Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation Women in the Qy.r'an, Traditions, and Interpretation BARBARA FREYER STOWASSER New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1994 by Barbara Freyer Stowasser Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 198 Madison Avenue,New York,New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any fonn or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stowasser, Barbara Freyer, 1935­ Women in the Q!!r'an, traditions, and interpretation! Barbara Freyer Stowasser, p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-508480-2 (Cloth) ISBN 0-19-511148-6 (pbk.) I. Women in the Koran. 2. Koran-Biography. 3. Women in Islam 1. Title. BP134.w6S76 1994 297' .1228-dc20 94-3968 The c.alligraphyof the text of Sura 66, vs. 11-12 on the book jacket is the work of Mohamed Zakariya 4689753 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Formyfriends and colleagues Hans-Wolfgang Liepmann, Thomas P. McTighe, Amin Bonnah, andRichard Dorn And God sets forth, As an example To the Believers, The wife of Pharaoh ... And Mary, the daughter of Imran ... Qur'an, Sura 66, vs. 11-12 Preface My interest in women in Islam is long-standing and has taken some circuitous routes in its scholarly expression. Work on women's issues in the Qur'anic text and its interpretations began more than a decade ago, first as an exercise in medieval scripturalism. The project and its implications and approaches were vitalized during a sabbatical from my university in 1985 when a Fulbright­ Hays Training Grant and a Social Science Research Council Fellowship pro­ vided opportunity and means to interview scholars of the faculties of theol­ ogy at Ankara University, Istanbul University, the University of Jordan in Amman, and al-Azhar University in Cairo, as well as religious officials and lay religious thinkers and leaders in Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. During these and later travels to the Middle East, I was shown much hospital­ ity and support by old and new friends, including many from among the Ameri­ can diplomatic corps then serving in these countries. I am grateful for the support of Georgetown University, especially that of Rev. J. Donald Freeze, S.J., (former) provost and academic vice president; Dr. James Alatis, dean of the School of Languages and Linguistics; Dr. Rich­ ard Schwartz, dean of the Graduate School; Dr. Gerald Mara, associate dean of the Graduate School; and Dr. Peter Krogh, dean of the School of Foreign Service. From among my colleagues, I extend special thanks to Dr. Karin Ryding, Dr. Irfan Shahid, Dr. Solomon Sara, S.J., Dr. Bassam Frangieh, Ms. Amira el-Zein, Ms. Zeinab Taha, Dr. Amira al-Azhari Sonbol, and Ms. Brenda Bickett, Georgetown University Arabic materials librarian. My students-who during the past decade have shared, debated, and challenged my research data­ deserve special recognition. Some of them have acted as research assistants and/or personally engaged critics; here, special thanks go to Mr. John Gerald; Ms. Michele Durocher; Mr. Ramsen Betfarhad; Mr. David Mehall, who checked and formated this book's footnotes and prepared its glossary and bibliogra­ phy; and Mr. Joseph Ayoub, who prepared the index. From among the many friends who have supported me during the larger research project on women in Islam and also the preparation of the present volume, special thanks go to VIII Preface Dr. Laraine Mansfield; Dr. Peter Bechtold; Ms. Anne O'Leary (presently di­ rector ofthe American Cultural Center, Alexandria, Egypt); and also Dr. Michael Albin (Library ofCongress), who was instrumental in the purchasing and ship­ ping of classical Islamic sources in, and out of, Egypt in 1985. I am particularly grateful to three colleagues in the field of Arab/Islamic studies: Dr. John L. Esposito, Dr. AfafLutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, and Dr. Yvonne Y. Haddad, all of whom read and commented on the whole or parts of this manuscript. I have benefited greatly from their constructive comments. Never­ theless, I alone bear responsibility for this book's contents. The four friends and colleagues to whom I am dedicating this book have in many ways contributed most toward its completion; it was their support and energy that have kept me and this project afloat. Even though the present volume is not the whole story on women in Islam, I hope that it gives a cred­ ible introduction to the many dimensions of the role of the female in Islamic faith, law, and imagination. Many thanks to them and to all others who have helped me in this enterprise. W 'asbington, D. C. B. F. S. June 1993 Contents Introduction, 3 Part I Women in Sacred History I. The Qur'an, 13 2. The Chapter of Eve, 25 3. The Women of Noah, Lot, and Abraham, 39 4. The Chapter of Zulaykha, 50 5. The Women in the Life of the Prophet Moses, 57 6. The Chapter of Bilqis, Queen of Sheeba, 62 7. The Chapter of Mary, 67 Part II The Prophets Wives 8. The Mothers of the Believers in the Qur'an, 85 9. The Mothers of the Believers in the Hadith, 104 10. Modern Muslim Interpretations, 119 Notes, 135 References, 189 Glossary, 195 Index, 201 Women in the ~r' an, Traditions, and Interpretation Introduction This book is a study in religious texts. It forms part of a larger research project on Women in Qur'an and Interpretation, which has occupied the past decade of my life. During the years of assembling the Qur'anic data and their medi­ eval and modern interpretations, my attention was initially focused on the Qur'anic laws regarding women's social rights and obligations. The Qur'anic "lessons" (of warning and guidance) as embodied in the stories of female fig­ ures in sacred history were to be the introductory chapter to a work that was to deal with such items as women's citizenship and family roles. At some point, however, the present book began to write itself. Perhaps this was because many of the protagonists in Qyr'anic sacred history were, at least initially, so famil­ iar to me, a Lutheran Christian. Perhaps it also had to do with the fact that, while some literature of sociopolitical and legal orientation on the Muslim woman's Islamic rights and obligations was already available in Western analy­ ses, the Qur'an's female characters had not been systematically explored. Yet, the hundreds of contemporary religious books, booklets, and pamphlets on "women's issues in Islam" that I have purchased in the Middle East present much oftheir teaching by reference to the models ofthe sacred past. Certainly the Prophet's wives, recognized early on as sources of sunna ("model behav­ ior" in the terms of Islamic law), here function prominently as models for emulation. Therefore, the Islamic images ofthe Prophet's wives, both past and present, have been explored in the second part of this book. But the women associated with the (pre-Muhammadan] prophets from Adam to Jesus are also a living part of the contemporary Islamic religious worldview, and their les­ 3 4 Women in the QJg'an sons have remained powerful teaching devices for the community ofthe faithful. Following these figures' stories through the Qur'an and its medieval and modern exegesis has brought a rich harvest. The insights garnered on this exploration are, firstly, a clearer understand­ ing that the Q!!r'anic tales about the women of the sacred past are profoundly Islamic as to nature, setting, theme, theological doctrine, moral teaching, and the like. These Q!!r'anic narratives belong firmly to their specific Qur'anic context; they "tell themselves and bear a larger cosmic message at the same time."! Secondly, research on these narratives' exegetic development provided a clearer grasp ofthe historical importance ofBible-related traditions to Islamic scriptural commentary, especially in its initial stages, but also revealed the essentially Islamic focus and character of Muslim interpretation. By extension, thirdly, the exegetic texts proved a valuable record of the scholarly debate on sociopolitical questions, since religious thinkers past and present strive to "apply" the Qgr'an's women narratives in these terms, thereby providing a num­ ber of scripture-based but differing understandings of women's status in fam­ ily and society (which now include, most often by way of their rejection, such items as women's extradomestic work and political participation). It would be incorrect to label such readings ofscripture as "innovations," however, because to the faithful interpreter they were and are merely the scripture's extensions, "a better disclosure of what was already there.'? Therefore, fourthly, neither the formal tafiir-past and present-nor Qur'an-based literature in other forms could be classified as "interpretation" in the sense of analytical and/or unen­ gaged inquiry. All (or most) Muslim writings quoted in this book are "exten­ sions ofscripture ... part ofits productivity ... hence, [i.e. in the modern sense of scriptural criticism] themselves in need of interpretation."! Consequently, the fifth insight had to do with the larger question of "religious ideas" in two meanings of this term: ideas as ("revealed and transmitted") religious truths, and ideas as interpretations ofthese truths by the faithful (often taken as mores).