Wives, Witches, and Warriors: Women in Arabic Popular Epic
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2018 Wives, Witches, And Warriors: Women In Arabic Popular Epic Amanda Steinberg University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, Folklore Commons, and the Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Steinberg, Amanda, "Wives, Witches, And Warriors: Women In Arabic Popular Epic" (2018). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2761. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2761 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2761 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Wives, Witches, And Warriors: Women In Arabic Popular Epic Abstract This dissertation consolidates the known corpus of the medieval Arabic popular epic (sīrah shaʿbīyah) in order to examine the roles of its female characters and how they relate to power. Borrowing from feminist theory, the study takes as its organizing principle the categories of “power-over,” “power-to,” and “power- with,” showing that how a woman is judged for expressing power depends upon how her actions fit into one of these three categories. Moreover, each expression of power tends to be connected to a woman’s familial relationships: sexually available women are usually classified as expressing “power-over,” while the nonsexual relationships of sisters and daughters exemplify “power-to.” The character of the selfless mother represents the ultimate expression of “power-with.” By comparing these characterizations to portrayals of women in religious, historical, and adab works also created during the Middle Periods of Islamic history, we can conclude that the modern perception of women being confined ot the private sphere and thus invisible in medieval Arabic literary production is based on ignorance of their ubiquitous and complex roles in more popular forms of literature. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations First Advisor Roger M. Allen Keywords Arabic literature, Islamic History, Medieval, Popular Literature, Women Subject Categories English Language and Literature | Folklore | Near Eastern Languages and Societies This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2761 WIVES, WITCHES, AND WARRIORS: WOMEN IN ARABIC POPULAR EPIC Amanda Hannoosh Steinberg A DISSERTATION in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Supervisor of Dissertation ____________________ Roger MA Allen Professor Emeritus of Arabic & Comparative Literature Graduate Group Chairperson _____________________ Joseph E. Lowry, Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies Dissertation Committee Paul M. Cobb Professor of Islamic History Dan Ben-Amos Professor of Folklore and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies ii Dedication To the women in my life, and to their power, in all its different forms. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is the section of my dissertation to which I have been looking forward the most. I have been writing it for years in my head, because from the very start I would not have been able to accomplish this task without the help and support of very many people. To start from the beginning, I would like to thank Joseph Lowry, for offering the experimental class on “Finding Women in Medieval Sources” that led me to the women of the sīrahs in the first place, and also for reading an early draft of this research. Next, I would like to thank my advisor Roger Allen, who supported my decision to “go medieval” instead of modern for my dissertation. The rest of my committee, Dan Ben- Amos and Paul Cobb, stuck with me through long periods of silence and then gave me their entire attention when I was finally ready for it. I am very grateful. Linda Greene kept me on track and offered her help even when it was no longer her responsibility, for which I will always be thankful. Remke Kruk and Samer Ali both gave their time and energy to early drafts of this dissertation, and their insights were invaluable. The University of Pennsylvania Libraries mailed me books, which truly made this project possible, and what I could not get from them, I was often quite shocked to find on the glorious Internet Archive, which had more Arabic books than I ever imagined. But perhaps the greatest help with sources was from Peter and Marianne Heath. Dr. Heath was willing to meet with me even as his health failed, but unfortunately it failed too quickly, and the meeting never happened. His amazingly generous wife, Marianne, then contacted me to offer whatever of his books would help with my research. She told me iv that it would please him to know that someone was benefiting from his collection. I certainly did, and I hope he would have been happy with the outcome. I also could not have made it to this point without the support of my employers. Cathy Zeljak and George Washington University Libraries supported my participation in several conferences to present my personal research, and this acknowledgement that librarianship and personal scholarship go hand-in-hand let me develop my ideas while working full-time. Harvard Fine Arts Library allowed me to begin my position much later than they wanted, allowing me the month I needed to finish a complete draft. On a community level, I also offer my thanks to the St. Andrews Institute of Medieval Studies for their annual Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages conference. It was my first medievalist conference, my introduction to #medievaltwitter, and it reignited my love for my topic while giving me a home in the field just when I needed it most. On a personal level, I would like to thank my family, who have always encouraged me to do what I love. Carolyn Brunelle, the best of colleagues and an even better friend, was always willing to offer a shoulder to cry on, a pep talk, or friendly indignation, and she always knew exactly which I needed. Finally, I must thank my beloved husband, John Steinberg. He uncomplainingly talked me through my various ideas, in all their various incarnations, for countless hours over the years. He encouraged me to keep my mind open about my path whenever I didn’t know where I was heading. Most of all, he never doubted that I could and should finish this thing, but that if I didn’t, it would be fine. This was even, and especially, when I doubted those things myself. I couldn’t have done it without him, and that is the understatement of the century. v ABSTRACT WIVES, WITCHES AND WARRIORS: WOMEN IN ARABIC POPULAR EPIC Amanda Hannoosh Steinberg Roger MA Allen This dissertation consolidates the known corpus of the medieval Arabic popular epic (sīrah shaʿbīyah) in order to examine the roles of its female characters and how they relate to power. Borrowing from feminist theory, the study takes as its organizing principle the categories of “power-over,” “power-to,” and “power-with,” showing that how a woman is judged for expressing power depends upon how her actions fit into one of these three categories. Moreover, each expression of power tends to be connected to a woman’s familial relationships: sexually available women are usually classified as expressing “power-over,” while the nonsexual relationships of sisters and daughters exemplify “power-to.” The character of the selfless mother represents the ultimate expression of “power-with.” By comparing these characterizations to portrayals of women in religious, historical, and adab works also created during the Middle Periods of Islamic history, we can conclude that the modern perception of women being confined to the private sphere and thus invisible in medieval Arabic literary production is based on ignorance of their ubiquitous and complex roles in more popular forms of literature. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................... III ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................................. V TRANSLITERATION AND CITATION ............................................................................ VIII INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 Objectives and Corpus ........................................................................................................................... 1 Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 7 Comparative sources ............................................................................................................................ 15 BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................................... 20 Critical Reception ................................................................................................................................. 27 POWER-OVER: SEXUALLY AVAILABLE WOMEN ........................................................ 39 Unmarried Women ............................................................................................................................... 41