DISSERTATION Titel der Dissertation „Religion as Faith? Education Purdah and Modernity An Ethnographic Study of Islamabad’s Madrassah Jamia Hafsa“ Verfasserin Saadia Abid angestrebter akademischer Grad Doktorin der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) Wien, 2010 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 092 307 Dissertationsgebiet: Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie Betreuer: ao.Univ. -Prof. Wolfgang Kraus and special thanks go to… …my supervisor Professor Wolfgang Kraus for giving me the freedom to think, to work independently and to follow my ideas, yet providing support and help whenever needed. …Professor Andre Gingrich, for ever being so helpful and encouraging, and for his constructive criticism. I am greatly indebted to him for it was because of him that I had my first ever research paper published here in Vienna. ...Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan for providing me the financial support to pursue my PhD studies and Austrian Exchange Service (ÖAD) for facilitating my higher studies here in Austria. …to my interlocutors for providing all the valuable information. …my friend Irene Bregenzer for figurative drawings which helped to better illustrate the dress. …to Kanwee, for helping me with flow charts and accompanying me in various research endeavours. Together going for the international conference presentations made the experience more learning, lively and enjoyable. It would be unjust not to mention the third member of our international trio, Andrea -- some of my greatest memories owe to these beautiful friends. …to my dearest friends Andrea Virk, Julia, Patricia, Zuzka, Olga, Kathrin for making me feel at home in a foreign land. …all my Pakistani friends in Vienna. In my pursuit to equally acknowledge their love and support their names are written in alphabetical order. To my relief the names I owe the most come the first Arjumand and Aneesa (I am sure Aneesa would not mind my little cheating here), Ather, Fareeha & Aimen, Farooq, Fatima Tazeen, Mona, Rao, Shazia Farooq and Sheeba. Your encouragements have been a pure source of motivation for me especially during the write-up phase. Last but not the least a word of gratitude for my family and friends who are like family; though physically apart yet always there in my heart … the most beautiful sisters on earth, Somiya and Sarah, and my dearest friends, Fatima and Sadia for keeping a constant check on my progress. For all the lively chats which proved to be a source of great relief during the stressful period. …my brother and his family for their continuous encouragement during my academic career. …my brother in law, Arshad Sharif, for his unrelenting support …all the little lovely angels of my family. …my deepest appreciation goes to my parents for their unconditional love and care. Their confidence in my abilities helped me achieve this milestone in my life. For this and much more, I am forever in their debt. It is to them that I dedicate this dissertation. Dedicated to My Loving Parents Notes for the reader: In order to ensure confidentiality and conceal the identity of the interlocutors of the present study, they have been given aliases. No specific system of transliteration is followed. For convenient reading most simple spellings have been devised for the Urdu and Arabic words. Diacritics are avoided in most of the cases except for the Urdu alphabets “hamza” and “ayn”, which are marked here by an apostrophe for the convenience of nonspecialists. In a few cases where the Urdu terms are derived from Arabic, the latter has also been mentioned, e-g, Urdu: mazhab – Arabic madhab. In case of the words that have a ‘broken’ plural, plural is formed by adding ‘-s’ to the singular form. All translations for the original Arabic Quranic texts have been borrowed from the translations by Yusuf Ali, using the following weblink: http://www.islamicity.com/QuranSearch Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. I List of Figures ................................................................................................................... VII ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... 1 ZUSSAMENFASSUNG ....................................................................................................... 2 PROLOGUE: ........................................................................................................................ 3 1 INTRODUCTION: ............................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Arriving at the topic .............................................................................................. 6 1.2 The Stereotyped Veil or Veil: The Stereotype .................................................... 7 1.3 Research Question: ............................................................................................. 10 1.4 Objectives and Significance of the Study: ......................................................... 10 1.5 Chapter Outline: ................................................................................................. 12 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................... 15 2.1 Material Culture Studies: ................................................................................... 15 2.1.1 A Brief History: ......................................................................................... 15 2.1.2 MCS: an inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach .................... 17 2.1.3 Materiality: ................................................................................................ 17 2.1.4 Objectification: .......................................................................................... 18 2.1.5 Agency: ..................................................................................................... 19 2.1.6 Objects as symbols and signifiers: ............................................................ 20 2.1.7 Motricity: ................................................................................................... 21 2.2 Dress in Anthropology: ....................................................................................... 22 2.2.1 The Dressed Body: Dress as a framework: ............................................... 29 2.2.2 Gender Dress: ............................................................................................ 34 2.2.3 Religious Dress: ........................................................................................ 36 2.3 The Veil ................................................................................................................ 38 2.4 Purdah: ................................................................................................................. 39 2.4.1 Definition of Purdah: ................................................................................. 39 I 2.4.2 The purdah zone: ........................................................................................40 2.4.3 Influences on purdah observance among South Asian Muslims: ..............42 2.4.4 Purdah in retrospective: on confrontation with the colonial rule: ..............43 2.4.5 Purdah: The body concealment ..................................................................45 2.4.6 The embodied purdah: a mechanism to control: ........................................45 2.4.7 Purdah and Status:......................................................................................49 2.4.8 Papanek’s Model: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter: ......................50 2.4.9 Mandelbaum’s Model: Women’s Seclusion and Men’s Honour ...............51 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................53 3.1 Reflections of a Native Anthropologist ..............................................................55 3.2 The Interview Process: ........................................................................................63 3.2.1 Sampling ....................................................................................................64 3.2.2 Informal and Semi-structured Interviews: .................................................65 3.2.3 Focused Group Discussions (FGD) ...........................................................65 3.3 Data Analysis:.......................................................................................................66 3.4 Photography .........................................................................................................67 4 LOCALE ...........................................................................................................................69 4.1 Islamabad: Area Profile ......................................................................................69 Table 1: Distribution of population according to religion ..............................................70 4.2 Jamia Hafsa: The Islamic Seminary ..................................................................73 4.2.1 Centralized Location ..................................................................................74 4.2.2 The Very Large Number of Students .........................................................76 4.2.3 A Controversial Public Standing ...............................................................76 4.3 The MJH Setup ....................................................................................................78