1 Negotiating Shīʿī Identity and Orthodoxy Through Canonizing
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Negotiating Shīʿī Identity and Orthodoxy through Canonizing Ideologies about Women in Twelver Shīʿī Aḥādīth on Pre-Islamic Sacred History in the Qurʾān Submitted by Amina Inloes to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Arab and Islamic Studies, August 2015. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: …………………………………………………………………… 1 Abstract Shīʿī aḥādīth, particularly on women, are an immensely understudied area. Studies on Shīʿī aḥādīth on women usually centre on Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ, and little research explores pre-Islamic sacred female figures in Shīʿī aḥādīth. At the same time, there an urgent interest in Shīʿism as well as women in Islam, and a desire for new methods to be applied as well as new questions to be asked. This thesis will analyse Shīʿī aḥādīth about women in pre-Islamic sacred history who appear in the Qurʾān (focusing on Eve, Sārah, Hājar, Zulaykhā, Bilqīs, and the Virgin Mary), and apply the methodologies of ideological criticism and feminist hermeneutics (to be explained in Chapter 1) to explore the subtexts about the essential nature and role of women communicated through these narrations. In addition to exploring the roots of these ideas, it will compare them against the contemporary Shīʿī ideology of gender referred to as the ‘separate-but-equal’ ideology to explore how well this ideology corresponds to Shīʿī narrations. (What constitutes an ‘ideology’ will be explored in Chapter 1.) Rather than attempting to derive the ‘authentic’ teachings of the Prophet or the Imāms, this study will take a stance of inauthenticity with respect to narrations and treat narrations as socio-cultural artefacts representing the diversity of views and beliefs of the Shīʿī community. This distinguishes it from other works which either attempt to derive the ‘authentic’ teachings of the Prophet, or else which presume that all narrations equally reflect what the Prophet and Imāms actually said. This avoids the sticky question of which narrations are actually ‘true’ and allows them to be treated equally as cultural artifacts in negotiating a Shīʿī ideology of gender. Because this study focuses on sacred female figures shared with the Judaeo-Christian tradition, it allows for the exploration of how ideas about women from outside the Islamic tradition were integrated into the Shīʿī corpus through isrāʾīlīyāt, particularly through the intertextual synthesis of pre-Islamic material (such as the Bible) with post- Prophetic notions (such as normative paradigms of jurisprudential discourse). Two trends will emerge from these narrations. The first heavily reinforces patriarchal norms, such as women’s seclusion, the need for male authority, and male guardianship over women. These narrations reflect jurisprudential 2 discourse and are largely found in two of the four most prominent books of Shīʿī ḥadīth, al-Kāfī and al-Faqīh. However, in the second, other narrations form a ‘counter-narrative’ in which women and men are portrayed as equals; these narrations invoke the imagery of esoteric Shīʿism and focus on the narrative of wilāyah (loyalty to and love of the Prophet, Fāṭimah al-Zahrāʾ, and the Shīʿī Imāms). Since both sets of narrations address uniquely Shīʿī concerns, such as the Imāmate, it can be deduced that these differing portrayals of women reflect competing concerns in the early and mediaeval Shīʿī communities with respect to determining Shīʿī identity and orthodoxy, and may also reflect the spread of and resistance to Arabization. Lastly, because many narrations attributed to Imam ʿAlī convey strikingly different views about women, the penultimate chapter will explore whether Imam ʿAlī was misogynistic through a comparison of two foundational Shīʿī texts: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilālī (c. 100 AH) and Nahj al-Balāghah (c. 400 AH). 3 Acknowledgments Research does not take place in a vacuum, especially on a topic of contemporary interest. I would firstly like to extend my appreciation to my supervisors – Ian Netton, Sajjad Rizvi, Robert Gleave, and István Kristó-Nagy – for their patience, professionality, and interesting ideas. It was quite encouraging to be told by one of them that my thesis was ‘fascinating’! Additionally, at the University of Exeter, I also would like to thank Edward Skidelsky and Gabriele Galluzzo for taking the time to correspond regarding Aristotle’s views about women, as well as Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion, for suggesting ideological criticism as a methodology. A recent PhD graduate in Arab and Islamic Studies, Pooya Razavian, also helpfully shared some books and articles with me. Often, a casual word or idea has a lasting impact. I owe a special debt to Ahab Bdaiwi, who unknowingly directed to me this topic by inviting me to give a short talk on women in Shīʿī scholarship. At that point, I realized that this topic is of far more contemporary interest than the one that I was bogged down with. I also must thank a certain Shīʿī scholar residing in California for an offhand remark about Eve and the nature of women which led me to consider how ancient notions of Eve persist in the Shīʿī scholarly tradition even when the actual aḥādīth supporting them are not necessarily given credence; this led to the longest chapter. I must thank my colleague and classmate Afzal Sumar for sharing his extensive personal library with me. (Remember, Afzal, one need not possess all books, only most of them!) I would also like to extend my appreciation to Yahya Seymour for his generous gift of books. Abdulaziz Sachedina, Liyakat Takim, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Ismail, Shaikh Yahya Seymour, Afzal Sumar, and Miqdaad Versi have all been very helpful in reading selected chapters and offering constructive criticism. I would also like to thank Shaikh M. S. Bahmanpour for his support (even if the idea of intertextuality makes his eyebrows furrow), as well as Shaikh Ali Massomian for his practical assistance in allowing me to continue working on 4 this in Najaf. I also have to thank Prof. Hamid Algar for providing a good model of academic scholarship when I was an undergraduate student. I am particularly indebted to my current and former colleagues for their support, especially my former office-mate Amir Dastmalchian for his tireless encouragement as well as his exhortations regarding the Oxford Style Guide. I also have to thank Prof. Ali Paya for his emphasis on critically analysing orthodoxy; Hamid Tehrani for keeping me up to date; M. Mesbahi, Rebecca Masterton, Ali Aranji, Mohammed Samiei, and M. J. Elmi for their support; Tohid Shaban for emergency technical assistance; and Mohammad Zakaria for being a fruitful discussion partner on matters of race and gender in the Islamic tradition. I would also like to aknowledge my family for their support, especially my parents William and Suzanne Inloes. I should now offer the standard disclaimer that the views in this thesis do not necessarily reflect the views of the above people, particularly in such a sensitive subject as religious belief and orthodoxy. Finally, it should be noted that the above list is lacking in females – ironically, since this is a work about women. This is a reflection of the paucity of women in Islamic studies, and especially Shīʿī studies, in both the academic and seminary environments. Perhaps works like this will encourage there to be more! Transliteration The transliteration system of the Journal of Shi‘a Islamic Studies has been employed here. In contemporary Farsi words and names, ‘o’, ‘e’, and ‘v’ have been used to reflect common spellings. Naturalized words and names, such as ‘Ayatollah’ and ‘Islam’, have been used in their Anglicized form and have not been transliterated. For the names of sacred figures, the precedent of Barbara Stowasser in Women in the Qur’an was used – namely, using the Anglicized form for 5 common names in English, such as ‘Eve’ and ‘Mary’, and the Arabic form for other names, such as ‘Bilqīs’. This is, in part, a nod to the interchange between the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions that will be apparent throughout this work. However, in cases where the portrayal of the figure in the Judaeo- Christian tradition strongly differs from the portrayal in the Islamic tradition, the transliterated Arabic name was used. 6 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................... 12 1.1 Introduction and literature review .............................................. 12 1.1.1 Aims of this work .................................................................... 12 1.1.2 Contemporary relevance ........................................................... 15 1.1.3 Women in Shīʿism ..................................................................... 20 1.1.4 Views on women among contemporary Shīʿī scholars .............. 27 1.2 Methodology and key concepts .................................................... 43 1.2.1 Ideological criticism ................................................................ 43 1.2.2 Feminist hermeneutics ........................................................... 51 1.2.3 Islamic feminism? ..................................................................