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Wahhabi
Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad
By Natana J. DeLong-Bas
EXCERPTS
FROM CHAPTER FOUR
WOMEN
AND WAHHABIS: IN DEFENSE OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Pages 123-124
Wahhabism in the
contemporary era is largely portrayed as misogynist, denying
women their human rights, insisting on strict gender
segregation, forbidding women access to public space, and
subjugating them by considering them inferior to men. Women
under Wahhabi regimes are assumed to have second-class
citizenship, if not slave status. Critics of Wahhabism point to
extreme examples like the Taliban and Saudi Arabia's requirement
that women wear the full burqa' or abaya covering
them from head to toe, leaving barely enough room to breathe;
the ban on women driving or being recognized heads of
households; and the Taliban's forbidding women to go to school,
work, or seek medical care as evidence of Wahhabism's
oppression, suppression, and repression of women in accordance
with an extremely conservative interpretation of Islamic law. [1]
All of these stereotypes and images are assumed to be based on
the conservative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam despite the
fact that no systematic analysis of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's
writings about women and gender has ever been undertaken. In
addition, no distinctions have been made between tribal customs,
local traditions, and Islamic law in these portrayals.
While these
contemporary views and concerns have come to define Wahhabism
for Western human and women's rights activists and Muslim
feminists alike, the assertion that these attitudes are
characteristic of Wahhabism risks inaccuracy because the term Wahhabism
is rarely defined. Many of the regimes and movements labeled as
Wahhabi in the contemporary era do not necessarily share the
same theological and legal orientations. [2]
The reality is that Wahhabism has become such a blanket
term for any Islamic movement that has an apparent tendency
toward misogyny, militantism, extremism, or strict and literal
interpretation of the Quran and hadith that the
designation of a regime or movement as Wahhabi or Wahhabi-like
tells us little about its actual nature. [3]
Furthermore, these contemporary interpretations of Wahhabism do
not necessarily reflect the writings or teachings of Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab.
In fact, Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab's
life and writings reflect a concern for women and women's rights
reminiscent of Muhammad. Like Muhammad, he sought to ensure that
women's rights, as granted by the Quran, were implemented and
that women were aware of them. Like other jurists and Muslim
legal thinkers of his time, he was engaged in the discussion of
the appropriate place of women in Muslim society. [4]
His interactions with women indicate that he recognized them as
human beings capable of serving as positive, active agents in
both the private and public realms and who therefore deserved
access to both education and public space. Rather than
demonstrating misogyny or the relegation of women to seclusion,
these interactions and encounters reflect the consistent
application of the principles of social justice, the equality of
all believers, and the need to preserve public welfare and order
that permeate all of his other theological and legal writings.
These interactions also
stand in marked contrast to conventional wisdom about customs
and traditions in Arabia both during this time period and in the
contemporary era, as well as traditional interpretations of
Islamic law. Consistent with his legal and theological
methodologies, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab sought to rediscover the
earliest sources of Islamic revelation with respect to gender
issues in order to reinterpret them (ijtihad) through
contextualization, both historically in terms of the broad
values taught by the Quran and hadith. He used this methodology
to construct an Islamic vision of gender.
Terms:
- abaya -
Islamic dress that covers a woman from head to toe
- hadith -
written accounts of the sayings and deeds of Islam's
prophet, Muhammad
- ijtihad -
independent reasoning in the interpretation of Islamic law
[for
more visit the SUSRIS Glossary]
Notes:
1. One
example of the abundant popular literature making such claims is
Jean Sasson, Princess: A True Story of Life behind the Veil
in Saudi Arabia (New York: Morrow, 1992).
2. For
example, the Taliban was Hanafi in its orientation to Islamic
law, while the Saudis are Hanbali.
3. For
example, in the former Soviet republics the ruling regimes have
labeled Wahhabi any Muslim who challenged either the religious
or political status quo. Muriel Atkin, "The Rhetoric of
Islamophobia," Central Asia and the Caucasus: Journal of
Social and Political Studies 1, no.1 (2000): 130.
4. For
an analysis of some of his contemporaries in Palestine and
Syria, see Judith E. Tucker, In the House of Law: Gender and
Islamic Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998). For coverage of gender
issues from the same time period, see the collection of
historical essays in Amira El Azhary Sonbol, Ed., Women, the
Family, and Divorce Laws in Islamic History (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1996).
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From
Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad
by Natana DeLong-Bas, copyright 2004 by Oxford University Press,
Inc. and used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
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