31 May - 6 June 2001
Issue No.536
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 May - 6 June 2001 Issue No.536 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
The price of freedom
One case down and one to go. The hunt for Nawal El-Saadawi continues, but, as Nadia Abou El-Magd finds out, the 70-year old feminist writer is undaunted
On 23 May, Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed rejected an apostasy complaint against Nawal El-Saadawi, but the renowned feminist's problems are not yet over. The complaint had been made by lawyer Nabih El-Wahsh, who filed a separate lawsuit with the personal status court last month, asking that El-Saadawi, 70, be divorced from her husband, Sherif Hattata, 78, also on the grounds of apostasy.
Hearings have been scheduled for 18 June.
El-Wahsh claimed that El-Saadawi's views "ousted her from the Muslim community" and, therefore, she cannot remain married to a Muslim. This is based on the claim that Islamic Shari'a prohibits Muslims from marrying apostates. Moreover, the Muslim community is allegedly empowered by Shari'a to defend its tenets against any transgressions through the exercise of so-called hisba.
El-Wahsh objected to the prosecutor's decision, demanding a more intensive investigation of statements allegedly made to the press by El-Saadawi. If his objections are rejected, El-Wahsh has vowed to contest the constitutionality of the legal restrictions imposed on the use of hisba rights. This obscure legal right of individuals to initiate legal proceedings against others if they deem them to have done harm to Islam had been dormant since the early 20th Century, but was revived by Islamist lawyers in the '90s in cases against Cairo University scholar Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, cinema director Youssef Chahine and others. The government fearing the disruptive effects of the proliferation of such cases, restricted the exercise of hisba. Now a plaintiff must first file a complaint with the prosecutor-general, who then decides whether to initiate court action.
El-Wahsh filed the complaint with the prosecutor-general accusing El-Saadawi of apostasy after she allegedly made controversial statements to the weekly Al-Midan in March.
El-Saadawi was quoted as saying that hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, the fifth pillar of Islam, was "a vestige of pagan practice" and that "donning the veil has nothing to do with Islam." She was also quoted as calling for the amendment of the Shari'a-based inheritance law, which provides for male heirs inheriting twice as much as females.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel reacted by urging El-Saadawi to retract her statements or face apostasy charges.
El-Wahsh considered the Mufti's comments as a fatwa (ruling) corroborating his complaint. El-Wahsh has been described by critics as a publicity-seeker ever since he filed lawsuits against former US President Bill Clinton and top Israeli officials for atrocities committed against Arabs and Muslims.
"What's wrong with fame if it comes from zealously defending religion, honour and nationalism?" El-Wahsh quipped in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly.
El-Saadawi, no stranger to controversy, said that her statements were taken out of context as "part of a campaign by the political religious trend against me."
She said that she had told her interviewer that some hajj practices go back to the days of Jahiliyya, the pre-Islam era and that wearing the veil is not necessarily an indication of high morality. Further, El-Saadawi believes that women and men should have equal inheritance rights, because women are now part of the national workforce and "30 per cent of Egyptian households are dependent on the income of the woman."
As a result of a hisba case, a court ordered in 1995 that Professor Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid be divorced from his wife against his will. Islamist lawyers won the case, claiming that Abu Zeid's writings denied some of the basic teachings of Islam. Since then, he and his wife have been living in self-imposed exile in Leiden, Holland.
El-Saadawi welcomed the prosecutor's decision, saying that she felt "relieved and optimistic." At the time of the publication of her statements, El-Saadawi was abroad. Upon her return, she was questioned for two hours by the prosecutor before he rejected the complaint. She and her husband are now waiting for the personal status court to open hearings on 18 June. "No one can separate me from my husband," she told the Weekly. "Only death."
The two have been married for 37 years and have a son. El-Saadawi also has a daughter from a previous marriage.
"Such cases don't scare me or worry me. I've acquired psychological immunity with time," she said. El-Saadawi issued a statement defending herself and her beliefs and demanding that the hisba be abolished.
"How could [the interviewer] portray me as the enemy of Islam, insensitive to the beliefs of so many people?" she said. "For me, Islam has always meant belief in God, the spirit of justice, freedom and love."
The Egyptian Committee for Solidarity with Nawal El-Saadawi welcomed the prosecutor's decision, but vowed that its effort will not stop at this particular case, but will be extended to target the hisba law until it is repealed from the Egyptian legislation.
El-Saadawi's Web site, www.Geocities.com/nawalsaadawi, is dedicated "to the women and men who choose to pay the price and be free rather than continue to pay the price of slavery."
El-Saadawi, who has published 36 books -- four of which, including her memoirs, were banned at this year's book fair -- was one of some 1,500 intellectuals and politicians sent to prison by the late President Anwar El-Sadat shortly before his assassination. Released when President Hosni Mubarak came to power, her name was reported to have been on the hit list of Islamist extremists in the early 1990s. She then went to the United States but came back in 1997. "I'm not going to leave my country again. I have a responsibility for my country and for the silent majority who support me."
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page