11 - 17 January 2001
Issue No.516
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 11 - 17 January 2001 Issue No.516 |
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Honourably hermeneutic
Sir-I read with interest the review of Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiating Female Public Space in Islamic/ate Societies by Omayma Abdel-Latif in your September Books Supplement. I would like to clear up some points regarding my contribution to the volume, titled: "Toward Islamic Feminisms: A Look at the Middle East."Your reviewer says that I speak of the relationships between "what she [Badran] dubs 'Muslim' feminist women and 'Islamist' feminists" and continues, "There are, Badran says, typically two kinds of relationship between the two. Either the relationship is polarised, with each viewing the other as an adversary, or it is more tolerant, acknowledging some common ground in a shared struggle." The reviewer declares that the above was contested by Heba Raouf who argues that "while the relationship has never been 'cordial', it has usually succeeded in maintaining 'human interaction and intellectual engagement.'
Firstly, let me state that I never use the term Islamist feminism and indeed I find it highly problematic. Secondly, therefore, I was not talking about relations between Muslim feminist women and Islamist feminists but rather about relations between Muslim women as feminists and Islamists. Thus Raouf, as cited by the reviewer, was contesting something I did not claim.
To restore accuracy let me reproduce my own words: "Relations between Muslim women as feminists and Islamists have been uneven. At certain moments, they have been highly polarised, with each viewing the other as implacable adversaries. I think, for example, of second-wave feminists and Islamists in Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s or of feminist and Islamist women in Algeria or Sudan today [this was written in 1997]. There has also been another pattern of relations between some, more open, Muslim feminists and Islamist women. This is a tolerant strand that acknowledges some common ground and mutual concerns, fostering space at certain moments for shared struggle. During the period of first-wave feminism in Egypt in the 1930s and 1940s there were cordial relations between feminist and Islamist women who shared many goals. Recent instances include the following..." (I then give examples from Egyptian, Turkish, and Yemeni experience.)
The reviewer, again relying upon Raouf, says: "Raouf points out, however, that the movement for women's liberation did not start in the middle decades of the century in nationalist and secular circles; on the contrary, many of the pioneers of the movement at the turn of the century were Islamic and conservative in background."
As a historian who has done extensive primary research, I am well aware that there were conservative Muslim women who were addressing issues relating to women early last century. I was scrupulous, however, in not calling these women "feminists", which they neither wished nor deserved to be labeled. Consequently, when writing about the self-declared feminist movement such women did not figure as central actors in my historical narrative. Yet, I drew attention to the different theoretical and political approaches of conservative Muslim women to issues of gender, family, and society early last century, citing some specific examples such as Fatma Nimat Rashid, Labiba Ahmad, and Zainab Al-Ghazali. I was sedulous in making a distinction between the self-declared feminist movement and what may be called a movement for women's liberation (however variously this might be cast, for one woman's liberation is not always another woman's liberation), a distinction Raouf in our discussions in the past was also careful to maintain.
We are still in the early process of undertaking foundational research in writing women's history and in trying to make sense of contemporary forms of thinking and activism by women of varying identities around issues of gender, Islam, and nation. I believe it is imperative that we enact careful and responsible readings of each other's works, not to say honourable.
Margot Badran
Visiting Research Professor
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding
Georgetown University
Washington DC
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