9 - 15 August 2001
Issue No.546
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 9 - 15 August 2001 Issue No.546 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Search for the ethical life
Al-Mar'ah wa Al-Din wa Al-Akhlaq (Woman, Religion and Ethics) Nawal El-Saadawi and Heba Raouf Ezzat, Beirut: Dar Al-Fikr Al-Mu'asir, 2000. pp327
Perhaps no topic has furnished as much material for controversy, both in the West and in the Arab World, over the past decades as has "Islam." Join a discussion of Islam with a consideration of feminine and feminist issues, and, in the resulting union of Women and Islam any publisher will see a potential hit. Best-selling books have been written, and much ink spilt, on Islam and feminism. What more, then, could possibly be said in the present volume that has not been said before? Little, perhaps.
Mahmoud Mukhtar's Nahdat Misr, a symbol of Egypt's modernisation including the emancipation of its women
Much discussion of women and Islam has tended to be polemical, either arguing that Islam is intrinsically against women's rights, or arguing, on the contrary, that it is intrinsically for them. Writers tending towards the first point of view have adopted a descriptive method, focusing on shortcomings in the status of women in contemporary Muslim countries. Those who adopt the second point of view prefer to look at the question historically, aiming to reconcile Islam with feminist ideals and arguing that "true Islam" is more concerned with women's rights than is Western feminist ideology. This school tends to concentrate on Islamic jurisprudence and Qur'anic analysis and on the history of Muslim women. However, theoretical and philosophical reflection has been largely missing from the debate, and this is what Nawal El-Saadawi's and Heba Raouf Ezzat's book promises.
The Lebanese publishing house Dar Al-Fikr Al-Mu'asir has cast Al-Mar'ah wa Al-Din wa Al-Akhlaq in the form of a dialogue in which two well-known intellectuals from opposing ends of the spectrum have been invited to confront each other. However, since each writer was writing without having read the opposing contribution, the reader is left with a feeling that each was talking to the air. The publishers attempted to make up for this confusion by asking each writer to remark on the other's section and adding these responses as addenda to the text. The result is that the book has little overall coherence, looking, in fact, like two books bound as one. Thus, in her part of the book, the well-known Egyptian feminist author Nawal El-Saadawi reiterates her views on the women's cause without seeming to be aware of her opponent's views. Possibly due to the book's format, her thoughts here are poorly organised, and one feels that she has expressed herself better elsewhere.
El-Saadawi begins by summarising findings on the history of women and religion. Many feminists have wanted to look at ancient mythology and religions in order to show that patriarchy and female subordination are not primordial, natural or inevitable, but are, on the contrary, historical and social constructions, and El-Saadawi is no exception to this general rule. However, one has the right to feel a little impatient with this kind of analysis, fascinating though it can be. In particular, how can the study of women in mythology and in various ancient world religions contribute to modern feminisms or enrich modern women's lives? What can we learn from this to feed our postmodern urban existence? El-Saadawi's contribution is to repeat the usual narrative of such studies, showing how ancient societies, in some of which women occupied a more equal position with men, were overturned by the historical rise of patriarchy, which disempowered women and relegated them to the reproductive, domestic sphere.
It seems a shame, though, that while El-Saadawi refers to what she calls "feminist Orientalist" writings she neither cites these in any organised way nor does she engage in constructive debate with them. Indeed, the only works she does refer to are her own. She seems to ignore the "post-feminist" debate in the Arab World, which has wanted to return to Islamic writings in search of models of womanhood. El-Saadawi cites, en passant, several Qur'anic references in support of her traditional feminist arguments, but these seem to be placed in the text as an afterthought, and as a rather feeble one at that.
The root of El-Saadawi's analysis, repeated by many mainstream feminists, is that the contemporary patriarchal family structure is a social institution linked to bourgeois society. Given this link, the contemporary nuclear family, such writers say, should be seen as the historical product of the modern period; therefore, it is not immutable, and women's position in it not eternal. El-Saadawi is also adamant about equating political with religious authority. For her, and for many of her generation, women's rights are a predominantly political issue, and the subjugation of women by the modern state is the other side of the coin of their supposed religious subjugation, political and religious authority for her going hand in hand. El- Saadawi argues against all forms of patriarchy, whether inspired politically or religiously. Women's liberation, she says, is part of national liberation, as it was for many of her generation; the "personal is political."
By contrast, and perhaps ironically, Heba Raouf Ezzat starts her part of the book by outlining her understanding of feminist ideology, engaging in a lengthy critique of modern and postmodern Western philosophy. This may strike the reader as a bizarre gesture, and the reader may ask herself why Ezzat does not refer to Arab or Muslim thinkers, whether Marxist, Islamist or feminist. Instead, Ezzat cites source after source from mostly male, mostly anglophone writers, betraying in so doing what might be seen as her own defensive attitudes. El-Saadawi would criticise Ezzat for her unquestioning declaration that Islam be taken as the starting point in any analysis, and indeed Ezzat takes Islam as a given, not comparing it with any other religious tradition. Her frame of reference is Islam, but which Islam and whose? Like many Islamist thinkers, Ezzat can seem to ignore, or sweep aside, many of the subtleties within the broad and rich tradition of thought, philosophy and practice that is Islam. So, while Ezzat interprets Islam to the effect that men and women should "complement" each other in the different spheres of life, she does not acknowledge that this is not the only possible interpretation, or that where there is a clash of interpretations there is a need for arbitration.
Heba Ezzat criticises Western-style feminists of an earlier generation, of whom El-Saadawi is the archetypical representative, for concentrating their efforts on women's rights in the public sphere. This, she says, has led to women's double subordination, in both the private and the public sphere. Yet she does not engage in any serious analysis of feminist thought, whether Arab or Western, and neither does she show anything other than a passing acquaintance with feminist theory. For Ezzat, the Muslim family is an apolitical, religious institution based on affection and caring. She criticises what she calls its "secularisation," as well as the tendency of Western-style feminists to treat it as a historical construct, or as one form of social organisation among others. The contemporary breakdown of the family in the West, she writes, has increased women's subordination and has scooped out women's lives.
Nawal El-Saadawi and Heba Ezzat, juxtaposed here, come from different generations, and they have very different horizons. El-Saadawi studied medicine before turning to literature; Ezzat is a professor of Political Science. El- Saadawi is a leftist, Ezzat an Islamist. El-Saadawi is now almost 70, sporting her trademark shock of striking white hair; Ezzat is a 30-something woman who dons the higab. While both have at least one conviction in common, in that both call for an ethical life, whether politically or religiously based, that each believes is universal, indivisible and more just for both women and men, both remain thousands of miles from each other in their accounts of what the sources of that ethical life should be. The present book does not bring them a whit closer together.
Reviewed by Amina Elbendary
© 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