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A Case Study of Askimam.Org by Farhana Ismail An Analysis of the Discursive Representations of Women’s Sexual Agency in Online Fatwas: A Case Study of askimam.org By Farhana Ismail A Dissertation Submitted in Fulfilment of the Degree of Masters of Arts In the subject of Gender and Religion At the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics In the College of Humanities. Supervisor Dr Fatima Seedat University of Kwa- Zulu Natal Pietermaritzburg, South Africa February 2015 i DECLARATION I, Farhana Ismail, declare that the work presented in this thesis is original and authentic unless indicated otherwise, and in such instances full reference to the relevant source is provided. This thesis has not been submitted for any other degree or examination at any other university. This thesis does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons. This thesis does not contain other persons' writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then: a. Their words have been re-written, but the general information attributed to them has been referenced. b. Where their exact words have been used, then their writing has been placed in italics and inside quotation marks, and referenced. This thesis does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet, unless specifically acknowledged, with the source being detailed in the thesis and in the ‘references’ section. Farhana Ismail Student Number: 215050718 Signature:…………………….. Date 22 February 2015 As candidate supervisor I hereby approve this thesis for submission Dr Fatima Seedat Signature:…………………………… Date 22 February 2015 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS All thanks are due, first and foremost, to the Creator, who has blessed me in a myriad number of ways. I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr Fatima Seedat, for her generous assistance, support, and patience. Her guidance and encouragement have been crucial for my intellectual development. The Gender, Religion and Health Programme at the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics is an exciting and supportive space, and I am grateful to all the staff and students for their support. Special mention must be made of Professor Sarojini Nadar, Professor Sue Rakoczy, Dr Sarasvathie Reddy and Dr Federico Settler, for their unwavering advice and consistent support throughout the thesis planning and writing process. A big thanks to my classmates for being wonderful colleagues and discussion partners, and to my son Naeem Paruk who assisted me with the archiving of Internet material. I am especially grateful to all my friends and family who smilingly and uncomplainingly, put up with neglect and unsolicited conversations about muftis, sex and fatwas, and to those who provided me with food and accommodation when I travelled. I would most importantly like to acknowledge my four sons, my husband and our parents for their continued support and love in all that I do. iii ABSTRACT Combining a feminist post-structural methodology with a legal interpretive framework located in classical texts, this study analysed six fatwas on South African- based Mufti Ebrahim Desai’s online fatwa platform, askimam.org, to provide insights into the discursive representations of women’s sexual agency. By virtue of their potential to provide data on lived experiences of sex and intimacy in modern contexts, and the legal interpretive reasoning they prompt, the analysis of these fatwas revealed competing and complementary discourses on women’s sexual agency. Petitioners grapple with the dissonance created by their pietistic loyalty to the legal tradition of marriage, and expectations of mutuality within contemporary marriage. They rely on varying dimensions of health to argue for women’s choices in the sexual arena. In their responses, some muftis accommodate women’s sexual refusals and desires using an ethical framework, and they support mutuality using strategies of sexual communication and benevolent masculinity. Unlike other facets of health, which are managed in the juristic space as spiritual concerns, physical health concerns related to sex are managed within a biomedical ethical paradigm, thus linking sexual rights to physical health. The study shows the potential for muftis to link sexual rights to psychological and emotional facets of health and the possibilities to adopt an ethical paradigm that includes other medical and allied therapies. Amongst the fatwas produced by Desai and his students, Desai’s own fatwa, in the context of reform inclinations on his website, suggests this possibility. Although the online fatwas of askimam.org do not diverge substantially from the legal logic of Muslim marriage, they provide a glimpse into how Deoband muftis are thinking about the model of marriage, through an emphasis on mutuality and health and well-being, in order to preserve the marriage and maintain the stability of the contemporary Muslim family. The study proceeds to analyse how foundational sources, Qur’an and hadith, are utilised in this regard, and concludes with an analysis of how the online space is gradually reformulating traditional concepts and norms, thus facilitating new prospects for reconfiguring gender relations. Key Terms: Sex, sexual agency, sexual health, fatwas, Muslim marriage, online, Internet, muftis, Deoband. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ......................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ v INTRODUCTION: DESIRING SEX OR NOT? ...................................................... 1 Context and Grounding .............................................................................................................. 3 Outline of Chapters ..................................................................................................................... 5 A Discursive Tradition ............................................................................................................... 7 Translation and Terminology ..................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER ONE: ORIENTATION AND BACKGROUND ................................. 10 1.1 What is a Fatwa? ................................................................................................................ 10 1.2 Mufti Ebrahim Desai ......................................................................................................... 12 1.2.1 Background ................................................................................................................ 14 1.2.2 The Deoband School of Thought ............................................................................... 15 1.2.3 The Deoband Madressa .............................................................................................. 16 1.2.4 Muslim Personal Law (MPL) ..................................................................................... 20 1.3 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 22 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW of LITERATURE .................................................... 23 2.1 Sexual Agency in Foundational Discourses ...................................................................... 24 2.1.1 Quranic Verses ........................................................................................................... 26 2.1.2 Hadith ......................................................................................................................... 31 2.1.3 Fiqh ............................................................................................................................ 32 2.2 Sexuality and Social Control ............................................................................................. 35 2.2.1 South Africa ............................................................................................................... 37 2.2.2 The Ulama in South Africa ........................................................................................ 39 2.3 The Internet and Muslims .................................................................................................. 42 2.3.1 Muslim Women, the Internet and Sexual Health ....................................................... 44 2.4 Online Fatwas .................................................................................................................... 48 2.4.1 Askimam.org .............................................................................................................. 51 2.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...................................... 56 3.1 Reflections ......................................................................................................................... 56 3.2 Feminism and Islam ........................................................................................................... 57 3.3 Feminist Post Structural Theory .......................................................................................
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