Social and Religious Change in Damascus

One Case of Female Islamic Religious Authority

Bibliographic Data

ID7430822
AuthorsHilary Kalmbach (0000-0003-0898-7164, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume35
Issue1
Pages37-57
Publication date2008-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-0194 • E-ISSN: 1469-3542
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13530190801890238
OpenAlexW2081175038
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited5

Female religious authority exists and is accepted in conservative Damascene circles, though scholarship has largely overlooked it. While charismatic forms of authority have been accessible to women for centuries, twentieth-century changes have made it possible for women to achieve scholarly authority as well. The female instructor in this study argues that it is natural for women to teach female mosque lesson groups; her own authority, though, is based not only on what is 'natural', but also on traditional and contemporary sources of legitimisation. At the same time, female Islamic authority is intrinsically limited by the gender mores of Islamic society. Though women are able to subtly reinterpret some aspects of their societal roles, they cannot completely change the social system. Hence female leaders spread conservative practice. Female religious authority can be seen as performative; by demonstrating their potential to openly oppose the system, women can maximise their standing within it. Notes *The author would like to thank first and foremost Walter Armbrust and others at St Antony's Middle East Centre for guidance on numerous occasions. Thanks are also due to Paul Heck for enabling introduction to al-Habash and James Piscatori for initial advice regarding the theoretical framework. Fieldwork for this study was completed with the support of a Fulbright Fellowship. 1 Annabelle Böttcher, 'Islamic Teaching Among Sunni Women in Syria', in Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early (eds) Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 296. See also Annabelle Böttcher, Syrische Religionspolitik unter Asad (Freiburg im Breisgau: Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut, 1998). and Annabelle Böttcher, Official Sunni and Shi'i Islam in Syria (San Domenico: European University Institute, 2002). 2 This foundation was renamed the Shaykh Ahmad Kuftaro Islamic Foundation in 2002. For more on Ahmad Kuftaro and his efforts to turn Abu al-Nur into an internationally renowned educational institute see Stenberg, Leif, 'Naqshbandiyya in Damascus: Strategies to Establish and Strengthen the Order in a Changing Society', in Elisabeth Özdalga (ed.) Naqshbandis in Western and Central Asia—Change and Continuity, 9 (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 1999); Leif Stenberg, 'Young, Male and Sufi Muslim in the City of Damascus', in Jørgen Bæck Simonsen (ed.) Youth and Youth Culture in the Contemporary Middle East (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2005). 3 See below and Christian Coulon, 'Women, Islam and Baraka', in Donal B. Cruise O'Brien and Christian Coulon (eds) Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), p. 121. 4 Works by Diane Singerman and Arlene Macleod deal with the ways in which women cope with modern urban life in Cairo. Willy Jansen's published dissertation discusses survival strategies for women without family support. Lila Abu Lughod details how Egyptian Bedouin women increase their standing within a society systematically structured against their participation as equals of men. See Abu-Lughod, Lila, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986); Willy Jansen, Women without Men: Gender and Marginality in an Algerian Town, (Leiden: Publisher, 1987); Arlene Elowe Macleod, Accommodating Protest: Working Women, the New Veiling, and Change in Cairo (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Diane Singerman, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). 5 Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: the Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 6 Ibrahim Hamidi, 'al-Anisat al-Qabaysiat Yubasharna fi Suriya Inkharat al-Nisa' fi 'al-Da'awa al-Islamiyya' ... bi-Muwafiqa al-Sultat', al-Hayat (3 May 2006). Accessed May 16, 2006, , copy available from the author. 7 Ibid. 8 For more on Muhammad al-Habash, see Paul L. Heck, 'Religious Renewal in Syria: The Case of Muhammad al-Habash', Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 15 (2004); Paul L. Heck, 'Muhammad al-Habash and Inter-Religious Dialogue ("Muhammad al-Habach et le dialogue interreligiux")', in Baudouin Dupret (ed.) La Syrie au Présent (Paris: Sinbad/Actes Sud, 2007). Works on Sheikh Buti include Andreas Christmann, 'Islamic scholar and religious leader: A portrait of Shaykh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti', Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 9 (1998); Andreas Christmann, 'Ascetic Passivity in Times of Extreme Activism: the Theme of Seclusion in a Biography by al-Buti', in Philip S. Alexander et al. (eds) Studia Semitica: The Journal of Semitic Studies Jubilee Volume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). For more on Shahrour, see Andreas Christmann, '"The Form is Permanent, but the Content Moves" The Qur'anic Text and its Interpretation(s) in Mohamad Shahrour's Al-Kitab wa l-Quran', Die Welt des Islam, 43 (2003); Andreas Christmann, '73 Proofs of Dilettantism: The Construction of Norm and Deviancy in the Responses to "al-Kitab wa'l-Qur'an: Qira'a Mu'asira'" by Mohamad Shahrour', Die Welt des Islam, 45 (2005). The chapters by Leif Stenberg cited above discuss Ahmad Kuftaro in more detail. 9 Stanley I. Benn, 'Authority', in Paul Edwards (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1 (London: Collier-Macmillian Publishers, 1967), p. 474; Robert L. Peabody, 'Authority', in David L. Sills (ed.) International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1 (New York: Macmillian & Free Press, 1968), p. 215. 10 See Max Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology (London: Peter Owen, 1962); Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1968). 11 An interesting debate among medievalists pertains to the authority of early caliphs and their relationship with the ulema. See Patricia, Crone and Martin Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 12 Patrick D. Gaffney, The Prophet's Pulpit: Islamic Preaching in Contemporary Egypt (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 33–34. 13 Ibid, p. 42. 14 Ibid, pp. 52–55. 16 Coulon, 'Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam', p. 116. 15 G.S. Colin, 'Baraka', in H.A.R. Gibb (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Islam, CD-ROM (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 17 Ibid, pp. 121, 123–124. 19 Jonathan Porter Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 174–175. 18 For instance, see Niyazi Mustafa (director). 'Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya.' (Cairo: Aflam Hilmi Rafla, 1963). 20 Shemeem Burney Abbas, The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional Practices of Pakistan and India (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002); Böttcher, 'Islamic Teaching.'; Mernissi, Fatima, 'The Story of a Contemporary Woman Mystic', in Ruth Roded (ed.) Women in Islam and the Middle East: a Reader (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999); Catharina Raudvere, 'Female Dervishes in Contemporary Istanbul: Between Tradition and Modernity', in Karen Ask and Marit Tjomsland (eds) Women and Islamization: Contemporary Dimensions of Discourse on Gender Relations (Oxford: Berg, 1998); Annemarie Schimmel, 'Women in Mystical Islam', in Azizah al-Hibri (ed.) Women and Islam (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982). 21 George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981). 22 Johannes Pedersen, The Arabic Book (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 27, 31. 23 Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, pp. 147–152. 24 F. de Jong, 'Khalifa', in H.A.R. Gibb (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 25 Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge, pp. 162, 168. 26 Ibid, pp. 165, 175–181. 27 Ibid, pp. 166–167. A forthcoming article by Karen Bauer notes that several legal schools issued rulings that permitted women to serve as judges, though there appears to be no evidence that women actually held the post. See Karen Bauer, 'Juridical Consistency and the Question of Why Rationally Deficient Women Could Act as Judges in Pre-Modern Islamic Law', Journal of the American Oriental Society (forthcoming). 28 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The 'Ulama' in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 60–77. 29 Brinkley Morris Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993). 30 Zaman is one of several who argue that the gate of ijtihād was not completely closed in the pre-colonial era, as old rulings were often adapted to fit new circumstances. However, changes were justified using the rhetoric of taqlīd, or tradition, instead of claiming the status of ijtihād. Zaman, The 'Ulama' in Contemporary Islam, pp. 18–20. 31 Literacy outside of the elite may not have been strictly a colonial-era development. Nelly Hanna argues in In Praise of Books that a literate, engaged middle class existed in Cairo between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo's Middle Class, Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003). 32 Gaffney, The Prophet's Pulpit, p. 35. 33 For more on the thought of Muhammad Shahrour, see the following articles: Christmann, '"The Form is Permanent, but the Content Moves": The Qur'anic Text and its Interpretation(s) in Mohamad Shahrour's Al-Kitab wa l-Quran.'; Christmann, '73 Proofs of Dilettantism: The Construction of Norm and Deviancy in the Responses to 'al-Kitab wa'l-Qur'an: Qira'a Mu'asira' by Mohamad Shahrour'. 34 Böttcher, 'Islamic Teaching', p. 297. 35 Huda al-Habash, Private Lesson with Hilary Kalmbach, al-Zawaj: al-Haquq wa 'l-Wajibat (2005b). 36 Leila Ahmed sharply criticises Amin's status as the first Middle Eastern feminist, arguing that the (limited) female education advocated by Amin was motivated by a desire to 'modernise' society, not a conviction that women were the intellectual equals of men. Like colonial officials, his thought was founded on misogynist principles, and his real goal was radical social change, not substantive improvement of the position of women. Ahmed notes that intellectuals like Muhammad 'Abdu argued for women's education in the context of a call for equality between the sexes. See Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 144–168. Qasim Amin, Tahrir al-Mar'a (Cairo: Dār al-Ma'ārif, 1970); Qasim Amin, The Liberation of Women: A Document in the History of Egyptian Feminism (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1992). 37 Valerie J. Hoffman, 'An Islamic Activist: Zaynab al-Ghazali', in Elizabeth Warnock (ed.) Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1985), p. 235. 38 Ibid, p. 234. 39 Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge, pp. 169, 172. 40 Ibid, pp. 174, 172. 41 Huda al-Habash, Private Lesson with Hilary Kalmbach, Daur al-Mar'a fi 'l-Din: part 1, (2005a). 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 An English translation of Nadwi's 336-page introduction to this work has been published under the title Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam (Oxford: Interface Publications, 2007). The author confirmed the information referenced above with Nadwi during an informal meeting in the spring of 2007. 45 Muslim feminist Leila Ahmed discusses the activities of the wives and daughters of the Prophet Muhammad in Ahmed, Women and Gender, pp. 72–75. 46 Hoffman, 'An Islamic Activist', pp. 237–238. 47 Mahmood, Politics of Piety, p. 65; Ibid, p. 58. 48 Huda al-Habash, Personal Interview with Helga Vestbo and Hilary Kalmbach (2004). al-habash's loose relationship with Sufism provides an interesting parallel to al-Buti's advocacy of a 'reformed Sufism' that harmonises well with mainstream Islamic law and practice. See Christmann, 'Ascetic Passivity in Times of Extreme Activism: the Theme of Seclusion in a Biography by al-Buti', p. 293. 49 Böttcher, 'Islamic Teaching', p. 296. 50 al-Habash, Personal Interview. 51 The titles sheikh and sheikha, which generally denote people with religious learning, are applied variously. They might indicate the most learned person in a village or an elite Gulf patriarch, neither of whom presumably has formal religious training or work experience. They also might indicate a Sufi master or well-established 'ālim. 52 Böttcher, 'Islamic Teaching', pp. 293, 298. 53 While multiple Christian and secular groups participated in the programme of activities on the outdoor stage set up in Shahbander Square, the group in the audience from Mesjid al-Zahra appeared to be the only female representatives of mainstream conservative Islam. 54 For a description of a similar system of values, see Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Pub. Co, 1975). 55 al-Habash, Private Lesson. 57 Mahmood, Politics of Piety, pp. 2–3. 56 Böttcher, 'Islamic Teaching', p. 298. 58 al-Habash, Private Lesson. 59 Inter-religious dialogue was also a major initiative of Ahmad Kuftaro, as Leif Stenberg's work reveals. However, the al-Habash siblings take these ideas further, most controversially refuting an Islamic monopoly on salvation, as discussed by Paul Heck: Heck, 'Religious Renewal in Syria', pp. 186, 192. See also Muhammad al-Habash, Ala Bab Qarn Jadid (Damascus: Dar al-Tajdid, 2005), pp. 107–147, esp. pp. 143–147; Heck, 'Muhammad al-Habash and Inter-Religious Dialogue ("Muhammad al-Habach et le dialogue interreligiux")'; Stenberg, 'Naqshbandiyya in Damascus: Strategies to Establish and Strengthen the Order in a Changing Society', pp. 108, 109, 110–111. 60 Muhammad al-Habash, al-Mar'a bayn al-Shari'a wa 'l-Hayat (Damascus: Dar al-Tajdid, 2002), pp. 153–168. 61 Ibid, pp. 21–27, 41–49. 62 Heck, 'Religious Renewal in Syria', pp. 194, 204. 63 She herself wears professional and relatively stylish clothing without a headscarf while at home. Before going outside, she puts on a long, dark-coloured coat, an inner hijāb covering her hair and neck, and an outer hijāb—usually black—that she pins to cover her chin. 64 Heck, 'Muhammad al-Habash and Inter-Religious Dialogue ("Muhammad al-Habach et le dialogue interreligiux")', pp. 3, 7. 65 al-Habash, Private Lesson. 66 Ibid; Huda al-Habash (2005) Qadiya al-Nushuz 'inda 'l-Mar'a wa 'l-Rajul. 67 Huda al-Habash (2005) al-Dawafi' al-Maudu'iya li-Ta'addud al-Zoujat, Unpublished Manuscript; Huda al-Habash, Private Lesson with Hilary Kalmbach, Ta'addud al-Zoujat, (2005c); Huda al-Habash (2005) Shurut Ta'addud al-Zoujat, Unpublished Manuscript; Huda al-Habash (2005) Ta'addud al-Zoujat wa Mashru'iya, Unpublished Manuscript. 68 Mahmood, Politics of Piety, pp. 100–105. 69 al-Habash, Personal Interview. 70 She specifically discussed this in the 11/09/2004 interview. On many occasions young women were introduced to me as 'one of Syria's top medical students' or 'an excellent student in the English faculty', instead of as 'one of my best religion students'. 71 al-Habash, Private Lesson; Huda al-Habash, Private Lesson with Hilary Kalmbach, Daur al-Mar'a fi 'l-Din: part 2, (2005d). 72 Peabody, 'Authority', p. 474. 73 Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments, pp. 124–134. 74 Abdellah Hammoudi, Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 75 Mahmood, Politics of Piety, pp. 86–88

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