis of Muslim leadership’, motivating some Muslim communities to ‘import’ trained imams from Muslim-majority nations in pursuit of what they considered authentic Islamic knowledge (Grewal, 2014: 133). While such figures may be recognized as authoritative based on their Islamic educational background, these ‘imported’ imams often lack the cultural awareness and sensitivity required of religious leadership in the United States and Canada. In spite of the image of Islam as a ‘universal’ religion, these barriers – both cultural and, sometimes, linguistic – divide imams from their communities, and signal the need for more culturally sensitive authorities. North American Muslims have dealt with the challenge of cultivating competent and culturally relevant leadership in multiple ways. For some, the solution has involved sending North American pupils to study in historically renowned institutions of Islamic education in the ‘Muslim world’, such as al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, the Islamic University in Madinah in Saudi Arabia, or various Shiʿa seminaries in Iran and Iraq, after which the graduates return to work in North American mosques. Another approach involves the establishment of Islamic seminaries in the West, such as the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIIT) or the American Islamic College (AIC). Yet others argue for the need of new forms of religious authority, such as chaplaincy (discussed later), to diversify the types of leadership available to Muslim communities, and to meet the unique needs of Muslims living in the North American context.

Women and mosque leadership The importance of imams in configurations of Islamic authority has motivated scholars and activists alike to question the permissibility of women leading congregational prayers. Prominent figures in North American Muslim communities range in their opinions about whether or not women can lead prayers. In a public demonstration of support for womanled prayer, scholar-activist amina wadud led a mixed-gender congregational prayer at the Synod House of the Cathedral of St. John of the Divine in New York City on March 18, 2005. In analysing the significance of this event, Juliane Hammer points out the prayer’s major departures from existing Islamic ritual norms. First, the imam was a woman, as was the deliverer of the sermon (khateeba), and the person giving the call to prayer (muʿezzin). 212

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Finally, the congregation itself was not segregated by gender. In these distinctive elements, this ritual prayer became an ‘embodied performance of gender justice in the eyes of its organizers and participants. They symbolically challenged the exclusively male privilege of leading Muslims in ritual prayers and at the same time blurred the lines of gender segregation in ritual prayers’ (Hammer, 2012: 15). While this prayer was neither the first nor the only occasion during which Muslim women have led congregational prayers in North America, it nonetheless represents a symbolic moment for those advocating for the inclusion of women in Muslim understandings of religious authority. Some scholars, such as Nevin Reda, situate women’s prayer leadership in classical Islamic traditions. She contends that while the custom of restricting prayer leadership to men goes unchallenged in the North American context, ‘research from the Qurʾan and the customs of Prophet Muhammad demonstrate that there is no prohibition precluding women from leading mixed-gender prayer and, further, that Prophet Muhammad approved the practice of women leading mixed-gender prayer’ (Reda, 2005). Reda provides evidence for the acceptance of female prayer leadership in the hadith literature, in the example of Umm Waraqa, who purportedly led mixed-gender congregational prayers in her household. She also cites the Qurʾanic portrayal of the Queen of Sheba in Surat al-Naml as evidence of women’s ability to act in leadership roles. With her essay, which was posted online a number of days before the famous March 15th prayer, Reda thus challenges Muslim women to reclaim their place as ‘intellectual and spiritual leaders’ of the Muslim community (Reda, 2005). Opponents of the event, such as American convert to Islam, Imam Zaid Shakir, referred to the woman-led prayer and mixed gender congregation as a fitna, a ‘trial’ or ‘strife’ in the Muslim community, completely unsanctioned by Sunni Islamic law (Shakir, 2009: 239). He refutes the analyses of scholars like Reda, questioning the soundness of the hadith of Umm Waraqa. Even were it found to be a sound hadith, considered legitimate, with a chain of trustworthy narrators, and free of irregularities, Shakir questions whether it is application to the question of women-led mixed-gender congregational prayer. While he acknowledges that women are sometimes neglected, degraded, and oppressed within the context of their religious communities, he nonetheless encourages Muslim women to exercise patience. He argues, human ‘fulfillment does not lie in our liberation, rather it lies in the conquest of our soul and its base desires’ (Shakir, 2009: 245). Therefore, while some want to include women in positions of religious authority, Shakir contends that the effort is misguided and dangerous to the stability of the community at large. One North American effort to incorporate women as ritual leaders of the Muslim community has avoided the contentiousness of mixed-gender congregations, the Women’s Mosque of America. Founded in 2014 by M. Hasna Maznavi, the Women’s Mosque of America is the first woman-led, woman-only congregation in the United States and offers monthly congregational prayers and sermons facilitated by female imams and khateebas. Maznavi contends that gender segregation is not necessarily evidence of inequality, and states that women’s mosques are a longstanding historical tradition in different parts of the world, including China, Syria, India, Egypt, Palestine, and Yemen (Maznavi, 2015). While the Women’s Mosque and other all-female congregations evade the controversial issue of women leading men in prayer, some scholars nonetheless take issue with women leading other women in prayer. In their opinion, ‘female-only gatherings do not meet the legal requirements for congregational prayer; a proper jumuʿa … has to include a certain number of male worshippers’ (Maznavi, 2015).

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Other Muslim scholars and activists are petitioning for Muslim women’s leadership in forums other than the mosque. Ingrid Mattson, the first woman to serve both as vice president and president of the Islamic Society of North America, affirms the need for Muslim women to occupy more public leadership roles, but shifts the focus of this pursuit from prayer leadership to other types of religious authority. ‘When … religious leadership does not include women’, argues Mattson, ‘their experiences, concerns and priorities will not be well represented’ (Mattson, 2005). According to Mattson, while women’s feelings of alienation are legitimate, focusing single-mindedly on pursuing the role of the imam only reifies one type of authoritative role at the expense of other potential avenues of women’s empowerment. Rather than conserve this model of ‘concentrated’ leadership, Mattson explores the possibility of asserting influence in more diffuse and democratic ways, determine by the local community. Indeed, Mattson’s election as the first female leader of one of the most prominent Muslim organizations in North America signifies a symbolic movement toward the acceptance of women in certain leadership capacities. Through such negotiations of communal authority, Mattson argues for the possibility of new professional fields like chaplaincy to decentre the figure of the imam, and to open up new leadership opportunities for women such as chaplaincy, which we will discuss here. Mattson calls her own approach to Muslim authority ‘conservative’, because it maintains existing norms about male leadership of mixed-gender congregational prayers. ‘I am keenly aware’, Mattson states, of the possibility of eliciting suspicious or negative responses from some Muslims because of the conservative principles I have identified as so important in Islamic thought. This is particularly true when it comes to worship, where adherence to the prophetic sunnah is essential. (Mattson, 2005) This statement implicitly addresses the fact that Mattson never overtly advocates woman-led prayer outside of very specific contexts (including all-female congregations or mixed-gender congregations within one’s household), given what she considers a lack of textual support for this practice. She thus leaves the question open for discussion within Muslim communities themselves. In the development of women’s ‘alternative’ authoritative structures, Mattson upholds the dominant and normative understandings of ritual leadership as the domain of male authority.

Muslim chaplaincy in North America Over the last several decades, the profession of chaplaincy has become increasingly pervasive for Muslim communities, particularly those living in North America and parts of Europe. While there is some overlap between the functions of imams and Muslim chaplains, including religious education and spiritual counselling, chaplains are distinctive as religious professionals in that they work in institutional settings, such as prisons, universities, hospitals, and the military which are not, by definition, religious. Another major difference between chaplains and imams is that chaplains also serve clients from diverse religious backgrounds, as well as those that come from no faith background at all. Therefore, while chaplains may sometimes serve in liturgical contexts, performing relevant religious rituals, their primary function is to facilitate religious life and offer spiritual counsel to members of diverse faith

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communities. The chaplain is therefore not seen as a ‘replacement’ of the imam, but rather, a distinct and complementary leadership figure. One of the primary responsibilities of chaplains is providing ‘pastoral’ or ‘spiritual care’ to their clients. This objective connects to the chaplain’s role as a spiritual companion, offering what Winnifred Fallers Sullivan refers to as a ‘ministry of presence’ (Sullivan, 2014: xii), rather than a directive, top-down form of leadership. As such, chaplains are somewhat ambiguous figures, spiritual authorities who ‘lead from behind’, simultaneously connected to and separate from traditional religious communities, bodies, and institutions (Sullivan, 2014: 13). Some of the main roles of chaplains include ‘grief, loss, and end of life [counselling], advocating for religious freedom and rights, advising institutions on religious and cultural accommodations, providing ethics guidance, representing Islam at the institutional level, and providing instruction in Islamic sciences’ (Association of Muslim Chaplains, no date). The historical origins of chaplaincy are indisputably Christian. Yet, for various reasons that are beyond the scope of this chapter, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, and atheists have increasingly invested in training and employing chaplains as important community leaders. Most individuals that I interviewed in the course of my research on Muslim chaplaincy now consider both the term, ‘chaplaincy’, and the field, more generally, religiously neutral and/or multifaith in orientation. Given the traction of chaplaincy in nonChristian communities throughout American history, some Muslims consider the establishment of the field of Islamic chaplaincy an important step in the institutionalization of Islam as a North American religion.

‘The next best thing’: the gender question and the establishment of Muslim chaplaincy training programs Fields like chaplaincy arguably open new spheres of religious authority to women, providing them with unprecedented opportunities to serve publicly as Muslim leaders. Timur R. Yuskaev and Harvey Stark argue that women’s involvement in the field of chaplaincy corresponds with a general increase in women’s participation in Muslim institutions (Yuskaev and Stark, 2014: 58). These new leadership roles for women indicate a groundbreaking reconsideration of gender difference and authority in Islam. Shenila Khoja-Moolji examines the institution of Muslim chaplaincy on American university campuses as part of the Pluralism Project sponsored by Harvard University. She argues that, ‘Muslim chaplaincy … provides a remarkable opportunity for women to exercise public religious leadership’ in unique and innovative ways (Khoja-Moolji, 2011: 6). Khoja-Moolji clarifies that while Muslim women have historically occupied informal positions of religious authority in Muslim societies, such as religious teachers or spiritual counsellors, the profession of chaplaincy grants an unprecedented level of formal and public recognition to female authority figures. The institution of chaplaincy therefore opens up a space for Muslim women in public positions of religious leadership without in any way challenging dominant structures of male ritual authority. There exists little (if any) resistance to the idea of Muslim women serving as chaplains, since chaplains and spiritual caregivers are considered ‘facilitators’ of religious life, and do not necessarily function in ritual capacities, as I explore below. My research focuses on the first and most prominent Muslim chaplaincy training programs in the United States and Canada. I argue that the establishment of these programs is intimately tied to the issue of women’s empowerment as religious leaders. The three programs featured in my research are Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, Emmanuel 215

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College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada, and Bayan Claremont at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. They represent the first accredited programs offering degrees and certifications for Muslim chaplaincy in North America. Ingrid Mattson, mentioned above, founded and developed the first accredited program for Muslim chaplains at Hartford Seminary. In an interview I conducted with Mattson in 2012, she states, ‘I wasn’t going to develop a program that excluded women’. Mattson was hopeful that Hartford Seminary would be an ideal centre to pursue her vision of developing leadership programming for Muslim communities, in part due to the seminary’s focus on religious leadership education within other marginalized communities: It made me really excited, because I saw what [Hartford Seminary was] doing with [their programming on] urban African American leaders, Hispanic ministries, the women’s leadership program … Developing programs for people who are marginalized by the existing education structures or endorsing structures, I just really love that idea. Mattson therefore flags the marginalization of Muslim women as a central issue in the establishment of the Muslim chaplaincy program at Hartford Seminary. Whereas Mattson explains that the founding of Hartford Seminary’s Islamic Chaplaincy Program was intertwined with a broader effort to empower Muslim women, Nevin Reda, one of the founders of the Masters of Pastoral Studies for Muslims at Emmanuel College, directly attributes the failures of local mosque leadership as prompting her desire to establish training programs for Muslim authorities sensitive to gender-related issues. In an interview, Reda told me that as a regular attendee of a masjid in Mississauga, Ontario she did not have access to the imam. There was a barrier in order for [her] to speak to the imam. [She] had to go through the difficulty of crossing the barrier, dealing with all the men between [her] and the imam, and that was not easy to do. On top of this lack of access to the mosque leadership, she mentions hearing troubling statements related to gender being preached during several Jumʿah sermons, which prompted her to complain to the leaders and board of the masjid. Reda’s friend and colleague, Susan Harrison, suggested approaching the Toronto School of Theology (TST) to establish an imam-training program. The two proposed an educational program for Muslim leaders, which eventually developed into the program at Emmanuel College. While issues related to gender and authority were not as foundational to the creation of Bayan College as they were in the cases of Hartford Seminary and Emmanuel College, they still represent a major concern for the founding figures and faculty associated with the program. In a promotional video for the college, dean of Bayan College, Jihad Turk, states: Bayan Claremont aims to produce intellectuals. Religious leaders and scholars that are well prepared and very qualified to be relevant to our youth, to integrate women into our communities, and to best represent Islam and Muslims to the society in which we live. (Bayan Claremont, 2015)

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Turk mentions the integration of Muslim women within their communities as one of the main goals of the college. In a 2013 interview with me, he also mentions the issue of woman-led prayer as relevant to Bayan’s long-term goals: We are hoping to develop a think tank and we are hoping to start tackling some of these issues [related to women and authority], and do it in a way that does not alienate the institution [from Muslim communities] … That is a long term policy … but part of our vision. Turk’s concern over ‘alienating’ mainstream Muslim communities regarding women’s ritual authority sheds light on deeply entrenched assumptions about the controversial nature of female religious leadership, namely, that the issue of woman-led prayer is an alienating subject for most Muslim communities. Further, this is an example of how those hoping to transform norms regarding gender and ritual authority in Islam must proceed with caution to avoid estranging those invested in upholding existing norms. Many students that I interviewed likewise noted that they considered gender a relevant factor when they chose to enrol in both of the above-mentioned programs, specifically, and their pursuit of the field of Muslim chaplaincy, more broadly. Some female students indicated that they had reservations about women functioning as imams, but found chaplaincy a fulfilling alternative. One Muslim student at Hartford Seminary, Laura,1 told me that she pursued the degree in chaplaincy because of the absence of another ‘clearly trodden path for women’ in Muslim leadership. Latifah, another Hartford student, explicitly upheld classical notions of male liturgical leadership as prompting her interest in chaplaincy: ‘Why chaplaincy?’ she reflected in our 2013 interview. ‘Well, I can’t be an imam. This is the next best thing’. In a somewhat different vein, Emmanuel College student, Roya, explains the appeal of chaplaincy in her evaluation of mosque-based leadership as limiting. For her, chaplaincy opened up new opportunities for Muslim women beyond the enclosed space of the masjid: To me [being an imam] is not a very important thing … If you go and work in the mosque, you are limited. You cannot achieve independence. But if you work outside of the mosque, you are more independent, you have more of a chance to reach society. Each of these students make connections between the field of chaplaincy and leadership opportunities for Muslim women, even while their motivations greatly differ.

The case of Hanan: chaplaincy and Muslim femininity As indicated above, the profession of Muslim chaplaincy opens new doors for Muslim women to act as recognized public religious authorities. While this new professional field certainly affords women new opportunities, I ask here: do these new leadership opportunities challenge traditionally conceived notions of gender in Islam? If, as I argue above, gender and authority are mutually constitutive, does this new form of religious authority impact Muslim understandings of femininity or masculinity? I argue that the existence of female Muslim chaplains does not necessarily alter traditional Muslim conceptions of femininity. Women – socially constructed as innately in touch with the realm of emotions – are expected to deploy their empathetic skills in productive ways as chaplains. Instead of 217

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meeting their clients with rational judgement (a ‘masculine’ response), they are assumed to be capable of offering patience and support, a ‘ministry of presence’ that takes advantage of their ‘feminine’ qualities. During my fieldwork, I met Hanan, a Muslim woman who graduated from Hartford Seminary and who, at the time of our conversation, worked as a university chaplain in New England. She related the story of how she got hired, mentioning that a male Muslim colleague at the university wanted to hire a female Muslim chaplain to work with him in the Office of Student Life. Initially, I assumed that his goal to have both a male and a female Muslim chaplain must have stemmed from a desire to provide specialized spiritual care to the Muslim women on campus, but Hanan quickly corrected my misinterpretation. She clarified that the hiring of a female Muslim chaplain was: not for the sisters, but for the brothers, because sometimes [her male colleague] feels like brothers can open up to sisters a whole lot easier … When you’re with a guy, you have to talk about ‘guy things …’ The woman is not interested in football, or talking about video games, and so they are kind of forced to start speaking about themselves. The presence of female chaplains, according to Hanan, compels Muslim men to ‘open up’, discuss their emotions, and move beyond what Hanan portrays as stereotypically male points of connection. Here, Hanan stresses women’s ‘innate’ emotional acuity, along with their ability to coax men not only into confronting their emotions, but sharing them as well, both of which are easily avoided when only in the company of other men. In its supportive and empathetic sensitivity, the presence of women encourages openness, an absolute requirement according to existing models of the spiritual care relationship. Interestingly, while interviewing for her university chaplaincy position, Hanan was asked by the hiring committee, which was comprised of both Muslims and non-Muslims, about her interest in the ‘woman-led prayer’ issue. She responded that this was not a concern for her, personally, although she could train the Muslim male students to act as prayer leaders and sermon givers. Once hired, she composed an instructional reference document for male students that outlined the proper format for a Friday sermon (khutbah). Although men retained ritual religious leadership, Hanan explained that they often send her drafts of their sermons in advance of weekly prayers, ‘just to make sure that everything is sound’. Hanan thus recognizes herself as a knowledgeable authority, well-versed not only in the legal injunctions required to conduct congregational prayer, but also equipped to evaluate the content of religious sermons. At the same time, this religious knowledge does not necessitate her assuming ritual authority over her male students. Hanan thus upholds the stance that salat must be led by men, but exercises her authority and influence through the training and education of male student leaders. For her, this approach is not simply about gender and religious legalities, but rather, a pastoral technique of empowering her students to act as leaders of their own community. Her actions thus decouple ritual leadership, intellectual scholarship, and pastoral caregiving. Hanan’s example illustrates the ways in which chaplaincy provides Muslim women with public religious leadership opportunities while at the same time reaffirming traditional conceptions of femininity – characterized by the qualities of sensitivity, empathy, and compassion. These sentiments are, perhaps, best summed up by another Hartford Seminary chaplaincy student, Latifah: ‘We [women] carry the love. We are hardwired for it. [With Islamic chaplaincy], now we can be credentialed for it’. 218

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The case of Aadam: chaplaincy and Muslim masculinity Given that qualities of patience, compassion, and empathy are so often associated with essentializations of the feminine, are Muslim men less equipped to function as chaplains? The presence of Muslim male chaplains from the early days of Islamic chaplaincy, as well as the presence of male students enrolled in the programs I research, indicate Muslim men’s interest and abilities in the field of chaplaincy, also. On what basis, then, do Muslim men derive their authority as chaplains? My respondents cite the example of the Prophet Muhammad as their pastoral model. While Muhammad was certainly known for typically ‘masculine’ virtues, such as discerning judgement, executive power, and military skill, Muslim male chaplains rely more on other qualities, his empathy, mercy, and sensitivity, again, traditionally construed as ‘feminine’ qualities, as their professional inspiration. Aadam, a graduate of the Muslim chaplaincy program at Hartford Seminary and university chaplain, talked to me about the ways in which the Prophet Muhammad provided the ideal model for his professional work. He explained: [Muhammad] would listen to his companions … And even if they were sinning … he would not come down on them hard. He would oftentimes not even cite religious law, but he would give them advice in a way that would teach them that what they were doing was wrong, and they would desire to leave it. The presentation of Muhammad’s character here sets a precedent for new possibilities of Muslim masculinity. His authority, as Aadam argues, relies not only on strength and judgement, but gentleness, patience, and understanding, even when confronted with sinful behaviour. Chaplains require this skill set, providing spiritual care and a ‘ministry of presence’ to their clients in the midst of their spiritual journeys. While Muslims often approach difficult spiritual questions through the lens of Islamic jurisprudence, inquiring about the legal permissibility of various actions, Aadam emphasized that the role of the chaplain, as distinct from that of an imam, is to provide emotional, spiritual, and practical support. He recounted a story in which one of his clients spoke to him about feelings of depression and suicidal thoughts. Rather than underline the impermissibility of suicide in Islamic legal traditions, which Aadam stressed would be the ‘fiqh-oriented’ response, he explained that these types of issues require pastoral care. He clarified, ‘The person is asking a counselling question, and they’re [often] being given a fiqh answer’. While religious authorities would be justified in reinforcing ‘correct’ thought and behaviour with reference to Islamic jurisprudence, the Muslim chaplain approaches issues with patience, compassion, and care, following the model of the Prophet Muhammad. Here, the example of the Prophet Muhammad thus offers a more complex expression of masculinity than often portrayed in classical Islamic scholarship (De Sondy, 2014: 118). Muslim chaplaincy, while potentially reasserting traditional conceptions of femininity, therefore provides an opportunity to challenge and expand existing norms about Muslim masculinity.

Conclusion This chapter has offered an examination of historical constructions of authority and gender in Islam, and has provided an analysis of the relationship between both. The normative understanding of religious authority in Islam as necessarily masculine continues in the contemporary North American context, as evidenced in the Sunni understanding of the imam. 219

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Nonetheless, modern reformers are looking to authoritative sources, such as the Qurʾan and sunna, to argue for the inclusion of women in existing forms of religious authority. While some Muslims support women as congregational prayer leaders, or imams, others are focused on the empowerment of women as religious leaders in other professions, such as Muslim chaplaincy. Indeed, the establishment of the first accredited educational programs in Muslim chaplaincy made the inclusion of women one of their central concerns. While Muslim chaplaincy certainly provides new public leadership roles for Muslim women, Hanan’s story, discussed above, reveals that gendered discourses in the field of chaplaincy do little to problematize the historical essentializations of women. That said, Aadam’s example reveals that Muslim chaplaincy has the power to complicate existing essentializations of masculinity. New forms of religious authority, such as chaplaincy, thus invite reconsiderations of Islamic gender constructions, norms, and relationships.

Note 1 Names of students have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Further reading Fallers Sullivan, Winnifred. (2014). A Ministry of Presence. Chaplaincy, Spiritual Care, and the Law. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Sullivan examines the profession of chaplaincy in the United States, providing a rich analysis of the relationship between law, religion, and government regulation. She flags the importance of spiritual care as the primary methodology in the field of chaplaincy, and highlights the complicated relationships between church and state that arise from an examination of the profession. Grewal, Zareena. (2014). Islam is a Foreign Country. American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority. New York: New York University Press. Grewal examines the construction of local and global Islamic intellectual networks and genealogies, and the pursuit of ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’ Islamic knowledge in modernity, as exhibited by ‘student travellers’ in pursuit of an imagined ‘real Islam’. Hammer, Juliane. (2012). American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism. More than a Prayer. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hammer offers an in-depth analysis of the 2005 mixed-gender congregational prayer led by amina wadud, exploring the circumstances that led to the event, as well as the debates that followed it. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, eds. (2015). Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. London: Oneworld. The authors in this edited volume examine the historical discrimination against Muslim women based on legal exegesis of key Qurʾanic verses, such as Qurʾan 4:34. While the tradition of Islam has been dominated by men, the contributors indicate the potential for religious reform focused on gender equality. wadud, amina. (2006). Inside the Gender Jihad. Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. wadud, a scholar/activist at the forefront of feminist reform in Islam, examines the textual and traditional foundations of gender justice in Islam.

References Abou-Bakr, Omaima. (2015). ‘The Interpretive Legacy of Qiwama as an Exegetical Construct’. In Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, eds. London: Oneworld, pp. 46–56. Association of Muslim Chaplains. (no date) ‘A Spiritual Care Profession’. https://associationofmuslimcha plains.org/what-is-islamic-chaplaincy/ Barakat, Halim Isber. (1993). The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bauer, Karen. (2015). Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’an. Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Muslim chaplaincy and female authority ‘Bayan Claremont- An Introduction to the Islamic Graduate School’. (May 26, 2015). www.youtube. com/watch?v=2C5jjmcuUjw De Sondy, Amanullah. (2014). The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities. New York: Bloomsbury. Grewal, Zareena. (2014). Islam is a Foreign Country. American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority. New York: New York University Press, 133. Hammer, Juliane. (2012). American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism. More than a Prayer. Austin: University of Texas Press. Khoja-Moolji, Shenila S. (2011). An Emerging Model of Muslim Leadership: Chaplaincy on University Campuses. Cambridge: The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Lamrabet, Asma. (2015). ‘An Egalitarian Reading of the Concepts of Khilafah, Wilaya and Qiwama’. In Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, eds. London: Oneworld. Mattson, Ingrid. (2005). ‘Can a Woman Be an Imam? Debating Form and Function in Muslim Women’s Leadership’. http://ingridmattson.org/article/can-a-woman-be-an-imam/ Maznavi, M. Hasna. (May 20, 2015). ‘9 Things You Should Know about the Women’s Mosque of America- And Muslim Women in General’. HuffPost. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, eds. (2015). Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition. London: Oneworld. Reda, Nevin. (2005). ‘What Would the Prophet Do? The Islamic Bases for Female-Led Prayer’. www. muslimwakeup.com Shakir, Zaid. (2009). ‘An Examination of the Issue of Female Prayer Leadership’. In The Columbia Sourcebook of Muslims in the United States. Edward E. Curtis IV, ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Sullivan, Winnifred Fallers. (2014). A Ministry of Presence. Chaplaincy, Spiritual Care, and the Law. Chicago: Chicago University Press. wadud, amina. (2006). Inside the Gender Jihad. Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. Yuskaev, Timur and Harvey Stark. (2014). ‘Imams and Chaplains as American Religious Professionals’. In The Oxford Handbook of American Islam. Yvonne Y. Haddad and Jane I. Smith, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 48.

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14 MALAMA TA CE!1 Women preachers, audiovisual media and the construction of religious authority in Niamey, Niger Abdoulaye Sounaye The political and economic reforms initiated across Africa in the 1990s created among other things, the conditions for alternative media outlets, generally referred to in Francophone Africa as “médias privés”. Comprising of TV and FM radio stations, these media emerged in a newly liberalized public space where they sought to provide an alternative to statesponsored media. In many local contexts, this process has freed initiatives and made it possible for many actors previously marginal or even invisible, to take social roles, engage in entrepreneurship and assume leadership positions (Augis, 2009; De Witte, 2003; Gomez-Perez and Madore, 2013; Hackett and Soares, 2015; Hill, 2018; LeBlanc and Gosselin, 2016; Meyer, 2006, 2015; Savadogo and Gomez-Perez, 2011; Schulz, 2011, 2012; Sounaye, 2013). Niger is one such context that illustrates this process. By the mid-1990s, the deregulation of the media that came with liberalization was already effective and had led to a proliferation of FM radio and TV stations in several urban areas. As a result, Niamey, the capital city, and the focus of this chapter, became a field of waves while media initiatives mushroomed and provided various public actors a stage where they devised and promoted social, political and moral agendas. Among these actors were male Muslim leaders who took advantage of these platforms to advance a religious reform agenda, locally known as Izala. Interestingly, even though women’s status was central to the debates that took place, female figures were generally absent from these platforms, mostly because, as many Muslim scholars have argued, their role should be circumscribed to the domestic arena. Eisenlohr argued that in the Muslim world media can serve as “systems of discursive dissemination with their own modes of exclusion and inclusion, sometimes establishing new spheres of discursive exchange and public debate” (Eisenlohr, 2006: 30). Such a point on the possible connection between media practices and moral economy can validly apply to Niger where developments in the media landscape in the last two decades have not only contributed to the shifting dynamics within both the religious and the public spheres, but they have also served and illustrated competing claims about gender roles and women’s status. In fact, one of the striking developments in recent years has been the emergence of Muslim female figures on TV and radio stations, despite the claims that their role should remain within the domestic arena. Challenging conventional arrangements within media and Islamic practices, women preachers have taken the role of speaking for Islam and for

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themselves, using spaces they have conquered and secured on TV and radio stations in part due to a committed audience and the techno-infrastructural development that reshaped the media landscape. Through a series of programs centering on family law, women’s rights, Islamic learning and other household matters, women preachers have now consolidated their presence in the public arena prompting new debates and contributing to redraw the contours of Muslim gender politics. Within the broader context of religious pluralism and associationism, building authority by using and claiming Islamic agendas and social platforms became a common practice among women. The examination of Islam and gender dynamics in Niger has highlighted three distinctive trends. In her book Engaging Modernity, and while exemplifying the first trend, Alidou (2005) analyzes the spaces female Muslim leaders have created to promote a culture of learning, particularly in urban context. She shows how these women who, a few years ago, were at the margin of public life have risen to become leaders (Malama) of significant communities. In this case, and while building on a new knowledge economy, women in Niamey have not only contributed to popularize Islam, they have also broken taboos that kept them until recently under the status of mere recipients of Islamic learning (Sounaye, 2016a, 2016b, 2011). Now producers of Islamic learning, they have created their own learning centers (Makaranta) and have developed various strategies to build their own spaces and make their voice heard, especially in matters related to women’s social status and political representations (Alidou, 2005; Kang, 2015). Building on the argument that Islamic revival at the beginning of the 1990s has affected not only the urban context, but also the rural and semi-urban Niger, the second trend analyzes women’s resistance, their intervention in the Islamic sphere, and emphasizes how they develop a social pragmatism that shapes their role and status within local contexts (Masquelier, 2009; Sounaye, 2011). A third trend sought to understand the gendering of the public space in Niger, by emphasizing how particular ideas and norms of social life in Islam became a major catalyst of transformations both within Islam and the society in general. This trend is illustrated by studies that have also sought to underline the growing public debate around the role and status of women in public space (Cooper, 2006, 1997; Kang, 2015). The debate has been if not mostly, at least significantly “religious” as it mobilizes religious values and actors eager to influence policies and counter feminist initiatives promoting women’s rights (Alidou and Alidou, 2008; Alio, 2009; Kang, 2015; Sounaye, 2016c). Kang in particular points to the ways in which religious discourse and norms through contemporary appropriations of Islam affects this debate. Indeed, as interesting and insightful as these studies may have been, they hardly engaged the central role media play in the public sphere and particularly the way women using the media have reconfigured Muslim practices and the media landscape. Central to my argument is that with a growing public access to Islamic institutions such as preaching, the concomitant end of the monopoly of men on these institutions, the deregulation of the media and the impact of women’s entrepreneurship, gendered configurations of the media and religion have occurred, making media and religion two privileged loci for an insight into the current historical, ideological and societal transformations in Niger. The case I introduce here illustrates the significance of what I termed the religion and media complex (Sounaye, 2014) among public actors and with social spaces which have until recently remained not only male dominated, but closed to women. Is resistance enough to capture such dynamics and the expectations that lie behind these interventions? The cases below show how Muslim women use mass media not only to 223

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challenge conventional perceptions of their role and space, but also to claim a role in a socioreligious process that has proved critical to the moral economy of Nigerien society. As they claim, their initial goal was not to counter a male hegemony, but serve the popularization of the sunna, a responsibility that, according to Muslim activists, befalls all Muslims, regardless of their status. This has been a powerful narrative among disenfranchised Muslims, especially in urban contexts where the mediascape has proved dynamic and Islamic associationism has become a major trend. In fact, the women I discuss have been part of this process of organizing and making Islam through active involvement in teaching and preaching activities. In many contexts, and as I shall show, attitudes have also sought to defend Islam and promote a sunna-inspired life. Defense and promotion have been key concepts used among the women I discuss here as they invest energy, time and resources to popularize the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad and a Salafism that has gradually, but steadily become normative among urbanite women. For the women-led promotion of Salafism too, media presence and savviness have played a major role. As I shall show, one needs only look at the number of TV and radio programs that feature self-appointed women issuing legal rulings (fatwa)2 on matters that go from domestic issues to current political situation including the Boko Haram crisis. As they emerge at the intersection of specific Islamic reform discourses and media culture, women’s fatwa practices illustrate a second phase of restructuring of the Islamic sphere in Niger. Moreover, in centering on socioreligious institutions and spaces, this phase has given way to female preachers increasingly vocal and “makers of contemporary Islam” in Niamey. This contribution is located at the intersection of media, religious and gender studies and seeks to add to the scant literature on gender, media and religion in contemporary Niger. It is based on fieldwork I have been conducting in Niamey since 2008, as I examine women’s intervention as they appropriate radios and TV platforms to construct religious authority and offer new interpretations of gender spaces and being Muslim. In the first section I draw a picture of the context within which these interventions occur. The second section is concerned with the ways in which Islam’s presence on the media becomes gendered through the interventions of women preachers. Two individuals are introduced in this section to illustrate this gendering trend of Islam and media. In the third section, I elaborate on the connection between religion, public space and women’s status.

A note on religion, media and democratization A vehicle for both social change and social control, religion plays a dual role that may prove contradictory. While providing many communities around the world a discursive framework for liberation and resistance against hegemonic and dominant powers, institutions and ideologies, religion has also been used to dominate, abuse and maintain gender inequality, in particular in the way its discourse conceives of and distributes social roles or strengthens exclusion. For example, in many religions prophecy is the preserve of men, while women are excluded from teaching, preaching or other major positions. Within a modernist framework and looking at the recent scholarly and feminist engagements with religion, perhaps, no other source of norms and values has received more criticism for its negative influence on social interactions and political orders. The rise of what many have referred to as radicalism in Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, for example, illustrates this dimension of religion across the globe. 224

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Generally perceived as a discourse of an established order, Islam in the Nigerien society has played a major role in the configuration of gender roles (Cooper, 1997; Kang, 2015; Masquelier, 2009; Sounaye, 2013). This became particularly visible and of public interest with the rise of the Islamic organizations in the early 1990s as a political liberalization process was getting rid of the one-party rule that had characterized governance in the country since independence in 1960. As political parties multiplied, so did Islamic organizations, breaking the monolithic Islamic sphere (Niandou-Souley and Alzouma, 1996) dominated until then by the state-sponsored Association Islamique du Niger, created shortly after Kountché’s military regime took over in 1974.3 For more than 15 years (1974–1990), this organization remained the sole voice authorized to speak for Islam in the country. At the beginning of the 1990s, however, a trend of democratization began and helped many marginalized and underprivileged actors to gain prominence and assume public roles. Political pluralism became a reality while the Islamic sphere restructured, giving way to numerous Islamic organizations (Glew, 1996; Niandou-Souley and Alzouma, 1996). Illustrating this trend, government statistics show that more than 70 Islamic organizations have registered with the Ministry of Interior from 1990 to 2010. More than 100 are still active today. This increased presence of organized Islam in the public sphere has prompted an islamization of the audiovisual media, particularly visible in the last decade through various TV and radio programs. Part of the public sphere, the mediascape also restructured following these initiatives, which eventually led to the end of the monopoly of the state media. Until 1993, the two main mass-media outlets, La Voix du Sahel and Télé Sahel, were both controlled by the state and therefore reflected primarily the opinion of the government. They promote government policies and serve its agenda. However, media deregulation in 1994 propelled the number of media outlets to more than 200 today. In comparison, a study on medias and religions in West Africa (Bathily, 2009), for example, listed for Niger 148 medias outlets (143 radio and five television). Since this study, the numbers have significantly increased with the addition of several non-state TV channels, community radios and urban FM stations. In August 2019, in Niamey alone, there were 15 non-state-sponsored local TV stations. Media initiatives such as Groupe Bonferey, Groupe Dounia, Groupe Saraounia and Groupe Ténéré, all headquartered in Niamey with antennas across the country, are major components of the mediascape as they combine radio and television to become media powerhouses. Through these initiatives, media practitioners consolidated and expanded their social, political and religious influence, as they branched out across the country and offered valid alternatives to the state-sponsored outlets accused of being mere propaganda tools and at best too supportive of state policies. Until recently, these platforms were hardly accessible to women. Télé Sahel and Voix du Sahel are still the main outlets for government related news, but in the broad areas of religion and entertainment, for example, non-state sponsored media have become the privileged avenues where religious entrepreneurs seek to build up constituencies and subsequently reinforce their authority. In fact, many preachers have seized that opportunity and have become media figures and religious pop stars. Media deregulation played a significant role in the democratization process of religion itself. It helped restructure the Islamic sphere, providing competing Islamic discourses and entrepreneurs with a stage for various truth claims and therefore dynamic public presence. The Salafi reform movement, known as Izala, a trend that promotes Islamic practices strictly in line with the Qurʾan and the Sunna (the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad) and insisting on the Prophet as the template for Muslim life, emerged within this context, now that the public sphere has opened up to multiple and often opposing perceptions of Islam, 225

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governance, social institutions and gender roles (Masquelier, 2009, 1999; Sounaye, 2009). The genealogy of Izala shows how this movement was able to devise strategies and capitalize on the transforming mediascape by developing systematic preaching campaigns and fatwas programs (Sounaye, 2011). In many ways, the expanding mediascape allowed Izala to acquire presence in the public arena, establish itself as an alternative to the Sufi groups, but also to fight back against critics who have portrayed them as troublemakers. Mass mediated, especially through the network of urban FM radios, Izala easily reached large numbers of urban dwellers, the primary target of its reform agenda, and managed to establish itself as a valid and normal Islamic discourse and trend. Scholars have consistently highlighted the structural changes that democratization and liberalization have brought in Africa (Diouf, 2013; Piot, 2010; Schulz, 2011; Soares and Otayek, 2007; Sounaye, 2010). More often than not, the significance of these changes is intricately linked to economic policies, new ideological attitudes, political cultures and moral economies that emerged in the mid-1990s. How media appear within these processes led scholars to suggest that we pay attention to how mass media become the infrastructural basis that shapes sociocultural life (Hackett and Soares, 2015; Larkin, 2008; Meyer, 2015). The media world in that sense is primarily a cultural one, where Muslims expose, claim and contest norms and values of public life. From this perspective and to draw to a close this background section, I will observe that media became important in Niger’s democratization process in part because the overarching preoccupation revolved around the moral order. What order and what normative framework should shape the democratization process became the two key questions that drove activism into the broader public sphere. Gender in particular became central to the attempts by political actors, religious figures, feminist and human rights activists to answer these questions (Hamani, 2001; Kang, 2015). Within this context, it is also worth noting how views expressed sometimes in a passionate manner led to the polarization of the public: on the one hand, secularist activists who pursue a human rightist agenda and hope to promote women’s rights and gender equality based on secular principles; on the other hand, Islamic organizations heavily influenced by newly formed Salafi groups which, in their rejection of what they view as a rampant secularization inspired by French laïcité,4 demanded the implementation of political norms strictly in line with the Qurʾan and the Sunna.5 It must be said that these views challenged the normative framework of the democratization process and targeted its symbolic sites such as the constitution, the school system, and the liberal promotion of women’s status. In their criticism of the “so called democratic norms”, as one of my interlocutors states, Muslim activists have generally pointed to the foreignness of state norms and their unfitness to Nigerien society. More specifically, these views translated first into the hostility of Islamic associations to the family law reform that initiated the Projet de Code de la Famille in 1993 (Alio, 2009; Villalón, 1996; Zakari, 2009), then into their opposition to family planning initiatives and the Convention for the Elimination of Discriminations Against Women (Kang, 2015; Sounaye, 2005), and their rejection in 2007–2008 of the Maputo Protocol, an international initiative that seeks to promote gender equality across Africa. More recently, Islamic organizations of Salafi leaning again opposed the government’s initiative to vote a “liberal law” that will make it unlawful for families to drop their girls out of school before the age of 16. In a country where early marriage is a major issue and often portrayed as the main reason for low Human Development Index (HDI), schooling of girls was thought a priority, especially for its impact on family and community wellbeing. In many ways, women’s status has kept the public sphere

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in Niger busy, making gender one of these sites of symbolic confrontations, to use Cruise O’Brien’s term (Alidou and Alidou, 2008; O’Brien, 2004).

Gendering Islam’s media presence As I have argued, the end of monolithic religious authority and discourse consolidated the ongoing restructuring of the public sphere in Niger. The rise of alternative Islamic organizations eager to be part of public debate complicated the picture of Islam in this sphere. The conjunction between the deregulation of the media that followed the end of the monopoly of the state-sponsored media and women’s religious entrepreneurship resulted in an increased presence of women on TV and radio. In the last ten years, the use of these media to preach, issue fatwas and popularize an Islamic reform discourse has proved decisive for many women who are seeking to change the gendered conditions of their lives and Islam. As Aulette and Wittner note, “sociologists use the term agency to describe the ways that people seek to change their social circumstances, to dismantle existing ways of thinking and acting, and to create new ideas and new social institutions” (Aulette and Wittner, 2014: 9). It is precisely this agency that I intend to illustrate. Indeed, in a religious sphere still dominated by patriarchal norms, radio and TV are giving women preachers and self-proclaimed muftis the tools and the stage to introduce new norms and construct religious authority. Seeing women discuss and speak for Islam on TV was rather uncommon and certainly unexpected in a city where traditionally Islam meant male space, authority and influence. When women appeared on religious programming, it was usually to break the hegemony of male figures, especially on the state-owned TV. Thus the new development has challenged both the propensity of media houses to privilege male voices and the restriction of preaching activities and fatwa, two major modes of contemporary religious discourse, to male ulama (clerics). To stress the significance of this change, it is worth noting that in Niger and most of the Muslim world, until recently, these two institutions were the preserve of the male religious elite. In the paragraphs below, I present two cases that illustrate not only how male hegemony is broken up, but also how marginal actors in the Islamic sphere found a way to speak up. First, I introduce Malama Huda, a prominent figure in the Islamic sphere and who finds the time to devote to several radio and TV programs despite her numerous commitments. Then, I present Malama Bushara, younger than Huda, but nonetheless equally active and committed to assert women’s voice in the religious sphere. Despite the generational gap, both women have articulated views that have contributed to a gender redefinition of religious discourses and media practices in Niamey. As such, they illustrate both the feminization of the Islamic sphere and the gendering of particular media practices. Malama Ta Ce, a Hausa phrase that translates “The (woman) scholar said”, is intended to highlight the feminization of Islamic scholarship and the renewed presence of women’s voice on media. Media and religion share a feature of publicness that has been even more evident in the last two decades in Niamey.

Malama Huda: pathbreaking, solidarity and self-empowerment More than her teaching responsibilities in a secondary school in Niamey, it was her appearance on national TV (Télé Sahel) that propelled Malama Huda to fame and made her one of the most vocal promoters of an Islamic moral order in Niger. A prominent media and religious figure, she uses her airtime to promote Islam conscious citizenship as she defends 227

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a women’s agenda. For a long time, she was the only female speaking for Islam on the media, and in that capacity, she was sometimes the guest of “Émission islamique”, a program on which she answered questions and issued fatwas on social and political issues. She has consistently discussed marriage, divorce, raising children, good morality and social responsibility, her main concern these days. A few years ago, she was caught in a heated argument with a male scholar who was defending mut’a, the Shiʿa practice of temporary marriage, on another TV station. A promoter of a Muslim Brotherhood type activism, she consistently urges women, youth and leaders to “change their behavior” and “work for Islam”, taking inspiration from Muhammad, his wives and followers. Her primary target is urban dwellers, those that have been trained in the public school system and developed a modernist outlook on life and society. Giving a fatwa, much like most of the functions in the practice of Islam, is a role male ulama, the expected spokespersons of Islam, have traditionally assumed. Thus, when Malama Huda took the stage and began to make public fatwa on TV and radio, she put many conservative male ulama in an uncomfortable position. As one may expect, for these Muslim leaders, she should have declined the invitation and devoted her time to the Union des femmes Musulmanes du Niger (UFMN), an organization she co-founded and for which she has become an inspirational model. In 2008, she was the main figure leading Muslim women’s opposition to the Maputo Protocol, an initiative that was intended to secure more rights, public visibility and political participation to women across the continent. Within the democratization era, she gained more prominence, moving from a secondary figure on national TV to a very visible one on the non-state sponsored media. She became the independent voice who “dared” to challenge conventions and practices well established by the ulama. As a Muslim scholar, her public interventions concentrated on three media outlets: Télé Sahel, the state-run TV station which broadcasts across the country; Ténéré, a complex of radio-TV station broadcasting only in the main urban areas of the country; and R et M, the first non-state sponsored radio on which she now runs a popular program every Friday morning. Her tone and arabized-Hausa accent made her a recognizable voice on all these media. Many refer to her affectively as “Mamma” (mother) to show her respect. In return, she addresses her followers claiming seniority. “Diya ta” (my daughter) and “kangnwa ta” (my little sister) are two of the most frequent Hausa phrases she uses, especially during “Courrier Musulman”, her program on TV Ténéré which has drawn her both appreciation and harsh criticisms. The invocation of this affective relationship speaks to the audience she intends to reach, i.e. the women she seeks to educate and encourage in their daily Islamic practices. Educating Muslim women has been one of the major responsibilities she has carried since she teamed up with friends and followers to create a formal Islamic organization. But, it is primarily the audiovisual media that gave her the ideal stage from where she leads a social transformation trend. That is why her interventions have usually focused on women in Islam, but also on household management, stressing the obligation for a good Muslim to live in conformity with the prescriptions of the Sunna (tradition of the Prophet Muhammad). In making a case for women and children’s wellbeing, she criticizes women’s behavior at odds with the Sunna and the Qurʾan as she invokes the “inspiring models” of the wives and daughters of the Prophet Muhammad. She promotes mutual understanding, respect, loyalty and sharing responsibility in raising children, but most importantly, she calls for solidarity among women:

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See, it is a shame; it really is. Many well to do, especially women would take their money and send their children to Morocco, USA or France for holidays while thousands of less fortunate ones suffer everyday the consequences of the current drought.6 Can these women be sensitive to the sufferings of their people? Aren’t they living with this community? (Huda, R. and M., April 2010) In her view, these attitudes should be the concern of any moralizing enterprise of the society. Solidarity and care are key values that should inform the society Malama Huda envisions. Thus, while the promotion of both values should be the preoccupation of the community as a whole, their enactment among women should be the priority for the society. Characteristic of her discourse on social interactions in Niger, solidarity and care are at the center of her perception of women’s role, social positions and struggles to build a morally good society. And as she constantly reminds her audience, Islam is the reference and Muhammad the model to follow. In fact, during several of her media appearances I followed, she reiterated the same criticism while calling women to “show up” and resist the natural, immoral and “unreligious temptations” of selfishness: “your community is not just your [nuclear] family”. Religious conviction, according to her, should translate into daily solidarity vis-à-vis the broader community. The sense of responsibility she promotes requires then developing a consciousness that makes the family, both nuclear and extended, the primary institution where religiosity is demonstrated, nurtured and transmitted. In this specific context, one injunction she makes constantly is “djara adininka”, a Hausa phrase that translates into “take care of your faith [religiosity]”. The phrase is in no way exclusive to Malama Huda; rather it is part of the most common ways Muslim preachers and particularly Salafi, address people in Niamey today. In street preaching or on TV, this injunction has become a common place, testifying to the concern about correct and productive sociability while also translating particular visions of the social commerce, expectations and experiences of contemporary Muslim life. Individuals strive to appropriate this concept and implement it into their daily interactions and social existence. This explains why Malama Huda has been an active member of the Union des Femmes Musulmanes du Niger, one of the most dynamic women’s Islamic organizations in Niger today. With such an understanding of religion and views on the social world, Malama Huda promotes a shift in social practices that could contribute to the betterment of women’s living conditions. Islamic political thought and ideologies have relentlessly stressed the key notion of a global Muslim community (umma) that should inspire Muslims across the globe and create a bound among them. In contrast, Malama Huda emphasizes the local, the immediate family and the gendered ties, which, in her view, should be the primary social space where women express their religiosity. This articulation of her discourse echoes the heated debate on women’s conditions that has preoccupied civil society in Niger in the last two decades (Alidou and Alidou, 2008; Kang, 2015; Sounaye, 2005). She states: You, my sister, daughter … Allah gave you the opportunity to get an education and even higher learning. Why don’t you spend a week or two each year in the countryside helping your [female] cousin who didn’t have the chance to get an education, know about healthcare, hygiene, etc.? 229

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Or simply, why don’t you send her some money to deal with the hardship and the scarcity of everyday life in the village? You earn a salary every month, but don’t seem to care about your sisters’ life conditions. (Huda, R. and M., April 2010) There is no doubt that Malama Huda has managed to capitalize on the pluralism of the mass media and their open access, although she is now gradually retiring from TV programs, leaving this space to disciples who are now following in her footsteps. Today, her appearances on the media are minimal, though she is still invited to make fatwa and run occasional conversation programs. The activities of her organization keep her busy and leave her with little time for preaching and TV programs, as she remarks. Nevertheless, she hangs on her role as a Muslim scholar on the path of aikin adini, a Hausa concept she frequently uses to stress the obligation for Muslims, in particular the learned ones, to promote pious practices. This notion, which shapes many Muslims’ participation in social initiatives, encompasses activities such as preaching, teaching and learning, whose impact on the contemporary Islamic culture in Niger has been transformative. Malama Huda is well aware of the importance of audiovisual media for her socioreligious agenda. Convinced that the betterment of women’s conditions is primarily a women’s issue, she keeps a few Islamic programs, those she sees as essential and socially effective for her quest of a morally fit Muslim society. Now in her 60s, media outlets continue to play a significant role in maintaining her authority in the Islamic sphere and most importantly, in providing Muslim women with an example of public presence and role fully assumed by a woman. In fact, in the foyer she initiated with the help of her Islamic organization and besides her religious and media activities, she has developed a computer training program targeting young girls and women in need of digital literacy to increase their chances of employment in the modern sector. As she said, “this will help them secure a job” (Huda, May 2010). Malama Huda’s impact on both the public and the religious spheres is already perceptible, as numerous young women generally trained at the Islamic University of Say, Niger, and following in her footsteps, have acquired media presence through TV and radio programs. Bushara, the next figure I introduce illustrates precisely how Malama Huda has been emulated by women in Niger, even those who do not share her theological orientation.

Malama Bushara: erecting the pulpit in the studio I use the pulpit in the studio as a metaphor for the increasing visibility preaching Islam has gained on the audiovisual media. This encounter between religion and media has proved instrumental in making many women authoritative voices in Niamey. Malama Bushara is precisely one of those young scholars who, while promoting Islamic learning, has also used media to gain a public presence. In approaching the problematic of gender from the intersection of religion and media practices, I want to highlight how Islam’s increasing visibility of Islam and Muslim public actors has provided many women with the opportunity to redraw gender borderlines as far as religious authority, practices and leadership are concerned. Most striking in the last decade has been the emergence of women authoritative voices who use TV as a platform to disseminate a discourse of moral rectitude, piety and ethical transformation. But they have also promoted a women-based view of these practices. As a conservative trend among Muslim scholars has insisted that women should “remain at home”, regardless of their 230

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degree of Islamic learning, Malama Bushara, a graduate of the Islamic University of Niger, has challenged this view in organizing public lectures, but also in hosting a talk show on radio Bonferey, the first openly “Islamic radio”, as people refer to it in Niamey. Her approach to emphasize the role women played in the first Muslim community made her a key contributor to the debates on issues pertaining to women and Islam in Niger. Her anti-hegemonic standpoint is well known and conveyed through a phrase she consistently invoked during one of our conversations: “No one has exclusive rights on Islam, so let’s not drive Muslims astray!” Convinced that women should keep this principle in mind, she has actively called them to learn and teach the Qurʾan to other women. “Learning opens your mind; it liberates you”, as she states. Putting to work this philosophy, she has initiated a Makaranta (informal learning group) in one of the suburbs of Niamey where she managed to build a significant community of learners. Both the Makaranta and the radio program have become for Bushara the spaces where she popularizes views on Islam and Nigerien society. Her effort to reveal women’s public role in classical Islam is intended to show that in contemporary Niger too, women have a fundamental public role to play. As is the case with many women leaders in the religious sphere in Niger, with Bushara too, women’s role in the formative period of Islam is set as a template for women’s presence and participation in the public sphere in contemporary Niger. Insisting on this chapter of the history of Islam, she intends to silence critics, in particular men, who have opposed women taking public roles, especially on TV. In the 1990s, there were only two women (Malama Huda and Malama Zainab) who would sporadically take the stand on TV, mostly to discuss women and/in Islam. Thus, male ulama overwhelmingly dominated the debate around the promotion of women’s rights and the delineation of women’s role and social status according to the Islamic tradition. “Women in Islam” was primarily a male concern as male ulama set up the interpretative framework and the conditions within which women’s status should be discussed and decided. In the last few years, however, numerous young women, generally trained at the Islamic University of the country have led a trend of public address, taking the role of preachers and contributing to what they view as daʿwa (call to Islam), not only for women, but for all Muslims. Malama Bushara, for example, sees her involvement in the daʿwa as a “work”, a religious endeavor that would help Muslims better understand their religion and organize their society. But she is even more concerned about women’s position in society, in particular the socioeconomic and political conditions within which they achieve their status. In Niamey, access to the Bonferey media complex has propelled her to the public stage and has provided her with such a visibility that she is regularly invited to participate in fora, gatherings and seminars mainly devoted to Islam. I first heard about her when, attending an Islamic seminar, I asked some colleagues whether I could interview some young Muslim leaders involved in preaching. A woman who overheard my request immediately suggested: “Bushara is the person you need to speak with”. I have never heard about her before, but quickly realized that she was a prominent voice on radio. As I would discover later, Malama Bushara is a media personality who has made a name for herself in hosting a religious program on Bonferey. She actually inherited the program from Hawa, another prominent female figure who spent several years advocating for women’s religious rights. Involved in the popularization of Islam, and focusing on women’s role in Islam, Hawa has regularly argued that women are abused and their rights are not recognized. She is in no way the secular feminist who allies with the liberal human rightist discourse. But, taking inspiration 231

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in a women-oriented discourse, she construes women’s rights systematically as the most sacred domain of Islam. Hawa has since retired and handed over the program to Bushara (Sounaye, 2011). Following in the footsteps of her mentor, articulate and learned, Malama Bushara has gradually climbed the ladder of their Islamic organization and has become a major voice among female preachers. Her program centers on the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, with a particular emphasis on female figures that shaped his life. Being Muslim means primarily and exclusively following the Prophet and embracing the models of women around him. Every Saturday afternoon, she receives calls from an audience expecting to find answers to their questions related to Aisha, Khadidja and Fatima,7 all women whose lives were intricately linked to that of the Prophet. Men too have regularly called in to contribute comments and ask questions in order to learn from her expertise. As Malama Bushara observes: “people don’t know much about Islam’s female figures … and don’t be mistaken: I have many male listeners in my audience.” She is aware of the challenge she represents in an Islamic sphere where controlling women’s voice and presence has become a major preoccupation as they disrupt established orders and norms. Obviously, the issue is further aggravated because of the religious institution women similar to Malama Bushara are appropriating and the taboos they break. For, until recently, preaching has always been the preserve of the male ulama, the spokespersons and prime public figures of Islam. Thus, a young woman such as Bushara challenges the traditional practice and role distribution of this institution. She brought up the issue in one of our conversations and argued: I think, this [prohibition of women from preaching on the media] can be interpreted as the result of [male’s] jealousy. It really is. This has been a recurrent issue. Last week, a friend of mine faced the same issue … They [male ulama] keep bringing it up … A few years ago there was a conference to resolve the issue, we thought it was over … and now people are bringing it up again. Those who oppose women’s preaching have no arguments … they can’t provide any sound justification of this prohibition … we had a conference at Palais des Congrès in Niamey. I was among the presenters … we were only two female participants. The day of the presentation of my colleague, some male participants didn’t want her to speak. They refused to give her the floor for her presentation, arguing that as a woman, Islam forbids her from speaking in public. The next day, I got to address the participants and did my presentation anyway. Afterwards, a man stood up and made some remarks [against my presence]. But he gave no justification why women should not preach. Elaborating further, she added: It is true a woman stays home; but whenever necessary, she can go out. The only thing is that she cannot go out and forget about her household duties. Women are allowed to go out, there is no question about that. There are clauses under which she can do it, she just needs to respect them. Following the episode at Palais des Congrès, more voices objected to the presence of women preachers on audiovisual media. According to Bushara, the controversy escalated to the point that: 232

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A few weeks ago, a cleric took the stand and insulted all women preaching on TV. We are just asking that they show us the scriptures that forbid women from public preaching. We are just asking them to show us that God has made it unlawful … let’s see the hadith if it does exist … Of course, we have some people who translate the verses of the Qurʾan as they like and who could fabricate whatever suits them … no, we are just asking to be shown the scriptural proof … we are asking to be persuaded. On our side, we know many women have contributed to the development of Islam. These statements further illustrate not only the challenges she has faced, but also how Bushara seeks to build her authority and promote learning among Muslim women. As she claims that arguments should be resolved through a careful consideration of the scriptures, she makes a case for the cultivation of Islamic learning and implicitly suggests that men who have opposed women’s voices on the screen or in the studio are yet to fully understand the Islamic tradition. In particular when she invokes Aisha and Khadidja, wives of the Prophet Muhammad, and Fatima, his daughter, Bushara seeks to legitimate examples that authorize her presence and that of many female preachers on the media. These paradigmatic cases of the Sunna (tradition of the Prophet Muhammad), according to Bushara, are sufficient justifications for a gendered public Islam. She points to the inconsistency of the criticism and suggests that if women were authorized public roles during the prophetic time, why would they be refused such positions now? Thus, a Sunna inspired life in contemporary Niger should imply that Nigerien learned women take on the mission to teach not only their fellow women, but all Muslims. For Bushara, when you read the Hadiths, you will notice that many have been transmitted by Aisha, the wife of the Prophet. Honest and learned Muslims know that. I think, it is not about the fact that we [women] endanger Islam … that’s not true. Bushara’s views are not uncommon in the Islamic sphere where, since 2003, a second wave of restructuring has begun with the emergence of women’s Islamic organizations, which aim to correct Muslims’ views and practices. The rise of these organizations followed an increased interest among female activists to voice a women’s view on Islam. But it may also be viewed as a normal process of the historical development of the public sphere and the way this development affects religious discourse and practice in particular. Bushara’s radio program gives her the opportunity to stress what she sees as a biased and groundless interpretation of Islam’s position on women’s roles and status; it gives her also the opportunity to debunk prescriptions that, according to her, have nothing to do with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. That this debate mobilizes shows in many ways that the issue is not always about knowledge and the prescriptions of the Qurʾan or the Sunna.

Religion, public space and women’s status Taking the stands they have taken is highly symbolic for both Malama Bushara and Malama Huda, who are now convinced that there will be no women’s rights without women’s voice. In its initial steps, the main issue in the democratization process in Niger revolved around the type of governance that should inspire the ongoing political reform. The challenge in this process was less political or religious pluralisms, and more the moral content of various contested notions of public life. Women’s status was one of them. Sociologically, 233

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however, the challenge translated into what kind of gender relations the process should inform, support and promote. Political and religious reform projects have often revolved around this issue making women’s status a domain of key symbolic confrontations (Alidou and Alidou, 2008; Kang, 2015; Sounaye, 2005). The cases I discussed confirm the permanence of this problematic with the specificity that, while at the beginning of the process the issue opposed those who might be called the Defenders of Islam and the Radical Secularists, now it seems that the same challenge has emerged within the Islamic sphere along gender lines. This speaks to a Nigerien society in which Muslim practices and institutions are increasingly transforming, not only in their structures, but also in ideology and sociological configurations as female actors, voices and entrepreneurs are gendering media spaces and religious institutions. Who speaks for women and how to speak for them have become central questions for Muslim leaders, but also for the broader public sphere. The creative use of media and Islam has provided women with increased visibility, and a voice and a stage where their views and social initiatives could target gender relations and therefore alter the distribution of social roles and status. In a way, this is already happening with the increasing number of women Muslim preachers who promote “conversion on screen”, to use Krings’ formula (Krings, 2008), as they become prominent religious figures and “mothers of Islam”, as an interlocutor referring to Malama Huda had it. Following this trend that brought visibility to women in the religious sphere, in Niamey alone, more than 30 women now take the stage on audiovisual media, as I have found in a recent personal count. Overall, I will remark that though seeking to popularize the Sunna, a move that is associated with Salafism, especially with the izala movement in Niger and Nigeria (Masquelier, 2009; Sounaye, 2005; Zakari, 2009), the women I have focused on in reality promote also a social reform concerned with women’s status while emphasizing their rights to assume Islamic leadership. They also seek gender equity when it comes to Islamic learning and access to the pulpit, hence the rise of the social category of the Malama, the female Muslim leader. Of course, the literature has constantly stressed the ways in which contemporary Muslim societies read their experiences and make sense of their conditions in reference to the formative era of Islam. In Niger, Malama Bushara is one of the first to draw upon this archeology of the Muslim community and what it means to Muslim women. Malama Huda resorts to the same approach to history. Thus, both actors propose new articulations of religious discourse, while they claim also new roles and spaces, a trend that is characteristic of social conditions both material and ideological, of Muslim religiosity in contemporary Niger. In fact, for these two public figures, the popularization of the Sunna, which has become their credo, should work against ahistorical and exclusive readings of the Islamic tradition, though they themselves may also promote other forms of exclusivism. In their attempt to restore an authentic interpretative framework, they challenge the established order and therefore the ideologies that have defined the role and status of women in society. Women, as they both claim, were already part of authentic Islam, so why silence that historical truth?

Conclusion The democratization of the early 1990s and the subsequent proliferation of Islamic organizations have made women’s status one of their central preoccupations. Within the Islamic 234

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sphere and because of the configuration of the organizations speaking for Islam, women hardly had the chance to take the stage and speak for themselves, even though their status and gender attributions were central to the debates in the public space. In fact, for both the secular and the Islamic civil societies, two sets of organizations that emerged within the democratization context, women’s rights and status were major concerns. A number of initiatives intended to respond to those concerns became contentious. In particular, the attributes of the Association des Femmes du Niger (AFN), the sole women’s organization through the end of one-party rule in 1989, the rejection by Islamic organizations of the Family Code project in 1993, an initiative that newly formed women’s and human rights organizations expected to provide more social space for women, but perceived as too secular, all these became subject to passionate debates among contending visions of democratization, modernity, Islam and social norms. Although many of the debates continued, a shift began at the end of 1990s with the gradual restructuring of the religious sphere and the emergence of women’s Islamic organizations. With the two figures presented here, one sees how political, religious and social reforms combine to trigger a gendering process that was unthinkable just a decade before. Democratization has provided the context for such process, media proliferation, the stage and women’s entrepreneurship the agency (Alidou, 2005; Kang, 2015; Sounaye, 2016a). That religion is gendered through platforms that rely on audiovisual media should not come as a surprise to anyone who follows politics or simply the ongoing restructuring of the public sphere and associational life in the region. In other words, to understand public religion in Niger, one has to consider the possibilities of mediation the public sphere offers to Islam and the space of discourse and practice it opens to women and more globally to segments of the society which were until recently silent or invisible. Through their media interventions, the two Muslim leaders exemplify the shifting dynamics within the religious sphere in Niger. Their positions may be ambivalent, especially if we read them through the lenses of a liberal and progressive ideology. In that sense, their theological standpoint may actually hinder the liberal and secular feminist agenda. Still, what their emergence shows is precisely how women’s agency can reconstruct the terms of public debate. They illustrate also how media have become the platform for a public debate within which religious claims have provided women with the opportunity to construct their authority against specific arrangements of gender roles and positions. Thus, what should be under consideration is not only how people put religion to work in the public arena, but also how gendered religion becomes a valid frame of reference for Islamic practice and public life. In that regard, how the active presence of the Malama affects Muslim media cultures is worth investigating. Furthermore, the examination of gender in this contribution should not overlook or silence a generational shift that is already perceptible among women preachers. While in the 1990s only a few women spoke for Islam, today a growing number of women preachers have access to TV and radio, but have also become guest speakers at conferences and seminars on various matters. This is the doing of a dynamic generation, mostly Salafi, which emerged recently, carving a socioreligious space for itself while providing a template for social action and intervention in the mediascape. This trend has made Salafi views even more normative in a country where being good Muslim through the popularization of the Sunna, especially among women, has helped engineer many communities. 235

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Notes 1 Malama Ta Ce translates in Hausa as “The [woman] scholar said”. It connotes authoritative voice, especially since only a few are expected to speak for Islam. The phrase signals a key development in public Islam in Niamey, complementing and even offering an alternative to the traditional formula, Malam Ya Ce (“The male Muslim scholar said”), to which the media are used. 2 A legal ruling based on Islamic law. Traditionally, this function is men’s preserve. A person issuing fatwa is referred to as mufti. 3 Seyni Kountché led the first military regime that ruled Niger from 1974 to 1987. His strict rule prevented the development of any organizations besides those his regime authorized. 4 Laïcité is the French version of secularism. Stricter than the American or British secularisms, it goes as far as to prohibit wearing religious signs in the public space. A legacy of the French colonial rule, in Niger laïcité is equated to an anti-religion ideology. 5 The picture can be further complicated, and thus I do not claim that these groups are homogenous. 6 She is referring here to the drought that affected Niger and part of the Sahel in 2010. 7 Aisha and Khadija were two wives of the Prophet Muhammad. Fatima was his daughter.

Further readings Hill, J., 2018. Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, Toronto, Buffalo and London. Wrapping Authority illustrates how in a particular Muslim Sufi context, women assume leadership and redraw the gender frontiers. Focusing on a group of women in Dakar, a dynamic urban area, the book works against the broad assumption that leadership in Islamic context is a male preserve. The book ethnographically shows how women shape Islamic authority. Masquelier, A., 2009. Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town, First edition. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. The overall theme of this book is resistance. Masquelier is concerned with describing and analyzing how women in a Nigerien local Muslim context build and deploy strategies in the face of Islamic reform discourses that seek to define, control and regulate both their womanhood and Muslimhood. It adds to the slim scholarly work on women’s role in the changing faces of Islam in contemporary Niger.

References Alidou, O., 2005. Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison. Alidou, O. and Alidou, H., 2008. Women, Religion, and the Discourses of Legal Ideology in Niger Republic. Afr. Today 54, 21–36. Alio, M., 2009. L’Islam et la femme dans l’espace public au Niger. Afr. Dév. XXXIV, 111–128. Augis, E., 2009. Jambaar Or Jumbax-Out? in: Diouf, M. and Leichtman, M.A. (Eds.), New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration, Wealth, Power, and Femininity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 211–233. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230618503_10 Aulette, J.R. and Wittner, J., 2014. Gendered Worlds, Third edition. Oxford University Press, New York. Bathily, A., 2009. Médias et religions en Afrique de l’Ouest. Institut Panos Afrique de l’Ouest, Dakar. Cooper, B., 1997. Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger, 1900-1989. Heinemann, Portsmouth and Oxford. Cooper, B., 2006. Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis. De Witte, M., 2003. Altar Media’s Living Word: Televised Charismatic Christianity in Ghana. J. Relig. Afr. 33, 172–202. Diouf, M., 2013. Tolerance, Democracy, and Sufis in Senegal. Columbia University Press, New York. Eisenlohr, P., 2006. As Makkah is Sweet and Beloved, So is Madina: Islam, Devotional Genres, and Electronic Mediation in Mauritius. Am. Ethnol. 33, 230–245. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2006.33.2.230 Glew, R., 1996. Islamic Associations in Niger. Islam Sociétés Au Sud Sahara 10, 187–204. Gomez-Perez, M. and Madore, F., 2013. Prêcheurs(ses) musulman(e)s et stratégies de communication au Burkina Faso depuis 1990: Des processus différentiés de conversion interne. Théologiques 21, 121. https://doi.org/10.7202/1028465ar

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Hackett, R.I.J. and Soares, B.F. (Eds.), 2015. New Media and Religious Transformations in Africa. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis. Hamani, A., 2001. Les femmes et la politique au Niger. Hill, J., 2018. Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, Toronto, Buffalo and London. Kang, A.J., 2015. Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Krings, M., 2008. Conversion on Screen: A Glimpse at Popular Islamic Imaginations in Northern Nigeria. Afr. Today 54, 45–68. Larkin, B., 2008. Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Duke University Press Books, Durham. LeBlanc, M.N. and Gosselin, L.A., 2016. Faith and Charity: Religion and Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa. Pluto Press, London. Masquelier, A., 1999. Debating Muslims, Disputed Practices: Struggles for the Realization of an Alternative Moral Order in Niger, in: Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp. 219–250. Masquelier, A., 2009. Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town, First edition. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Meyer, B., 2006. Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Meyer, B., 2015. Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana. University of California Press, Oakland. Niandou-Souley, A. and Alzouma, G., 1996. Islamic Renewal in Niger: From Monolith to Plurality. Soc. Compass 43, 249–265. https://doi.org/10.1177/003776896043002008 O’Brien, D.B.C., 2004. Symbolic Confrontations: Muslims Imagining the State in Africa. C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, London. Piot, C., 2010. Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa after the Cold War. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Savadogo, M. and Gomez-Perez, M., 2011. La médiatisation des prêches et ses enjeux. Regards croisés sur la situation à Abidjan et à Ouagadougou. ethnographiques.org. Schulz, D.E., 2011. Muslims and New Media in West Africa: Pathways to God. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Schulz, D.E., 2012. A Fractured Soundscape of the Divine: Female “Preachers”, Radio Sermons and Religious Place-Making in Urban Mali, in: Prayer in the City: The Making of Muslim Sacred Places and Urban Life. Transcript, Bielefeld, pp. 239–264. Soares, B.F. and Otayek, R., 2007. Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Sounaye, A., 2005. Les politiques de l’islam dans l’ère de la démocratisation de 1991 à 2002, in: L’islam Politique Au Sud Du Sahara, edited by Muriel Gomez-Perez. Karthala, Paris, pp. 503–525. Sounaye, A., 2009. Izala au Niger: Une alternative de communauté religieuse, in: Les Lieux de Sociabilité Urbaine Dans La Longue Durée En Afrique. L’Harmattan, Paris, pp. 481–500. Sounaye, A., 2010. Muslim Critics of Secularism: Ulama and Democratization in Niger. LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, S.l. Sounaye, A., 2011. “Go Find the Second Half of Your Faith With These Women!” Women Fashioning Islam in Contemporary Niger. Muslim World 101, 539–554. Sounaye, A., 2013. Alarama is all at once: Preacher, Media Savvy and Religious Entrepreneur. J. Afr. Cult. Stud. 25, 88–102. Sounaye, A., 2014. Mobile Sunna: Islam, small media and community in Niger. Soc. Compass 61, 21–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768613514309 Sounaye, A., 2016a. Walking to the Makaranta: Production, Circulation, and Transmission of Islamic Learning in Urban Niger, in: Islamic Education in Africa. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis and Bloomington, pp. 234–252. Sounaye, A., 2016b. Let’s Do Good for Islam: Two Muslim Entrepreneurs in Niamey, Niger, in: Cultural Entrepreneurship in Africa. Routledge, New York, pp. 37–57. Sounaye, A., 2016c. Islam et Modernité: Contribution à l’Analyse de la Ré-Islamisation au Niger. L’Harmattan, Paris. Villalón, L.A., 1996. The Moral and the Political in African Democratization: The code de la famille in Niger’s Troubled Transition. Democratization 3, 41–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510349608403466 Zakari, M., 2009. L’islam dans l’espace nigérien: Tome 2, De 1960 aux années 2000. L’Harmattan, Paris.

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PART IV

Political and religious displacements

15 GENDER, MUSLIMS, ISLAM, AND COLONIAL INDIA Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst

On September 6, 2018, the Indian Supreme Court reversed a 2013 decision on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which outlawed sexual activity ‘against the order of nature’ (Indian Penal Code Section 377) thereby decriminalizing what was, in practice, a ban on gay sex (Rajagopal, 2018). In theory, while Section 377 could be used to prosecute any sex that could be seen as ‘unnatural’, it had been predominately used to criminalize same-sex sexual activity, especially between male partners. The law dates to 1861, during British rule of India, and a particular post-Rebellion moment in which the British solidified and codified legal rule over South Asia. Celebrations across India followed and international media heralded the September 6 ruling as a victory for India’s LGBTQ+ communities (Wamsley et al., 2018). Mere weeks later, on September 27, 2018, the Indian Supreme Court similarly ruled to strike down Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, which made adultery illegal. The code, which dates to 1860, made it a crime to engage in sex with another man’s wife ‘without the consent or connivance of that man’ (Indian Penal Code, Section 497). The court noted that the ‘archaic law’ treated women like ‘chattel’, ‘a husband as the master’, and ‘does not square with constitutional morality’ (Shine v. India). While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the conservative, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) argued to alter the law to be gender-neutral – but maintain criminal ramifications for adultery – others, especially those in the more leftist Congress Party, heralded this as a win for women in India. Two rulings in one month may seem like a fluke, but this Court had also weighed in on another law codified during British Rule a year prior: the so-called ‘instant divorce’ for Muslim men, otherwise known as ‘triple talaq’ (Neuman and Domonoske, 2017). As of August 22, 2017, the ability for a Muslim man to declare ‘talaq’ (lit., ‘repudiation’) thrice and thus legally divorce his wife was rendered illegal. Until then, the practice was allowed under the auspices and continuance of the colonial era Muslim Personal Law Application Act, enacted in 1937, which itself was a replacement for the so-called Anglo-Muhammadan Law that allowed Muslim law to govern personal matters after 1860. Writing in 2017, the Indian Supreme Court found that the application of ‘triple talaq’ violated the Indian Constitution on the grounds that it violated Article 14, equality before the law (Shayara Bano and others v. India and others).

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Each of these laws stemmed from colonial ideas about gender – and religion. That each of these laws have been considered and reconsidered so recently prove, as well, that the colonial era lives on. Its impacts have been literal, as in the continuation of the Penal Code, an 1860 document that remains more or less intact as enforceable law, and against which activists of varying political leanings, backgrounds, and identities must argue. Its impacts have been figurative, as well: what might it mean to imagine citizenship and national identity in a context in which some religious actors have provisions that accommodate religious law? Would that herald a polyvocal, multireligious landscape, where citizens have access to religious freedom? Would that herald a set of secular laws as opposed to religious laws and a system that valued secular or religious differently? Or perhaps would that encourage an imagination of constitutionally defined citizens, for whom all the rules applied, and a group of Others? These colonial and post-colonial legal structures uniquely position Muslims. British insistence upon fundamental differences between religious subjects reified boundaries between religions and marked Muslims as separate. Muslim Personal Law exemplifies this dynamic and is significant for questions of gender – a point I develop further below in terms of marriage and divorce. Colonial laws continue to impact Muslims whenever Muslim Personal Law, as a religious rather than secular law, is credited (or blamed) for establishing Muslims’ right to oversee familial decisions. Some Muslims have found these legal structures to be protective and others discriminatory. This short chapter cannot possibly shed adequate light on all the nuances, effects, and debates of Muslim Personal Law. Nor can it adequately survey the asymmetrical way in which other laws and rulings are or have been applied to Muslims. Yet it is deeply important to underscore from the start that colonial legal distinctions continue to inform Indian laws. As part of the secular state’s delineation of religious law, these legal distinctions single out Muslims and prescribe normative gender ideologies. 2017 and 2018 were big years for colonial rule in India and they affected Muslims in gendered and specific ways. Thus, any reading of contemporary India is incomplete without a direct confrontation of colonial legacies; these are alive and well, palpable iterations of British rule. This chapter assumes that we care about how gender and Islam were constituted in the colonial period precisely because its effects linger into the postcolonial period. The Indian Penal Code, as mentioned above, is but one example of how colonial ideas and laws continue to impact Indians today: the Penal Code stands as law, edited and adapted of course, but law nevertheless. Muslim Personal law, too, is an adapted and extant legacy of the colonial period. These legacies are not merely sociocultural that say nothing of how vital mores, rhetoric, or attitudes shape gender or religious constructs. This chapter seeks to elucidate the ways in which gender in colonial India was mediated for Muslims. I purposefully examine avenues that resonate beyond the colonial period for two reasons: first, there is no shortage of these historic-and-yet-contemporary examples; second, far too often I am asked what the value of studying colonialism might be – by students, by colleagues, by folks trying to make sense of what professors actually do, by well-meaning but grossly misinformed people who want ‘colonialism’ to be encased in monument and history texts – so demonstrating its ongoing effect is crucial. Gendered definitions, especially those codified in both de jure and de facto ways, are not easily boxed into ascribed historical eras. Colonial definitions of gender, in other words, did not disappear after August 15 and 16, 1947, the official dates that contemporary India and Pakistan were granted independence from Britain; nor did Bangladesh’s independence some 25 years later shatter the colonial strongholds preserved in law. Gender – as others in this volume have already mentioned – is as fluid as its definitions are varied. But in colonial South Asia, gender was typically mediated through an 242

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understanding of a biological binary where one’s genitalia determined one’s identity as either ‘man’ or ‘woman’, and in turn, these identities were understood vis-à-vis essentialist qualities that dictated proper behavior, social mores and norms, and official conceptualization. For example, understanding men as persons with penises and thus inherently sexual beings that require physical satisfaction allowed for the East India Trading Company to sanction the use of sex laborers for its military regimens – even as the Company and Empire fretted about sexually transmitted infections. Men were afforded sexual satisfaction as a natural and important element of their gender, but women, per the Contagious Disease Acts (CDA) of the mid-19th century, were simultaneously understood as the bodies that could satisfy needs but that ultimately were the repositories of infection based upon their (assumed) possession of vaginas. The CDA registered women as sex workers, demanded their submission to (invasive) medical examination, and held them uniquely culpable for venereal diseases (Pivar, 1981). The conceptualization of gender, sex, and sexuality in this instance shaped legal categories, health policies, and more theoretical notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sexual practice (Jung, Hunt, and Balakrishnan, 2005). Similarly, as mentioned above, a conceptualization of a woman as the domain of her legal partner allowed for the adultery laws that place criminal sanction upon the man involved in adultery – because he, presumably, engaged in theft. In both of these examples, assumptions about gender – men’s sexuality is unfettered and inconsequential, unless it is with another man’s legal wife – influence official policies about men and women’s bodies, freedoms, and responsibilities. Gender affects anyone with a body, even if gendered legal practices have historically negatively impacted women and non-conforming men. Some of the below focuses exclusively on women, which is not to suggest a formula in which gender = women. Rather, the gendered nature of power means that men, ensconced in a patriarchal system, have obfuscated their gender in terms of neutrality while simultaneously highlighting the gender of women through institutional structures, like (but obviously not limited to) law. There is much that could be said about colonial iterations of gender: how can we compare definitions of masculinity assigned to differing religious groups? What are we to make of the role of white women in the subjugation of brown men? How can we account for liberatory movements aimed at colonized Indian women while Britain enforced patriarchal and anti-women laws at home? What roles did traditional authorities within religious groups play in mediating colonial regulations that dealt with or defined gender? These questions could be endless. This chapter cannot! So, instead, it is primarily about how gender is written upon the bodies of Muslims in colonial India and what that meant – or might still mean. To get at this matrix of religion, politics, and gender, I will first provide a short overview of British history in India as it relates to these issues. Then I will discuss two cases in which gender and Islam were obviously implicated in and impacted by colonial practices. These are the Contagious Diseases Act and triple talaq law, since both of these was a major set of laws and regulations that asymmetrically impacted men and women, defined gender roles, and assumed religious belonging as a key element of people’s lives.

(Gendered) historical overview: the Charter Act of 1813, the Great Rebellion of 1857, and the Indian Penal Code of 1860 Condensing a few centuries of history into a section of a short chapter is neither for the faint of heart nor should be considered anything but superficial. Yet in order to understand the depth of impact made by British colonial laws upon South Asians and, for our purposes, 243

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South Asian Muslims, I ought not assume the reader has familiarity with this history. The most simplified overview is this: as part of a global set of economic, social, religious, gendered, and racialized ideals, norms, and practices, European empires seized territory across the world, largely to extract resources, expand influence, and dominate non-white populations. This was done under many guises: Christian missionizing and soul-saving; civilizational progress; paternalism; tropes of war and conquest; tropes of racial, ethnic, and religious superiority. British India was no different: justified in different ways over its long history, colonial and imperial practices changed but always reflected an understanding that Indians were essentially religious, were incapable of self-rule (i.e., demanded the outside, paternalistic rule of Britons), and that that religio-racial difference from Britons as well as each other fundamentally indicated a difference in humanity. The 19th century typically marks the time of major, formalized control of South Asia, despite British presence in India as far back as the 17th century, and even though other European colonizers laid claims physically to land as well as enacted economic influence from near and far. This is because of three specific 19th-century moments: the first is decidedly less exciting and has to do with a legal shift in the East India Company’s rule of India; the second is the often-sensationalized Great Rebellion of 1857; the last is the passing and implementation of the Indian Penal Code. Taken together, however, these three moments point toward how the British ruled first their colonies from the metropole and later their empire on the ground. Furthermore, it is important to note that I am arguing that of the three major contexts one needs to understand gender, religion, Islam, and colonial India, two of them are institutional paradigms that enacted epistemological change and violence. Of the very many sites of physical, racialized, gendered, and religiously identified violences of empire in South Asia, it is my sense that these two sets of legal frameworks, and a failed Rebellion that finalized the transition from Mughal to British rule, did the most work in reframing our subject. These events merit brief overview so that we can then parse the role of gender and Islam, within this imperial structure – as in the cases we will examine, how gender and religion became enforced, legally, for Muslims under British rule. Chartered in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I, the East India Company (EIC) has both a famed and infamous history. Its presence in South Asia, among other places, marks a colonial project rooted in the extraction of resources – in this case, typically goods for sale, cheap and sometimes indentured or enslaved labor, and the control of ports (to yield control of the land as well as taxation on others). The EIC was originally a joint-stock trading company and was established through parliamentary and royal order to solidify Britain’s financial and political holdings in Asia. It was not necessarily conceived of as a religious force for native peoples; in fact, early on in its history, many EIC officials and policies reflected an understanding that to meddle in the religious affairs of Indians – perhaps especially Muslims – would be bad for business (Powell, 1993).1 Instead of functioning as a missionary arm of empire, the EIC, from its founding on, functioned as a company-state, establishing not only trade routes, partners, and products, but also functional and selfsufficient governmental apparatuses, like tax collection, armies, and other civic institutions (Stern, 2012). Our first major historical shift occurred in 1813, when Parliament passed the Charter Act, and this formally and fundamentally altered the EIC’s and the Crown’s relationship to South Asia. The Charter Act expressly established the Crown’s sovereignty over India and, significantly, ended the East India Company’s monopoly on trade.2 It also ushered in a period in which missionaries were allowed to do their work formally and with permission, and indeed under the guise, of Britain. 244

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This Charter Act sets up the legal framework in which India came to be ruled and religion was a major component of the debates about the Act. Namely, Islam and Muslims were a major concern for British officials and lawmakers. Would increasing the power of the Crown over South Asia cause a religious war? Would missionaries force a violent reaction from Muslims, a feared demographic minority but the extant, if waning, ruling powers? Already present in these questions is a notable, gendered assumption: Muslims were assumed to be violent zealots, unable to control their anger once affronted. This is an ascription of hyper-masculinity – vicious, frenzied, and dangerous. This dangerous, imagined Muslim man needed controlling. After the Charter Act, the East India Company established laws that specifically targeted Islam based on these gendered notions, despite its long-standing policies of staying out of religion. While change was slow, we see an increase of debates, attempts at legal regulation (as in the proposal of statutes that addressed religion and specifically Islam), and the occasional passing of those laws. For example, the Charter Act paved the way for mission schools, which later would be named as a way to ameliorate Islam’s zealotry and violent influence in India: if their children were educated by Christian Britons, Muslims would cease to be as Muslim, and thus be less of a threat (Hunter, 1872). As but one other example of the effects of the Charter Act, by 1830, laws set by Mughal rulers and other, local ruling elites on the basis of shariʿa (an idealized Islamic law3) and fiqh (jurisprudence) had already seen formalized and significant changes. Some of these changes were cast in specifically gendered terms (as in re-educating Muslim boys, imagined within a framework of eventual hyper-masculinity, to be less fanatical), while other laws were inspired by gendered ideas of appropriate masculinity as protective of women, in particular Muslim women (as in the Shariat Act, which will be discussed below). This was a source of pride for many. Courteney Smith, a British attorney, testified that ‘Mohamedan criminal law has, to a great extent, been altered by the Regulations [of the East India Company]’ (Minutes of Evidence, 1830). He stated that these laws had been modified, citing that Mutilation has been put an end to, and some rules of evidence have been modified; the rule about female evidence has been modified. The Mohamedan law of evidence requires two women for one man; but according to our practice, a woman is thought as good as a man for a witness. (Minutes of Evidence, 1830) As early as 1830, we see Britons making alterations in British criminal courts that are meant to correct Mughal law’s Muslim influences in the name of ‘correct’ practices. This fits well within the imperial project of ‘saving’ Muslim women from Muslim men (Abu-Lughod, 2015). In Smith’s comment, he articulated how the British criminal system purports to elevate women to equal standing, and offers us a look at the double-gendering of Muslims. Muslim women are portrayed as needing saving from Muslim men, who are boorish and inherently unjust. Muslims emerge both as feminized objects that require male protection as well as inherently domineering and unreasonable, traits associated with uncontrolled masculinity. Where the Charter Act of 1813 sets up a legal landscape in which to redefine gender and religion, the Great Rebellion of 1857–1858 rewrites the legal standing of India vis-à-vis its colonizers. I could write a lot about the deployment of gender during the Rebellion, but this is outside the purview of this short chapter.4 For our purposes, what matters about the 245

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Rebellion is that it formalized British rule in India in unprecedented ways. The failed Rebellion established Queen Victoria as the Empress of India. It eliminated any official remnants of Mughal rule, however impotent they may have been by the mid-19th century. It also rewrote and entrenched racialized definitions of Muslims (Morgenstein Fuerst, 2017). Importantly, after the Rebellion Britain asserted its dominance over South Asia through courts and with the impositions of laws. Often, these were scripted with notions of inherent racialized and gendered differences between Hindus and Muslims in mind. For example, after the Rebellion, Muslims were barred from re-entering Delhi for far longer than Hindus, owing to racialized understandings of responsibility for the revolts, allegiances to the former rulers, and propensity for future violence based, in part, on notions of Muslims as hyper-masculine and bloodthirsty and Hindus as effeminate and passive (Morgenstein Fuerst, 2017). In 1860 – mere months after revolutionary fighting stopped in some regions – British officials passed the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In short, the Indian Penal Code continues to do work on Indian citizens, 70-plus years after India and Pakistan became their own nationstates, with the ability to (re)write their laws. As we saw in the contemporary Supreme Court rulings above and will see again below, the IPC dictates quite a lot of law, policy, and legal thinking in India today. Despite, perhaps, our progressivist inclination to see 1860 as a distant, immaterial historical moment, it would be ridiculous to suggest that this constellation of mid-19th century laws is irrelevant, antiquated, or a mere relic of colonialism – they are living remnants of British rule, British notions of religion and gender, colonial artefacts that have pressing and meaningful impacts on how bodies are governed. The IPC, like the Charter Act of 1813, demonstrates how institutional shifts have done and continue to do real, epistemological work – violence, often – on South Asians. I cannot overstate how important this is: while I am setting up an historical context so that readers can follow how and why the case studies could exist, the reality is far more complicated, because even if individual laws are struck down, legal frameworks persist. In the so-called triple talaq case, for example, contemporary Muslim women were forced to navigate the ways that British imperial authorities interpreted and sought to appease particular Muslim authorities, where such appeasement was cast through lenses of gender, race, and religion. Agency, subjectivity, self-articulated definitional schemes, notions of freedom, equity, or independence – all of these have to be negotiated through colonial and imperial precedent, lenses, ideas in addition to postcolonial iterations of law and legal reasoning and assumptions about gender, race, caste, ethnicity, and, of course, religion. The IPC has its own fairly complicated history, of course. Originally drafted in 1834 by the First Law Commission and revised multiple times thereafter, it finally passed in 1860 and was implemented across India in 1862, though India’s princely states – where nominal local rulership was maintained – had varied relationships to it (Patra, 1961). The IPC addresses many types of issues: crimes against persons, crimes related to marriage, property, religion, armed forces, defamation, and more. Today, it includes many sorts of definitions that are relevant to our study: ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘gender’, and ‘person’ are each simplistically defined with reference to biological sex. The masculine pronoun ‘he’ is used to refer to any person, and ‘male persons’ and ‘female persons’ are the definitions offered for ‘men’ and ‘women’, for example (Indian Penal Code II.8).5 While the IPC defined its terms within British worldviews with some intersection with elite Indians (Sankaran, 2008), its original authors took seriously – as many colonial officials did – the boundaries of religious sentiment and law, especially perhaps those of Muslims. As such, the IPC created space for religious

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freedom, as evidenced by clauses and sections that are meant to protect an individual’s and a group’s religious practices (Indian Penal Code, XV). The goal of the IPC – and why I suggest it as a third, necessary part of the gendered history of British India – was to create a unified set of standards for criminal offenses across India. The unification and imagination of India as a cogent whole that ought to agree on what offenses were criminal and how criminals ought to be punished is a crucial element of colonialization and imperialism. The IPC thus also demonstrates how formalizing laws during imperial rule eliminates local, regional, and (in this case) non-British conceptualizations of crime and proper punishment. In other words, the IPC tells us two things about the institutionalization of imperial law. First, it defines proper action and seeks to implement those definitions across regional, linguistic, religious, ethnic, and racial boundaries. Second, it ensconces those definitions within a system that becomes hegemonic – to change those definitions requires acting within the system itself. This system enshrined perceived, imposed, and functional gendered definitions in India. Britain enacted imperialism in South Asia through economic, social, political, militaristic, and legal order. The Charter Act of 1813, the 1857 Rebellion, and the passing and implementation of the Indian Penal Code are all major historical events; they are also gendered events that both solidified and created notions of the correct definition, practice, and performance of gender. These often presumed toxic masculinity as an inherent trait of Muslim men; it assumed that practices of veiling and seclusion (purdah) spoke to Muslim women’s sexual appetites and again demonstrated the virulence of Muslim men. British rule developed over time, paid attention to religion and Islam differently in different eras, inscribed gender as part of its policies and laws. The legacies of these de jure and de facto regulations, norms, and mores, then, are not merely a subject for history buffs looking to demonstrate game-show mastery of factual tidbit. British rule and its institutions are part of lived reality for Indians, seven decades and counting after its demise. In the next two sections, I discuss particular examples of British imperialism and legal structures in India and its effects upon gender, Islam, and Muslims.

Contagious Diseases Acts, gender, and Islam The Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA) were a set of four laws passed between 1864 and 1869 and aimed to limit the spread and prevalence of venereal disease (what we now term sexually transmitted infections) among the British armed services. CDA, to be clear, did not target Muslims specifically, though they did have unintentional ramifications within the realm of religious identity and definition. What makes the CDA compelling as a case study is how their implementation (1) demonstrates inherent gendered assumptions about bodies, their uses, their needs, and their capabilities; (2) demonstrates how rules and regulations thought to be universal often reverberated within racialized religious communities; (3) demonstrates how imperial rules and definitions come to influence globalized imperial subjects. In this section, I explore the CDA and their relationship to gender and Islam. In so doing, I hope to shed light on the ways in which colonial law influenced religious identity even when ‘religion’ wasn’t a focus. The CDA gave police officers the authority to arrest any woman they deemed a prostitute. Interestingly enough, in a system obsessed with categorization, ‘prostitute’ was never explicitly defined. But such a glaring lack, as scholar Phillipa Levine succinctly put it, ‘in no way inhibited either the passing of laws or the issuing of regulations designed to control the lives of those engaged in this seemingly undefinable pursuit’ (Levine, 2003: 188). 247

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Once arrested, the accused woman would be brought before a magistrate. Should he agree with the officer’s assertion, he would then order the woman to register as a prostitute and undergo a medical examination, the purpose of which was to ascertain whether or not she had a sexually transmitted infection. If she indeed had a visible infection, she was typically sent to a hospital (where she could be detained for three months or more at doctors’ discretion). Refusing the invasive medical exam or refusing to go to the hospital of her own accord could lead to imprisonment, hard labor, or both (Hamilton, 1978; Report of the Royal Commission, 1871). The CDA came into existence for a number of reasons, but primary among them was the concern about a healthy army and navy. There is a bit of an inherent and classic gendered paradox at play: British officers, stationed in large garrisons and cantonments, were thought to need sex in order to be productive, healthy men; Indian women, while simultaneously ensuring those health needs were met, were at the same time risking the health and wellbeing of Britons because of their uncleanliness, disease, and impurity. The high rates of what the British Empire termed venereal disease made health – reliant upon sex and vulnerable to it – a key note of import, management, and control. The CDA are therefore also directly linked to British classificatory and criminal systems, wherein power stems from and insists upon – as many other scholars have proven – definitions to assert dominance (Cohn, 1996; Gottschalk, 2013). Historian Ann Stoler insists that studies of colonialism, classification, and power attend to how gender and sexuality were a central place where colonized peoples were managed (Stoler, 2002). Prostitution, at once defined as a moral and social problem, became a place of management within racialized, gendered systems of colonial control; the CDA are but one place to explore this control. In British India, as elsewhere, notions of cleanliness and hygiene were tied to ideals of femininity; at the same time, notions of scientific racism that dwelt upon the purity of whiteness and the dirtiness of blackness supported notions of how prostitution, sexually transmitted infection, and unsanitary conditions were tied to racialized identities. In India, as elsewhere, racialization was never so simple as colorism, as it assumed caste, religion, ethnicity, language, and, yes, skin color (Morgenstein Fuerst, 2017). Despite or perhaps because ‘prostitute’ had no specific definition, it became more than just a subject of concern for colonial officials – it became a subject of study. As colonial officials tried to understand the sex trade and sexuality writ large, they documented everything. Levine argued: They counted, enumerated, and categorized, producing estimates of how many women worked in prostitution, of how many willingly registered as such, of how many presented symptoms of disease. They logged appearance, race and nationality, and religion. (Levine, 2003: xxiii) She continued: ‘British officials elusively sought knowledge of indigenous sexual conditions, but in the process actively created indigenous sexual identities’ (Levine, 2003: xxiii). These identities, I suggest, are rooted to notions of ethno-religious, racialized religious identities: ‘Hindu’ was, after all, a different category than ‘Muslim’, and in gendered, sexualized identities, these primary divisions remain. The CDA highlight a process of colonial governmentality that stresses definitions, classifiable difference, and consequences. Women were cast inherently as carriers of disease and able to ‘fall’ – as in the rhetoric of the ‘fallen woman’ – from states of (relative) purity, 248

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cleanliness, and correct performance of sex, gender, and sexuality (Braun, 2015). Racialized subjects, too, were uniquely culpable for lack of hygiene owing to their classifiable differences and were suspect bodies precisely because of their susceptibility for contagion. The CDA, in part, reflect prevailing understandings of science and science’s inherent racisms: ideas about the transmitability of both venereal diseases and race cannot be separated. It is well documented that racialized characteristics defined against a perceived notion of ‘pure’ whiteness was a significant concern in colonial contexts globally – as but one example, whole terminologies were developed to reflect so-called mixed-race offspring of multiracial sexual partnerships. Here, too, the CDA draw upon ideas that are, at once, entrenched and unfolding: racialized stereotypes about the unfettered, oversexualized, undomesticated woman inform the writing and application of these Acts, meant to control aberrant sexuality of an aberrant population (Levine, 2003). Adding further layers to racialized assumptions, Muslim women were thought to be distinctively at risk for maltreatment by their fanatic husbands, fathers, and brothers. Additionally, Muslim women were understood as forcibly cloistered and hyper-sexualized within the contradictory notions of Orientalist fantasy. In India, many colonial officials were concerned with purdah, gender separation and female seclusion, and its related notion, the harem, either a space that allowed women to observe purdah or the women (wives, concubines, servants) in purdah themselves. In and even beyond India, in British cultural and literary production, the harem took on a life of its own (Paxton, 1999). The existence of harems in Mughal India sparked the interest – salacious sometimes, disgusted other times – of Britons, and helped to solidify notions of Muslim male and female sexuality that was, rather simply, imagined as inappropriate. It also speaks to the ways in which sexuality, sex outside of (appropriately defined) marriage, and gender intersect with notions of racialized religion. In short, Muslim women were understood to be susceptible to the control of hyper-sexual Muslim men, a sexual appetite that was inappropriately gendered (i.e., too much and thus lacking in femininity), and – relevant to the CDA – predisposed to transmitting disease. Hindu women, as a majority population, were charged and registered under the CDA at proportionally higher rates than Muslims. The Contagious Diseases Acts did not directly reference Islam or Muslims. In fact, they did not directly reference any particular race, caste, or religion. Yet, in their application, colonial officials scrutinized prostitutes for precisely these categories of identification. They tallied the ways in which, against the whiteness of the soldiers the CDA in India were meant to protect, these sexualized bodies were liabilities to empire. Supposedly helpless women – regardless of race, religion, and caste – were also responsible for their own ‘fallen’ natures but the potential felling of an army. Thus, the CDA demonstrate how even when religion is not expressly mentioned, targeted, or perhaps even considered, notions of religion loom in expectations of how religiously identified persons act. Muslim men were gendered as problematically sexual, troublingly controlling of ‘their’ women; Muslim women were imagined as in need of protection from ‘their’ men and, at the same time, seen within a framework of sexualized seclusion and harem culture. In policing and criminalizing women involved in the sex trade, notions of religion inevitably came to inform its application. Unlike the CDA, however, some colonial-era legal institutions were directly written with Islam and Muslims in mind.

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Triple talaq: multiple gendered stereotypes, multiple political ramifications In 2017, the Indian Supreme Court ruled on the so-called ‘triple talaq’ case, ultimately striking it down. The Court said in its ruling that triple talaq ‘is not integral to religious practice and violates constitutional morality’ and is ‘not part of Islam’ (Supreme Court Judgment, ‘Triple Talaq’, 2017). The Supreme Court effectively decided what was appropriately religious – which perhaps strikes some as an unexpected role to play by a supposedly secular national court. Yet, the Court, in determining what was civilly appropriate and reasonably religious, stood in a long line of religiously inflected and religiously aimed laws, policies, and court decisions. As we saw above, the IPC defined religion; the CPA did not define religion but traded on notion of race, religion, ethnicity, caste, and gender as part of a health campaign. Both of these examples led to the criminalization of bodies, wherein having a particular sort of body assumed certain behaviors, predilections, and criminal possibilities. Beyond criminal examples, however, laws and policies defined religious practice and enshrined particular religious ideas (as well as ideologies). The 2017 triple talaq case demonstrates this fact: Muslim divorces are adjudicated by the state, and as such, ‘proper Islam’ effectively becomes part of the state’s jurisdiction. The laws governing who had access to what kinds of marriages and divorces stem, of course, from the colonial period and, as they deal with matters usually relegated to the home and family, disproportionately affect women. They are, to put it simply, deeply gendered on top of being deeply politicized. Under the Mughal Empire (r. 1526–1858), Muslims could expect religious definitions to be upheld; there is much debate about the degree and kind of religiosity the Mughal Empire expressed, who had access to these religious frameworks, and how much authority – religious or imperial – really came to impact the lives of so-called average Muslims. It is not the purview of this chapter to examine how gender, law, and religion were crafted under the Mughals – the rule by Muslims does not equate to Muslim rule, nor does Muslim rule inherently translate to Islamic theocracy, nor would Islamic theocracy mean one, identifiable set of laws, policies, or ideals. Further, Mughal-era legal frameworks were different in meaningful ways from those that followed under the British. Notably, the major difference lies in the modern understanding of ‘nation’, wherein a particular geographic space would be simultaneously static and subject to one, overarching legal system. That said, British understandings of Islam fundamentally affected how colonial legal systems treated Muslims. The rule of law and Muslims’ inherent status as beholden to it is one of the most striking British (and, more broadly, European) assumptions about Islam. There were many consequences for this type of thinking. Many colonial-era interlocutors wrote about Islamic law as if it would neatly predict Muslim behavior in real time – shariʿa became a roadmap of sorts for the British, a singular thing to be studied so as to strategically manage an unruly segment of the population. Relatedly, many fixated on how British rule in India would or could transgress Islamic law, making religiously inspired war (jihad) mandatory for all Muslims within South Asia. The ability for Muslims to practice religion freely – but not so freely that jihad could or would be waged against the British – was a crucial line in early British colonization through the early 20th century. And, as the 19th century closed and the 20th began, the British built upon notions of what we might now call religious freedom in their imperialized landscapes. Taken together, British definitions of Islam as essentially lawbased and a desire to ensure religious freedom as part of colonial processes of control created institutional possibility for legislating religions. 250

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The East India Trading Company’s policies in the 18th century toward religion were rather laissez-faire. Generally speaking, the Company wanted no part in meddling with Hindu or Muslim religious affairs and had informal and formal policies demanding that religious authorities settle religious matters. This is most evident in Regulation 11 of 1772, in which Hindus and Muslims were both afforded the rights to their texts and their texts were assigned primary positions. For Hindus, the śastras, and for Muslims, the Qurʾan became the only way to arbitrate in issues of ‘inheritance, succession, marriage and caste and other religious usages or institutions’ (Rocher and Davis, 2014: 103).6 In 1822, the Privy Council, effectively defining Sunni and Shiʿa as legally distinct, afforded Shiʿa Muslims the right to their own laws, as well. These two pre-Rebellion laws affected personal spheres as well as criminal and, importantly, set the tone for later imperial laws and policies. Under British rule, in two phases, and after Independence under Indian Constitutional Law, Muslim religious law was protected and enshrined in imperial/state law. In 1937, the Shariat Act delineated two primary things: first, that ‘Muslims’ were subject to this act; and second, the host of issues to be governed by the act. Simple enough, on the surface. ‘Muslim’ is not defined, and perhaps suggests an ongoing concern to prioritize customary and cultural practice. The Shariat Act of 1937 covered issues of inheritance (unrepresented succession, special property, women, and gifts), issues of marriage (including marriage itself, various ways divorce may occur, dower, guardianship, and maintenance), and financial issues (like trusts). Interestingly, the Shariat Act excludes agricultural land and charities (waqf), both of which were seen as having import religiously, but ultimately the state’s interests superseded those religious concerns. In 1939, responding in part to Muslim critique of the Shariat Act, the British passed the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act. The purpose of this Act was to expressly state the ways and reasons that a wife may legally seek and obtain a divorce from her husband. The rationale includes an explanation that assumes Islamic jurisprudential logic: because the major schools of Sunni law differed in how a woman might obtain a divorce, the British law needed to be broader in order to accommodate all possibilities of Muslim expression. This Act only affects the dissolution of marriage when sought by a woman. It is inherently gendered and it demonstrates, too, the ways in which the Shariat Act was gendered: a correction would have been unnecessary should the law have been ‘neutral’. The practice of triple talaq itself is hotly debated. Many ascribe it to a particular set of circumstances, as it is located within South Asian, Sunni communities who largely follow the Hanafi maddhab or legal school: it is religiously binding in this community but also the extant nation-state legal institutions foster its practice. Scholars of Islamic law point out that all four major Sunni schools agree that the practice is ‘not permissible’ but that the effect of triple talaq is ‘binding in law’ (Munir, 2013). This may seem confusing: how can something ‘not permissible’ also be legally binding? The nuance of how fiqh functions – how something undesirable can still yield consequences – is not necessarily the topic here. But it is important to remember what this might tell us about the application of religious law to secular law, that is both stable and heavily disputed. The practice of triple talaq is also hard to track in terms of prevalence and influence. As legal historian Mitra Sharafi has argued, most studies of colonial law only discuss a law’s enactment, not how it was enforced or adjudicated. On the topic of triple talaq, she argues that British officials may have mediated the effects of talaq by imposing a notion of chivalry, undermining Muslim husbands’ ability to unilaterally and inconsequentially to divorce (Sharafi, 2009). Other colonial law experts have suggested, however, that the enforcement of triple talaq directly upheld religious and secular, Muslim and British patriarchal structures. 251

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For example, Michael Anderson argued that ‘most Muslim wives were formally subject to the husband’s power to invoke a unilateral talaq’ (Anderson, 1993: 93). We know, in other words, that triple talaq was practiced and, sometimes, found its way to court settings beyond just having been decreed law. We also know that Muslim women distinctively bore the brunt of the law that was written about them but not for them. Whether to solidify paternalistic, patriarchal notions of appropriate gender roles or to appease Muslim elites and orthodoxies, British officials and, later, Indian lawmakers, nearly all of whom were non-Muslim men, wrote and rewrote policies that affected Muslim women. The issue of triple talaq rose to recent prominence, in many ways, because of Shah Bano. Her case highlights the complex landscapes of religion, gender, and national politics in India. She was divorced via triple talaq in 1978 and subsequently sued for alimony via criminal law in 1985. Initially, the Court sided with her and demanded that she be given alimony; this ruling angered Muslim orthodoxies, who claimed that this violated Islamic law. The Congress government hastily passed Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 that only entitled women to alimony for a specific period (iddat). Social justice advocates of many stripes – Muslim, secular, feminist, opposition parties to Congress – argued that this unjustly denied Muslim women the alimony legally entitled to non-Muslim women. The case, which became part of the 2017 suit that ultimately wrote the law off the books, highlights the resonances of colonial-era definitions of legal gender and sex: the cases build upon colonial-era law. As part of the logic of Muslim Personal Law, which traced its practice to the East India Company’s policy and to colonial practices of ruling religious minorities, Muslim rules about divorce remained civic concerns until very recently. Muslim Personal Law and its related constellation of legal institutions have a long history rooted in British ideas that Muslims were (1) inherently litigious; (2) uniquely susceptible to rebellion; and (3) required concessions of their own laws in some matters in order to prevent discord in others. For Muslims, this meant a variety of issues became fodder for legal inquiry, subject of policy, part of parliamentary debate, and, of course, written into civil and criminal codes.7 It also meant that British officials were keen to ‘protect’ Muslims’ ability to govern their lives according to what they (and many elite Muslims, in particular) saw as religious concerns to be dealt with by the community. Notably, these issues include issues of family: marriage, inheritance, divorce, and their related issues, like alimony, custody, and dowry. In short, these issues largely affected the gendered space of a family.

Conclusion Colonialism casts a long, dark shadow. There is little that colonial rule did not affect, including gender and religion. In many ways, colonial and imperial practices function circularly: expectations about the colonized shaped the colonizer’s policy; in turn, those policies set parameters for actions, created the possibilities for being, acting, and reacting. For Muslims, colonialism crafted legal, institutional, and juridical definitions about proper practice, gender roles, and normative relationships. Colonialism also substantiated and solidified those practices, roles, and relationships. Muslims were impacted because they were Muslim: Muslim Personal Law, the Shariat Act, and Dissolution of Marriage Act are colonial-era policies that defined how the law would see, treat, and adjudicate matters related to Islam and families. Muslims were impacted because they were imperial subjects: the Contagious Diseases Acts, the Indian Penal 252

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Code, and the bans on homosexual sex defined who was criminally unhealthy, criminally liable, criminally sexually deviant. In each of these categories – the ones that directly name Islam or Muslims and the ones that do not – gender, too, is mediated through colonial practices, specifically law. How Muslim women may get divorced, to what they are entitled by state law thereafter, what kinds of sexual behaviors Muslim women and men could engage in – all of these were reified by colonial (and later, Indian) law. Colonial definitions were, of course, political. Labeling Muslim men hyper-sexual or hyper-masculine and imagining Muslim women as paradoxically hyper-sexual and yet utterly in need of male protection has lasting effect. In 2017, when triple talaq was overturned, many did not see this as a simple victory for women’s rights or Muslim equity. In fact, scholars and activists alike called attention to the ways in which an energized and powerful Hindu right urged for changes to Muslim marriage specifically in terms of protection. Some suggest that leaders of India’s BJP pushed for Muslim women’s equity in the form of triple talaq’s overturn because of the ways it supports anti-Muslim stereotypes – the capriciousness and cruelty of Muslim men, for example (Agnes, 2018; Sur, 2018). Gendered definitions, like colonial legacies, have mattered to religion and their impact lingers.

Notes 1 Cf. Avril A. Powell, Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-mutiny India. London Studies on South Asia; No. 7 (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1993). 2 The practical effects of the Charter Act were manifold, and included the increased presence of Britons in South Asia; an increased imperial presence, especially with regard to judiciary concerns; formal permission for British, Christian missionaries to work in South Asia; and funds reserved for the education of Indians. See, as examples: The Law Relating to India, and the East-India Company; with Notes and an Appendix. 2nd ed. (London: W. H. Allen, 1841); Anthony Webster, ‘The Strategies and Limits of Gentlemanly Capitalism: The London East India Agency Houses, Provincial Commercial Interests, and the Evolution of British Economic Policy in South and South East Asia 1800–50,’ Economic History Review 59, no. 4 (2006): 743–64; and Nancy Gardner Cassels, Social Legislation of the East India Company: Public Justice versus Public Instruction (New Delhi and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010). 3 While shariʿa has made it into contemporary parlance as ‘Islamic law’, it does not neatly line up with state-based conceptions of law, an immobile cannon, or one unique thing. See Marion Katz, ‘Pragmatic Rule and Personal Sanctification in Islamic Legal Theory,’ in Law and the Sacred, Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas and Martha Merrill Umphrey, ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 91. Cf. Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 167–177 and Carl W. Ernst, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 104. 4 For relevant work on the Great Rebellion and gender, especially women’s roles in it and effects for women, see: Aarti Johri, ‘The Indomitable Begum Hazrat Mahal 1820–1879’, India Currents 30, no. 3 (2016): 40–41; Seema Alavi, ‘“Fugitive Mullahs and Outlawed Fanatics”: Indian Muslims in nineteenth Century Trans-Asiatic Imperial Rivalries,’ Modern Asian Studies 45, no. 6 (2011): 1337–1382; Penelope Tuson, ‘Mutiny Narratives and the Imperial Feminine: European Women’s Accounts of the Rebellion in India in 1857,’ Women’s Studies International Forum 21, no. 3 (1998): 291–303; Joyce Lebra, The Rani of Jhansi: A Study in Female Heroism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986); Harleen Singh, The Rani of Jhansi: Gender, History, and Fable in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 5 Indian Penal Code, II.8 ‘Gender’ is defined as: ‘The pronoun “he” and its derivatives are used of any person, whether male or female’ and II.10 ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’ are defined as ‘The word “man” denotes a male human being of any age; the word “woman” denotes a female human being of any age’ and II.11, ‘Person’ is defined as ‘The word “person” includes any Company or Association or body of persons, whether incorporated or not’. http://ncw.nic.in/acts/theindianpenalcode1860.pdf 6 Cf. Journal of the East India Association (1868). Part 39, Volume 2, Issue 1. n.p.

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Further reading Levine, Phillipa. (2003) Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. London and New York: Routledge. This book is a comprehensive overview of how British laws and officers policed Indians, especially women, due to scientific-medical understandings of race, gender, and disease. Khurshid, S. (2018) Triple Talaq: Examining Faith. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. This recent book provides a good overview of this complex case and its related issues, tracing multiple cases, sets of issues, and histories with an eye toward religion and religious logics. It also helpfully reproduces key excerpts of legal decisions in part in its final chapter.

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16 ISLAM AND GENDER ON THE SWAHILI COAST OF EAST AFRICA Nathaniel Mathews

This chapter aims to help the ordinary college reader to understand two complex and interlocking topics: Islam and gender in the regional context of the Swahili coast of East Africa. In this chapter I will primarily engage in historicizing the transformation of gender relations on the Swahili coast, mainly over the 19th and 20th centuries, especially with respect to changing relations of slavery, ethnicity, race, class and status, women’s entry into the labour market and formal education for women. Historicizing is a methodology of reconstructing historical fragments as evidence for past human social transformations and changes. Historicizing gender, slavery, and religion together gives us a lens on contemporary dynamics of Islam on the Swahili coast. Slavery on the coast was both a source of derision and exclusion, and a route to belonging, especially for the free offspring of a free man’s marriage to his slave. The abolition of slavery provoked a long crisis in social relations between Muslims, as the emancipated asserted space in the urban labour market, the mosque, and the farm. The abolition of slavery became later a metaphor for understanding national independence, reigniting debates about the relations between ex-slaves and ex-masters. Today, a unique confluence of circumstances – including unresolved class tensions, neoliberal economic policy, and increasingly strident assertions of religious exceptionalism in the public sphere – have produced a form of hyper-patriarchy within and among Muslims, that exists alongside increasing opportunities for women of a certain class today on the Swahili coast of East Africa. This patriarchy is neither a purely exogenous, nor purely indigenous product, but rather is entangled with the coast’s cosmopolitan history in complex ways (Berman 2017). I suggest that scholars should avoid trying to find ‘easy targets’ for superficial reforms, but take seriously the historic and contemporary role of the judiciary for Muslims at the coast, and study the existing spaces for co-existence and genuine pluralism among Muslims and between Muslims and other residents of the postcolonial nation-state. The Swahili are a group of people who have historically resided on the Swahili coast, a stretch of territory on the eastern edge of the African continent, facing the Indian Ocean. Here, in the trading cities of East Africa’s Indian Ocean coast, groups of fisherman, merchants, and blacksmiths, and later overseas traders, came to speak the language now called Kiswahili. Today Kiswahili speakers may also contextually identify as Kenyan, Tanzanian, Somali, Omani, Yemeni, or Indian (Mugane 2015). Millions speak Swahili as a second

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language throughout East and Central Africa. East African cities, by virtue of their trading opportunities, also contained (and contain) many travellers and long-term residents who are connected to transoceanic and upcountry networks in India and the Gulf. These cosmopolitan connections are what have been termed the ‘global worlds of the Swahili’ (Loimeier and Seesemann 2006). Any study of gender for this complex and variegated transnational space must first face the enormity of designating all the gendered scripts, symbols, and discourses in this social universe. How does one translate ‘gender’ into Kiswahili? In many languages, Kiswahili among them, there is not an exact distinction made between gender and sex, as jinsia can be a type of either kind. In Kiswahili a man is called mwume and a woman mke. Kiswahili also has words for men and women at various stages in their life cycle; for instance a young man is mvulana and a young woman is msichana. Gender may be assigned at birth and recognized in language, but gendered experiences emerge from a multiplicity of small social acts.

Islam One common way to understand ‘the Swahili’ as a people is through an understanding of the complexities of Muslim identity. The majority of people on the coast follow the Shafiʿi madhhab, something they share with large parts of Southeast Asia. There have also been Ibadhi, Shiʿa Ithnaasheri and Ismaili minorities on the coast since at least the 19th century (Anthony 2002). These madhāhib are schools of thought within Islam, about how to interpret the shariʿa: how to pray, how to purify, how to divide inheritance, etc. Learned scholars within these madhāhib interpret written treatises, compendiums of the schools opinions or eponymous texts. Though Islam is a discursive tradition, customary ‘unspoken’ mores and bodily dispositions - such as food preparation and forms of dress – also define Muslims as a group. While ‘Muslim-ness’ is a common identity trait of the Swahili over many centuries, it does not mark an exact boundary between the coast and upcountry today, as some coastal people still imagine (Caplan 2007). There have been migrations to the coast from inland from non-Muslim Bantu speakers since at least the 1st century CE. Beginning in small fishing and hunting settlements along the coast from 700 CE or earlier, these coastal towns of East Africa gradually attracted an influx of rural and overseas migrants, and became burgeoning centres of trade (Fleisher 2010). By 1000 CE, many of the East African coastal towns had a number of fine stone houses built of coral, a town mosque, and schools for learning the Qurʾan. A few of these settlements were wealthy kingdoms, where rulers patronized poetry, music, and Islamic learning (Hamdun and King 1994 (1975)). The richest of these, at Kilwa and Zanzibar, contain an enormous palace complex for the ruler and places of residence for wives, concubines, and slaves. Wealthy families often raised their status in their urban community by intermarriage to outsiders, who could even become kings, continuing a long political tradition of stranger kings across East and Central Africa. A great many Arab migrants and their offspring learned Kiswahili through these marriages. Arabic language offered a literate tradition and an alphabet that could be adapted to write Swahili as well. A rich written poetic tradition grew from this, including a profound meditation on death and the fungibility of human existence. The historical accounts of the Swahili cities describe a genteel, plural and cosmopolitan cultural space, where refined patrician poetry became common proverb. Many other religious adherents shared the urban space of the towns from at least the 18th century, 257

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including Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Christians. Rituals, beliefs, and ideas flowed into Islam from other, non-Muslim African communities, even when some austere ‘scriptural reformers’ condemned or critiqued such practices. Islam evolved on the Swahili coast of East Africa within local tensions of class and status, as well as regular exposure to the literate knowledge of the tradition as it changed elsewhere (in places such as Cairo, Damascus, or Hadhramaut). It responded as well to the changing dynamics of local custom and to other exigencies of the day. Culture flowed both from the elite to the enslaved, and vice versa. Dances once only performed by slaves were appropriated by the wealthy elite, while exslaves sought to remake themselves as respectable townspeople, often by taking on the names of elite Arab nisbas. The literate tradition of Islam is often more easily transmittable than many forms of local custom, though it requires literacy in Arabic for full comprehension and mastery to be achieved. The literate tradition, with its emphasis on basic matters of aqidah, or religious praxis, made it possible to imagine a basic and shared attribute distinguishing Muslim communities: their attempts to submit oneself honourably to live by the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad and the Qurʾan. There has historically been a deep embodied respect shown to the learning that emanates from this imagination. There is a remarkable passage in Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari’s Customs of the Swahili People, in which Mtoro is translated as saying the following: If a man comes from a long distance to live in a place as a teacher and says, ‘I am a teacher, I know the Qur’an and elimu,’ but the people do not know him, they set him questions; and if he answers them, he is accepted as a genuine teacher. (Bakari 1981, p. 32) The question of this literate tradition’s ‘patriarchal’ biases is an ongoing point of contention in Islamic studies (Ali 2010). For centuries women also esteemed Qurʾan and hadith memorization and were highly involved in its transmission (Nadwi 2013; Sayeed 2013). On the East coast of Africa we have fragmentary records of women like Asha Ngumi and Mwana Mwema, who rose to rule some of the Swahili city-states, but much less evidence of women involved in scholarly transmission of the Islamic tradition (Askew 1999, p. 83). Yet most recent scholarship on Islamic law on the coast has challenged the assertion that Islamic law is uniquely patriarchal and disadvantages women (Stiles 2009; Stockreiter 2015). This scholarship also point out that discourses of law can be tools of both men and women in a dispute, and that legal cases before modern qadis in places like Zanzibar are not mere reproductions of androcentric privilege. In a recent ethnography of Muslim women in Kenya, Ousseina Alidou portrays Muslim women in Kenya as leaders in their communities (Alidou 2013). Patriarchal ideas of masculinity and femininity do not always emerge directly from formal legal discourse, but rather insinuate themselves into everyday life through customary usage. Katrina Daly Thompson’s study of the popobawa myth in modern Zanzibar shows how anxieties about patriarchal masculinity can find their way into violent rumours, politics, and a number of other domains (Thompson 2017). Nadine Beckmann observes that, ‘Shyness, respect and passivity are regarded as ideal female features and make for tabia nzuri, “good character”, which is highly desired in terms of marriageability’ (Beckmann 2010, p. 620). Such learned shyness can sometimes find its way into courtroom proceedings, but there is little systemic evidence that qadis automatically favour men because they are more loudly assertive. Gendered anxieties show up not only in court cases themselves, but in how 258

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Muslim communities in Kenya and Tanzania perceives state-appointed Muslim women judges like al-Aroni, interviewed by Ousseina Alidou. Al-Aroni’s comments on the veil reveal that the community exerts pressure for her to be seen publicly in it as a symbol of who she belongs to (Alidou 2013, p. 138). But she is also proud to wear it and represent that community with their many needs, to use her power as a Muslim advocate to aid and uplift all women in Kenya.

Gender, Islam, and patriarchy: then and now What does it mean to say something is ‘gendered’? Gender as a term is used here mainly to signify the full range of social meanings that humans give to the biochemical processes which create sex differentiation in the broader animal kingdom of which they are a part. A big part of this is sex assignation; assigned by human social norms, because of what sexual organs one is born with. This is the recognition of sexual difference at the core of meanings of gender. Gendering begins in society, with the recognition that certain types of people are male and thus to be raised, socialized, and treated as boys and then men, and that others are female and are to be also uniquely raised, socialized, and treated as girls and then women. This also involves children and the relationships within and among different genders and age groups. Gender thus incorporates a dizzying array of other social arenas, including religion. The Qurʾan speaks of male–female relations at length. At its core, the Qurʾan robustly affirms the equality and interdependence of men and women. It also endorses gendered hierarchies of protection and obedience, in which men have a degree of authority over women (Barlas 2002). It has also (controversially) been interpreted as giving sanction to sex with female war captives, a practice that led to the sanctioning of enslaved concubines. Much of the Islamic material beyond the Qurʾan, especially the hadith, draws on and also assumes the customs current at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. These customs are clearly gendered. There is a controversial hadith in which the Prophet declares women to be ‘deficient in intelligence’ and another in which he says women will be ‘the majority of those in hell,’ for being ungrateful to their husbands. Another hadith states that women will be the majority of those in paradise, although as first and second wives of pious men. But the original sin of religio-patriarchal domination doesn’t have an easily traceable textual geneaology to the Qurʾan or Islam. Local non-Islamic custom in East Africa more broadly, even if matrilineal, was highly patriarchal; for many if not most women, the route to societal prestige lay in producing offspring, especially male offspring, for their husbands (Alpers 1983). Even in matrilineal societies, intense conflicts could arise over control over women’s reproduction and offspring (Wright 1993). Although sexual segregation and veiling was not as widely practiced as it became in the early 20th century, women on the coast, as elsewhere in East Africa, struggled against gendered customs as much as, if not more than, they did the strictures of Islamic law. The original ‘source’ of patriarchal custom could lie in a number of antecedents, including transformations from ritual to kingly rule, shifts in the mode of production, and a predominant male focus on women as vehicles of social reproduction through offspring.

Gender and slavery in 19th century East Africa Slaves and slavery were a part of the coastal towns since the 11th century, and perhaps earlier. Slavery from the late 18th century expanded on the coast as part of a broader series of commercial and ideological transformations in coastal life. Enslaved Africans from the 259

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interior were bought or caught in the interior and brought in great numbers to the coast, where they were put to work on the burgeoning plantation sector, growing cloves, coconuts, and grain (Cooper 1997; Sheriff 1987). Profits from the plantation sector helped fund expeditions into the interior to hunt and trade for ivory, which was exported from Zanzibar, usually to India, Europe, and the Americas. Slavery helped 19th century men in East Africa to assert their patriarchal dominance over older, matrilineal forms of affiliation. In matrilineal societies, there is often tension between husbands and their wives’ brothers over who will have primary authority and control over offspring. In the 19th century, new forms of commercial wealth enabled ambitious men, frustrated by matrilineal control, to buy and marry female slaves. By marrying slaves, men ensured their authority over any offspring, for a slave was most commonly characterized as an individual without kinship relations, what Orlando Patterson terms, ‘natal alienation’ (Patterson 1982). This new patriarchal mode of kinship affiliation was allied to the new forms of wealth-making. At the coast in the 19th century, a new Omani Arab ruling elite was also engaged in this process of marrying female slaves, or turning them into concubines who produced free Arab offspring. The Omanis governed through local liwalis stationed in each of the coastal towns; these liwalis owned slaves and often married locally, and took concubines. The royal household of Seyyid Said, the first sultan of Zanzibar, contained both eunuchs and some 70 concubines from Circassia and Ethiopia. In fact Seyyid Said had no children by his legal wives; all were the children of concubines (Ruete 1907; Ruete and van Donzel 1993). The Omanis instituted the growing of cloves in Zanzibar, and 19th century Zanzibar became a centre of credit and debt. Islamic law guaranteed the freedom for women to own property, and some elite coastal women were guarantors for their husbands who sought credit (McDow 2018, p. 137; Stockreiter 2015, p. 141). Elite intermarriage with enslaved women may have guaranteed the freedom and elite lineage of the offspring, but it did not always guarantee the security of the women themselves. Marriage is already a gendered relationship in Swahili language, where men marry (kuoa) and women are married off (kuolewa). The latter verb is the passive form of the former, and indicates how women were ‘given’ by appointed male elders to a groom from another family. Historian Jon Glassman notes the vulnerability of women in these marriages. Like the stories of women in the East African interior explored by Marcia Wright, coastal women could gain protection through these marriages. But they could also find themselves without close kin within the household, and this made them more subject to patriarchal control by their husbands (Glassman 1995). Non-elite women successful enough to transcend concubinage to become the recognized wife of a powerful man could still face animus from the husband’s extended kin, including and especially his freeborn wife. The requirement that a woman marry someone equal in status to her is called kafa’a, and it is variously enforced among the various Islamic legal schools. In slavery times on the East African coast, kafa’a made it nearly impossible for men of low status, even if they were converts to Islam, to marry upper status women in the towns. But it could also affect higher status men too. Abdalla bin Hamed was the Omani born liwali of Lamu in the 1870s. When he approached the family of a sharifa woman, that is a free noble woman descended from the Prophet, they initially rejected his request. Eventually the marriage was agreed to, after the liwali agreed to follow the Shafiʿi madhab. The family of the sharifa women continued to trace the offspring of the marriage through both patrilineal and matrilineal lines (Romero 1997, p. 116). 260

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The marriage of lower status women on the coast to higher status men has been referred to ‘ascending miscegenation,’ as it produced locally born free offspring who were part of elite Omani patrilines (Mazrui 1973). As mentioned, non-elite women who married into elite households often faced the additional obstacle of lack of kin to call on in marital disputes. Nevertheless, some of these women became quite wealthy, whether through inheritance or the profit of their children. They could thus, Stockreiter (2015) observes, accumulate wealth through dependents and own slaves themselves. Elite women could own slaves and abuse them, just as men could. The German traveller Oscar Baumann describes residing in Zanzibar next to the widow Fatme binti Msellem bin Amri el-Barwani, whose household was filled with her personal attendants and grandchildren. The grandchildren were raised by female slaves, and according to Baumann, these enslaved women were made to bear the brunt of punishment for their charges’ indiscretions (Baumann 1900). In slavery times and after, both men and women of lower status attempted to establish themselves by aspiring to the lifestyles of the slaveholding elite. They sought to gain their manumission through independent labour, or, for women, marriage to a powerful patron. Enslaved men sought to purchase their own slaves and concubines and create polygynous households. Enslaved women, who were distinguished from free women by being unveiled, used the veil to establish themselves as pious members of the community.

The abolition of slavery In 1894, British Consul Arthur Hardinge wrote with concern about abolition, noting it would cause grave social changes because ‘every householder is a slave holder.’ Hardinge feared that masters would release their slave concubines into the streets, and they would become prostitutes (Strobel 1979). Slavery was formally abolished in Zanzibar in 1897, and on the Kenya coast in 1907. Its end wrought far-reaching transformations in coastal societies. After abolition, women gained limited access to the wage labour market, although they often worked out of dire necessity, rather than personal fulfilment. Women in urban areas aspired to become property owners and landladies. Abolition did increase the autonomy of women overall, but it also increased their vulnerability to the market. The urban space of the towns offered ambitious women the prospect of gaining both financial independence and social respect outside of the usual route of marriage and motherhood. On the other hand, colonial officials worked through ‘indirect rule’ and strove to placate the opinion of elite and knowledgeable townsmen, who viewed abolition as a threat to social reproduction and public order. These men sought to keep women ‘in place’ in the traditional patriarchy, but the new colonial taxation made that increasingly difficult, placing pressure on ordinary households to acquire cash. Abolition was thus part of a colonial restructuring of East African societies, a process that was multifaceted and incorporated legal, social, and economic change. Abolition did not resolve the growing tensions of coastal society, but rather exacerbated them. Some qadis refused to sanction the marriage of ex-slaves without the consent of their masters, one-time concubines attempted to demand a share of inheritance from deceased men as legal wives, and the families of former slaves attempted to escape the families of former masters’ legal claims on their wealth. There was little attempt by colonial authorities to reform land ownership or to address the wealth inequality created by slavery. As Elke Stockreiter notes, a large part of the prestige of pre-colonial Islamic law was its personal, intimate, and flexible nature, and the learning and prestige of individual qadis (Stockreiter 2015, p. 53). In Zanzibar and the Kenya coast, the British acted to restructure 261

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the judiciary by formalizing functions and roles and by ‘rationalizing’ Islamic law through codification of various rulings across different legal schools. Perhaps the courts did become more bureaucratically efficient (Hardinge certainly thought so). But the increasingly alien bureaucratic nature of the legal system disadvantaged non-literate and poor litigants, women especially. Economic changes in the towns also propelled a variety of changes in women’s attitudes towards divorce, both subaltern and elite. Women took men to court around issues of mahr/dower. Men were recruited by the Zanzibar colonial state for the new colonial wage labour market. Many of the smaller coastal towns lost population and sank into economic depression, while locales like Mombasa and Zanzibar grew enormously in size, swelled by the migration of foreigners and ex-slaves, seeking wage labour on the clove plantations, on the docks, and in elite homes (Cooper 1997; Glassman 1995). In Zanzibar, the colonial state was committed to propping up indebted landowners and to maintaining the production of cloves for export, and thus encouraged ex-slaves to renegotiate labour arrangements with former masters so as to provide continuity. Many joined sailing vessels and became part of an Indian Ocean group of mobile subalterns (Ewald 2013; Stanziani 2014). Elizabeth McMahon’s study of slavery and abolition on Pemba shows the importance of attending to local context for understanding the different paths ex-slaves took after abolition there. McMahon argues that instead of a mass out-migration, most ex-slaves settled down and attempted to create smallhold farms for themselves. They became part of the Pemban community through their ability to accrue social capital in the form of heshima, a Swahili word meaning social respect. Such integration is also attributed by McMahon to the nature of residence in Pemba, where slaves were fewer and lived in closer proximity, both residentially and socially, to the larger community (McMahon 2013). The end of slavery also brought a transformation in ethnic relations. In coastal society, knowledge of Islam was a route to social prestige, especially for locally born slaves. But after abolition, low status Muslim men continued to be denied marriage to high status women, based on their descent from slaves. Indeed, it must have been particularly galling for them to be deemed free Muslims under law, but to be still looked down upon in this manner. As Stockreiter notes, ‘the stigma of illegitimacy and kinlessness was a mechanism that impeded the social mobility of ex-slaves decades after the abolition’ (Stockreiter 2015, p. 212). Colonially introduced abolition created different categories of ex-slaves, one category that had achieved manumission through Islamically legal means and another that had been granted free status by the colonial government. Joining ex-slaves at the coast were new upcountry migrants, who retained links with their home area and consequently felt much less need to attach themselves to the kin groups of the elite. The new migrants were also relatively more open to marrying ex-slaves than were locally born Arabs or Swahili. By the 1930s, the coastal towns were home to burgeoning forms of ethnic and popular associations with links to the rural hinterland. Both new migrants and ex-slaves felt a growing frustration with colonial racism and the chauvinism they experienced from wealthier urban residents.

Gender and decolonization Colonial officials had originally governed with a fundamental distinction between native and non-native, later to be replaced by hierarchically graded ethnicity, with Arabs at the top. Arab identity in colonial East Africa brought with it exemption from certain onerous colonial taxes. Fiscal crises in the colonial state periodically reanimated the tensions of these designation. Conflicts over land and resources intensified so that when the first nationalist movements in Zanzibar emerged in the 1950s, they too, bore the imprint of the unresolved 262

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tensions around the social integration of slaves in coastal society (Glassman 2011). Muslim reformist discourses, through an emphasis on purifying Islam, tried to combat these fissiparous tendencies, but tended to exacerbate divisions between newer and older Muslims (Mathews 2013). Ultimately privileges from the colonial state had roots in unresolved conflicts of status stemming from slavery. During decolonization these unresolved conflicts informed growing tensions of ethnicity, race, and religion. In the decades preceding decolonization, there were disagreements about the education of girls in secular, government schools. Many elite men had been educated there, and gradually educational reformers convinced parents that sending their girls to a Muslim school was an acceptable action. Muslim reformist discourse, prevalent at the coast through the efforts of Shaykh Al-Amin Mazrui, opened the space for Muslim women to pursue secular education. However, according to Erin Stiles’s research in Zanzibar: No women of my acquaintance attended secular schools before the revolution. Among female interviewees over 50, any type of school attendance was rare and they reported that there was very little value placed on secular education for girls and, in some families, boys. People cited a number of reasons for the lack of education. (Stiles 2009, p. 113) Secular education was multi-ethnic and could be a profound social leveller, but poor families could many times not afford it, and elite families stayed away for fear of culturally apostasizing their children. Coastal women in colonial Tanganyika were nevertheless major participants in nationalist movements. Bibi Titi Mohamed, one time lead singer of a Dar-es-Salaam musical group, was a mobilizer for the Tanganyikan African National Union (TANU). Historian Suzanne Geiger notes that Mohamed’s participation in TANU, like other women, was based on already existing solidarities in the coastal towns (Geiger 1997). In Tanzania, Muslims played a central role in the freedom struggle, as the nationalist movement arguably began in the coastal towns and spread through the whole country. In Kenya, on the other hand, coastal leaders harboured separatist desires to join the region with Zanzibar, and were marginal to the core of the nationalist leadership in KANU. Some Muslims formed independent political parties in the decade before formal independence, but were ultimately unsuccessful. By 1964, both countries were sovereign and independent, and all coastal people, including those on the island of Zanzibar, now belonged to either Kenya or Tanzania (a postrevolution union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika). On Zanzibar, the Zanzibar Revolution, the violent culmination of nationalist politics, overthrew the island’s ruling elite, expelled many prominent ulama and ended the dream of Zanzibar as an independent Muslim state. Many Islamic organizations were banned, and the new ruling party attempted to forcefully deal with the vestiges of feudal Arab oppression, breaking up large estates and taking over some of the larger houses in town. However there was also violence against poor rural Arabs who were small landholders or traders. Elements of the Revolutionary Council attempted to eliminate the more conservative Muslim elders cultural imprint on the island, and many local people believe that in the years after the Revolution it had corrupted the qadis and made them functionaries of the state. Zanzibar imported theories of the state from East German and Chinese theorists, and created, for the first time, a modern security/intelligence service responding to the president. The new 263

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revolutionary state was not only characterized by increasing freedom for women from colonial rule, but also by intensified anxiety about their bodies and public presence. From 1964 to 1972, Zanzibar’s government was under the rule of Abeid Karume. After his assassination, Aboud Jumbe was president until 1984, when he was forced to resign by CCM, the ruling party. Later Ali Hassan Mwinyi became president of Zanzibar, and subsequently, of Tanzania. Under his rule, Tanzania entered a period of economic liberalization, after reluctantly accepting loans from the International Monetary Fund to meet its revenue needs. Economic liberalization meant a new opening for religious entrepreneurs to build Muslim and Christian private schools, as the state was forced to drastically cut its budget for public education. The late 1980s thus saw the re-emergence of Muslim activism for education. There were also new scholarships to study in Saudi Arabia and other areas of the Middle East (Wortmann 2018). Among the generation of Tanzanian Muslims who came of age in the late 1980s, resentment of the secular state grew out of many sources, including feelings of religious marginalization, the collapse of socialism, the perception of Christian domination of the state, and the rise of new globally assertive dawah preachers, who, it was alleged by Christians, inflamed interfaith relations. In Tanzania, the country’s first multiparty elections occurred in 1990. In Kenya, the Moi regime was forced to allow multiparty elections in 1991. Muslims in Kenya used this new public space to push for the enshrinement of qadi courts in the constitution, a push involving many women (Alidou 2013). In both Kenya and Tanzania, the new few scholars with education outside local Islamic networks increasingly challenged local Muslim leadership in the language of a global, purified Islam (Becker 2016). Muslim organizations like WARSHA were filled with young men who had not achieved success in the ordinary networks of education and patronage, and turned to a more assertive and anxious Salafism to fill the void left by the fiscal crisis within the state. Both Salafis and their opponents tried to define a more specifically Muslim public sphere in opposition to Christian evangelizing on the coast.

Islam and ‘anxious’ patriarchy Modern Islamic patriarchy in East Africa today, in spite of its oft-cited Qurʾanic justifications, is more of a kind of Franken-monster mashup of colonial codification of Islamic law, anger at corrupt secular governance, and anxious masculinity, than a faithful representation of Islamic ethics. It bears only superficial resemblance to traditional Islamic masculinity and is usually ill-equipped with the virtues necessary for living in a plural society. Employing modern methods of hyper-rational textual interpretation, this anxious and angry patriarchy may place a disproportionate burden on women to uphold Islamic piety in the public sphere, while actually disadvantaging women in relation to themselves and their own bodies moving through the world. In her study of Swahili-language hotubas (Ar. khutbah), anthropologist Felicitas Becker (2016, pp. 160–161) notes that: the sermons characterise ideal domestic manhood in terms very close to classical definitions of patriarchy … focusing on men as dependents, as ‘father-rulers’ in the original sense of the term ‘patriarch’. They also identify reproduction, fatherhood, as a central pillar and problem of such families … All but one of the sermons on gender relations that I have consulted anchor men’s patriarchal authority over women in the former’s asserted superior mental, physical, and moral faculties. They do this in part by elaborating the specific flaws of women, and in part by 264

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elaborating on gender difference. Overall, these statements amount to a complex mixture of scriptural, legal, sociopoitical, and biological arguments. Contemporary assertions of patriarchy as superiority in a Tanzanian public sphere can thus enact what Bourdieu calls ‘symbolic violence,’ in which ‘durable inclinations of the socialized body are expressed and experienced in the logic of feeling or duty, are merged in the experience of respect and devotion, and may live on long after the disappearance of their social conditions of production’ (Swartz 2013, p. 95). Bourdieu asserts that such transforming action is all the more powerful for being most invisibly enacted. Women may feel pulled in contradictory directions by this discourse in modern times, where they may need to enter the wage labour market in order to survive. Nadine Beckmann notes: An emphasis on gender segregation and the restricted movement of women in the public sphere aims at limiting the opportunities for men and women to meet, but is often unsustainable in an economic climate that requires women increasingly to engage in paid work outside the house. (Beckmann 2010, p. 621) Moreover, in an age of anxious patriarchy, ideas about purity conceptually extend themselves to a much broader arena of women’s public presence and sexuality, becoming an entire ‘purity discourse.’ In theory, purity discourse is supposed to guarantee women’s innocence, to protect her from a ravaging male public by placing her virtuous body ‘off-limits’ to non-mahram. In practice, the prohibitions generated by purity discourse usually disadvantaged women’s freedom of public movement and put much greater moral pressure on a woman’s ‘pure’ body than a man’s. In an age of mass anxiety, a woman’s body itself, its presence, is conceived of as uniquely a site of temptation and vulnerability. Women themselves can hold and perpetuate these ideas of gender are closely related to ideas of sex and sexuality. Beckmann observes: long-standing notions of modesty in behaviour and dress, obedience of the young to the elders and of women to men, virginity at first marriage and the selection of suitable marriage partners by parents are highly valued and young people today have to negotiate a terrain that is characterised by a heightened sense of uncertainty. (Beckmann 2010, p. 621) All of this should cause scholars to pause before mapping too readily into the past gendered forms of socialization taken for granted by Muslims in East Africa today. Scholars should be chary of asserting a blanket patriarchy inextricably tied to Islam, that must be removed through outside reform. Muslims in East Africa have benefited from and will continue to benefit from an open, plural, and free public sphere. As in the past, economic anxiety is also psychological anxiety, and it manifests in the form of worrying about the comportment and control of certain bodies. While Muslims might worry about losing patriarchal control, the state in Tanzania and Kenya is increasingly surveilling Muslims. In state politics, a growing frustration with corruption in both countries has produced an embrace of authoritarian leadership, in which undesirable others are prevented from speaking. Scholars of East African Islam are undertaking new assessment of the ways ‘everyday’ Islam looks for Muslims in East African courts, mosques, markets, and media. These studies 265

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don’t engage in reductive denunciations of a context-free patriarchy, but neither are they apologists for patriarchal power dynamics. We can’t understand the interpretation of Islamic law on the coast today in terms of some ‘return’ of a pristine and patriarchally gendered Islam. Rather, today’s resurgence of patriarchy is driven by modern anxieties about being a Muslim minority, a limited but growing space for public sphere assertion, and a desire by Muslim men and women both to gain religious literacy in both secular law and the shariʿa.

Further reading The reader who reads this chapter and still has questions might want to consult an English translation of the Qurʾan (the best one in my opinion is Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’an. Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus Ltd., 1980), Toshiku Izutsu’s God and Man in the Qurʾan: Semantics of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung (Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 2002) and Fazlur Rahman’s Major Themes of the Qurʾan (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2009). It would help to have a basic knowledge of what ‘Islamic law’ is; a great historical introduction is Wael Hallaq, An Introduction to Islamic Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). They would also benefit from having read Joan Scott’s excellent book, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). Stiles, Erin. An Islamic Court in Context: An Ethnography of Judicial Reasoning. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Through thick description of qadi court cases in Zanzibar, Erin Stiles shows how a Zanzibar qadi rules in cases of divorce and troubled marriages, by combining precedent with knowledge of local conditions. Stiles, Erin and Thompson, Katrina Daly, eds. Gendered Lives in the Western Indian Ocean: Islam, Marriage and Sexuality on the Swahili Coast. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015. The authoritative resource on gender in Swahili coast contexts, with contributions from across the disciplines. Stockreiter, Elke. Islamic Law, Gender and Social Change in Post-Abolition Zanzibar. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. A path-breaking historical work on how abolition transformed gender and social relations in Zanzibar.

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17 MUJAHIDIN, MUJAHIDAT Balancing gender in the struggle of Jihadi-Salafis Nathan S. French

Tracing mujhāhidāt from al-Qaʿida to ISIS: introducing a woman fighter’s role In late 2003, the al-Qaʿida Arabic-language magazine Voice of Jihad (Ṣawt al-Jihā d) published a brief parable penned by an anonymous author writing under the kunya (assumed honorific), ‘Mother of a Martyr’ (Umm al-Shahı̄ d). Entitled, ‘Father, Why won’t you go to jihad?’ the article tells the story of a young girl who shames her father for not fighting. The father responds, playing to her desire for a sibling: ‘If I went for jihad, then I would be killed and your father would never become a father of any other children.’ The young girl, whom Umm al-Shahid names ‘the Little Fighter’ (mujā hida), responds: ‘If you were killed, then that would be best because then you would be a martyr, you would enter paradise, and we would be able to enter with you’ (Umm al-Shahid, 2003). In the paragraph following, Umm al-Shahid praises the inspirational zeal of the young child, noting that she was born in the purest form of steadfast faith, and then adding: Such submission to the command of God embodied (tujasid) in the attitude of that little girl is that which is needed today in the training of our sons and daughters. We want to train them in the jihadi faith. We must begin by implanting within them the correct creed (ʿaqı̄ da ṣaḥı̄ ḥa) – one devoid of impurities and of the deviations of self-serving flatterers and hypocrites … They are part of a single Islamic umma. They are the hope of this umma – after God Himself – for its deliverance from the clutches of shame and humiliation and from the nations of this Earth that have disbelieved. (Umm al-Shahid, 2003) Umm al-Shahid concluded her discussion with a supplication to God to ‘repair’ the sons and daughters of those men who fight (mujahidin), instructing women to teach their children to shame hesitant husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers for their refusal to answer the call. Two years later, Abu Musʿab al-Zarqawi (1966–2006) invoked a theme similar to that of Umm al-Shahid: the responsibility of women to shame men and provide for the spiritual health of their families. In this statement, al-Zarqawi outlined the role of a female fighter, 269

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declaring that ‘the mujahidah woman is she who raises her child not to live, but to fight and then die so that he may live and be free’ in the afterlife (2005, cited in Winter and Margolin, 2017). The need for this, he noted, was a result of a generation of men abandoning their obligations: ‘Is it not a disgrace on the sons of my ummah that our virtuous, pure sisters ask to carry out martyrdom operations while the men of my ummah are sleeping in their slumber ad playing in their amusement?’ (2005, cited in al-Tamimi, 2017). Several women would answer the call. Shortly after delivering his remarks, al-Zarqawi permitted women to fight. In early September, an unidentified woman detonated an explosive belt outside a military recruitment centre in Tal Afar, Iraq. She was followed by two attacks, one by Myrium Goris (d. 2005) and another by Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi (1970–2015) (Stone and Patillo, 2011: 164–169). Unlike Goris, who was the first female bomber in Iraq of Belgian descent, Rishawi failed to detonate her device in Jordan. While in Jordanian custody, Rishwa described her pathway to seeking