School of humanities Master programme Language education for refugees and migrants Postgraduate dissertation
“Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi”
Koutsogianni Vasiliki
Supervisor : Mrs Zampaki Theodora
Patras, July 2020 Theses / Dissertations remain the intellectual property of students (“authors/creators”), but in the context of open access policy they grant to the HOU a non-exclusive license to use the right of reproduction, customisation, public lending, presentation to an audience and digital dissemination thereof internationally, in electronic form and by any means for teaching and research purposes, for no fee and throughout the duration of intellectual property rights. Free access to the full text for studying and reading does not in any way mean that the author/creator shall allocate his/her intellectual property rights, nor shall he/she allow the reproduction, republication, copy, storage, sale, commercial use, transmission, distribution, publication, execution, downloading, uploading, translating, modifying in any way, of any part or summary of the dissertation, without the explicit prior written consent of the author/creator. Creators retain all their moral and property rights
Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Koutsogianni Vasiliki
Supervising Committee:
Supervisor: Co-Supervisor Mrs Zampaki Theodora Mr Gogonas Nikolaos Hellenic Open University Hellenic Open University
Patras, Greece, July 2020 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
For all women – fighters smashing patriarchy daily
Dissertation iv Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Περίληψη
Η έννοια του Ισλαμικού φεμινισμού αμφισβητήθηκε για τα συστατικά στοιχεία της τόσο από κοσμικές όσο και από Μουσουλμάνες γυναίκες παγκοσμίως, και έχει χαρακτηριστεί σαν σχήμα οξύμωρο. Οι κριτικές γύρω από τη Φατιμα Μερνίσι είναι περιορισμένες, και αυτές οι λίγες μελέτες καταδικάζουν τις μετατοπίσεις στην προοπτική της ως αντιφατικές. Ο σκοπός αυτής της μελέτης είναι να διερευνήσει την γυναίκα μέσω από τον Ισλαμικό φεμινισμό, όπως εκφράζεται από τα έργα της Μερνίσι και μέσα από τα διάφορα στάδια που έχει διανύσει. Σαν ερευνητική μέθοδος χρησιμοποιήθηκε η ποιοτική ανάλυση περιεχομένου ακολουθώντας τα στάδια της προετοιμασίας, οργάνωσης και αναφοράς των δεδομένων με κατηγορίες κωδικοποίησης, για να συναγάγει ένα εννοιολογικό μοντέλο επάνω τον Ισλαμικό φεμινισμό στα έργα της Μερνίσι. «Η χιτζάμπ και η ανδρική ελίτ: μια φεμινιστική έρμηνεία των δικαιωμάτων των γυναικών στο Ισλάμ», «Οι ξεχασμένες βασίλισσες του Ισλάμ» και «Η γυναίκα στο μουσουλμανικό ασυνέιδητο» είναι τα υπό εξέταση βιβλία. Τα αποτελέσματα επιβεβαιώνουν την μη αντικρουόμενη φύση του Ισλαμικού φεμινισμού και τη διττή κριτική της Μερνίσι. Επιπλέον, μέσα από τα αποτελέσματα καταδεικνύεται η ανδρική αριστοκρατία και τα πολιτικά συμφέροντα πίσω από τον αποκλεισμό των γυναικών από την εξουσία, την κοινωνική ζωή καθώς και πίσω από τη χιτζάμπ που παρουσιάζεται από αυτούς σαν μέρος μιας αυθεντικής Μουσουλμανικής παράδοσης, μέσω της χειραγώγησης ιερών κειμένων, του Κορανίου και των Χαντίθ (Ισλαμική παράδοση που παραδίδει τη τα λόγια και τις πράξεις του Προφήτη Μωάμεθ και λειτουργεί σαν καθοδήγηση). Ωστόσο, απαιτείται περαιτέρω έρευνα για να κινητοποιηθούν οι Μουσουλμάνες αλλά και ο παγκόσμιος πληθυσμός των γυναικών να διεκδικήσουν τα ανθρώπινα δικαιώματά τους και να ανακτήσουν τη δύναμή τους μέσω της αμφισβήτησης του ορθόδοξου θρησκευτικού λόγου της ανδρικής ελίτ.
Λέξεις κλειδιά: Ισλαμικός φεμινισμός, Κοράνι, κοσμικός/μουσουλμανικός, θρησκευτική ερωτική λογοτεχνία, ορθόδοξος Ισλαμικός λόγος
Dissertation v Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Abstract
The notion of Islamic feminism has been challenged regarding its constituents both by secular and Muslim women from all continents and rendered an oxymoron. Critiques on Fatima Mernissi are limited, and these few studies condemn her shifts in perspective as conflicting. The purpose of this study is to explore Islamic feminism as expressed in the works of Fatima Mernissi and the various stages it has undergone. Qualitative content analysis has been employed as a research method, following the stages of data preparation, organizing, and reporting, using coding categories, to deduct a conceptual model on Islamic feminism in the works of Mernissi. "Veil and the male elite: a feminist interpretation of women's rights Islam", "Le harem politique/ The forgotten queens of Islam" and "Woman in the Muslim unconscious" are the books under scrutiny. The results demonstrate the non-conflicting nature of Islamic feminism and Mernissi's double-front critique on the subject. Additionally, the results section pinpoints the male aristocracy and political interests behind Muslim women's exclusion from power, social life, and veiling alleged as part of an authentic Muslim tradition through the manipulation of sacred texts, the Qu'ran and the Hadith. Further investigation is necessary to motivate Muslim women and women's worldwide population to claim their human rights and regain their agency through the contestation of "religious" elitist male orthodox discourses.
Keywords: Islamic feminism, secular/secularist, religious erotic/orthodox discourse, erotic discourse, female/male, Qu'ran, Prophet
Dissertation vi Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Table of content
Contents Περίληψη...... v Abstract ...... vi Table of contents ...... vii 1 Introduction ...... 1 2 Theoretical framework ...... 3 2.1 Fatima Mernissi ...... 3 2.1.1 Early life and career ...... 3 2.1.2 Mernissi’s methodology ...... 4 2.1.3 First and second stage feminism in Mernissi's works ...... 5 2.2 Islamic feminism ...... 6 2.2.1 Socio-historical background of Islamic feminism ...... 6 2.2.2 What is Islamic feminism? ...... 7 2.2.3 Main characteristics of Islamic feminism ...... 7 2.2.4 “Islamic-islamic” terms ...... 8 2.2.5 The term "feminism" in Islamic feminism concept ...... 9 2.2.6 “islamic-secular” terms in Islamic feminsm ...... 10 2.2.7 The manipulation of sacred texts in Islamic feminism ...... 10 2.2.8 Arkoun's theory in Islamic feminism ...... 11 2.2.9 Is Islamic feminism an oxymoron? ...... 12 2.2.10 Issues in Islamic feminist methodology ...... 12 3 Research methodology ...... 14 3.1 Qualitative content analysis – literature ...... 14 3.2 Research objectives ...... 16 3.2.1 Importance of the study ...... 17 3.3 Research questions ...... 17 3.3.1 Thematic categories ...... 17 3.4 Sample ...... 18 3.4.1 Woman and the Muslim unconscious: a critique ...... 18 3.4.2 Le harem politique: a critique ...... 19 3.4.3 The Veil and the male elite – a moment of shift – a critique ...... 21 4 Results ...... 24 4.1 The forgotten queens of Islam/Le harem politique ...... 24 4.1.1 The importance of titles and legitimacy ...... 24 4.1.2 Eligibility criteria for sovereignty ...... 25 4.1.3 Female queens fulfilling elibility criteria to reign- subaltern history ...... 26 4.1.4 Fifteen women queens of Islam ...... 26 4.1.5 Island queens ...... 27 4.1.6 Arab queens ...... 27 4.1.7 Women-leaders and space ...... 29 4.1.8 Women-rulers and use of violence ...... 29 4.1.9 Female beauty and caliphs ...... 30 4.2 The veil and the male elite ...... 31 4.2.1 Modern Muslim Woman and conflicting identities ...... 31 4.2.2 Women’s rights as a threat to Medina economy ...... 32
Dissertation vii Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
4.2.3 Women slaves ...... 32 4.2.4 The Prophet’s divine message – the emergence of Hadiths ...... 33 4.2.5 Impact of Hadiths on women ...... 34 4.2.6 The descent of hijab – the veiling of women ...... 36 4.2.7 The Prophet’s relationship to women ...... 39 4.3 Woman in the Muslim unconscious ...... 40 4.3.1 The omnisexual woman-crack characteristics in religious erotic discourse 41 4.3.2 Female sexuality ...... 42 4.3.3 Female desire – disorder ...... 42 4.3.4 Woman in the omnisexual universe VS orthodox universe ...... 43 4.3.5 Religious orthodox discourse ...... 43 4.3.6 Islamic paradise and sacred economy : the houri ...... 44 4.3.7 Woman and man as disposable products ...... 45 4.3.8 Woman in an operation a trois with man and God ...... 46 5 Discussion ...... 46 6 Conclusion ...... 51 7 References ...... 54
Dissertation viii Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
1 Introduction
The women’s struggle for equality in social, political and domestic life is long and hard. Even though women have been emancipated, there is still a lot of space for the elevation of their status. In only a few years, especially in the European Union, women entered the political area and were elected for leadeship positions, while their chances for education and a professional career have been multiplied. However, inequality still exists in all these fields, as misogynous males, either as colleagues, political rivals, employees, male relatives and friends or even romantic lovers. Gender inequality is a daily routine for a great number of women, who fight against discrimination and vigorously resist oppression. Even more fascinating is a high male percentage who consider and express publicly that female emancipation has overcome “the limits” and render themselves victims of gender inequality. Even worse, there are women who suffer from an internalized type of misogynism, at the point that they feel nostalgic of the alpha male ,traditional figure that supports them financially, makes decisions and mutilates their free will.
Apart from harmful misogynous comments, modern reality, even in the technologically advanced European countries that monopolize female liberation, there are criminal behaviours enacted against women that threat their safety. Gender inequality can be expressed through verbal or physical threats or violence. According to WHO (2018), statistics show that 1 out of 3 women have undergone physical violence in their life, mainly exercised by an intimate partner. The proximity and close relationship to the victim is also reinforced by Statistics Canada reports (2017), that indicate a percentage of 87% of self-reported violent assaults originating from males against women, while only 15.8% to 38% of sexual assaults are eventually reported to authorities. European Union for Fundamental rights (2014) conducted another research indicating that Scandinavian and central European countries have alarmingly high percentages of gender-based violence (GBV) imposed by a male partner, rather than by strangers. This evokes questions, as Scandinavian coutnries are considered the most liberal regarding female emancipation. Turning again to WHO (2018) female genital mutilation is a dark reality for more than 200 million girls and women living in the Middle East, Asian and African countries, while forced marriage is a surviving practice in multiple traditions. The aforementioned percentages result in one conclusion; feminist revolution is both necessary and mandatory because million females’ physical, psychological and emotional integrity are endangered every minute.
Sexual assault, rape and adult or child sexual abuse are only a few instances of GBV connected with severe trauma, psychological implications, drug use and general malfuctions regarding operation in social, personal and professional life. According to Nationmaster (n.d.), rape statistics are considerably high in South Africa, Sweden and Belgium among others, while Greece has low reports and Egypt has minimum cases.
Dissertation 1 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
However, official reports do not reflect the actual number, as rape is underreported by victims due to fear of murder, economic dependence, children and reputation. Regarding Greece, these numbers are hard to believe, judging from the calls in helplines. As far as child sexual abuse is concerned, another report from WHO (2013) shows that 18 million children are sexually abused under the age of 18 years old. Gender-wise, this percentage is 13.4 % for girls and 5.7 % for boys, which shows that attacks are enacted mostly by male abusers.
The coronavirus outbreak taking place since February 2020 brought changes in daily life, such as the quarantine lockdown. Its aftermath on the human race is still estimated in fatalities, but it also had serious consequences for domestic life. Recent reports (Spagadorou, 2020) refer to a 60% increase in domestic violence in April 2020, as it is evident by multiple calls from battered women for help. A few days ago, according to The Guardian (n.d.), a 27-year-old woman was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend in Turkey, an event that shed light on the high rates of femicide in the country and caused social outcry against GBV in all over the world. According to United Nations, (Department of Global Communications, n.d.), interpersonal violence usually escalates during crisis, and calls have been doubled or tripled in many countries, such as France, Singapore, Australia and Argentina. In United Kingdom, 14 women and 2 children were murdered during the first weeks of the lockdown.
In the intellectual field, various scholars have placed women in the centre of attention and explored the reasons that allowed them to be perceived as secondary, as the “other”, in multiple communities. Simone de Beauvoir, in “The second sex” (1989), investigates female sexuality and its suffocation by males. She was a prominent figure in the feminist movement as she claimed for women’s right to education and economic independence. She imputes false assumptions of gender and its expected,canonized behaviour in societal boundaries, as well as the definition of women always rotating around men as for two social illnesses responsible for women’s oppression. In patriarchy, men are defined only by utilizing a woman. Woman becomes “the other” because men are reluctant to understand her, thus alienating and mystyfing her is an easy option. Begoffen (2004) highlights her amorous relationship with Sartre, which gave birth to themes such as the limits of freedom, the existential crisis and burden of solitary human nature, the legitimacy of violence, the impact of desire and time. Equality does not presuppose sameness in sexual traits, and despite their gender differences male and female should be equal.
Other scholars have also expanded on the “othering” of women, where she represents all disruptive elements for society. Judith Butler (1990) has deconstructed gender and compulsive heterosexuality being only a performance of identity and the limitations to sexuality as responsible for the binaries man/woman and their assigned “normal” behaviours, namely stereotypes. For her, gender and sexuality are fluid, which renders social and sexual setereotypes as social constructions irrelevant to human nature. She
Dissertation 2 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi further compartmentalizes gender and sex as different entities. Therefore, female as a “gender” is subjected to social and cultural expectations (Mikkola, 2008).
In 1776, a letter from Abigail Adams to her husband and the Continental Congress, warning women on the potential tyrant in a male and informing them on an upcoming rebellion, enkindled a powerful social movement: feminism. Over the past years, women's rights movements in the Western world have incited enormous changes in women's lives all around the globe and they have inspired both sexes towards a more egalitarian value system. Many studies have been conducted regarding the evolution of feminism in the Western world, while steps toward gender equality through legislative reforms and social action are taken. However, the Western world is principally related to Christianity and it certainly does not represent the only civilization. In another part of the world, the Middle East, a fresh breeze of revolution blew in the beginning in the 1990s, which gave birth to a new movement, namely Islamic feminism. Due to inadequate knowledge on this nascent social configuration unraveled through Islamic thought, it is indispensable to explore its facades extensively. The purpose of my thesis is to delve into the bowels of Islamic feminism, investigate the multiple manifestations of the female nature in it and specifically in the works of Fatima Mernissi, as prominent Islamic feminist.
My thesis is organized in specific stages. The first segment is dedicated to Fatima Mernissi's life and scholarly work, both of which are marked by her strong revolutionary power. In the same section, the characteristics of Islamic feminism are presented through an extensive literature review. My methodological choices are shown in the third part, consisting of the process and the analytical tools employed for this paper. The fourth part is concerned with the results elicited from my research, while the fifth part is comprised of a critical examination of the literature review and my findings. The paper is complemented by the most crucial inferences emanating from my research.
2 Theoretical framework
2.1 Fatima Mernissi
2.1.1 Early life and career
Fatima Mernissi is undoubtedly one of the most prevalent and influential personas of Islamic feminism, whose ideological perspective has also shaped her participation in the social terrain, such as the theatre. Fatima Mernissi was a salient scholar, writer, teacher, and sociologist born in Fez, Morocco on September 27, 1940, and died in Rabat, Morocco in 2015 (“Fatima Mernissi”, n.d.) She experienced her early childhood years next to her relatives and servants in the harem of her wealthy paternal grandmother. Regarding
Dissertation 3 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi education, she received her primary education in a school founded by nationalists, while her secondary education was provided by a female-only school established by the French protectorate. She engaged with political science studies at Sorbonne and Brandeis University, where she attained her doctorate. She returned to teach at Mohammed V university as a lecturer and she worked at the Faculte des Lettres (1974-1981) on subjects such as methodology, family sociology, and psychosociology. Mernissi's principal axis of research is feminism, and specifically gender and sexual identity, while she follows a sociopolitical approach and she situates her analysis in Morocco. Despite the breadth of her research subjects, she is principally known as an Islamic feminist. Her Ph.D. thesis "Beyond the Veil: Male and female dynamics in Muslim society" was published as a book and acknowledges Muslim women's influential role in molding the Islamic concept of faith.
As far as her career timeline is concerned, her monograph "Beyond the Veil" was published in Britain in 1975 and turned into a classic work in the realm of anthropology and sociology of women in the Arab world, Muslim regions, and the Mediterranean. However, her most popular book "The Veil and the Male elite: A feminist interpretation of women's rights in Islam" was published initially in French (1987) and was later translated in English (1991), it constitutes a historical study of the Prophet Muhammad's wives and a critique to the religious Hadiths that are politically manipulated by the male elite to serve male interests. Its radicality culminated in the book's censorship in Morocco, Iran, and Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Moving on to other important works of Fatima Mernissi, "The forgotten queens of Islam" and "Woman in the Muslim unconscious" were published in 1997 and 1984 respectively. The former recounts the succession of fifteen queens in Islamic history, a response to the male Muslim politicians that claimed the election of Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988 as disruptive to Muslim tradition. The last book is highly psychoanalytic and consists of a thorough examination of the complex and conflicting messages that Islamic legal and erotic discourse reproduce on the female body and sexuality.
2.1.2 Mernissi’s methodology
Mernissi's methodology as an Islamic feminist is an understudied field. The critics committed to exploring her works often concentrate more on one aspect of Mernissi at the expense of another. As Rhouni correctly points out (2010), it is impossible (not to say immoral) to put Mernissi in strict categories of thought. This rather positive element of Mernissi's style emanates from her abhorrence as regards to any type of orthodoxy and, instead, her natural inclination towards unrestrained, subversive, heterodox thought. Specifically, Mernissi never identified herself as Islamic feminist, refusing to trivialize the multifarious dimension of her work to mundane categories, which did not prevent other scholars from ascribing her the title of Islamic feminist either way. Her critique is double-
Dissertation 4 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi front, in terms of criticizing concurrently both Orientalist discourse and Muslim extremists towards their construction of "Muslim woman", narratives that overloaded her with arbitrary and ahistorical identity traits. Therefore, Mernissi engages in a double project to claim for Muslim women's rights against an emerging Islamic nationalism of the times while paying attention to address the mystifying Orientalist discourse, infused by Islamophobic traces manufactured in the West. As Zayzafoon points out (2005), Mernissi stumbles upon an authenticity and truth quest which eventually accepts the "religious truth" included in the orthodox discourse of Hadith and the Qu'ran. Garcia (2014) upholds a similar argument reading the over-sophisticated nature of Hadith authentication and the consequent disconnection among Mernissi and Egyptian women that do not belong to the female elite.
Drawing from the Barlow's and Akbarzadeh's work (2006), categorizing Mernissi is not feasible. Mernissi constantly moves through ideas and tricks the scholars that wallow to diminish her to Islamic or secular feminist. Her interests are constantly renewed and thus revitalize stagnant intellectual realms. For Rhouni (2010), Mernissi delicately avoids being immobilized in the faith-originating ideological position for the simple reason that she opts for social reformulation and implementation of new ideas. In Gramsci's words (1971), she is an "organic intellectual" whose vision to ameliorate the corrupt social order allows them to move in between intellectual realms and temporarily commit to anything that serves their purpose to understand and push society to change.
2.1.3 First and second stage feminism in Mernissi's works
According to Rhouni (2010), Mernissi experienced a first and a second-stage feminism. The first stage is characterized as insurgent, rebellious, radical, and falls into her secularist moment, speaking from the embers of social revolution and transformation. The second stage is softer, milder, and speaks from within the Islamic thought, mostly coinciding with Islamic reformism. Islamic reformism is a crucial moment for the Muslim state because it marked the point of the shift from the Western, modernization fervency prevailing in the postcolonial Muslim state, towards an equally ferocious desire to revive and return to Muslim tradition. In other words, the fairytale of the Western-imported development went bad, hence the Muslim majority sought to find refuge in Islamic religion in a nationalistic vehemence. This pivotal momentum in Islamic history is reflected in Mernissi's works through a shift in her approach, which was nor welcomed nor properly and profoundly comprehended by her critics, a few of them characterizing her as ideologically inconsistent.
Dissertation 5 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
2.2 Islamic feminism
2.2.1 Socio-historical background of Islamic feminism
To understand the emergence of Islamic feminism as a movement and social project, as well as Mernissi’s shifts, it is important to take the sociopolitical landscape of the post- colonial Muslim world into consideration. First of all, with the departure of colonizers, the Muslim state had to redefine its national identity and eventually regain its power and prestige. Needless to say, the presence of foreign forces left Muslim states with an uneasy sensation, that of animosity towards the West and its bifurcations. Therefore, the West embodied the enemy to be resisted, and along with it modernization, globalization, and capitalism were condemned. Mernissi (1991) refers to disturbing changes taking place in spatiotemporal terms with the technological progress and the savage expansion of capitalism. Geopolitics was replaced by "chronopolitics", meaning that the West could control the Middle East and other parts of the world through abstract, intangible means. The colonizer's presence and their imposition of modernity caused an explosive reaction by the colonized, to defend their tradition and thus preserve their Muslim identity. The colonial intervention traumatized a society that was not mature at that historical point to accept gender equality. Women's emancipation was inadvertently connected to the enemy- colonizer that rapes Muslim tradition with its democracy. This enforced progress in gender relations took place concurrently with Western insults on Islam as a regressive religion. As a result, any fragments of progressive thought were stigmatized by negative assumptions, that of erosion of Muslim customs and ethics, and there appeared the nationalist movement, political Islam.
However, a late-modern event fragmented Muslim identity even more. In her book "Veil and the Male Elite" Mernissi (1991) underscores the shock and reverberations that stroke the Muslim state with its participation in the international scene and its embarking on the Universal Declaration of Human rights (p.22). On the other hand, bid' ah (=innovation) is a serious sin according to the Qu'ran, which condemns any change in the order and status quo proscribed by God as unruly conduct (Khalid, 2017; Mernissi, 1991). Also, Article 1 of Moudawana of 1957 (Moroccan family law) stresses the female nature as a semi-human being subjected to the husband's desires and is based on alif (hierarchy), which is a legitimized submission as the very nature of existence in Islam. The new reality brought the veiled, objectified, marginalized Muslim woman right next to the Muslim man. Upgrading her position from the bottom of sacred –and therefore social and legal – hierarchy represents an open wound for the Muslim identity, which finds itself torn between sharia law and international progress. The Muslim state accepted the principles of individual freedom and equal rights among all human beings (Article 1). Taking into account such intense contradictions taking place in the post-colonial Arab world, it becomes quite clear that Islamic feminism initially posed multiple issues to Muslim feminists, who had to make a diffucult choice (Mir-Hosseini, 2006), between their religious identity and professional path.
Dissertation 6 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
2.2.2 What is Islamic feminism?
Islamic feminism has appeared quite recently, during the last three decades. Margot Badran firstly coined the term Islamic feminism (1992), as a conflation of Islamic religion and the feminist movement. According to Rhouni (2010), Islamic feminism is an umbrella term that endorses multiple actors and political stances. It is permeated by feminist discourse and its practice is situated within an Islamic paradigm. According to famous Islamic feminists, such as Badran (2002), it is considered as more subversive than secular feminism, because it dares to pinpoint at Qu'ran and the Sunna as principal texts of analysis and its interpretative technique (exegesis) stems directly from Islamic thought. The springboard of Islamic feminists is to interpret sacred texts by using the tools of feminist discourse, with the ultimate aim to restore gender equality in the private and public domains. Mir-Hosseini (2006) expresses her problematization that even though the fuqaha (religious scholars) and Muslim believers suggest that gender equality is an inherent feature of Islamic faith, yet women are treated as secondary sex in many Muslim societies. Therefore, Islamic feminism is committed to the strenuous and hazardous task of analyzing and synchronizing the Sharia law in modern reality and its emergent needs. However, Islamic feminists also are to unearth the reasons for the paradoxical scheme between the inherently egalitarian message of Islam-risala (Islam as divine message) and the political arena of Islam, which is strictly regulated by Sharia law and fiqh (Islamic religious jurisprudence), namely Sharia's interpretation by religious scholars of the 9th and 10th centuries.
Islamic feminism, its hermeneutics and methodologies have been vehemently contested by many scholars, such as Abou-Bakr, Barlas, Hoda Salah and Abu Zayd. To begin with, Abou-Bakr (2011) condemns Western involvement in the interpretative devices of Islamic feminism as restrictive and producing supremacist narratives. Alternatively, she sees the project’s full potentiality in a conscious detachment from homogenizing perspectives that confine Islamic feminism as Muslim or non-Muslim. Moving on to Al-Sharmani (2014), she acknowledges the diversity contained in Islamic feminism and problematizes on the repercussions provoked by this heterogeneity. She claims the different denominations ascribed to Islamic feminism by scholars, such as Hoda Salah (2010). The latter distinguishes three types of Islamic feminism, namely conservative, liberal and radical, referring to Saleh, Ezzat and Abu Zayd as representing these types respectively (Al- Sharmani, 2014). This liminality in distinct thresholds regarding method and hermeneutics causes fear in other scholars, such as Moll, who hold tight to classic Islamic throught and religious scholars, as uncontestable sources of truth. Finally, Al-Sharmani (2014) differentiates among transnational and national Islamic feminists.
2.2.3 Main characteristics of Islamic feminism
Therefore, Islamic feminism has specific characteristics. First of all, it does not represent a set of surgical tools or black magic employed to extract egalitarian fragments in Islamic
Dissertation 7 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi religious texts, because such a perspective trivializes the whole project. Contrarily, it is a set of analytical tools, expressed in different approaches, borrowed from various scholarly fields with the higher purpose to understand the pure Islamic message, leave it bare from rigid, male-derived and male-oriented group of elitists, place it in a real, historical moment in time, destroy mystifying narratives and restore to Islam its historicity and plurality. In Islamic feminism, gender is introduced as a new unit of analysis that corresponds to modern society's needs to function properly and in equilibrium with the passage of time moving forward, willing to overcome the fear of the present. Moreover, for Rhouni (2010), Islamic feminism is a reconciliation among the mundane East-West and religious- secular binaries and transcends them, leaving them behind as constructed, human-made, superficial boundaries that (the same holds for all kinds of discrimination) are sheer products of political machinery and a larger system of propaganda, exploitation, and subjugation of the "have-nots" to "haves". Overall, it is a tool of analysis that acknowledges that gender equality and women's rights are only reiterated in theory, whereas reality proves infringements of these humanistic principles, but also the urgency to establish and secure them both for men and women.
Mir-Hosseini (2006) further expands the definition of Islamic feminism, thus giving answers to its externally perceived as contradictory elements. Firstly, she underscores the impossible mission of throwing all Islamic feminists into barren categories, because all voices, irrelevant to the camp in which they fight for, they are tied to a specific region, they are diverse, multifarious, ever-changing and ever-evolving. Secondly, Mir-Hosseini (2006) considers subjectivity, in terms of the cognitive patterns connected to the concept of justice and equality in each individual's mind. This utterance is exceptionally important for this study because it strongly implies that truth as a highly elusive, fluid concept, and therefore the quest for truth and authenticity overflowing Mernissi's and other Islamic feminists' works are exposed as futile, let alone inconsiderate. Rhouni's opinion (2010) is in agreement with Mir-Hosseini (2006) at this point, as they conclude that Islamic Feminism is a continuous, open expedition of deconstruction, whose tools intend to demolish the mental and bodily constraints produced on women through the fiqh, the latter being unequivocally a human product, and in this case, a manifestation of patriarchal malice to distort the divine message and seal the doors of ijtihad (independent reasoning). Additionally, Islamic feminism is also an infinite project that undertakes to reconstruct and re-enkindle Islamic thought, as a fertile ground for critical thinking. Islam, like all religions and sacred texts, is something deeper than doctor prescriptions and they are always bound to the era and spatiotemporal frame in which they are born, containing a discursive element between humans and the divine. Relying on this, Islam arose to ameliorate women's place in society, not consolidate it.
2.2.4 “Islamic-islamic” terms
Drawing from various theorizations expressed by Mernissi, Arkoun, Badran, and Barlas, and despite the multiplicity of meanings enshrined in the notion of Islamic feminism, I
Dissertation 8 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi intend to indicate the most salient characteristics of this movement. To fully conceive its constituents, the compartmentalization of its appellation is indispensable. Staring from the adjective "Islamic", Rhouni (2010) efficiently deconstructs its implications. As she points out, holding tight to the term "Islamic" obeys to essentialism and consequently to serious foundationalism, which does not coincide with conducting a mental and intellectual exploration that is free from lurking hermetics. The truth is that certain scholars' steady denial for the term feminism and the retainment of "Islamic" constitutes a trace of purism (Rhouni, 2010, p. 33). This is particularly problematic and vague, as it is widely known among Islamic feminists that Islamic feminism draws from various disciplines, including humanities and social sciences, that go hand in hand with classical Islamic studies. Simultaneously, Cooke (2001) sees the defense of a faith position in "Islamic", a concept rejected by Rhouni (2010) as insufficient, because it directly prevents non-Muslims and secular feminists from engaging into Islamic feminist research, a viewpoint that reproduces an elitist view of the literary world, elitism being part of Islamic feminism's polemic. On the contrary, Islamic feminism is a social project of deconstruction and fruitful critique, and not a nervous digging for egalitarian messages in Islamic texts and norms. It is open and accessible to scholars from any religious realm that aims to reignite Islamic thought, using approaches and tools that do not further disparage Islam.
Insisting on the "Islamic" part of the term, the variable of faith creates additional complications. According to the Qu'ran, a Muslim believer's duty is simply "to read". Therefore, engaging in a process of reasoning and rereading sacred texts (the Hadith, the Qu'ran, the Sunna, the fiqh), seemingly violates a focal point of Islam and puts Muslim researchers in a vulnerable position. In case that gender equality is a given in Islam, and Islamic feminists analyze, deconstruct and challenge sacred texts, as the fountains of legal and social order in the Muslim state, the cases of Mernissi and Yassine Nadia, the Moroccan activist (2007) are peculiar and evoke questions. These two scholars received death fatwas and were accused of apostasy, as they did not hesitate to rummage into the sacred texts and claimed their rights for freedom of expression. According to Rhouni (2009), the concept of faith (iman) in Muslim tradition includes faith (or a-critical acceptance) to sharia law. Nevertheless, sharia law is frequently confused with fiqh, which is an interpretation of sharia law by ancient male scholars. This factor renders clear that Islamic feminism is expected to flourish and expand in an irrefutably religious environment, that of Islamic faith interwoven with modern Islamic thought.
2.2.5 The term "feminism" in Islamic feminism concept
To continue with, the second particle of the term, "feminism" has also raised controversies among scholars, while resistance mostly derives from Muslim scholars. The reason for their aversion is the effect of demonization of Western values due to fundamentalists' propaganda where feminism exemplifies the ultimate insult of the presumed as Muslim tradition, where women are the secondary sex. From their point of view, the term feminism is terrifying, as it causes a division of their religious identity. However, the
Dissertation 9 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi female struggle for worldwide gender equality truly needs solidarity among women, and feminism should unite rather than further divide (Mir-Hosseini, 2006), and should stem from a common ground, namely Islam's divine message supporting gender equality.
Another significant variable around the term feminism is the legitimacy (or not) ascribed to those scholars accepting it. Rhouni promulgates (2010) that feminism itself is a social project that arose within Muslim territories, in contrast with false Western misconceptions that locate the birth of feminism in the West, re-depriving agency from Muslim women. Therefore, there should be no shame in embracing the term for Muslim scholars who engage in analysis from a faith-based point of departure. Barlas (2008) is one of the scholars for which “feminism” is an uneasy experience, because it is directly linked to Western civilization and its demons. Instead, she prefers to name feminism as an obligation of a faithful, religious Muslim woman confronting her God (Al-Sharmani, 2014).
2.2.6 “islamic-secular” terms in Islamic feminsm
The adjective "islamic" is closely associated with the adjective" secular". However, secular is further separated from "secularist", as the second equally falls in the trap of dogmatism emitted from "Islamic". Relying on this assumption, islamic and secular share a common vision, that of the religion as purely spiritual and free from political impurities disturbing its sacred nature. Specifically, "secular" refers to a post-foundationalist stance towards Islam, which expels normative elements and gives it back its historicity and multivocality through a contextual approach. Eventually, it refrains from being caught in "apologetic" discourse that views sacred texts as embalmed in a frozen timeframe. This it transpires that "secular" could be considered as more congruous to the pure Islamic message than alleged Islamic feminism proponents, and "Islamic" could be thus turned upside down to patent heresy because a secular approach attempts to expose crimes against human rights gilded in the name of absolute Islamic truth.
2.2.7 The manipulation of sacred texts in Islamic feminism
To continue with, having on mind the unbreakable linkage between divine revelations and the addressed audience, Rhouni (2010) propounds an undeniable fact regarding the Qu'ran, including the Hadith and the Sunna. The same concept will help disctinct among Islamic (with a capital I) and islamic (with lower case i). One of the greatest mistakes made by Islamic and secular feminists is dehistoricization, decontextualization, and most importantly dehumanization of the sacred texts. All audiences (Muslim traditionalists – Islamic fundamentalists – secular feminists) treat sacred texts like fixed regulations to be imposed on every Muslim in any part of the world. In other words, they conceive the sacred texts as authoritarian texts. However, as Rhouni points out (2010) these texts should be apprehended as descriptive, which means that they correspond to the specific society in a specific historical era with its unique social issues to be resolved. Rendering the revelations as sterile, soul-less utterances, depriving them of their potentiality to be re-
Dissertation 10 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi examined and re-applied over time, creates serious impairments in the maintenance and prestige of religion.
Another interesting view expressed by Siddiqui (2019), mentions native language at the forefront of tafsir (exegesis of religious texts, mainly the Quran). Specifically, she examines Islamic feminism situated in India by mentioning two court cases that involved nafaqah (alimony in exchange of submission to husband). There appeared multiple contradictions that entangled law, religion and community regarding women’s role and implicitly her worth as a human being. Siddiqui sheds light on native language as a key factor in the interpretation of the Quran and other religious texts, as not all Muslim terrirories share the same language, some of these languages being Urdu and Hindi. This factor inflates the complexity of religious textual analysis and renders Islamic feminists’ task as an arduous quest for equality in between a linguistic interplay among the male religious elite.
2.2.8 Arkoun's theory in Islamic feminism
Regarding the distinction between Islamic and islamic feminism, Rhouni offers a thorough explanation of their fundamental differentiation. Beginning with Islamic feminism, it refers to a rather dogmatic viewpoint, which ties the whole movement of Islamic feminism in tight, unnecessary, intellectual chains, thus confining it in fundamentalist conceptions. Drawing from Arkoun's theorization (2003), Islamic feminism is initiated by an ingrained, inflexible view regarding Islam, consisted of jurists and fuqaha that reject the rereading and resituation of Islamic thought in modernity, thus stripping it off its plurality and unlimited potentiality for interpretation. However, the aforementioned definitional confinement, unfortunately, reduces Islam to a fossilized concept, erasing all its historicity, its complexity, diversity, and manifold nature, including the various cultural groups and customs presiding over this era. A contradiction to spirituality here is the obsession of male fuqaha and politicians on fiqh and the Qu'ran regarding women's rights and the historically proven manipulation of sacred texts and the denial to re-investigate them to the supposedly spiritual message of Islam. Again, Islam-risala and Islam as politics collide, the latter creating and maintaining oppositional conceptions, such as Islam-Orient and West-secular.
On the other hand, Arkoun (2003) suggests that "islamic" is naked, pure of voracious categorizations, polarities, and phenomenally vacuum conceptual antitheses that only serve the "divide and conquer" mentality. The adjective "islamic" refers to Islam as an unrestrained representation of a divine message, which gives space for multiple interpretations, methodological tools and pathways for analysis, interdisciplinarity and open discussion with other religious scholars, a perspective that protects the historicity of Islam under the auspices of freedom of expression. Cross-pollination and intersectionality are the main features of islamic feminism, which function as enabling practices regarding
Dissertation 11 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi intertextual conversations among "antithetical" religious terrains, such as secular and religious texts.
2.2.9 Is Islamic feminism an oxymoron?
In this line of thought, it is blatant that Islamic feminism has enormous depth and therefore requires meticulous analysis. Numerous scholars have asserted the non-conflicting nature of Islamic feminism, such as Cooke, Arkoun and Badran. To prove that Islam and feminism united in one term is a harmonious concept, a rational integration of religious and social, one must take for granted an anti-essentialist perception both of Islam and feminism, avoiding to capture their dynamism and power in the limits of a crystallized identity. Here, Malouf's contribution to the concept identity is valuable (2001) where he defines identity as a combination of disparate, multiple fragments that resemble the DNA genes. Identity is constantly prone to alterations and cannot be caged. It is nearly unfair to captivate Islamic feminism in intellectual cells. Equally, Rhouni (2010) further expresses that Islamic feminism is one of the "many speaking positions"(p.29). Despite internal conflicts, however, Islamic feminism is all-encompassing and eventually succeeds in uniting both male and female researchers whose goal is to lay bare the mechanisms that disfigured Islam's divine message through the fiqh interpretation. To further enhance the view that Islamic feminism is not paradoxical, Cooke (2001) underlines that neither religion nor Islam are ideologies and especially not-gender specific, but rather a faith system that transcends time and temporary human limitations.
2.2.10 Issues in Islamic feminist methodology
First of all, before delving deeply into Mernissi's double-front critique, the clarification of two Arabic terms seems indispensable for a better understanding. One of the Islamic feminists' useful tools in their struggle to dismantle androcentric barriers in sacred texts heavily relies on the "ijtihad", which means independent reasoning, which the former righteously claim as their prerogative to conduct (Kynsilehto, 2008). Regarding the approach engaged to (re)read religious texts, "asl" refers to a failing methodology of interpretation or counter-interpretation of the texts as being infallible, therefore constitutes foundationalism. Additionally, "tafsir" signifies the interpretation of Qu'ranic sources, while Uṣūl al-fiqh represents traditional methodological principles for the elicitation of their meaning and their consequent relation to legislation. Usul al-fiqh is the preamble of "ta'ssil", the methodology employed and which considers Qu’ranic texts as texts of law, binding, regulatory and prescriptive. Finally, iglah bab al-ijtihad signaled the closure of the gate of independent reasoning, terminated critical thinking, and replaced it with "taqlid", meaning imitation, and was supported by Sunni Islam (Sunna=tradition).
The prevalent issue tormenting the field of Islamic feminism and contaminating also Mernissi's approach, is that of the appetite for uncovering the "absolute truth", seeking authenticity (or not) in religious texts and recovering the egalitarian message of Islam. However, this approach is dysfunctional as it emits foundationalism, a serious limitation
Dissertation 12 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi for productive research. According to Rhouni (2009), Islamic feminists suffer from this incessant quest to render gender equality as normative in the Qu'ranic discourse, while they sideline the co-existence of two contradictory voices in the Qu'ran, the one exhuming gender equality in the spiritual sense of the term, and the other being androcentric, with God speaking to women through women indirectly. Islamic feminists appear as oblivious toward this male-dominated discourse and thus apply an eclectic methodology in their interpretation, that retains egalitarian Qu’ranic passages, while for the misogynous extracts they pretends they do not exist, adopting the ostrich mentality. Needless to say, such a methodology is frail, unsound, and to make things worse, reproduces the same discourse it aims to dismantle, namely foundationalism.
To counteract the dangers stemming from foundationalist approaches, Arkoun's theorization is enlightening (2003). The categories of "thinkable-unthinkable-unthought" is an intrinsically interesting concept, grounded in the human ability to absorb new information, process it, and appropriate it or reject it. In the realm of ideological production, especially where religious, political and social are indistinguishable –as is the case with theocratic states- the three aforementioned statuses represent the level of freedom transpiring from a human mind and its immunity or embracing towards new ideas. There is not critique here, rather than a description of a nation-state or individual mind as part of that state towards sociopolitical rearrangement and the sorting of entrenched, obsolete, or simply malfunctioning social and political order, which in this case is women's rights. Arkoun (2003) propounds that the "thinkable" stands for what an individual as a thinking entity is possible for to conceive. Linguistic formulations and choices deployed by this thinker are determinant, concerning the power of language to express ideology (Fairclough, 1989). Another significant factor is the audience to which the thinker addresses or belongs, the recurrent doctrines, images, and thoughts accepted by them and of course the current ruling power and social situation. Moving on to the "unthinkable", Arkoun (2003) refers to it as the unfortunate state of mind called ighad bab al-ijtihad, the mutilation of the human brain's ability to judge and create. “Unthinkable” – absolutist nations' goal for mass brainwashing- exemplifies the forbidden, as dictated by religious and political power-holders, as well as the imaginary concept of "commonsense", as it is constructed and injected to societies with no access to knowledge. Fortunately, there is a point of saturation even for such concrete edifices of manipulation, where the dogmatic language, thoughts and images are repeatedly overused and fed to people and become trivial. At this point, the unthinkable lands as a life raft to wake the lethargic mind. However, as Freire (1993) has expressed in his book "The pedagogy of the oppressed", the sleeping masses do not easily digest change and a renewal of "Truth", thus they resist revolutionary ideas. For Islamic feminism, this rationale is catalytic, because it can be employed to expose the ideas that have been suffocated during transitional historical periods, from triviality to rejuvenation of critical thinking.
Moving on to Ahmad (2015), the existence of different sects and their internal diversities (or adversities) mark Islamic feminism term’s dimension, indicating that “Islamic” does
Dissertation 13 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi not refer to a single entity. She focuses on the chaos in the philosophy of Shiites and Sunnis, as well as on the geographical and historical variables where Islam was practised as a religion (Ahmad, 2015). Once again, ijtihad, as a pivotal Shiite concept, is determinant for understanding the rejection or acceptance of Islamic feminism. Concurrently, there are also multiple types of feminism that further blur the term’s boundaries. However, feminists are ideologically alinged regarding the “organized patriarchy” as the common enemy to be eliminated (Ahmad, 2015, p. 3). In the same work, asbab al nuzul is mentioned as one of Islamic feminists’ methods to destroy patriarchy, along with the contextualization of hadiths and ijtihad. Other strategies employed in Islamic feminism is history (such as in Mernissi’s works), are post-modernist analytical devices, such as the power of language for the institutionalization of ideologies. Finally, the distinction among “accidental” and “essential” Islamic elements contributes to differentiating among long-lasting, unchangeable religious parts and simply contextual parts, that are open to reassessment and adjustment to current social circumstances.
Since Islamic feminism is a recently born research field, there are unresolved issues and multiple inquiries to be addressed. Grami (2013) exhaustively explores the shadowy corners of Islamic feminism and upholds a critical approach towards the reasons for Islamic feminism’s birth and its imputations. First of all, Grami (2013) problematizes on the mandatory character of religion in Islamic feminism, which endangers the salvation of non-believers women residing in the Arab world or elsewhere, as impotent to claim for their righs. Secondly, he judges the selectivity applied in Islamic feminism, where Western and Islamic attributes are embraced or expelled according to the researcher’s objectives. Additionally, the geographical location of an Islamic feminist ordains the expression of a specific type of feminism, as Iranian feminism entails different ideological undertones from Islamic feminism in the United States. The plethora of feminisms is also important, as there are “Liberal feminism, radical feminism, Jewish feminism, environmental feminism” and many others (Grami, 2013, p. 105). Finally, he condemns researchers for their letharhic attitude towards a lucid definition of Islamic feminism’s nature and purpose.
3 Research methodology
3.1 Qualitative content analysis – literature
The methodology and tools of analysis employed for this study belong to content analysis. Although researchers struggle to provide a complete definition of content analysis, there are specific features that enable its understanding as a research method. Firstly, content analysis appeared quite recently (around the 1990s) in the field of Health, and specifically that of nursing, which explains the dearth of studies and concrete definitions. Starting with Canavagh's (1997) content analysis is employed for investigating textual data. According to Hsieh and Shannon (2005), content analysis constitutes an umbrella term for an aggregate of analytical processes ranging from intuitive, impressionistic, interpretive to
Dissertation 14 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi systematic, strict textual analysis (p. 1277). Content analysis is either quantitative or qualitative following a deductive or inductive rationale, while it is permeated by multiple functional ramifications due to its dependence on the researcher's purpose through a study.
The qualitative content analysis represents one of the diverse methods that enable a researcher to explore a specific phenomenon in-depth, by using written documents, such as books, interviews, and articles. As Tesch contends (1990), qualitative content analysis heavily relies on the characteristics of linguistic forms in human interaction, while the content of latent, contextual meanings is prioritized. This methodology transgresses limitations that derive from the isolation of language and word counting and engages in a profound immersion in language as a valuable tool for the categorization of large textual data into distinguishable categories with similar explicit or implicit meanings. The ultimate goal of qualitative content analysis is to fully grasp the phenomenon being examined and attain knowledge development. A salient characteristic is the researcher's subjectivity that permeates the whole process of coding and classification of textual information and the creation of themes and patterns.
As Elo & Kyngäs (2008) point out, content analysis is employed to construct a model that helps describe a phenomenon in a "conceptual configuration (p. 108). In their work, they underline that content analysis is mostly used to distill large texts into smaller categories based on the content, analyze documents and facilitate arranging words, units, phrases, and categories that share meaning. Additionally, content analysis enables researchers to establish replicable and valid inferences from the textual data through their connection to the context, with a general aim to offer new perspectives and a solid description of a phenomenon. The resulting categories/concepts are employed to designate a conceptual map or model that endorses the whole essence of the phenomenon. Moreover, content analysis is sensitive as regards content and its highly flexible research format intimidates many researchers.
To continue with, like all research methods, content analysis follows distinctive steps towards the consolidation of a conceptual map, namely the preparation, organizing, and reporting phase, which are not subject to any rigid rules. First of all, the unit to be analyzed is selected, such as theme or word. However, the researcher is expected to define the desired level of details and the sample before proceeding to the selection. The preparation phase has to be thorough, spring from a large quantity of textual data and the researcher has to devote plenty of time to comprehend the underlying messages (Krippendorf, 1980). Secondly, according to the same work, the organizing phase consists of unitizing, sampling, and coding. The last phase is comprised of the results, where the content of the categories is presented, whose weight and legitimacy relies on the implementation of authentic textual material. Elo & Kyngäs underscore (2008) that in the results phase the main subject of the study has to be adequately included in the categories and complemented by authentic material to increase credibility, trustworthiness, and reliability. These last three elements are indispensable parts of qualitative research and
Dissertation 15 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi thus have to be set as a priority (Cypress, 2017). Overall, this study follows a deductive reasoning approach informed by a categorization matrix as a result of coding, while abstraction is also implemented to define the categories through non-definitions.
In this study, a qualitative content analysis was employed because it is aligned with its general purpose. First of all, content analysis aims to analyze data placed in a specific context, searching for the meanings ascribed to them by the surrounding agents (Krippendorf, 1989). Additionally, symbols and carriers are determinant for making inferences. In this study, Islamic feminism is explored in the context of Fatima Mernissi’s works, where the communication device of her books help analyze the establishment of meanings and symbols that emerged through the sacred texts and led their recipients to specific interpretations around women’s role and human rights in society. The data employed for analysis are Fatima Mernissi’s books: “Le harem politique/ The forgotten queens of Islam”, “The Veil and the male elite: a feminist interpretation of women’s rights in Islam” and “Woman in the Muslim unconscious”. Finally, there is a superdiversity of themes to be addressed and multiple symbols, in agreement with content analysis, where subjective interpretations are allowed, rather than literal (Krippendorf, 1989). Women’s rights are currently being violated globally and their violation is based on sacred texts, thus content analysis permits the exploration of religious symbols claimed as legitimate sources of female oppression.
3.2 Research objectives
Generally, the main focus of this study is to shed light on Islamic feminism in Mernissi’s works, as a recently born paradigm that requires further investigation. Initiating by a philosophical threshold, I intend to remove the conceptual layers that impede its full, inveterate understanding as an intrinsically complex phenomenon. These layers are negatively charged, comprised of conceptual debris, such as prejudices, false assumptions, inflexible ideologies, discrimination on race, gender, religion. These are thick layers that can be externally observable and thus are easier to be detected and remedied. However, there are latent, internalized misconceptions rooted in the human psyche, that impede individuals to raise their voice and defend their views but are cloaked by faux ideologies, socially constructed, to deter confrontation. In the realm of academics, these misconceptions are either blatant or hide deeply in the contextual information. I regard the latter as more fatal for productive reasoning and knowledge, as they call for thorough analysis and more tools.
In a more practical perspective, this study's objectives rotate around defining Islamic feminism surfacing from Mernissi's conception of feminism, to determine whether Islamic feminism is an oxymoron (or not), to explore Mernissi's gradual transition from secularist, to secular and Islamic conception of feminism. Finally, this study opts for uncloaking the foundations of gender inequality, as a persistent issue in Muslim societies, where a system of religion is enmeshed in the human rights realm- also a Western reality.
Dissertation 16 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
3.2.1 Importance of the study
As aforementioned, Islamic feminism is a new research field which is fertile but rather untapped. Islamic and feminism as a compound term is daunting for many scholars, both words symbolizing strong social and religious movements and historical importance. The studies engaging with its exploration are of undeniable significance, but Islamic feminism is too wide to be adequately conceived. Even less have the works Fatima Mernissi been studied, with Rhouni having provided the largest amount of critique. As she mentions in her work on Fatima Mernissi (2010), Islamic feminism it is an open-ended project for the deconstruction of androcentric voices in the interpretative analysis of fiqh, which has sidelined egalitarian aspects of Islam, and a long-term project of constructing or reinventing Islamic thought by engaging critical thinking. Therefore, my aim through this research is to respond to a few research questions that are answered through studying Fatima Mernissi's books: Woman in the Muslim Unconscious, The forgotten queens of Islam and Veil, and the male elite.
3.3 Research questions
In this study, there are specific questions that enable the creation of codes and their arrangement into respective thematic categories/concepts. Their focus is on Islamic feminism as a recurrent theme perveading the three books:
1. How are women depicted in Islamic religion? 2. In what ways did women exercise power in Muslim history? 3. What was the women’s position and role in Muslim society? 4. How was femininity and sexuality perceived in Muslim tradition?
3.3.1 Thematic categories
Taking into consideration these research questions, there are themes – axes that enabled the study's purpose, following the tools employed in content analysis. These concepts are common for the three books, and they are analyzed in the following manner, which considers woman as the initial central category:
1.Core category : woman –power
Subcategory: women as leaders in subaltern history
2. Core category: woman- religion
Subcategory: women in sacred texts
3.Core category: woman- appearences
Subcategory: beauty
Dissertation 17 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
4.Core category: woman- society
Subcategory : women in Medina revolution
3.4 Sample
3.4.1 Woman and the Muslim unconscious: a critique
Having defined her ideological shift as a mirror of social transformation, it is significant to underscore the strengths and shortcomings of Mernissi's in her book "Woman and Muslim unconscious". Regarding the thematic, Mernissi commits to a detailed psychoanalytic discourse on female sexuality, veiling, and objectification by visiting the contrivances that legitimize Muslim women's subjugation, presenting this anomaly as the natural and divine order, also reflected by the divine voice. Her ultimate aim in this book is to prove the organic incongruousness of Islam with women's rights and gender equality by using erotic and legal discourses. This book represents her secularist critique and entails discourses that both facilitate and obstruct a final knowledge production. On one hand, as Rhouni stresses (2010) she accomplishes to expose the macho culture behind Muslim women's naturalized subordination based on religious texts-victims of Islamic jurisprudence of the early Islamic era. Additionally, she steps into a male-dominated intellectual sphere, dangerously inaccessible to women in the name of "Islamic truth", and conducts a meticulous revision of texts that Islamic feminists dread to trespass (Rhouni, 2010, p.179). On the other hand, she falls into an essentialist narrative that fails in initiating a dialogue with tradition, but instead, reinforces stereotypes on Islam as irrelevant to gender equality, adopting a view on religion as a rigid ideology. Finally, concerning this book, it is important to mention that Fatna Ait Sabbah signs as its author, which provokes ethical concerns. However, based on the ideological proximity expressed between Mernissi's book "Beyond the Veil" and judging from the fact that she used the same translator for "The Veil and the male elite" helps clarify this ambiguity.
The springboard of this book is the Moroccan family code, dealing with the issues of marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance, which was shaped by the fiqh. The Moudawana legislative framework was initially established in 1957 and ever since it has been subjected to a few slow but significant changes, in 1993 and 2004. According to the Centre for Public impact (2016), Moudawana legitimized polygyny, and forced marriage. Through a long-duree struggle towards gender equality reform, the updated Moudawana gives more rights to Muslim women- though not the whole spectrum of the human rights they deserve- such as the right to unilateral divorce. It is important to explicate that the whole structure of Moudawana is perpetrated by fiqh, namely the patriarchal
Dissertation 18 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi interpretations that still carried the Jahiliya mentality of the pre-Islamic era and refused to implement the divine message. This view is important to understand how Moudawana is formulated in the theocratic Muslim state and rationalizes its tolerance of human rights violations.
Returning to "Woman and the Muslim unconscious", Ait Sabbah – Mernissi lets her heterodoxy be diffused in a spectacular fusion of orthodox religious-legal discourse and erotic literature of the early Islamic era. Using these heavy discourses as her canvas, she explores and designates the representations of the female body as a gear in the construction of a holy hierarchy, which supports the whole edifice of Islamic social and political order. There, many oppositional notions are investigated, such as the meaning of individuality for Islam versus collective consciousness, the concept of femininity contrasted with the concept of masculinity, the instrumentalization of the human body – both male and female- in the service of the abstract and the idea of Islamic paradise in juxtaposition with the Islamic economy and capitalism. According to Rhouni (2010), Mernissi shows how the abstract violates the present to assert itself and usurps the human experience placed in reality both from man and woman, an act that has unimaginable repercussions on the daily life of Muslim men and women.
As far as her methodology is concerned, Mernissi, faithful to her heterodoxy reading strategy, succeeds in deconstructing the hierarchical gender illustration in fiqh and 1957 Moudawana, by unearthing male narratives. Additionally, she accomplishes to exhibit the relationship among unconscious, appropriated images of human sexuality, desire, and beauty, the pattern domination-submission-adoration of Islamic religious texts and the results of the entanglement of religious-affective and legal/political through an "organic" relationship, while not forgetting the paradoxical retainment of female intelligence throughout dehumanizing discourses (Rhouni, 2010, p. 185). However, her reasoning stifles knowledge development as she ends up confusing the androcentric quranic discourse with Islam risala, the essence of the divine message, and gets entangled in foundationalism. However, even though Mernissi succeeds in distinguishing the reasons for the modern Muslim women's living conditions and their elimination from the sphere of economic production, she gets carried away –once again- by essentialism. In this book, her anti-conformist worldview is undeniable, as her reading strategy overtly defies the untouchable nature of the religious texts, which she not only uses but also juxtaposes with erotic discourse.
3.4.2 Le harem politique: a critique
Concerning her book "Le Harem politique", translated as "The forgotten queens of Islam", Mernissi investigates the past, to shed light on the corners of history where male historians tucked women-leaders. Mernissi starts by denouncing the male politicians' evoking of Muslim tradition only after their failure by Benazir Bhutto. In this book, Mernissi conducts a historical study to give voice to fifteen queens of Islam, whose history was
Dissertation 19 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi doomed to be buried by masculine interpretations. According to Rhouni (2010), this book functions as a means towards the demystification of history, in which male narratives stole their power and influence from the queens of Islam. Additionally, she shows the differentiation in perspective among Yemenite and Arab historians, the latter' attitude to women being less misogynous. Her approach in this book is subversive and falls within her secular moments of feminist discourse, as she uses a contextual approach towards religious texts and historicizes them, departing from the critique against the religious (as opposed to the previous book). Turning again to Rhouni (2010), Mernissi is determined to bring ample evidence regarding the concomitance of democracy, gender equality, and Islam-risala. The clash only occurs between political Islam and democracy, and she opts for confronting and exposing the egalitarian Islamic message compared to Islam's political agenda.
It is now time to present the book's benefits and limitations. First of all, as Rhouni mentions (2010), Mernissi employs the Jahiliya discourse as a methodology to prove her argument. However, the condemnation of Jahiliyya as a period of ignorance, where women were acutely subdued, and where Islam arrived to reform the situation, falls exactly in the realms of orthodox religious discourse. Nevertheless, she does not miss her very unique subversive voice, as she demystifies the "Golden era" of the Abbasid reign. Moreover, Mernissi's greatest asset in this book is her fearlessness to inquire about the existence of women-caliphs, knowing that "caliph" is only addressed to males with a spiritual vision. Also, as she takes the reader to a trip through time and its dark corners, she proves the affinity of Islam-risala to democratic values and thus demolishes the dominant concept of democracy as a Western, Satanic construction. The central figure in Mernissi's work is Aisha, the Prophet's wife who took part in the battle of the Camel against Ali ibn Ali Talib, as well as the Yemenite queen of Sheba. However, she makes extensive reference to a great number of Islamic queens and thus provides evidence for women's active political role both in society and the political arena, an argumentative landscape that discards homogenizing narratives and myths of female passivity or physical inability to reign and causes a deep rupture in narratives that support women's absence from politics as a continuous, stable phenomenon. Moreover, apace and time are treated as pivotal elements in the process of "misogynizing" a humanistic religion like Islam, while the issue of proximity to men of power is also carefully addressed. All in all, Mernissi blows myths that endured in centuries with one shot: macho fantasies of women as a- politique beings, Western fantasies on the imported nature of democracy, and Muslim fundamentalists fantasies on democracy as an enemy to Islam.
Concurrently, Mernissi takes charge of a double project of deconstruction, she refutes commonplace stereotypes regarding women as "the weaker" sex, but also triumphal feminist articulations on women's impeccably democratic behavior. Dealing with such dense notions, Mernissi prefers to employ humor as a demystification tool rather than aggressive discourse, a route that assists her in debasing the actors that assimilated female power as nonexistent or of minimal importance. The witty irony could be characterized as
Dissertation 20 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Mernissi's style, who acknowledges that humor and irony can tear unsound ideologies apart more rapidly than anger and emotional outbursts.
3.4.3 The Veil and the male elite – a moment of shift – a critique
Concerning Mernissi's book "The Veil and the male elite", Mernissi overcomes the challenge posed by shifting from the secularist to a more secular approach and manages to conflate feminism and Islam. Therefore, this book symbolizes the paramount moment of her metamorphosis, where Mernissi demonstrates her interchanging identities and legitimizes movement through definitional paths. This gentle shift is unequivocally manifest in this book, whose prelude was "L'amour dans les pays musulmans". Both books' underlying sociopolitical atmosphere is tinted by the adversarial discourse of the postcolonial state towards Western, illusionary patterns of reality unfitting to Islamic society. Additionally, Mernissi herself leaves her secularist throne to come closer and observe feminism by using her Muslim identity, as an insider. She is fully aware that along with her relocation her audience is also different. An Islamist discourse dealing with the Moudawana family law and women's interests substitute the earlier secularist immersion in a neopatriarchal enemy. According to Rhouni (2010), a highly significant element in this book is Mernissi's latent presumption of religion as an innermost matter.
Most importantly, "Veil and the male elite" is the product of Mernissi's contact with Moulay Rachid, a jurist and Khamlichi, a prestigious alim around 1980 in Morocco. Their intellectual interests are concerned with the necessity of the Moudawana amendment toward gender equality and its revision by taking other, more flexible religious schools into account, such as the Hanafi school- as the strict Maliki school was the exclusive source of Moudawana formation (Rhouni,2010, p. 204). One of their salient propositions concerns the authenticity –and thus higher suitability- of the Qu'ranic texts and the Hadith as more solid founts of religious truth analysis, in contrast with fiqh, which constitutes a human product. Their call for Moudawana reformulation and the urgency for its harmonization with social reality incited Mernissi to reread religious texts outside religious dominion. Moreover, the Islamic modernist thought engaged by Khamlichi (and consequently explains Mernissi's new perspective) is the examination of the notions ijtihad, tafsir, and taqlid. First of all, Khamlichi pinpoints at the spurious nature of Moudawana and modern Islamic family laws, pitched as authentic products of sharia law, their content being a victim to individual ideological misconceptions. The division exercised on sharia law, as original divine, trustworthy material, and fiqh, as a low-quality artifact of the divine, is the magnum force behind Mernissi's reasoning. Therefore, fiqh is justifiably reduced to revisable, human ijtihad of ancient men and their insecurities and eventually is excluded from the sacred field as too flimsy and individualized to take seriously. Finally, he renounces fuqaha but forgets Ibn Ardun and Al-Ghazali who defended female sexuality and the value of female labor, the latter being a reference point in "Woman and the Muslim unconscious".
Dissertation 21 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
To continue with, Mernissi's principal methodological asset in "Veil and the male elite" is her decentering of feminism. In this book, Mernissi employs Aisha, the Prophet's youngest wife as a corum internum of her argumentation regarding the privileged position that women enjoyed as social and political agents in the early Islamic era. Aisha's historical hypostasis is instrumentalized by Mernissi to postulate the autonomy, confidence, and dynamism of the female population of this period, a proclamation that is uttered towards a Western recipient. She confidently dislocates feminism as a primarily Western social movement and brings it to the Muslim terrain, with its origins in the early Islam. The Prophet is depicted as a leader with feminist concerns, while his wives exemplify the model of bold personalities who publicly express their femininity and fortify their human and female rights. Moreover, another indication of Mernissi's robust intellectual skills is her utilization of orthodox religious tools of Muslim tradition (isnad) to legitimize her subversive discourse. She draws from Al-Bukhari's authentic hadiths, praises his thorough research, and legitimizes her journey towards the detection of false hadiths and doubting their authenticity. Al-Shaikh congratulates Mernissi on contextualizing misogynous quranic verses and questioning Al-Buhkari's Al-Sahih, a symbol of nearly impassable authenticity for Muslims by using the Muslim's isnad. Claiming Allah's infallibility versus the nature of human mistake Mernissi commits arson on entrenched values and triumphs over open gates of the ijtihad. A final punch onto ingrained systemic Islamic myths is the demystification of the ideal period during and after the prophet's death when elitism and despotism reigned at the expense of democratic values. (Rhouni, 2010, p. 213).
However, a limitation to her methodology is that her discourse bears a rather apologetic overtone, which shadows her endeavor to demystify certain misconceptions. As Rhouni mentions (2010), Mernissi loses her objectivity and comes to inferences that reproduce mystifying narratives, such as the fact that Aisha and the Prophet's wives cannot be considered as raw and authentic evidence for women's position because they belonged to the aristocracy of that society. Mernissi ignores that Aisha, in particular, instantiated the evolution and consequent free demeanor due to the conflation of pre-Islamic Arabic Jahiliya mentality and the newly established Islamic mentality and practice. According to Rhouni (2009), another serious pitfall in Mernissi's methodology is her obsession with the Hadith's authenticity, which shifts the reader's attention from a journey in time to an uninteresting quest for ultimate truth waiting at the end of the tunnel. In this way, Mernissi fails to surpass foundationalism and makes authentication the whole purpose rather than an instrument to her analysis.
Hadith and the veil constitute the major axis of Mernissi's analysis in the "Veil and the Male elite". The driving force of her quest into history is the conceptualization of the hijab as another counterfeit product of a male misinterpretation of reality, as a timeless and delirious phenomenon to better serve their dilapidated self-concept of masculinity and their agony to assert their gender value by dominating another human being. Mernissi rereads Quranic excerpts that deal with gender equality and the hijab through a contextual modus operandi, aiming to indicate their impertinence towards a changing reality as
Dissertation 22 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi regulatory norms. This is a double and audacious expedition into "official" early Islamic history, which results in a death fatwa and the banning of her book.
There are mutliple reasons that determined the selection of the aforementioned works. First of all, Fatima Mernissi’s works combine a great variety of themes that facilitate the understanding of Islamic feminism. She interweaves power and politics with female sexuality and the economy of Islam, while she conducts a profound psychoanalytic investigation in divine, male and female psychology and emotion. However, these elements are further conflated with historial events drawn from the Muslim history. Additionally, her academic language and argumentation leave no space for ambiguities, she communicates meanings in a straightfoward manner, but her style is reinforced by irony. This is an important asset because her work is imprinted with her personality and is not satisfied by a narrative with no individual mark. Finally, feminism is always up-to-date as a research field because reality and percentages indicate the atrocities committed against women in all corners of the world.
The reasons for the selection of the aforementioned works are manifold. First of all, they entail exhaustive analyses of Islamic feminism, Islamic history and the Islamic socio- political palette for the former’s development. Mernissi’s books merge history with modern reality, past and present, tradition and evolution. Regarding the themes they appear as encapsulating one another. One one hand, this facilitates textual analysis, while on the other, it is conducive to compehending that Islam is not a uniform scheme, but a multi-dimensional entity that affects all aspects of life, namely society, perception of feminine beauty and sexuality, power and religion. Additionally, Mernissi’s ideological shift allows for an ideological interplay that allows for a reading free of prejudice and open to re-assessment of rigid attitudes. She initiates her work as radical and islamic, later appears as Islamic and softer, therefore giving access to both sides. However, she leaves her works’ core intact; patriarchy and misogynism are social pathogeneses to be remedied through the feminist movement.
Table 1
Core themes observed in textual analysis
Themes The veil and the male Woman in the The forgotten elite Muslim queens of Islam unconscious Woman- X X religion Woman- X power Woman- X society Woman- X X beauty
Dissertation 23 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
4 Results
4.1 The forgotten queens of Islam/Le harem politique
Research question two
How did women exercise power in the past?
4.1.1 The importance of titles and legitimacy
Mernissi begins her historical research by reminding the audience that the queen of Sheba is mentioned in the Quran “without even mentioning her name”, which leads her to question the terms “caliph” and “imam”, which only exist in masculine form. She reveals her uneasiness asking about the existence of a woman caliph because this constitutes blasphemy and completely deviates from state Muslim education. According to Mernissi (2003) “caliph” as a title is not an adequate indicator, because multiple men heads of state would be excluded. She expands on the weight of this title because it signifies the “representative of God on earth” and his blood can be detected as connected to the Prophet (p.10). She later resorts to Ibn Khaldun (14th century) who attributes the manifestations of violence tormenting the political Muslim world to the degradation of the caliphate –as an expression of the divine on reality- to “mulk”, a spirit that incites desires, passions, coercion, domination and all the kinds of personal interests to the caliph’s psyche. Sharia law appears as the only force that can tame the leader’s uncontrollable, basic desires, and thus “represents the very core of Islam’s political system” (Mernissi, 2003, p. 10). However, even though the “mulk” is controlled thanks to the sharia law, the leader is committed to governing humans, not divine creatures, and he is human himself. Submission to sharia law is the only way to salvation from earthly, rudimentary malfunctions, and this is the reason behind women’s exclusion from the title. Equally, titles like sultan and malik (king) are correlated to raw power unsubjected to religion and thus are open for anyone to claim. Therefore, criteria of eligibility to be a caliph is the strongest weapon for female exclusion from the title. Since mulk is earthly and violent, and thus lower in the hierarchy, women holding power signifies that subordinate, inferior elements disorganize the system-and all those dependent on hierarchy. However, high expectations placed on caliphs as representative of divine power proved to be a fairy-tale of hierarchy and submission that went bad after the Prophet’s death. Despite this failure, the caliphs cannot change the Moudawana law (even if they were positive about it) regarding polygyny and repudiation of wives, as this submission pattern does not allow any reformulation.
Mernissi mentions Radiyya and Shajarat al-Durr, malikas of the Mamluk dynasty of India and Egypt. Asma and A’rwa were Yemeni malikas that exercised power in San’a, but
Dissertation 24 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Berber queens such as Zainab af-Nafzawiyya, Yusuf ibn Tafshin are also important. Another title given to women power-holders was “al-hurra”, who bears innumerable connotations. In Arabic, “hurr” means free, whereas huriyya (freedom) is incongruous with the meaning of freedom as a constitutional right. It denominated members of the aristocracy, namely non-slaves (jarya-jawari). The anti-democratic connotation of hurr and “the existence of hundreds of slaves during the Islamic Abbasid period” is underlined as a paradox by Mernissi (2003, p.15). Turning again to important queens, A’isha al-Hurra is a queen obliterated from history who had “won the admiration of her enemies”. Due to her defeat, Arab historians have shoved her in the past. Another word for queen, exclusively Arabic, is “sitt” (=lady). Sitt al-Mulk was a queen of the Fatimid Dynasty of Egypt. Nevertheless, as Mernissi promulgates (2003) many women did not bear any titles but exercised power as military or religious leaders, such as Sharifa Fatima who took the city of San’a by force and Ghaliyya al-Wahhabiyya who led a military resistance movement in the 18th century. Moreover, “khatun” was a title used in Mongol and Turkish dynasties such as Dokuz Khatun who contributed to ameliorating the conquerors’ view of Christians. Later on, Mernissi refers to the title of “imam”. She quotes Ibn Rushd’s words, who suggests that many religious schools (e.g. Maliki) as doubtful towards female brain competence on managing religious congregations, let alone become caliphs. Moving on to the criteria of eligibility for a caliph, many Muslims have died on the battlefield to defend the right of any Muslim to become a caliph. However, maleness has never been contested. Mernissi highlights this oxymoron between the Islam-risala for gender equality and gender discrimination regarding eligibility. Mernissi (2003) propounds the eligibility criteria as cited by Muqaddima, “namely al-‘ilm (equity), al- adala, competence, and good physical condition” (p.33). This scheme is interwoven with bid’ a (innovation), which signifies total abasement of divine order. Ibn Khaldun elucidates that women are directly excluded from religious orders, because they are indirectly addressed by God through their superior, men, and there lies their inherent mental inability to reign. The divine reveals itself only to those capable of understanding it.
4.1.2 Eligibility criteria for sovereignty
The criteria to be a sovereign in Islam are the khutba, the Friday sermon in the mosque, and the name inscription on coins. Khutba is of utmost importance as a mirror of political reality, and the name mentioned in khutba is evidence of the current ruler. The mosque, where khutba was conducted, “exemplified a space of worship and common concerns” but its open character was obliterated by dynasties and despotism (Mernissi, 2003, p.77). The hijab (veil) was introduced as a physical obstacle to divide the caliph from the amma (common people) thus destroying the Prophet’s divine plan for unity and dialogue. After veiling the caliph’s moves and giving rise to aristocracy and despotism, Mu’ayiwa caliph banned women’s access to the mosque. For Mernissi (2003) “veiling women meant veiling
Dissertation 25 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi resistance” as a whole (p.85). Historians Al-Bukhari and Imam Nisa’i quote the prophet’s words “Do not forbid the mosques of Allah to the women of Allah” and “When a woman asks authorization from one of you to go to the mosque, let him grant it to her”. After three centuries, Ibn al –Jawzi recognizes the Prophet’s acceptance of women in the mosques but reiterates that women’s free movement outside four walls is “a dangerous and impious act for a woman”(Mernissi, 2003, p.82). Mernissi recounts the fiasco provoked by an intoxicated caliph al-Walid that sent his jarya, disguised as a man to conduct the khutba sermon an event that shook the local population. Mernissi laments on the Muslim states’ regression to Jahiliyya mentality by veiling the caliph’s acts, isolating power from the public, forbidding women as polluting and distracting for the mosque and fabricating false Hadiths. Instead, the coining of money symbolized Islam’s royal connection with other cultures. Mernissi then mentions 15 queens whose name was invoked in khutba and their names inscribed on coins, fulfilling the eligibility criteria but not deserving to be included in official history.
4.1.3 Female queens fulfilling elibility criteria to reign- subaltern history
Radiyya and Shajarat al-Durr wereTurks, Mamluk sultanas, and represent such examples. Both of them took power due to proximity to powerful men and found tragic death principally due to their love life. Both of them coined their names with exceptional titles. According to many historians, women’s ascension to the throne is interrelated to “ tensions in the Muslim world and the apocalypse” (Mernissi, 2003, p.90). Shajarat al-Durr was the daughter of a slave, while Radiyya of a sultan. In the case of Radiyya, her brother Rukn al-din was mentally incapable of ruling and her father publicly applauded her leadership skills before dying. The historian Ibn Battuta speaks of her with respect: ”She mounted horse like men armed with bow and quiver; and she would not cover her face”…people made her a saint” (Mernissi, 2003, p.96). Radiyya threw the veil away and administered power effectively. Nevertheless, she fell in love with an Ethiopian slave and promoted him socially, which provoked the army’s misogynistic anger and led to her dethronement.
4.1.4 Fifteen women queens of Islam
Mernissi sheds light on more queens. The Mongol Khatuns, recounted by Bahriye Üçok, who also enjoyed the Friday khutba and their names on coins. Kutlugh Turkan reigned for 26 years and passed power to her daughter Padishah Khatun. Turkan assumed great power and played cleverly with legislation to get rid of her step-son, who aspired to depose her. Padishah Khatun kept her throne due to her beauty and serial political opportunism. Ibn Battuta, a qadi, was astonished by the Mongol sovereign men’s freedom regarding women’s involvement in politics. “Among the Turks and Tatars their wives enjoy a very
Dissertation 26 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi high position; indeed, when they issue an order they say in it ‘By command of the sultan and the khatuns’” (Mernissi, 2003, p.102). Later on, Absh Kathun ruled Persia from 1263 to 1287. Dawlat Khatun governed Luristan for four centuries but failed in appropriate power distribution, and Sati Bek utilized three husbands in a row to remain in power. Tindu, from the Jallarid dynasty, governed Iraq from 1336-1411. The last Mongol queen was Sultana Fatima Begum who ruled the Ilkhan kingdom of Qasim in Central Asia from 1679 to 1681 (p.106). Mernissi, however, points out (1991) that the concentration of so much power by Mongol women “applied only to women of the aristocratic class, while local populations were treated with little consideration” (p.106).
4.1.5 Island queens
Moving on to Island queens, Sultana Khadija reigned from 1347 to 1379, and her sister Meriam succeeded to the throne (p.108). Her daughter Sultana Fatima followed and reigned until 1388. Therefore, Maldives island was under the domination of women for forty years. There, qadi Ibn Babutta rushed to marry four women, who are depicted as tender and subservient to the man’s needs. They are portrayed as beautiful and sweet but are scolded for “walking around half-naked”(p.109). The qadi attempted to veil them in the name of sharia but he was eventually defeated by the overflowing female sensuality. In Indonesia, four princesses passed power from one to another in the 17th century. As Mernissi says (2003) “they reigned even though their political enemies had imported from Mecca a fatwa that declared that it was forbidden by law for a woman to rule” (p.110). Among all the aforementioned women rulers, Üçok “found no true Arab sultana”, blaming the Abbasid caliphate as a culture inherently allergic to Arab women’s leadership (Mernissi, 2003, p. 111). This conceptualization is plausible and simple while ostensibly racist and reflects the colonizer’s perspective, that “gives the Ottomans the best role” and reveals the terrorizing effect of Arab women to arms.
4.1.6 Arab queens
Yemeni queens Malika Asma and her daughter-in-law Malika ‘Arwa both had khutba in their name, a privilege that no other Arab country had after the advent of Islam. Historians experienced a double shock due to her claiming both power and her right to attend councils unveiled. Their title al-sayyida al-hurra signified “The noble lady who is free and independent; the woman sovereign who bows to no superior authority” (Mernissi, 2003, p.115). Mernissi feels disappointed by historians of all eras for their selective historical amnesia, as nobody remembers them in official history, which also depends on geographical and cultural location and the attached interests. “Muslim women…and Arab women, in particular, cannot count on anyone, scholar or not, involved or neutral, to read their history for them...Our demand for full enjoyment of our universal human rights requires the rereading and reconstruction of the Muslim past”(p.116). With this line, Mernissi (2003) restores agency to Muslim women. After that, she attacks with irony
Dissertation 27 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi concepts that expect female domination to men as evidence for their love and the rationalized male rage in case of female resistance to their whims.
What is more important is Yemeni historians’ conception of these queens and their comments of admiration for their oeuvres during their reign. “Yemeni historians seem to have fewer memory gaps on the subject of women and power than do the others”. (p. 117). Mernissi explains male historian’s temporary amnesia with Asma and A’rwa’s origin as Shi’ites, and their embodiment of the bloody conflicts among Sunnis and Shiites in the name of “true Islam”, raising issues such as the transmission of power to women and succession. Shi’ites and Sunnis, as Mernissi states (2003) equally feel repelled by female leadership, and their division based on Fatima is evidence on“how political opportunists use the woman question to suit their interests (p.157). For her, Islam is a religious and ideological chameleon, as it embodies the male politician aspiring to satisfy his needs. The use of a woman for Shi’ites legitimizes their whole existence as dogma and a palace, and for Sunnis distorting the sacred texts to discard women from power is a piece of cake. Later on, Mernissi (2003) openly declares that such moments in Muslim subaltern history are never included in primary and secondary schools (p.140). At this point, she explicates that sharia “recognizes only paternal law”, which renders maternity as complementary and renders maternity as marginal.
As far as the Queen of Sheba is concerned, the Qu’ran used “adhim” (mighty) to describe her throne. This has incited a long yet problematic exegesis by historians, who chose to provoke issues regarding Sheba’s throne that are absent in the Qu’ran. Firstly, the importance and luxury of her throne was a challenge for insecure male commentators such as Tabari, who found a way to reduce its importance anyway. “Adhim”, he says, “describes the danger that it represented”. The queen’s marital status is equally manipulated by Tayfur, who renders her as married to her cousin, while Kahhala depicts her as virgin and indifferent towards men until she met Solomon (Mernissi, 2003, p.143). Mernissi scolds historians and fuqaha for their arbitrariness and disrespect towards the absence of religious misogyny in the Qu’ran and their agony to create it themselves. The historian Ma’sudi fantasizes that “the queen of Sheba was half human and half jinn”, because “he could not bear to see a woman depicted on a throne, even in the Koran”.(Mernissi, 2003, p.143).
Sitt-al –Mulk reigned in the Fatimid palace, born of a mixed marriage between a Christian and an imam. Khutba was never conducted in her name, but Muslim society was aware that she was in charge. Her double identity allowed her to reign in tolerance and humanity, unheard values during that era. Her brother Al-Hakim took power after his father’s death and brought death and delirium to the city, ordering the killing of dogs and isolating women. Sitt-al-mulk received threats and insults for zina (illicit fornication) by him. A few days later he disappeared, and all historians agree that she was the murderer- with good reasons.
Dissertation 28 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
4.1.7 Women-leaders and space
Mernissi feels compelled to mention the relationship of powerful women, heads of state, jawari, or courtesans, with space and the imposed hudud, namely the boundaries among men and women. The harem is their starting point towards the outer world of political struggle and war, and it limited their potential. Just in the case of Khayzuran, their limits here “territorial, not biological, and the hudud, separating the inner space to public space” (Mernissi, 2003, p.52). As Mernissi admits (2003), Khayzuran, despite her son- caliph’s acknowledgment of her talent in politics, she was doomed to exercise power only through masculine consent and her political accomplishments were camouflaged by a man’s figure. The harem in Islam is linked to the household, where reproduction, life, and sex take place (feminine) whereas the public space is male and linked to decision-making in politics, a realm forbidden to women. Mernissi (1991) renounces Khayzuran because she preferred to enact power from inside the harem and never attempted to subvert the hudud. Therefore, her status as a slave did not function as an impairment to her ruling, but mostly her immobility from inside the harem. However, despite all space limitations, she had her son killed and thus asserted her power.
4.1.8 Women-rulers and use of violence
The Jawari revolution (jarya-slave) marked Islamic history and historians, always from a palace perspective. In 869, the zanj, black slaves organized a revolution during the reign of the Abbasid caliph, evoking the sharia for unjust treatment and bad working conditions. However, the jawari, women slaves took place quite earlier and attacked the caliphs. Mernissi informs the reader (2003) that the jawari employed their sentimentality, sexuality and seduction, sex, and eroticism to prepare a revolution that was profound and long- lasting, especially when compared to the zanj revolt, which ended in a blood bath. Later on, Mernissi (2003) dismantles the stereotype surrounding the “weakness” of women/jarya as fragile, overemotional and submissive by mentioning the instances of few women that once power concentrated in their hands, they committed extraordinary atrocities by using “brute force” to resolve their political issues, just as men did before them (p.42). An example of the equally female aggressive nature was the jarya Shaghab (Umm al- Muqtadir) who even killed a qadi with opposing views and appointed a woman as minister of justice, Thumal. Mernissi (2003) stresses that the historian al-Tabari is one of the few historians that treated Thumal with objectivity and appreciated Umm al-Muqtadir’s success in amending the judiciary system. Contrarily, historian Ibn Hazm describes Thumal as a “bizarre act, a scandal” (p.43).
Mernissi contends (2003) that modern historians “are erasing details” (p. 43). Dr. Ali Ibrahim Hasan speaks of Umm al-Muqtadir’s reign as an example of a society that suffers
Dissertation 29 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi from corruption and debauchery. He published 33 biographies of women, showing that only Companions of the prophet and aristocrat intellectuals deserve respect because a thinking woman is harmless, as long as she does not lay her hands on state affairs. The same historian chooses the Queen of Sheba to apply eclecticism and androcentric views, as she describes her life as boring before encountering King Solomon and the rest of it as fascinating. He casts doubts about her throne and power as products of a vivid imagination, even though she is mentioned in the Qu’ran, and he even reduces her to a courtesan, by claiming that she wished to” please him and not battle with him” (Mernissi, 2003, p.44). Therefore, Dr. Hasan eliminates important details and turns into a dangerous scholar. “This technique of eliminating pertinent details explains how today we find ourselves with a collective Muslim memory that is uniformly misogynistic”, Mernissi observes (2003, p.44).
Another jarya that combined her beauty with analytical rigor, humor, and humility was Subh. She was a prisoner of war and yet ascended to the throne next to Al-Hakam. She appointed Ibn Amir as secretary and probably involved romantically with him, something that caused misogynous historians to rant. Ahmad Amin, a modern Muslim historian presents Subh as a monstrous, cynical entity, greedy for power and men. His impeccable scholarly work masked his misogyny and was promoted as fundamental knowledge of Muslim history. He refuses to attribute a title to her, she is Subh the Christian. Mernissi (2003) stresses that “early historians… called the queens by their title, tried to understand their motivations as they did with men and noted that women slaves could marry caliphs and give birth to future caliphs”(p.50)
Research question four How was femininity and sexuality perceived in Muslim tradition?
4.1.9 Female beauty and caliphs
Mernissi refers to the caliph Yazid II, who impressed the historians Matsudi, Abu Faraj al- Isbahami, and Tabari with his infatuation with his slave-singer Hababa that he went into trance, and with his overt expression of grief after her death (forbidden for a caliph). The first historians consider Hababa as an enemy of God, in contrast with Abu Faraj al- Isbahami who sees her as a poet and singer, thus appreciating her artistic nature. Additionally, historians do not hesitate to stigmatize Yasid II, as they regarded Hababa as a slave that emasculated the caliph’s reason. “They never paid tribute to him for his innovative approach to practical politics”, Mernissi says (2003 p.40). Instead, they let his attempts for dialogue with the enemy –instead of the common practice of decapitation- to fade in the past and kept the memory of other caliphs that preferred killing as a negotiation method. At this point, Mernissi (2003) states that revisiting Muslim history with a contemporary perspective and values, such as democracy and human rights, “makes one think about what historians call a great head of a state” (p.40). Another jarya, was
Dissertation 30 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi considered as too charming and attractive and thus was murdered with the orders of Adud al-Dawla caliph, who is depicted as an important sovereign.
Khayzuran, a prominent head of state during the Abbasid caliph, was described as a bamboo, implying beauty and external fragility, supporting the mystery of the female body. Khayzuran was unstoppable and initiated a coup d’etat. The main reason was an appetite for political involvement, but apart from that, she was overcome with jealousy for beautiful Makhuna, a jarya. She dared to demand from al-Mahdi to “appoint her children as heirs and exclude the children of other women with him” (Mernissi, 2003,p.55).
Overall, during the Abbasid caliph, the presumably ideal period of Islam, the commodification of jawari was very popular, as mentioned before. They were classified based on their nationality and race. Ibn Batalan, an 11th-century Christian doctor instantiates the objectification of women by warning men on their physical attributes, who predetermine their personality. “Blue eyes denote stupidity…those with deep-set eyes are envious…Hindu jawari is faithful and tender but their problem is that they die young” (Mernissi, 2003, p.59). In contrast with male caliph’s legitimate subjugation to appearances, the love life of women heads of state functions like bait for ancient misogynous scholars. Radiyya, the Mamluk queen was immediately deposed when suspected of having an affair with an Ethiopian slave. Shajarat al-Durr became a murderer of her husband, “of whom she took power without authorization for 80 days” due to passion and jealousy, which provoked military unrest (Mernissi, 2003, p.98). Until this point, the image of the emotional woman in love is absent in history.
4.2 The veil and the male elite
Research question three
What was the women’s position and role in the Muslim society?
4.2.1 Modern Muslim Woman and conflicting identities
Throughout her book, Mernissi searches in Muslim history to find the religious sources, as an essential part of Muslim tradition, that consolidate, maintain and reproduce misogynous views and subjugate women until the present day. Muslims suffer from “mal du present”, stemming from their denial to accept past defeats and synchronize with the present (Mernissi, 1991, p.15). Muslim addiction to reviving the past requires them to retrace to past glorious moments of political expansion and mummification of ancient heritage, evoked into the present time. Politicians are fully aware of the necessity to employ the sacred text as a means to impose authority, establish censorship, and mutilate science. However, the Western homogenization forces and the imposition of “chronopolitics”
Dissertation 31 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi instead of “geopolitics” in the post-colonial Arab world are so intense that lead to Muslim states’ reaction to defend their identity. However, as Al-Jabiri points out, to comprehend and interpret the past effectively, it is necessary to be fully present. Muslims retrace to a Muslim identity, which stands for family code laws, national identity, civil issues, a moral code of public demeanor, thus there is a confusion between “Islam as a belief and personal choice and Islam as a law, as the state religion” (Mernissi, 1991, p.21). Individuality as dangerous for the group, considered as bid’ a for Muslim tradition, and the urgency to uproot it from the Muslim conscious. Therefore, submission is the core of the woman’s veiling, objectification, and subordination. Her unveiling and retrieval of agency and personal will through the Universal Declaration of human rights that establishes gender equality are diametrically opposed to Moudawana 1957 family law that chains her to the husband’s domination.
4.2.2 Women’s rights as a threat to Medina economy
The infuriated male supremacy was appeased by divine intervention, with the verse 32 sura 4, which excludes women from war and thus from gaining booty. Accumulating wealth by booty was a cornerstone of Medina’s economy, as part of “al-ghazawa”(raids on an enemy to strip him of his possessions”) the principal goal of inter-clan conflicts. The ghazawa laws permitted the winner to kill men and reduce both women and men to slavery, as prisoners of war, or exchange them for ransom in case they were aristocrats. Additionally, women could be either sold as part of the booty, forced to prostitution as concubines, to marriage, to motherhood, or labor. Therefore, female slavery exemplified male domination through satisfying their “sexual appetites, domestic labor, or reproduction of that labor force” (Mernissi, 1991, p. 132). As Mernissi concludes, women, by claiming their right to participate in war threatened to demolish the principal source of male income, based on an economy of captivation and war, in a community that suffered a financial crisis. The Muslim’s victory in Hunayn yielded a huge amount of booty, but the Prophet insulted the custom, because he recognized Halima from his childhood years, freed her, and sent her home with gifts. After that, he avoided the distribution of booty, which incensed the soldiers and led to his public humiliation in the mosque. Taking this socio-military context into account is necessary to understand women as scapegoats for all these tensions. That moment the Prophet was obliged “to choose among an ideal Islam, with gender equality, and the survival of Islam” (Mernissi, 1991, p.139).
4.2.3 Women slaves
The Prophet’s innovations did not stop with inducing gender equality but kept advancing with huge steps, promoting equal treatment of slaves and freedom. As aforementioned, Muslim society heavily relied on human capital exploitation and giving rights to slaves
Dissertation 32 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi disturbed this economy. Mernissi stresses the contradiction between egalitarian Islam and the existence of slaves until the advent of the infidels- colonizers in the 20th century. She attributes this paradox to “linguistic and legal tricks, as always” (Mernissi, 1991, p.153). With this explanation, she provides the rationale for the manipulation of sacred texts to fit the interests of each group/era.
Research question one
How are women depicted in Islamic religion?
4.2.4 The Prophet’s divine message – the emergence of Hadiths
To decode a misogynist tradition, Mernissi delves into the Prophet’s divine message (Islam-risala). Taking into consideration the intertribal killings and the absence of national unity, along with the marginalization of Arabs by the surrounding kingdoms (Byzantium and Sassanids), the Prophet incited revolution. He “preached power and unity for marginalized people, divided and occupied” (p.25). He came to bring groundbreaking changes in regions with polytheism and promulgate monotheism, which was insane for the inhabitants, who persecuted him. The revelations were exclusively oral products transmitted to Muhammad from Allah. Mernissi (1991) stresses the fact that the suras (chapters) revealed at Medina were following the social issues tormenting the specific city, “to questioned asked of him by the first Muslims” and with a mostly pedagogic quality, applying to themes such as marriage and inheritance (p.29).
Overall, the whole history of Islam revolves around the choice of a political leader and the interpretation of sharia. The prophet had attempted to leave a democratic society, run by equality and unity, and purged from pre-Islamic, ignorant customs, such as concepts on woman’s polluting nature and tribal system of succession. The caliphate as a political system came to resolve the issue of leadership, while sharia to clarify the sacred law, the divine will included in the fiqh (religious knowledge). After the prophet’s death, political dissension exploded, initiated by the assassination of Uthman. The huge expansion of political dissonance and the outburst of violence rendered necessary the collection of Hadiths, and there was born one of the strongest political weapons. According to Mernissi, the recollection of Hadiths resembles modern interview technique applied in fieldwork and it depends on the Companions of the prophet and the generations, who had heard him speak directly. A Companion’s characteristics were their “good memory skills and their proximity to the Prophet” (Mernissi, 1991, p.35). Isnad, namely the chain of transmitters was indispensable for Hadith transcription, as religious matters constituted science for early Muslim scholars and thus transpires their attempt to ensure their validity. Creating the biography of the Isnad is the key to the authentication of true Hadiths because it gives to readers the right to judge. Islam, Mernissi stresses, used to be a religion of reasoning and logic, which modern passive and objectified Muslims contradict.
Dissertation 33 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
4.2.5 Impact of Hadiths on women
The Hadiths were liable to huge distortions, for a variety of reasons. The division of Sunnis and Shiites and a generalized frenzy for succession were major reasons for Hadith manipulation and provide the context “in which the Hadith, true and false were elaborated” (p.42). Muhajirun(Meccan migrants), Ansar (Medinese), and political extremists (Kharijites) were groups fallen in fitna and producing disorder. After the prophet’s death, a small number of Companions gathered and decided succession, thus ensuring the elite and its interests, which excluded the rest of the population from decision-making. After a period when four orthodox caliphs (tried to) reign and were brutally killed, and the arbitrary appointment of Mu’waiya caliph, democracy had officially died. This is the context where the Hadith science was born and explains the male elite’s anxiety to somehow support their interests through it. Their attempt to manipulate the sacred and “on the other hand, the determination of the scholars to oppose them through the elaboration of the fiqh” represent the two conflicting forces surrounding the Hadith’s birth (Mernissi, 1991, p.43). Mernissi (1991) admires Al-Bukhari as “methodological and systematic” and his scientific endeavor for authenticity, through which he unveiled “596, 725 false Hadiths” in his time, and she learns from his lesson on the “flight of time and failing memory” (p.43). The fabrication of false Hadiths was either material, ideological, or without reason at all. Therefore, social mobility and territorial expansion were the backgrounds of hadith invention, and the manipulation of the sacred was necessary. The amma was carried away by storytellers and reproduced fictional hadiths, which culminated in their consolidation. Others simply sold their ideology and fabricated false hadiths “for a few dinars” (Mernissi, 1991, p. 45).
“Those who entrust their affairs to a woman shall never know prosperity” is the Hadith included in Al-Buhkari’s Al-sahih and thus is uncontestable, but nothing stops Mernissi since it is located in the scientific realm, thus she claims her right (1991) ”making a methodological and historical investigation of the hadith and its author” (p. 49). Abu Bakra was a Companion of the prophet, who heard him utter this phrase when speaking about the Persian’s decision to assign a woman-ruler. During that time, there was war between Romans and Persians, while two women had claimed the throne in the Sassanid empire, which renders this period (629-632) as intrinsically unstable. Mernissi (1991) feels perplexed by Abu Bakra’s “fabulous memory because he recalled them a quarter of a century after the death of the Prophet” and right after Aisha’s defeat by Ali at the Battle of the Camel (p. 50). The appointment of Ali as the successor of Uthman, who had been assassinated and justice had not been administered, Aisha turned to the city of Basra to initiate her resurgence against Ali. As Mernissi points out (1991) Abu Bakra was a notable there, where it was not his birthplace, thus he must have felt confused, because Aisha was the lover of the beloved of God and his wife, while Ali was the prophet’s cousin and the
Dissertation 34 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi caliph. Mernissi sheds more light on Abu Bakra’s life. He was an ex-slave, whom the prophet had set free, converted to Islam, and who had ascended astonishingly quickly on the social ladder, making a good fortune. Moreover, nobody found Abu Bakra’s genealogy, undeniable evidence of aristocratic lineage according to pre-Islamic tradition. After the fight, Abu Bakra had to justify his abstention from civil war, thus he evoked fitna for his neutrality -which was irrelevant to gender and the hadith on women. Mernissi (1991) reinforces her view with Malik Ibn Anas, a famous imam of Islam, who claims that “Religion is science, so pay attention to those from your learn it”, which puts further requirements for the transmitters, namely an inherent moral code. Additionally, Abu Bakra was accused of false testimony concerning a case of Zina (fornication).
A second hadith included in Al-Bukhari’s oeuvre is the following: “The Prophet said that the dog, the ass and woman interrupt prayer if they pass in front of the believer, interposing themselves between him and qibla”, and it was recited by the Prophet’s companion, Abu Hurayra. Qibla symbolizes the center of sacred space, and since women were excluded from it, they were also rejected as regards to their national and spiritual dimension (which equates no dimension at all). This hadith was fiercely rejected by Aisha, who had a profound knowledge of the fiqh, respected by society, and a high level of proximity to the Prophet. Mernissi (1991) observes that “…Al-Bukhari…did not always feel obliged to insert the corrections provided by Aisha”, on Hadith that reproduced the polluting female nature. Nevertheless, there are interesting elements on Abu Hurayra’s life, starting from his name, which the Prophet changed from “Servant of the Sun” to “Father of the little female cat”. Also, he originated from Yemen, where women leaders in public and private life. He detested his name, because “the male is better than the female” (Mernissi, 1991, p.71). What is more, he helped with women’s apartments, which further infuriated him on his (already) debilitated concept of masculinity. Aisha had warned him of repeating the alleged words of the prophet that he had never articulated.
Another extension of Abu Hurayra’s fixation on degrading women was a false Hadith regarding purification rituals regarding women and copulation. Pre-Islamic Arabia considered periods as dirty. Aisha, however, rejected this hadith as well, which was further connected to jahiliyyah superstitions, and was part of the prophet’s plan to eradicate. Two of the prophet’s wives denied rumors that wanted him to realize purification rituals to wash himself off women’s sullying nature. Umm Habiba confirmed that he prayed in the same clothes that he had made love to, because “he saw nothing bad in it” and urged Medinians to “eat, drink and share a bed with their wives ….except copulate” (Mernissi, 1991, p.74). The fuqaha of that era (9th century AD) were aware of the Prophet’s condemnation of misogyny and did their best not to reproduce it as a central element of Islam. Instead, they contradicted Jewish and Christian religions as unfavorable to female emancipation and pre-Islamic Arabia as superstitious.
Dissertation 35 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Furthermore, another “true” Hadith says “Three things bring bad luck: house, woman and horse”. Al-Bukhari consciously avoided providing more versions, according to religious science’s rules, even though Aisha had heard the prophet say “May Allah refute the Jews; they say three things bring bad luck: house, woman and horse”. ‘Abdallah Ibn Umar recites this Hadith: The Prophet said, “I do not leave after me any cause of trouble more fatal to men than women”, and “I took a look in paradise, and I noted that women were the majority”. Mernissi (1991) resorts to Ibn Malik for permission to contest the Hadiths’ validity, as it is necessary with all scientific data, while she reminds Al-Bukhari’s fallible human nature and thus the Muslims’ duty to peel their tradition off its misogynist layers imposed through time and ignorance (p.77). Abu Hurayra was also seriously contested by Umar, another Companion, who was so desperate of Hurayra’s fabrication of false Hadiths (5,300 in total) that threatened him with exile. However, not all scholars were misogynous. Imam Zarkashi devoted a whole book to Aisha, as a major contributor to Islamic religious knowledge.
4.2.6 The descent of hijab – the veiling of women
The aforementioned phobia against female nature and as a trace of the Jahiliya mentality is the axis around Mernissi’s argumentation, as she considers the hijab as a remnant of pre- Islamic conceptions of women and contradictory to the Prophet’s equal view of women. Qu’ranic verse 53 of sura 33 includes the descent of the hijab, revealed in 627. This descent symbolically took place in two different realms, physical and abstract-intellectual, the former as a curtain separating the Prophet from the public on his wedding night, to safeguard the prophet’s intimacy and exclude Anas ibn Malik. The latter’s account is extremely important and symbolizes the encroachment of the public sphere on the Prophet’s private life, a public realm consisted of impolite individuals (Mernissi, 1991). The historian Al-Tabari explores Ibn Malik’s report, where hijab and sitr (=curtain) becoming one. Mernissi (1991) underlines that in the case of the hijab, the revelation occurred with unprecedented speed, as we are told that the prophet felt disturbed by the guests and the divine responded.
The context of the descent is also utterly important, as year 5 of the Hejira was a year of military tragedy for Islam. The Medinese were devastated and impatient with the Prophet. A small group known as the “Hypocrites” started to defy the Prophet and even ignored the Quranic order forbidding marriage with his wives after his death. The social and military crisis had begun, and the hijab verse “came to give order to a very confused and complex situation” which renders this verse response to the ongoing issues of the Medinese of year 5 of Hejira (p.92). As far as its interpretation is concerned, al-Tabari has left 30 volumes regarding this revelation and its underlying causes, but Mernissi laments his “lack of synthesis” (Mernissi, 1991, p.93).
Dissertation 36 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
As a concept, the hijab is multi-dimensional. Mernissi (1991) starts by the visual dimension, to hide (verb hajaba). The second is spatial and signifies to “mark a border” and the third is moral and implies something forbidden. All three are sensational experiences and it transpires that the hijab covers something forbidden, material, or abstract. Following the same line of thought, sitr means curtain, therefore it signals the “division of space in two and hiding one part from the other” (Mernissi, 1991, p.94). Mernissi employs the Lisan al-Arab dictionary and provides multiple significations. She begins by mentioning an obsolete Arab custom, according to which the Muslim prince is allowed to use a veil to isolate himself from his surrounding people. It was also practiced by Ummayad caliphs and kings for the same reason, as the caliph was nearly divine and could blind the believers’ eyesight with his light. For Sufis, the hijab has eminently negative connotations, as manjub (veiled) is the mentally/spiritually handicapped person, imprisoned by secular senses, overridden by passions, and unable to elevate towards the divine. For mystics, kayfh is the opposite of the hijab. From these, it is evident that the hijab is a concept of sterile consciousness, not just a curtain. Also, Mernissi (1991) reminds that “it descended from Heaven to separate the space between two men” (p.95). Not only in Sufism but also the Koran, the hijab expresses human incapacity to conceive the divine, uttered for polytheists. It is striking that “the very sign of the person that is damned, excluded from the privileges and spiritual grace…is claimed in our day as a symbol of Muslim identity…for the Muslim woman” (Mernissi, 1991, p.97). Therefore, isolating women from bid’ a signifies isolation from the Western civilization and female body incarnates the whole community.
Mernissi (1991) correctly notices that since the hijab descended to push women back to their household and exclude them from decision-making in the public sphere, “the previous situation was different”(p.163). Indeed, before its institutionalization, women were concerned with political issues, such as the liberation of prisoners. In the first place, the hijab was a discontinuity to the prophet’s conception of “political and sexual as intimately linked and refused to minimize the sexual aspect of life” (p.162) and secondly a different social reality that is established, taking into account the homosexual armies among which men lived in conflicts. His private life was employed as a political weapon to legitimize breach in space between the sexes when his youth and military success had started to fade and his prestige was undermined by the Hypocrites’ rumors.
The notion of “ta’rrud” (taking up a position along a woman’s path to urge her to fornicate) is pivotal to understanding the establishment of the hijab. The situation was now out of control, and the Prophet was currently forced to put gender equality aside and protect his wives from rape. Ta’rrud was enacted on women slaves, thus the identity of women had to be somehow stated. Divine revelation (verse 59 sura 33) imposed the jilbab (could be chemise to cloak) on the prophet’s wives to distinguish themselves from slaves and avoid forced sex, mostly as a symbol. Here, it is necessary to contextualize the jilbab, in an era where forced prostitution was alive despite revelations because it embodied a
Dissertation 37 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi great source of income. The egalitarian Islam had to eliminate prostitution and this could only be realized with the rule of paternity and the rule of “idda, a period that obliges a widowed or divorced woman to wait for several menstrual cycles before remarrying” (Mernissi, 1991, p. 182). Pre-Islamic history, although limited, shows that if a woman was not an aristocrat or not a member of the tribe (and thus protected) was always liable to ta’rrud. Therefore, the hijab appeared to deal with unrestrained sexual aggression that regards the female body as “’arwa” (nudity). Medina’s streets in civil war depict a state danger, wherein every corner a man may be lurking to commit zina. For Mernissi (1991), ta’arrud exemplifies “constraint, violence and pressure” (p.183). The benefits of the hijab for that era are better perceived when the multiple types of “marriages” are taken into account in the Jahiliya period, some of them uncontestably masking prostitution. Islam’s egalitarian message relied on a compound system of principles that the individual-believer would follow based on his ability to “judge and control his sexual urges, without supervision” (Mernissi, 1991, p.186). The male supremacy of Medina was incapable of reasoning and addicted to supervision, elements combined with a military crisis, that eventually engulfed the democratic message of Islam and let the ignorance period take over again.
Always bearing on mind the context of a military crisis and a suffocating pressures against the Prophet, the repercussions caused to males by the abscission from pre-Islamic ethics regarding violence towards women is explored. According to Mernissi (1991), the Prophet had repeatedly criticized men for the common practice of beating women, because he believed in equality of all believers. The legitimization of violence is constructed on “nushuz”, meaning the woman’s refusal to obey her husband’s commands and specifically regarding his sexual appetites. Mernissi (1991) expresses her disappointment on the imams’ eclecticism concerning the sura 35 supporting equality of the sexes delivered to Umm Salama and their focus on verse 34: “Men are in charge of women because Allah had made one of them excel the other, and because they spend their property (for the support of women)”, a fierce contradiction against the former revelation. Furthermore, given this conflict and the urgency to disambiguate it, theologians and religious scholars “talk in terms of power and as a result are not interested in egalitarian perspectives” (Mernissi, 1991, p. 155). Turning again to Al-Tabari, he insisted that the Prophet never applauded female violence, while he handled his domestic tensions with self-isolation. Additionally, he explains that abrasive authority against women resulted from the sadaq (dowry) that men paid with the marriage contract, based on “nafaqaa”, which means obedience in exchange of alimony.
Umar, a member of the Quraysh elite, later convert and caliph, played a determinant role in legitimizing gender violence and the hijab, at a period when the Prophet was growing older and the Hypocrites were defying him, spreading rumors and invading his privacy. According to historians, he was “fiery and violent with women”, and he defended a partial faith to Islam by maintaining everything except gender equality, an indescribable offense
Dissertation 38 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi to his idea of masculinity (Mernissi, 1991, p.143) Umar was outraged by his wife, who defended herself against his outburst and justified it by citing the Prophet, which led Umar to fear a Quraysh women revolution. This opposition among Umar-Prophet, violence-non- violence represented the rupture caused in the Muslim community and endangered its survival. Additional tension spread regarding the subjugation of women’s free will as opposed to sexual positions. Answering to the people’s questions, God replied that “Your women are a tilth for you to cultivate so go to your tilth as ye will”. Mernissi (1991) perceives this verse as addressed only to males but also as permission for sodomizing women. This point was a crucial conflict for Islam as a monotheistic religion, as the Prophet had openly renounced violence, but God had revealed a contradictory sura. Finally, for Mernissi (1991), historians and theologians’ apathy and lack of synthesis gave way to politicians and male supremacists to claim privileges at the expense of women’s free will.
4.2.7 The Prophet’s relationship to women
Khadija was the prophet’s first believer and Islam began when she supported him through the first revelations when he experienced confusion. The Prophet married 9 women in total. He fell in love with Zaynab at first sight. Aisha was his youngest wife and his favorite, while she had a great intellectual connection with Umm Salama. Even in war, he was “accompanied by one or two of them” while it was common knowledge that he placed great importance on “sex and affection in life” (Mernissi, 1991, p.104). Mernissi (1991) reveals that the Prophet never permitted his military expeditions to harm his private life, and this was a substantial cause for the Medinese men’s lynching against him during the years 5-8 of Hejira. His apartments were visible from the mosque, thus private and public realms were interconnected, as an intrinsic element of his divine mission, namely the proximity among leaders and citizens. However, this rendered him vulnerable to “gossip and rumors”(Mernissi, 1991, p.108). His life became prey to the Hypocrites (Minafiquns), 70 notables that had accepted the Prophet in Medina, and represented its inhabitants. Medina constituted a melting pot of intertribal conflicts and Jews/non-Jews. The Munafiquns had pressed the Prophet to harsh negotiations, which did not abide by His democratic values. The Prophet’s humble and simple manner of living along with his indifference for public/private schism, and the vicinity of the mosque and private bedrooms that allowed women to be present in politics and express their view, incited primordial patriarchal instincts to transform into a monster.
Delving deeper into the prophet’s relationship with women, it appears that he was surrounded by beautiful, attractive, intelligent, and confident women. Umm Salama was an example of such a combination, whose judgment was respected for community issues. Khadija is another example of dynamism, as she asked for the prophet’s hand for marriage. Hind Bint ‘Utba exemplifies the independent, self-confident, and unbowed to male domination woman who asked the Prophet the reason why women are not addressed
Dissertation 39 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi in the Quran. Allah then replied with a verse where “men who surrender unto Allah and women who surrender, and men who believe and women who believe…Allah hath prepared for them forgiveness and a vast reward” (Mernissi, 1991, p.118). Umm-Salama heard a whole sura where God reassures gender equality, a concern held among Medina’s female community.
The divine affirmation on gender equality, however, was not enough for the male elite, whose interests were at stake. Gender equality brought ground-breaking changes in inheritance issues that caused the Medineans to rub their eyes. For Islamic God, woman is treated as a subject, that also inherits, from an object that she used to be, inherited together with cattle or thrown to prostitution as a slave, but women demanded more rights. Another crucial point is that war was a major source of income for the Muslim society, which offered them booty. Men employed the argument that those who do not fight in war cannot inherit, but Allah had a different opinion. Verse 19 sura 4 protects women from being inherited in the case of a deceased relative but also to inherit their allotment. More revelations arrived, such as in sura 4 “Women” verses 2,3,6,10,36,127 and sura 2 “The Cow” verses 177, 215 (Mernissi, 1991, p.124), which came to dissolve pre-Islamic inheritance customs regarding fatherless children, young heir, and heiresses and to put an end to a tradition where women and girls were treated in awful or borderline inhumane manners according to their physical beauty. Desperate enough, men attempted to distort them through “the device of interpretation of the sacred text”(Mernissi, 1991, p.125). As Mernissi observes (1991), Islam as a new religion started to disappoint men, whose interests had not been assaulted with the abolition of slavery and they quickly realized that God’s interests were not following theirs. “Give not unto the foolish what is in your keeping of their wealth, which Allah hath given you to maintain” is the verse they manipulated, taking as granted that women are the foolish (!) Irrefutably, the word al- sufaha signified women and children should be stripped off inheritance rights. Al-Tabari expresses his objection in his “Tafsir” compilation and propounds two potential meanings. Either sufaha refers to individuals regardless of gender that lack reasoning and moderation in financial expenses, or women as foolish and their right to inheritance as fictional. According to Mernissi (1991), the ambiguity of this verse demonstrates its vulnerability to manipulation by voracious mechanisms and its easy manipulation due to the absence of “synthesis and an excess of empiricism” (p.127). Al-Tabari avoided infusing the sacred text with his subjective perspective but instead he found asylum in Arabic grammar, where sufaha simply designates a person lacking critical thought and spends money inconsiderately. Nevertheless, women ground their teeth to male supremacy and claimed their right “to go to war to gain booty and the right to have a say about the sex act” (Mernissi, 1991, p.130).
4.3 Woman in the Muslim unconscious
Dissertation 40 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Research question one
How are women depicted in Islamic religion?
4.3.1 The omnisexual woman-crack characteristics in religious erotic discourse
Erotic literature thrived during the Abbasid caliphate, a period of luxury and a vast influx of slaves, who brought various exotic erotic customs. Erotic discourse is heretical because it aims to elevate the “subordinated, the oppressed, the excluded” (Mernissi, 1982, p.56). It is religious, as it was produced by religious scholars and legal experts to demarcate how Muslim human beings are expected (by the divine power) to make love. In contrast with orthodox discourse, it propounds freedom in that it does not claim to be reality or regulate reality, but “it constitutes a great danger for politics” (Mernissi, 1982, p.57). Mernissi (1982) employs al-Sunan by Tarmidi and Ihya ‘ulum al-din by Al-Ghazzali to explore erotica along with works on love and desire. The nucleus of erotic discourse is the female representation as an omnisexual creature, a “voracious crack”, reduced to genitals with insatiable desire. This creature is one-dimensional, as it does not bear any other psychological, emotional, and economic expansions and its existence revolves around copulation and climax. Its physical features are a preamble to the leftover personality traits. The size, color, and shape of the genitals is the major characteristic of the woman, which can be easily predicted. “Large nostrils indicate an insatiable vagina…a fat woman with a thick neck is to be avoided, she hides between her legs a vagina that is difficult to fill” (Mernissi, 1982, p. 26). This moving set of genitals is connected with the darkest instincts, elements that have been suppressed and eradicated by the human conscious and belong to the Jahiliya period of ignorance and female goddesses, when children were identified by the real vagina which gave them life. This entity radiates strong vibrations, irresistible for men, who receive them and bow to its raw energy, losing their rational thought. “When it is provided with ample flesh, it resembles the head of a lion. Oh! How many men’s deaths lie at her door?”, Mernissi quotes. (1982, p.27). The woman is depicted as detached from rationality, subject to convulsions, a radar that detects the phallus in the environment and devours it. “Certain vulvas, wild with desire and lust…throw themselves upon the approaching member…as if in fear that, unaided, it could not find the matrix” (Mernissi, 1982, p.27). The vagina-woman is aware of the movements needed to reach climax and guides the male that simply follows and struggles to satisfy the insatiable need for copulation. The terrorism of the insatiable vagina functions like a scary story in erotica, where the man ejaculates and lays outdone on the side while the vagina demands more. Mernissi (1982) recounts the story of the king with 360 concubines, where one of them requires to be satisfied completely and thus exasperates the king. Equally, the man is deprived of his humanity as his value is measured by his member’s size and his ability to fulfill the female appetite.
Dissertation 41 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
4.3.2 Female sexuality
Mernissi (1982) notices, however, that polygyny somehow multiplies the male’s sexual obligations, as a Muslim woman has to be “content with one-quarter of a man” (p.32) or even less, as he is allowed by law to an unlimited number of concubines. The woman’s suppression due to the man’s fragmentation into masses of female bodies renders women as dangerous for the hierarchical order imposed by Islam, especially “fidelity, heterosexuality, and social homogeneity” (Mernissi, 1982, p.32). The woman-hunter and man-prey depiction of the entrenched Islamic sex roles naturally culminates in the deployment of all available means to pamper his self-doubt with patriarchal order, with the virgin woman being one of the most powerful tools. Unfortunately, virginity is a fictional condition for the woman-crack, as her sexual drive overcomes self-constraints and limits. Therefore, the woman represents the destruction of order, hence hierarchy becomes indispensable for regulating life. This hierarchization is Islam’s core and canonizes (real) life to the divine’s need for unhampered attention. Moreover, the quest for the perfect- sized phallus to appease the vaginal convulsions knows no racism and social rank; according to various tales, wives of powerful women did not hesitate to descend very low down the social ladder to satisfy their needs, by committing zina with black slaves. This derangement of social order brings fascinating changes: slaves become masters. Authorities are turned upside down. Moreover, homosexuality is also at play as part of the destruction of hierarchy. In the male-dominated erotic discourse homosexuality is “an act of desperation”, an unfortunate consequence of male incapacity to satisfy her (Mernissi, 1981, p.41).
4.3.3 Female desire – disorder
It is important to appreciate how these discourses do not undermine female intelligence, with the aid of the “kayd” notion included in the Qu’ran as part of the sacred Muslim collective unconscious. Female extraordinary critical and thinking skills are into use (only) when her goal is the annihilation of the imposed order. She also has complete awareness of the systemic fundamental mechanisms and thus she possesses the knowledge to attack it. In various tales, women and anarchy become synonyms. Despite her intelligence, a woman cannot combine maternity with her constant search for the phallus. For Islam, racial purity is mandatory and only acquired by uncontestable paternity, which requires the wife’s faithfulness. Nevertheless, her anatomy and urges prevent her from being faithful, and thus isolated from the world is a necessary evil. In erotic discourse, social contact leads to insemination by another man, an enemy of pure paternity. The wali (father) employs jabr, namely his right to force the woman to marry whom he chooses, to safeguard kafa (social homogeneity) which is the emblem of institutionalized gender inequality and internal, mystical conflict among the wali and the woman’s interests. This artificial dipole of female nature and subversion is rooted in the collective Muslim
Dissertation 42 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi memory and scissors Muslim identity’s wholeness even more. Mernissi (1991) notices that “the woman’s purpose relates to nature; she stands in opposition to culture, to hierarchized and hierarchizing Islam” (p. 35). This correlation to an unstoppable natural force is the basic argumentation on prostitution as a natural concomitant of female’s appetite for sex and not the existing economic edifice. Another interesting part of the erotic discourse is that in male fantasy, men seek to copulate with powerful/rich women, and the latter choosing men of inferior socioeconomic status and pay to ensure their presence. “Male prostitution” breaks the hierarchy (Mernissi, 1982, p.42).
4.3.4 Woman in the omnisexual universe VS orthodox universe
Domination and submission are the wheels in the female omnisexual universe. Retaining the hierarchy that one dominating the other, she disorganizes the pattern and she becomes subject, in contrast with Qu’ranic verses that render her as the man’s property. The male being undergoes constant fear of castration, following the Freudian philosophy, as his existence is valued by his penis. The objectification and commodification of the dominated others are indispensable for the power relationship to function either way, but chaos reigns due to its subversion. This universe is regulated by female orgasm and everything revolves around it. The male believer has to trespass the task of efficient copulation, and numerous sources affirm the “deterioration of his sight” and “the loss of generative power”, as Nefzawi and Sulayman contend (Mernissi, 1982, p.49). Female satisfaction, far from being mechanical, is a whole science, a social project that requires concentration, knowledge, and specific physical attributes. Mernissi (1982) underlines the terror experienced by God for the loss of unobstructed and absolute attention by the male believer, who is occupied with searching for ways to give pleasure to his female partner. Nevertheless, religious scholars acknowledge the importance of exploring religion as science, and the accumulation of knowledge on female pleasure as a mystery to be solved is “non-conflicting with the Muslim God” (Mernissi, 1982, p.49). However, locating female orgasm in the center of glorification disturbs orthodox discourse, where everything obeys to the divine.
Surprisingly, there are many similarities between the man-prayer and the man as a lover. In both instances, the situation requires “control, discipline, and vigilance”(Mernissi, 1982, p.49). Erotic literature gives an extensive manual for men regarding the type of female orgasm (sha’gra and qa’ra) that resembles the process of a ritual, where the male awaits for the female’s eulogy after orgasm. In Sulayman’s discourse, man becomes the learner and the woman becomes an educator and the controlling power is a woman’s bodily rhythm.
4.3.5 Religious orthodox discourse
Dissertation 43 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Muslim paradise embodies “the civilization project of Islamic society, where the ultimate aim is spiritualization” (Mernissi, 1982,p.63). Its main difference to erotic discourse is that it bears a collective imprint, not individual, while it claims to regulate all manifestations of reality through legislation. Despite its claims on reality, the source of legitimacy and domination in orthodox discourse is the abstract (God) while in erotic discourse is the human, irrefutably rooted in reality. Another contradiction lays upon its focus on reproduction and its parallel obsession to eliminate sexuality. “The sacred devours the sexual to reproduce it at the level of discourse” (Mernissi, 1982, p.65). The imposition of discourse on Muslim reality disfigures reality and biology altogether, it does not simply modify it, which is proven by the fact that a child belongs to the father, while in reality it was created in the womb and sustained there until birth. In inverted, sacred biology, to avoid real reproduction through sex, “usurps the female’s ability to give birth” (Mernissi, 1982, p.66). The “inversion-linkage” is the very basis of Islam, a triangular relationship among the divine and the sexes. In this equation, the divine regulates space and time, while human beings are impotent and thus subjugated. The divine’s relationship to the sexes is different, though, as the man subjects to God and woman subjects to man. This relationship strictly codifies and programs the genders’ interaction in reality and it is utterly sacred, thus any alteration is a grave heresy (bid’a=innovation) and “explains the phobic attitude of Islam towards change”. (Mernissi, 1982, p. 67). This inversion-linkage is closely tied to the ecological and affective realms.
In sacred discourse, there are two voices, one reflecting equality and the other androcentric, where women are addressed indirectly through the male. Decisions about the latter are communicated from the divine to the male believer. This asymmetrical relationship is maintained by discourse, with its power, and mirrors the pyramidal relationship among man, woman, and God. For Mernissi (1991) an attempt for change in order would be realized the substitution of the Qu’ranic phrase “if ye wish to exchange one wife for another” by “husband”, in a chaotic universe where women repudiate their husbands and apply polyandry (p.72). The concept of time is also different in the sacred realm because, in reality, the woman gives birth to males. However, in sacred biology, a woman is created by a man. Chronology determines the degree of power in this relationship of power possession, as God created men and afterward women to serve men, while children come last to this schema, presented along with women as material riches. This sacred, intangible universe is incongruous with the earthly universe, while all human pleasures are a distraction from glorifying the abstract. This conflict serves as a springboard to explain the values of reproduction and work that are completely lost in Paradise.
4.3.6 Islamic paradise and sacred economy : the houri
Paradise, allegedly a place where spiritual overcomes the physical, and material wealth are the divine promises to the human (male) believer, provided that he succeeds in his
Dissertation 44 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi obligations, namely to submission without questioning and incessant devotion to the divine will. “Submission in exchange for material riches reflects the nafaqaa concept”, where woman sacrifices her will and time and the husband provides for her (Mernissi, 1982, p.79). Therefore, the relationship of domination and consumption are also reflected in institutions, not just sexual relationships. Mernissi (1982) observes that the whole Qu’ran is devoted to eliminating the obstacles that interpose themselves between a docile believer and his devotion to the divine, as potential resistance is a lurking danger, due to the believer’s human nature to engage with the female. The economy of Islam rotates around the fetish pattern God-master-slaves and blossoms only based on the female desire’s elimination, a domination closely supervised by the omnipresent divine because they are incapable of controlling time and their surroundings. “Wealth is monopolized by the divine” (Mernissi, 1982, p.82). Inequality is the basis of the divine plan. “See how we prefer one of them above another, and verily the Hereafter will be greater in degrees and greater in preferment” is a sura that consolidates inequality as the central axis of Islam and equality as the enemy of the divine order (Mernissi, 1982, p. 87).
The same pattern is reflected in the sacred economy, where hierarchization is the key concept. The person who works obeys the person who controls the system, usurps his effort, and creates wealth, namely worker and boss in the capitalist system. “Lo! We hath given thee abundance”, “So pray on to thy Lord, and sacrifice” are the verses that diminish the value of work, submission being the only way to survive. The ideals transpiring from the Islamic paradise confirm this sacred economy. The houri, the archetype of jarya (slave), complements the perfection of Islamic paradise, where “the only human activity is operational: to repose”. According to Mernissi (1982), the paradisal economy has specific features, namely abundance, and consumable nature, elimination of work and effort substituted by “gathering”, demographic division of males to masters and slaves and strict rules on reproduction, which paradoxically is realized between virgin-barren houris and castrated males. The male believer eats, drinks, rests, and manifests his sexual urges. There are up to seventy-two houris for every male accepted to heaven that incarnates the ideal of female beauty. They are young, attractive, virgin, submissive and passive, literally objects with no individual will. Mernissi observes “the earthly women’s unhappiness and anxiety rather than happiness and delight”, therefore it is a paradise made for males (Mernissi, 1982, p.94). Regarding space, there is blatant marginalization of earthly women’s sexual needs in Paradise, demonstrated by the territorial organization to achieve male orgasm. She could not ask for more, as she has already affirmed her physical existence by serving the man’s sexual needs.
4.3.7 Woman and man as disposable products
The houri and her relationship to the male believer is a celebration of dehumanization, as both of them have lost their human identity in Paradise. The mutilation of independent
Dissertation 45 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi thought and will render her incapable to evolve, and she is programmed to be consumed “here and now” by the male believer-consumer. The male is an “automaton” in paradise, “reduced to a digestive tube and a genital apparatus”, with no obvious reason, as he is unable to procreate with the houri. However, Mernissi (1982) notices an important differentiation between them; “the houri is consumed by men, while men are consumed by the larger system” (p.97). This mindstate of passivity is the driving force in Muslim society and family laws. Passivity is further reinforced by the isolation of female sexuality in the domestic field, the only space where it is legitimate. However, since the female body is deprived of reproductive skills and the privilege of desire taken from the male body, a double castration for both genders is operated.
4.3.8 Woman in an operation a trois with man and God
The divine, to accomplish its aims, intervenes in the most sacrilegious act, the moment of lovemaking between the couple. According to Qu’ranic verses, the male believer is obliged to pray to God before engaging and after engaging in the sex act. The absent imposes itself on the present through the sex act and the union between two transforms into “an operation a trois”. Equally to the reproduction, “sexual act is a crisis for the Muslim God, a situation that he had to take over”(Mernissi, 1982, p.107). In modern times, two principal institutions in Muslim legislation confirm the stress experienced by Muslim God to break the emotional connection between man and woman as a couple: repudiation and polygyny. The man’s attention is fragmented to multiple women (like in Paradise) and he is legally enabled to divorce anyone that fails to submit wholly to his needs. In this context, Mernissi (1982) views the divine’s obsession with the male as a manifestation of homosexual experience, and thus the interminable efforts to discard the female from the spiritual and physical realms are a matter of “God’s sexual preference” (p. 109). Overall, sacred Islamic discourse orbits around the antithesis God-reason-order- equilibrium and woman-desire-disorder-disequilibrium and chaos. Female is demonized, man is castrated and both are subject to bondage, fetishized power relationship to the divine. Mernissi (1982) concludes that Islam is a religion “that does not permit the human being to actualize its potentialities” since the believer’s life purpose is to worship the divine (p.117).
5 Discussion Taking the preceding results from Mernissi’s work into account, it is easy to distinguish among her shifts, namely secularist, secular, and Islamic. However, as Rhouni (2010) expressed, they are not contradictory but rather a sign of self- development following the ideological transformation taking place in society. To begin with, “Woman in the Muslim unconscious” is an unequivocally subversive approach towards Islam, that falls within her secularist moments. Her principal aim is to expose the incompatibility between Islam and gender equality and she accomplishes her aim through an unorthodox approach, which has
Dissertation 46 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi multiple advantages and innovations. First of all, Rhouni correctly expresses (2010) that Mernissi manages to demolish the male-dominated narratives of Islamic jurisprudence and early Islamic thought. She commits the sins of “bid’a in terms of an attempt towards a change of the Muslim reality through a thorough rereading of religious texts. She is aware of her blasphemy but stays committed to her social project of exposing patriarchy. Not only does she conduct extensive research to underlying androcentric assumptions but she also makes inferences on the Muslim god’s sexual orientation by claiming his homosexuality. Also, she demonstrates the multiplicity of Quranic verses that overtly denigrate gender equality as a rupture in the divine order. Her competences in synthesis, as well as denial for categorization, are evident, as she creates a collage of strict religious orthodox and sensual erotic discourse, while she juxtaposes them in a manner that shows their similarities in their androcentric view of women and their contribution to perpetuate gender inequality in society and laws. She efficiently distances herself from the apologetic discourse, as Rhouni also notices (2010) as she claims her right to self-expression and independent reasoning. In my opinion, she successfully indicates the harmful effect of both discourses on both genders, reduced to genitalia –objects –commodities to be consumed and destitute by affective, socioeconomic and emotional dimensions, while they are both victims of submission. There is equality in Islamic inequality. Both are an impairment to equality and ought to be challenged, defying religious phobia of innovation, an utterance that justifies her irreverence. This elevates Mernissi’s status, as she claims also male’s rights to human identity.
Needless to say, there are serious limitations regarding her reading and analytical approaches. Firstly, she is not satisfied with contesting the legitimacy of religious texts, contrarily, she overcomes fruitful questioning and rereading and falls into essentialist narratives (Rhouni, 2010). This signifies that she fails in actualizing Islamic feminism concept’s goals, as it is endorsed in theoretical definitions. She embraces orthodox discourse (Al-Ghazzali and Al-Bukhari) to prove its limitations but results in delineating her mental prison, just like a scorpion. The attempt to dissolve misconceptions of “absolute truth” is only substituted by another absolute truth. Also, she applies selective reading, meaning that she isolates the Qu’ranic verses that legitimize gender inequality and intentionally ignores others that renounce it, a huge contradiction to her forthcoming books such as “Veil and the male elite”, where verses reflecting equality are inserted. Through this selective reading technique, Mernissi presents a religious discourse on an empty background, where historical events and social rearrangements are insignificant and secondary. The same approach views religion as ideology, as Arkoun mentioned (2003). Furthermore, my opinion is aligned with Rhouni (2010), who stresses that Mernissi is trapped in essentialism and confuses Islam-risala with Islam as the practice of power in politics. This also contradicts her other books, where she demarcates the void between the divine message of Islam and Islam is the end product of political manipulation and the male elite’s hunt for individual interests. Additionally, although her symbolism of the houri as the fountain for an economy that omits to consider women’s labor, her symbolism
Dissertation 47 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi of the wali is highly dysfunctional. The wali, representative of order, domination, and reason opposed to woman-insanity-anarchy is included only in the Maliki school fiqh and influences the Moudawana family law, but it is not included in Hanafi school. This proves that Mernissi herself exploits the sacred text according to her intellectual and ideological interests and omits important information, thus benumbing plurality in Islamic thought. Essentialism in Mernissi is also present in her regard towards orthodox discourse as an element of God’s voice. This conceptualization leads her to reinforce the orthodox paradigm and is based on a literalist reading of the Qu’ran. Except for that, she erases the potential of human misinterpretation of the sacred texts and their use as political weapons to discriminate and dominate. This is another conflicting point towards her next books, especially “Veil and the male elite”, where she makes the impossible possible to scientifically prove the distortion of sacred texts. Finally, another serious impediment to impartial research is Mernissi’s fixation to shrink the Qu’ranic plurality and multidimensional essence by supporting the clear-cut and explicit messages on submission and curtailment of self-development, once again by leaving other aspects untouched, such as mercy and love, the latter being an inextricable element in” Veil and the male elite”.
The change in shift of Mernissi is glaring when taking into consideration that “Veil and male elite and “Woman in the Muslim unconscious” share the same sources, the sacred texts. In one case they are analyzed through a literal reading, as prescriptive texts to be imposed on every aspect of the daily life of all Muslims. In the other case, their reading is based on a more flexible and open-minded approach, where they are contextually placed, historically situated in time. In the former book, they are regarded mostly as a response to social upheaval tormenting the people of Medina in the prophet’s lifetime, while in the latter it is conceived as a piece of directions that molests all moments of human life and disavow human self-determination. This is a huge vacuum in perspectives. Mernissi herself being a victim of essentialism, her shift shows that textual interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. In “Veil and male elite” indicates how lethal misinterpretation can become in case that the subject reading the text takes meaning too personally, as it occurred with the male elite. Also, it shows how arrogance rooted in human nature is imprinted on the textual distortion of the sacred meaning thus committing “hybris”, following Greek mythology. Regarding the theme of love, Zayzafoon (2001) mentions that Mernissi evacuates Islam from the concept of romantic love. This argument is untenable as in the “Veil and the male elite” Mernissi seems particularly moved and inspired by the Prophet’s dimension as a lover to his wives. Specifically, the Prophet considers love and sexual relations as an inseparable part of human nature, even though his tenderness and appreciation towards the female gender turn against him.
Looking closely at “Veil and the male elite” helps discern Mernissi’s transgression of realms, from the radical and provocative towards a feminism explored from the bowels of Islam. She employs her identity as a Muslim woman to delve into Islamic feminism this time, following the Morrocan society’s movement. I use “islamic” because her approach
Dissertation 48 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi emanates from the sacred but is not aggressive and dogmatic, although she moves on a tight rope. Initially, Aisha is a central figure of power, autonomy, and female resistance to authorities but her aristocratic social position is ignored. Mernissi decenters feminism, as Rhouni also suggests (2010), causing disillusionment to the Western reader, for whom feminism was initially conceived in the West. She places feminism in the heart of the Middle East and Muslim women retrieve their agency. Additionally, she extracts the sacred element from Moudawana law, because her rationale proves that fiqh is not a reflection of Islam’s message but a result of male interference, such as Abu Hurayra’s and Abu Bakra’s repressed feelings and resentment for women. Mernissi’s priority to deconstruct the Hadiths is successful due to their historicization and contextualization in the aid of memory, by revising tafsir (exegesis) concerning verses on gender inequality and the hijab. Most importantly, the latter is explained as a response to a strenuous situation where the Prophet started to lose the battle with male supremacy and his military power. Overall, in this book, Mernissi comes very close to pure knowledge development but essentialism is again a strong obstacle. Her challenging of al-Bukhari’s collection of Hadiths gives rise to more foundationalism. Authenticity is prioritized at the expense of the Hadiths’ legitimacy and culminates in apologetic discourse and more mystification, paradoxically (Rhouni, 2010).
Moving on to “The forgotten queens of Islam”, it represents her secular moment. The most rampant contradiction among this book with the previous works is that Mernissi transfers the issue of gender equality from the sacred to the historical realm and engage in a contextual approach. Her critique indeed demystifies male narratives in official history and succeeds in demonstrating that there is no continuity in women’s exclusion from power, but rather it is a frailty of the patriarchal world. Religion and sacred texts are employed to prove gender equality as Islam’s divine message, which leaves patriarchal mechanisms as the only factor responsible for gender inequality and confirms its timelessness. Her contextual approach has indeed numerous assets and flatters Mernissi’s creative skills. First of all, she is subversive because examining the history and religious science is a male privilege. Unobstructed by the status quo, she underlines the various historical truths depending on the male historian that interprets them, which is a magma of his hermetic, conservatism, misogynism, and political interests. She exposes this phenomenon both for modern and past historians and religious scholars, but she is just, in that she makes a distinction among Yemeni and Arab historians, the latter feeling uncomfortable with women in power. At this point, I agree with Rhouni (2010) claiming that “The veil and the male elite” and “The forgotten queens of Islam” transpire a common concept, namely the subjection of sacred texts and history to savage distortions to soothe male insecurity. Mernissi wittingly accomplishes to destroy the binaries of democracy - Islam-risala and women-power incompatibility promoted by official history books. Additionally, she demystifies concepts of the ideal Islam during the Abbasid period, because she proves that the male elite was hungry for power and succession that they even forgot to clean the Prophet’s body after his death. This argument directly shoots at Muslim
Dissertation 49 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi demonization of democracy as a Western importation and indicates that the orthodox caliphs and baya (choice of the leader) was always infatuated with exclusion and elitist interests, contrary to the idealization of the Sunni Islam. Moreover, she unearths 15 queens from the Muslim world and points her finger directly at the historians that took part in eradicating them from history. Therefore, her initial question on Benazir Bhutto undermines her rivals’ resort to Muslim tradition that power and women are irrelevant. All these arguments are enhanced, as far as I am concerned, by Mernissi’s ironic tone. This irony is necessary, let alone useful because the male historians’ “omission” of Muslim and Arab queens is nearly criminal for the international collective memory because they were responsible for producing legitimate knowledge but they eventually produce a timeline of masculinity over femininity. The ironic interplay is omnipresent in her works and it is power incarnated because she disobeys the clergy and the state.
Another asset of “The forgotten queens of Islam”, apart from the linguistic interplay presented above, is the contradiction against the contradiction. The binary of woman-lack of reasoning skills-chaos and man-reason-order is –at least in my eyes- contradicted by Mernissi’s gradual process of revealing the queens of Islam. The male elite’s initiative to manipulate sacred texts seems like an absurd and strong confrontation of the divine, where the human male arbitrarily places himself above God. This outright expression of defiance towards the divine shows innate deficiencies in the core of masculinity as its most prevalent characteristic. In order words, since the angry Medinean men contradicted the Muslim god by committing hybris, by maintaining violent, ancient customs and by harassing the Prophet and his wives, it is terrifying even to consider what the male supremacists of any religion are capable of doing as regards to imposing the phallus as the center of the universal cosmic power. Mernissi’s works show the superficiality of the male elite’s faith, where respect for the divine message is secondary and respected only where divine-human interests happen to coincide. In my perspective, distorting the sacred for politics verifies that males are not even close to solid, reasonable thinking and instead are governed by ambition, vanity, agony for the validation of their masculine domination on other creatures and consequently are infidels, when taking Islam’s divine message into account.
Using the Jahiliya discourse as a tool to deconstruct toxic masculinity in Islamic history is a double-edged knife and is similar to the “Veil and the male elite” inaugural assumption. This lies in Mernissi’s argument that women showed resistance and defiance towards male oppression inside Islam, supporting the orthodox religious discourse that Jahiliya was a period of ignorance and minimum human rights for women. Therefore, she employs orthodox discourse tools to dismantle androcentrism, assuming that the Prophet’s attempts for gender equality and democracy were quelled by male elitist interests, relics of the customs of the pre-Islamic Arabia. As Chickaoui points out (1997) proximity to powerful men played a determinant role for the women that concentrated power. This is a
Dissertation 50 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi significant limitation in Mernissi’s work because she completely disregards the women of the umma and focuses on the aristocracy, quite elitist itself.
Furthemore, it is evident from Mernissi’s works that specific religious elements included in the Quranic and other religious texts that are solidified, fixed and immune to any alteration and examination, while others bear the potentiality to be openly addressed, challenged and subverted. Following Abdul Karim Soroush categorization (in Ahmad, 2015), religious conceptions are either accidental and contextual or essential and absolute. Mernissi’s movement among ideological and religious positions indicates the gap between the elements but she confidently declares her right to destabilize what is taken for granted. In “Woman in the Muslim unconscious” she renders the essential as accidental, or it could be said that she renders Islamic religion’s devaluation of the female entity as a wholesale accidental, unfortunate event. In her other books, Mernissi retains the “essential” and anchors in it, while she searches for all the variables that conspired to to vitiate women’s human identity and oppress her through religion.
6 Conclusion
Generally, Islamic feminism is an extremely complicated research field where antithetical forces collide, but eventually embrace each other. However, Islamic feminism in Mernissi’s work is even more tricky and it resembles shifting sands. As it occurs from this study, Mernissi’s approach regarding Islamic feminism is elusive and despite her discourse’s limitations, she reinvigorates Islamic thought. This shift in her paradigm and her renunciation of orthodoxy gives a unique character to her work and elucidates that she can only be understood through wide-open ijtihad. The principal research objectives were met through analyzing Mernissi’s three books, and the results verify the existing literature. Islamic feminism is examined in thorough detail, infiltrated by a faith-based, secularist, and secular positions. The constant shift in Mernissi’s ideological starting point is explored based on her assimilation in Moroccan society’s rhythm and ongoing conflicts and reformulations, rather than a contradiction in ideology. The results section is aligned with scholars’ critique in terms of her subversive, unorthodox, and untamed writing style, with gender as a new set of analytical tools and a contextual, historicizing methodology that transgresses Western and Eastern ideologies altogether. All of her books deploy the interpretation of the sacred texts through the centuries and their crystallization through the fiqh. Mernissi questions reinterprets and rewrites major historical events such as women and power and the establishment of the veil as part of the Muslim identity, while she connects sacred Islamic discourse with capitalism by the disentanglement of the unconscious. Therefore, Mernissi applies intertextuality and interdisciplinarity approaches and successfully decodes the mechanisms that legitimized gender inequality and female oppression. The discussion segment reveals that Islam as a divine message is purely
Dissertation 51 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi egalitarian and interpretative devices have been maliciously employed by the male elite – historians, politicians, common people who committed heresy by refusing God for personal and political interests, which is the case in most religious systems.
Regarding all three books, Merissi’s double-front critique is obvious. As Rhouni states (2010) it is impossible to categorize Mernissi, whose critique is ferocious against both Western colonizer's master narrative of feminism and Muslim fundamentalists’ concepts on female nature and sexuality. This heterodoxy is infused in the three books, as she consciously chooses to conflate contradictory elements, deny one-sided truth and create an amalgamation of perspectives on femininity, history, and sexuality, where all camps’ opinion is valued but also subject to demystification. Her shift, gradually from the secularist to the Islamic and then to the secular approach in feminism indicates an intellectual maturity, of a scholar that does not let time and space freeze her thought and no sacred or physical universe and laws, could submerge her constructive thinking. Overall, Mernissi renders the Arkoun’s (2003) unthinkable as thinkable, by rewriting history and Muslim tradition through the eyes of a woman.
Regarding the manipulation of sacred texts, a new concept arises through this study. The first is that spiritual respect due towards religion is not given, because the inevitable progress of time renders an obsolete “religious” system as useless for the present time. In this way, the maintenance of social order and the avoidance of disorder at all costs (fitna) in Islam becomes a science-fiction scenario, as a religion that cannot find any connective link to modernity and the present is condemned either to divide and end up in casualties or fade and disappear. The Muslim state, torn by dissonance since the dawn of time due to desert clans, preventing them from achieving national unity, and the traditionalists’ demand to leave the fiqh and laws intact is out of place, let alone contradictory to Islam- risala. Dealing with the sacred texts as alive entities and avoiding literalist reading, might pave the way towards gender equality.
As far as the female oppression is concerned, Mernissi’s works result in certain conclusions regarding the reasons for past and modern female subjugation. The whole system of patriarchy is founded solely on one assumption: that phallus is the higher energy behind the movement of Earth and stars. This is particularly evident by Mernissi’s exposure of the male’s fabrication of False hadiths for a few coins (although she recognizes the financial issues of these times). False Hadiths are pervasive, as Mernissi indicates, thus believers cannot trust them. The corruption of sacred texts by the male elite indicates that no religion is stronger than patriarchy. Moreover, the Hypocrites spreading rumours for the Prophet and his wives allows to infer that patriarchy did not even respect Muhammad, as the presentative of Allah on Earth, falling into pointless gossip. Finally, even religious erotic discourse prioritizes the male’s orgasm at the expense of the female pleasure, indicating that inequality begins from domestic life. The overall message is that patriarchy is the only reason for Islam’s misogynous foundation, neither the Muslim God
Dissertation 52 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi or the Prophet. The female power still provokes primordial fears to males, and there originates their timeless efforts to undermine her. However, Mernissi refers to a great number of males, historians, politicians, caliphs and religious scholars that were confident enough not to underestimate female nature. The most self-assured and loving among them was the Prophet, who valued women, emotion and sexuality.
To conclude, Mernissi’s works inspire further reflection on the issue of faith as private or public matter, always combined with the women’s social status and rights on a worldwide scale. It seems that the institutionalization of faith in an organized, fixed system is potentially dangerous for the loss of spirituality endorsed in faith. Her works highlight Mernissi’s underlying assumption of Faith as a very personal experience where all levels of consciousness (emotional, affective, psychological, mental, intellectual, physical) are interwoven, and presuming the unique existence of human entities it is rather preposterous to explain the prayer or meditation dynamics in one system, regulated by one book (e.g. Bible, Qu’ran, etc). Not to be confused with agnosticism or atheism, the presented study relies on a faith-based view of feminism that posits human in the center and prioritizes his/her experience over the divine, which gives meaning to life but does not diminish its expressions, especially the ones related to emotion, love, connection, and unity of souls. The deprecation of Islam’s egalitarian message by male supremacists is therefore ample evidence on the harmful effect on systematized religion.
Possible limitations for this study could be the inadequate material published around Mernissi’s work and overall for Islamic feminism. Further research could be realized on feminism regarding other religious systems, such as Hinduism and Buddism and their subcategories, always in dialogue with the women’s real social conditions, or on the position of women in tribal communities, such as the ones living in Amazon and other forests, or even smaller communities with no governing religion. Moreover, the paradox of gender inequality in democratic, modern, and developed countries could be explored. It is a paradox because the West is perceived as the epitome of progress by the West itself and by the East. However, the percentages of GBV and gender discrimination incidents have skyrocketed, thus Eastern phobias for a fast-paced West could be mistaken, and Orientalist discourses that alienate the East as “the other”, in the Saidian sense, also mistaken. Male domination is the international religion and paradoxically establishes equality (among men) by imposing insecure masculinity regardless of race, color, and religion. Research on male supremacy could thus contribute to the worldwide male and female population on the possible paths to humanize each other and find the inner light, as in Osho’s concept.
Dissertation 53 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
7 References
Ahmad, A. (2015). Islamic feminism- A contradiction in terms? Fes India Paper. New Delhi, 1-12
Ait Sabbah, F. (1982). La femme dans l’inconscient musulman: desir et pouvoir. Paris. Le Sycomore
Al-Sharmani, M. (2014). Islamic feminism : transnational and national reflections. Approaching religion, 4(2), 83-94. Retrieved from https://helda.helsinki.fi//bitstream/handle/10138/162143/1207.pdf?sequence=1
Arkoun, M. (2003). Comment etudier la pense islamique. [How to study Islamic thought]. Rabat, Morocco: Institut Francais
Badran, M. (2002). Feminism and the Qur’an. In Jane D. McAuliffe (ed.), Encyclopaedia f the Qur’an, 2, (pp. 199–203). Leiden: Brill
Barlas, A. (2008). Engaging Islamic feminism: provincializing feminism as master narrative. In Anitta Kynsilehto (ed.). Islamic Feminism: Current perspectives. (26, pp.15-24). Tampere Peace Research Institute
Barlow, R & Akbarzadeh, S. (2006). Women’s Rights in the Muslim World: Reform or Reconstruction? Third World Quarterly, 27(8), 1481–94.
Beauvoir, S. . (1989). The second sex. New York: Vintage Books.
Bergoffen, D. (1996). The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities. StateUniversity of New York Press. New York.
Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
Cavanagh S. (1997). Content analysis: concepts, methods and applications.Nurse Researcher 4, 5–16.
Chikhaoui, N. (1997). La Question des femmes vue par Fatima Mernissi [Women’s issue as seen by Fatima Mernissi]. Prologues, 9, 16–23
Dissertation 54 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Cypress B. S. (2017). Rigor or Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Strategies, Reconceptualization, and Recommendations. Dimensions of critical care nursing : DCCN, 36(4), 253–263. https://doi.org/10.1097/DCC.0000000000000253
Department of Global Communications (n.d.). United Nations official website. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/un-supporting- %E2%80%98trapped%E2%80%99-domestic-violence-victims-during-covid-19- pandemic
Displaced or refugee women are at increased risk of violence. What can WHO do? (2018, November 28). Retrieved from WHO official site https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/displaced-refugee-women-violence-risk/en/
Elo, S., & Kyngäs, H. (2008). The qualitative content analysis process. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 62, 107-115. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04569.x
European report on preventing child maltreatment (2013). Retrieved from WHO official site https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/108627/e96928.pdf?sequence=1#:~:t ext=Analyses%20of%20community%20surveys%20from,with%20no%20real%20gen der%20differences.
European union agency for fundamental human rights (2014). Violence against women : an EU-wide survey. Main results report (2014. Retrieved from https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2014-vaw-survey-main-results- apr14_en.pdf
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. Edinburgh: Longman Group.
Fatema Mernissi (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatema_Mernissi
Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed . New York: Continuum.
Garcia, K.(2014). Islamic Feminism in the Time of Democracy. Law School Student Scholarship. 472, 1-26. Retrieved from https://scholarship.shu.edu/student_scholarship/472
Grami, A. (2013). Islamic feminism: a new feminist movement or a strategy by women for acquiring rights? Contemporary Arab Affairs, 6(1), 102-113. Retrieved from https://online.ucpress.edu/caa/article/6/1/102/26067/Islamic-Feminism-a-new- feminist-movement-or-a
Dissertation 55 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Gramsci, A.(1971). Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York :International Publishers
Hsieh H.-F. & Shannon S. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15, 1277–1288.
Khalid, O. (2017, September 15). What is Bidah and how to avoid it? Retrieved from https://www.islamicfinder.org/news/what-is-bidah-and-how-to-avoid-it/
Krippendorff, K. (1980). Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology. Newbury Park: Sage publications
Maalouf, A. (2001). In the name of identity: Violence and the need to belong. New York: Arcade.
Mernissi, F., & Mazal Holocaust Collection. (1991). The veil and the male elite: A feminist interpretation of women's rights in Islam. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
Mernissi, F. (2003). The forgotten queens of Islam. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
Mikkola, M. (2016a). Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In Edward Zalda (ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/
Mir‐Hosseini, Z. (2006). Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality: Between Islamic Law and Feminism. Critical Inquiry, 32(4), 629-645. doi:10.1086/508085
Murder in Turkey sparks outrage over rising violence against women (n.d.). The guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/turkey- outrage-rising-violence-against-women
Kynsilehto, A. (2008). Islamic feminism: Current perspectives. Tampere: Tampere Peace Research Institute.
Reforming Moroccan family law: the Moudawana (2016). Retreived from Centre for Public impact https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/moroccan- moudawana-reform/
Rhouni, R. (2010). Secular and Islamic feminist critiques in the work of Fatima Mernissi. Leiden: Brill.
Salah, H. (2010). From ijtihad to gender jihad. Islamic feminists between regional activism and transnationalism. Gender Heft, 1, 47-64.
Dissertation 56 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Siddiqui, T. (2019, July 4). Understanding Islamic feminism in India. South Asia Journal. Retrieved from http://southasiajournal.net/understanding-islamic-feminism- in-india/#_ednref5
Spagadorou, N. (2020, April 26). Coronavirus: Domestic violence increase in quarantine. CNN news. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.gr/focus/story/216961/koronoios-ayxisi-tis-endooikogeneiakis-vias- se-synthikes-karantinas
Statistics Canada (2017). Self-reported sexual assault in Canada, 2014. (NO 85-00- X). Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily- quotidien/170711/dq170711a-eng.htm
Tesch, R. (1990). Qualitative Research: Analysis Types & Software Tools. Bristol, PA: Falmer Press.
Tolle, E. (1997). The power of now: A guide to spiritual enlightenment. Vancouver: Namaste publishing
Zayzafoon, Lamia Ben Youssef (2005).The Production of the Muslim Woman: Negotiating Text, History, and Ideology. New York: Lexington Books.
Dissertation 57 Koutsogianni Vasiliki, Islamic feminism in the works of Fatima Mernissi
Author’s Statement: I hereby expressly declare that, according to the article 8 of Law 1559/1986, this dissertation is solely the product of my personal work, does not infringe any intellectual property, personality and personal data rights of third parties, does not contain works/contributions from third parties for which the permission of the authors/beneficiaries is required, is not the product of partial or total plagiarism, and that the sources used are limited to the literature references alone and meet the rules of scientific citations.
Dissertation 58