Mernissi, F (1991) Women and Islam: A Historical and Theological Enquiry, (tr Lakeland, M J) Oxford: Basil Blackwell

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vi As an Arab woman, particularly fascinated by the way people in the modern world manage and integrate their past, I am constantly surprised when visiting Europe and the USA, who "sell" themselves as super-modern societies, to find how Judaeo-Christian their cultural atmosphere really is. It may escape them, but to an outsider Europe and the USA are particularly rich in religious influences, in myths, tales and traditions.

Muslim patriarchs rely on ignorance.

viii Women fled aristocratic tribal Mecca by the thousands to enter Medina, the Prophet's city in the seventh century, because Islam promised equality and dignity for all, for men and women, masters and servants.

1 Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity a Hadith and a vital one for this topic.

Islam developed concept of isnads - chains of communication, and a science of authentication of Hadiths. Delving into memory, into pasts, an activity that is heavily supervised, especially for women.

11 first let us lift the veils with which our contemporaries disguise the past in order to dim our present.

Why is there this desire to turn our attention to the dead past when the only battle that is important to us at the moment is that of the future? The societies that threaten us in our identity are single-mindedly focused on the future and make of it a science - or, I would say, a weapon of domination and control. A moment of insight for me - I have no wish to be a threat to anyone, but I have to see myself as one, simply because I am who I am, part of a dominant and invasive culture The west manifests its domination of our era through its time-rhythm.

18 Geopolitics was a strategy based on defence of the tangible - territory, frontiers and the riches found within them. Today that is replaced by the laws of "chronopolitics", a time scenario in which power is achieved through control of the intangible, the flow of signs, the circulation of information, and liquid sums.

20 al-Jabiri says in order to understand the past you have to be rooted in the present. I define Muslim as belonging to a theocratic state...Being Muslim is a civil matter, a national identity, a passport, a family code of laws, a code of public rights.

21 How do three concepts normally considered independent of each other - the relationship to time, the relationship to power, and the relationship to femaleness - become connected as a discourse on identity.

21 The problem for the Muslim states, after their quasi-disappearance during the colonial period, was that they found themselves almost feminised - veiled, obliterated, non-existent. After independence, the state had to dramatise its rebirth. Another moment of insight - about the relationship between the experience of being colonised and the assertion/reassertion of patriarchy among the colonised.

bid'a - innovation - equals errant behaviour - i.e. anything new is wrong.

23 Qasim Amin "Women's Liberation" published in 1880s.

2 The Prophet and Hadith

Description of Muhammad's world - describes Islam as first and foremost a promise of power, unity and triumph to a marginalised people. First revelation to Muhammad "iqra" "read". Revelations continued to his death. Received and transmitted orally. Order in which received differs from order written down. Mecca first series - dogma and duties of a Muslim. Medina second series - answers to questions of first Muslims - foundation of shari'a.

34 assassination of 'Uthmar, third caliph, pitched Islam into first "fitna" civil war. Which led to systematic collection of sayings to set down guidance to avoid such terrors in future. Hadith therefore all second hand, but all traced according to who recalled them.

During first fitna Mu'awiya seized power as caliph - his supporters believed ending of civil war was paramount - Sunnis. Some opposed him thinking fraudulent election should be overturned even at cost of civil war - Shi'ites.

42 this account of origins of Hadith raises issue which is still debated - how is principle of equality for all to be transformed into practical political system. Muhammad left no political system; failed to prevent tribes from warring and war broke out again after his death.

al-Bukhari collected and authenticated Hadith some 200 years after Muhammad's death. Collected 600,000 of which he regarded 7,257 as genuine. But false Hadith continued to be produced. People had specific motives e.g. genealogy or power, or told by popular storytellers.

3 A Tradition of Misogyny 1

The Hadith on women and prosperity is accepted by al-Bukhari and therefore deemed indisputable. This chapter a detailed exposition of why it can be doubted.

55 Hadith - if people see leader perpetrate injustice they must endeavour to change it - cited by killers of Sadat, and by many extremists.

4 A Tradition of Misogyny 2

Grandmother Lalla Yasmina's poetic religion - pilgrimage to Medina

64 sacred text as threshold for escape or insurmountable barrier. Mernissi shocked as teenager by Hadith that prayer could be disturbed by dog, ass or woman. Disputed by Aisha. Description of its origins and its disputability. Much focussed on reliability or otherwise of Abu Hurayra, who often disputed with Aisha.

Mernissi's reading is that Muhammad wanted to revolutionise attitudes to femaleness, sex and menstruation, but old ways reasserted themselves.

Mernissi notes that among the accounts of the Companions etc there are debates about the reliability of memory.

5 The Hijab, the Veil

The original verse of the hijab was in the context of Muhammad drawing a veil across his private life with his new wife. This event needs to be seen in the context of doubt and despondency after military defeat.

Ultimate effect was splitting of Muslim space. Other uses - veil to hide caliph from followers; in Sufism veil seen as preventing man from seeing mysteries.

97ff publication on books during 1980s asserting very conservative view of women in Islam.

6 The Prophet and Space

Private and public life for Muhammad were the same, but during time of military crisis Medina became hostile to him. Living in close physical proximity to the people, sensitive to rumour, gossip etc.

111 male supremacy can only exist and be consolidated if the public/private division is maintained as an almost sacred matter.

7 The Prophet and Women

118 Umm Salama asked why Koran said so much about men and so little about women - resulting revelation suggested complete equality. 120 Sura 4 said instead of being subject to inheritance, women became inheritors. Contested by men - (A reversal was eventually secured using a verse that said give not to the foolish their wealth, and assuming foolish included women.) Other more ambiguous verses followed which left an enduring tension in the Koran.

Women demanded right to go into battle - threatened the whole economy of capture, in which women were main prize. War making linked to wealth.

134-6 Took Mecca in battle, then had to take Ta'if. Won battle before Ta'if and took large amounts of booty - people and animals - Malik, leading the opposition, announced he and all his followers would convert to Islam. So all booty had to be returned. Sharp negotiation with Medina troops, who forced a division of the booty. NB they were much more concerned about people than animals.

139 A prophet is above all a man who masters the art of the sacred dance between an idealistic God, who is far away, alien, celestial, and men who suffer as prisoners of a world in which violence and injustice rage.

8 Umar and the men of Medina

'Umar ibn al-Khattab first an opponent, then as noted convert - admirable in war, admirable in discernment, rough and violent towards women.

145ff case about who decides sexual position - the man according to sura 2 v 233 - but does this legitimise sodomy? Debate still continues on this, and is taken very seriously.

148 Islam has never preached abolition of slavery as a doctrine, though the Koran encourages freeing of slaves as act of faith. Child born of a free man and a slave woman was declared free - another blow to the economics of the time. Changes were such that slavery could only exist through foreign conquest perhaps this became a motive for conquest, and helps to explain the enthusiasm for foreign adventures undertaken by Arabs etc in medieval times? Some Muslim states did not ban slavery till 1920s, and then usually under pressure from western powers.

154 sura 4 v 34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend their property (for the support of women). A verse with many difficulties in interpretation.

160 Muhammad gave way on relations between men and women because he had to keep people united in order to win military victory. Always counselled against use of violence against women.

9 The Prophet as military leader

Muhammad suffered in Medina because of refusal to separate private and public. Wives always accompanied him, and gave opinions freely.

165 On Christians and Jews some verses of Koran are tolerant others counsel holy war. Problem of which is to take precedence. Normal rule is last revealed verse takes precedence, so very important to work out chronological order.

167ff Medina under siege, internal dissent increased and also domination of women by men. Prophet's wives no longer went out on streets because not safe for them.

Variety of events and issues about the prophet's wives that many regarded as scandalous. Especially accusations of adultery against Aisha. In time of great insecurity Muhammad agreed free women should be veiled, thus allowing them security. Slaves went without veil, thus putting them at risk in public. Based on Muhammad not being powerful enough to protect all; thus hijab became crucial.

10 The veil descends on Medina

This chapter reinforces reading of struggle over women's freedoms as failure of Muhammad to enforce change of pre-Islamic patriarchal violence towards women. Hijab became symbol of this. Some women resisted hijab e.g. Sukayna, who took a full part in political life - but this is disputed by men even today, and Mernissi recounts how, while she was recounting the story of Sukayna at a conference, a man interrupted her shouting and screaming at her that she was lying.

194 that attempt to obliterate the memory of Sukayna by a modern Muslim man who only accepts his wife as veiled, crushed and silent remains for me an incident that symbolises the whole matter of the relationship of the Muslim man to time - of amnesia as memory, of the past as warping the possibilities of the present.

195 The image of "his" woman will change when he feels the pressing need to root his future in a liberating memory. Perhaps the woman should help him do this through daily pressure for equality, thereby bringing him into a fabulous present. And the present is always fabulous, because there everything is possible - even the end of always looking to the past and the beginning of confidence, of enjoying in harmony the moment that we have.