The Mobilization of Muslim Women in Egypt [1 ed.] 9780813014296, 0813014298

Table of contents :
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Feminist Change and Its Limitations
Chapter 2. The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations
Chapter 3. The Islamic Mobilication of Women
Chapter 4. The Conformation of State, Mosque, and Church
Chapter 5. The Personal Status Law Redefined
Chapter 6. Women in the Islamic Polemic
Chapter 7. Egyptian Feminism in the Balance
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Che (Mobilizacion of CDuslin Women in © gyPo

Che (Dobilization in © gy Pc

Ghada Hashem Talhami

University Press of Florida Gainesville Tallahassee Tampa Boca Raton Pensacola Orlando Miami Jacksonville

Copyright 1996 by the Board of Regents of the State of Florida Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper All rights reserved

01 00 99 98 97 9665432 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Talhami, Ghada Hashem. The mobilization of Muslim women in Egypt / Ghada Talhami.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. _) and index. ISBN 0-8130-1429-8 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Women—Egypt. 2. Muslim women—Egypt —Political activity. 3. Feminism—Egypt. I. Title.

HQ1793.T35 1996 305.4270962—dc20 95-42757 CIP

The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprised of Florida A & M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida. University Press of Florida

15 Northwest 15th Street : Gainesville, FL 3261]

Contents

Preface vii . Chapter 1

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 1

Chapter 2

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 29 Chapter 3

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 46 Chapter 4

The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church 74

Chapter 5

The Personal Status Law Redefined 102

Chapter 6

Women in the Islamic Polemic 123

Chapter 7

Egyptian Feminism in the Balance 141

Notes 147 Bibliography 157

Index 163

Preface

Much has been written about Egyptian women in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet this important sector of Egyptian polity has rarely been approached politically, as if autoliberation is possible in the current milieu of over-

whelming state control. The impact of ideology on the progress and legal rights of Muslim Egyptian women was seldom acknowledged, an astonishing oversight since Egypt was the first country in the Middle East to experience the full impact of Westernization and the accompanying clash of ideologies. Although most studies on Egyptian women have measured differences separating the traditionalist from the modernist view, few have noted the distinct strands of thought within each

camp. Thus, the fine line separating the liberal position of the 1930s from the nationalist and socialist positions of the 1950s and 1960s remains unclear. Similarly, the Islamic reformist outlook on women, as distinct from that of the radical Jihad groups, remains to be analyzed.

In addition, the impact of economic dislocation and the resultant changes in the social balance were seldom discussed. Secular and Western-oriented regimes were automatically praised for advancing the cause of women. The Sadat period, for instance, received high marks for its political and Western-inspired feminist agenda irrespective of the nega-

tive impact of its economic policies on women. There was also no appreciation for the correlation between the success or failure of a feminist reformist program and the political legitimacy of its sponsoring regime. The Islamic feminist agenda was not analyzed in the context of Egypt’s changing economic fortunes. Therefore, the need to assess the regression of women’s rights as a result of the political, economic, and ideological struggles gripping Egypt today is more urgent than ever. Vil

viii —- Preface

Another subject not addressed was the crucial, though indirect, im-

pact of Coptic mobilization of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s on the fortunes of Egyptian women. Since much of the Islamist polemic of the 1970s viewed Western influence as a recurring crusading phenomenon, Islamist writers easily seized on the revived sense of Coptic communal identity as part of that same phenomenon. The Copts, it so happened,

were also in the throes of a religious revival. Their numbers, varying from the official estimate of 3 million to the nonofficial figure of 8 million, strengthened the view that they posed a threat to Egypt’s reIslamization.' The Muslim-Coptic clashes of the 1970s were quickly reduced to a battle between opposing values regarding the nature of society and of women’s education and status. Both Coptic and Islamist groups felt the need to activate their female sectors, especially in the universities.

The latent mobilization of Egypt’s Christian minority, which greatly resembled the mobilization of Lebanon’s Shi‘ite community, must now

be viewed as one of the significant contributing factors toward the Islamic redefinition of female rights. Since Copts were separated from Muslims only by religion, Coptic communal mobilization quickly assumed a religious coloration. Pope Shenoudah, one of the great agents

of the Coptic mobilization, became, in time, one of its victims. The Coptic Pope, not unlike Imam Musa al-Sadr and his role in the activation of Lebanon’s Shi‘ite community, revolutionized communal relations in Egypt. He also redrew the political boundaries separating him from the Egyptian head of state, which created immense pressure on Egypt’s Muslim community and produced in the late 1970s a confusion between the Islamist perception of an external Western threat and the perception of the internal Christian threat. The simultaneous Christian and Muslim resurgence—the former largely defensive, the latter largely activist—forced a public redefinition of women’s ideal social roles. A serious fallacy of much of the feminist literature in Egypt has been

its undue emphasis on the inert position of women in the ideology and praxis of the new Islamic groups. The Islamist call for the release of women from the workforce and for their mass retreat into the patriarchal household, in reality, was neither totally male inspired nor massively obeyed. Experts on Egyptian feminism were often misled by the rhetoric of the new Islamic movement rather than by its reality. The battle for the allegiance of women was also waged by words rather than

Preface ix

by deeds. Each camp succeeded in carving distinct positions without necessarily creating a new design. The struggle to establish women’s right to work, for example, did not triumph conclusively. Neither did the veiling movement. Yet the battle lines have been sharply drawn. New studies must recognize that Islamic rhetoric offers an elaborate design concerning not only the position of women but also the total societal context of women’s projected status and role. It would be futile,

therefore, to confine one’s examination of this issue to a microscopic

and limited view of the status of women while ignoring the larger societal picture. Although some feminist literature has analyzed the new Islamic utopia and women’s niche within it, little has been written on Muslim women’s activism and change. Emphasis on the Islamic utopia

apparently diverted attention from the larger question of how women are mobilized in the service of total societal transformation. Furthermore, the need to determine the intellectual antecedents of modern Islamic thought, in both its reformist and its revolutionary manifestations, is crucial to understanding the Islamic view of women. Neither the issue of women nor the larger blueprint for change should be overlooked. Studies on modern Egyptian feminism cannot bypass the Islamic position on women or the significant role carved for them in the Islamist new world. This study is an effort at examining the psychocultural, political, and economic causes underlying Egypt’s Islamic resurgence of the 1970s. I examine the passive and active roles of women within Egypt’s new Islamic movement and the psychocultural significance of this issue to the total Islamic ideology. Much of my analysis is based on the conviction that all groups and sectors in society are mobilized by internal and external agents of change. The Islamist sector of the 1970s and the secular feminists of the Sadat period were moved by subtle and visible forces and events. The Islamist mobilization itself will be compared to the mobilization of all sectors and groups in Egypt at that time. Karl Deutsch, one of the earliest to develop the concept of mobilization, indicated that it is brought about by the development of a system of communications, the availability of education, and the increasing rate of urbanization. He also assumed that governments usually can ill afford to exclude the newly active groups from political participation.’ Jerrold D. Green, in his 1982 study Revolution in Iran: The Politics of Counter Mobilization, discusses not only Deutsch’s thesis but also those

x Preface of David Apter and Myron Weiner,’ which describe the reaction of the regimes to mobilization. Green examines the case of Iran under the last Shah in light of Apter’s thesis regarding potential regime exploitation and neutralization of the process of mobilization and of Weiner’s emphasis on pseudoparticipation. Green thus shifts the focus of the mobilization discussion to a non-Western setting. He implies that obstacles to politicization and political inclusion in these societies are considered to be the norm rather than the exception. As a by-product of modernization, Green adds, mobilization most often produces countermobilization. Green offers Walter Dean Burnham’s study of voter realignments in the United States as an example

of this phenomenon, which activates large segments of the population against, not for, a particular sociopolitical order. Furthermore, countermobilization is carried out by counterelites, just as mobilization is carried out by elites. Where there are no political outlets for these newly mobilized groups, the outcome is usually revolution or social unrest. Green adds that counterelites who successfully create a mass movement are generally well integrated into their own society. They

succeed because of their integration with the mobilized groups and because of their ability to use effective and understandable methods of communication. Clearly, the language of countermobilization in the case of recent Egyptian developments was that of Islam. Emboldened by the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran, Egyptian Islamists sought to nurture a large audience for their religious message. Counterelites also emerge as a consequence of the failure of the old elites to satisfy rising popular demands. Michael Hudson referred to this process in his description of the assumption of power by reform-minded Arab military groups during an earlier era.* This analysis holds true for the Islamist counterelites of the 1970s, who filled the void created by the failure of nationalist and socialist regimes. The book also examines the new Islamist polemic on women against the background of Egypt’s intensifying economic crisis of the 1970s. This polemic represents an adaptation of the classic Islamic position on

women in light of the convulsive events of the 1970s. It is also a rebuttal of secularist and Islamic radical assumptions about women. Finally, the polemic constitutes a true reflection of the philosophical foundations of Islamist political thought of the 1970s. Concepts of the organic unity of the Islamic community and the pivotal role of the

Preface xi Islamic vanguard both play a role in defining the Islamic view of women.

These concepts in particular collided with the Western ideas of class conflict and group competition. Naturally, the polemic dismisses the idea of gender conflict as alien to the conciliatory and harmonious nature of group relations in Islamic society. In this study I present the entire historical background of modern Egyptian feminism with two objectives. The first is to trace the early beginnings of Islamist feminist organizations, the second to demonstrate how feminist movements were shaped by powerful economic and political forces. Although this story begins with the revolt of Egyptian women during the brief tenure of the Napoleonic government in Egypt, I will emphasize the twentieth century. After assessing the liberal feminism of Huda Sha‘rawi, focus shifts completely to the Nasser and Sadat periods, when one sees total contrast between state feminism and liberal, Western-inspired feminism. These periods were the theater in which

Islamist forces staged their bid for political power and massive social change.

The book draws on writings of Muslim advocates as well as on external analyses of the Islamic revival. The works of well-known Islamic advocates such as Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Zeinab al-Ghazzali, Bint al-Shati‘, and Ahmad S. al-Bustani are highlighted. Rif‘at Sayyid Ahmad’s and Saad Eddin [brahim’s studies of radical Islamic groups, as well as Rafiq Habib’s pioneering analysis of Coptic-state relations and

Coptic and Islamic class and communal mobilization, are used. Muhammad al-Ghazzali’s discourse on the ideal Islamic economic order and distributive justice and Muhammad al-‘Ishmawi’s rebuttal of the call for punitive Islamic justice provide the necessary context for discussions on the Islamic family. The religious feminist history of Egypt’s

women by Ahmad Taha Muhammad and the secular feminist history by

Amal K. B. al-Subki form the background to the Islamic polemic by such writers as Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Mahmoud ‘Abd al-Hamid Muhammad, ‘Abd al-Qader Ahmad ‘Abd al-Qader, and As‘ad alSahmarani. Aminah al-Sa‘id’s crucial editorials on secular feminism and

the battle of the veil on the pages of Hawa‘ are used to demonstrate secular responses to the Islamic call for female activism. Finally, published interviews with leading secular and Islamic thinkers are utilized to capture the essence of the Islamic concepts of authenticity (al-assalah),

alienation (al-ightirab), primordialism (al-fitrah), and the vanguard (al-tali‘ah) and their relevance to the Islamic feminist discourse.

xii Preface This book is intended to fill a gap in Arab feminist studies centering

on Egypt. Since much of this literature focuses on anthologies and biographies, a lacuna exists in the area of the political history of femi-

nism. I hope to provide a study focusing on the Islamist agenda for women. | utilize native scholarship fully. I feel that no intellectual depth can be attained without permitting authentic voices—political, schol-

arly, or activist—to come to the foreground. When examining socioeconomic changes, the need to measure native perceptions of these changes is seen as crucial even as they sometimes contradict the conclu-

sion of trained Western social scientists and economists. I make no attempt to deconstruct Islamist ideology of the 1970s before affording it full exposure.

The early stages of this research were conducted at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library, later stages at the Egyptian National Library, Cairo’s al-Hay’ah al-‘Ammah lil-Kitab. I would like to thank Lake Forest College for its extraordinary support of faculty research. I also thank my colleagues who shared my Arab feminist frustrations and

anxieties over the years. I am grateful for the inspiring friendship of Mervat Hatem, Amal Kawwar, Orayb Najjar, and Rosemary Ruether and for their constant passion for the gender issue. But my greatest inspiration for this work comes from two of my female ancestors who made a difference in the lives of Palestinian and Jordanian women: My maternal grandmother, Sabriyya Hashem (Um Hani), the wife of a Jordanian prime minister who labored hard for the cause of Palestinian women after the defeat of 1948, and a distant aunt whom I met once as a child contributed greatly to the relief effort during the 1936 Arab revolt in Palestine. The latter, Miryam Hashem, an unmarried woman, was an activist, a patriot, and an impressive presence. She participated in one of Huda Sha‘rawi’s Arab conferences in Egypt and was once escorted on a tour of the gardens of Anshas Palace by King Faroug. My grandmother knew Huda Sha‘rawi well and hosted her during her visit to Amman. Both of my relatives were traditional women who knew that social service opened the door to other rights and privileges. Both were

devoutly Muslim but saw no contradiction in their faith, their social status, and their activism. My grandmother, who died in 1955, would have been keenly interested in this work and would have probably given me a serious argument.

J

Secular Lreminisc Change and las Liswitations

One observable facet of feminist progress in recent Egyptian history is that the advancement of women was never linear in nature. Any study of this issue has to contend with the reality of the intermittent participation of women in public life and the uneven pattern of their development. There can be no certainty that the 1860s, Khedive Isma‘il’s era, were any worse than the 1890s, or that Huda Sha‘rawi’s eventful decades were any worse than the 1970s. In fact, serious reversals of women’s

gains have already taken place, and general expression of hostility toward the presence of women in the public arena is more visible today than fifty years ago. No one can deny, however, that female rights and female societal roles and function always lay at the heart of the national debate. This constant preoccupation with the subject of women is itself a manifestation of polarization between secularists and religionists, between reformers and revolutionists, and between internally and externally directed women. Any understanding of the struggle over women’s issues, particularly during the 1970s, must begin with an appraisal of women’s

gains and losses during the recent past. Only such an appraisal can reveal the essence of the Islamic challenge of the 1970s. Nothing illustrates better the seriousness with which Egyptians have

always viewed the behavior of their female population than the Napoleonic occupation of Egypt. In his famous work on the French expedition to Egypt (1798-1801), al-Jabarti, a historian of Egypt in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, did not ignore changes

in the conduct and status of Egyptian women. He indicated that as 1

2 Chapter 1 with everything else, the French enormously influenced Egypt’s social relations. But unlike their effort to bombard Egypt’s classes with revolutionary zeal and cultural innovations, the French influenced the female sector by example. Egyptian women, al-Jabarti tells us, expressed their rebel-

lion not against the French, as the males did, but against Egyptian males for withholding from them rights and privileges of French women. In 1800, Cairene women, spurred by the sight of French women stroll-

ing publicly with uncovered faces and wearing dresses adorned with colorful shawls, began to unveil themselves in large numbers and to associate freely with French men. Egyptian women sought the company of French men since they were malleable and anxious to please their women. Many liaisons between Egyptian women and French men developed, some illegal and others actual marriages following perfunctory conversions to Islam.’

Some of these marriages united Egyptian women with prominent figures of the French expedition, such as the union of the daughter of ‘Ali al-Rashidi and the converted French General Jacques ‘Abd-allah Menou, who was also the governor of Rosetta and later succeeded General Jean-Baptiste Kiéber as the governor of all Egypt. A group of female demonstrators at Rosetta asked Menou to permit them access to the city’s public baths, an unprecedented show of feminine public agita-

tion. Egyptian women also began to paint their faces, to accompany Frenchmen on boat trips along the Nile, and to participate in public dancing and drinking. Al-Jabarti clearly was not alluding to fallen women,

who would not stir his interest for fraternizing with foreign soldiers, but to respectable women who established contact with French males with their fathers’ full approval.’ This loosening of moral restrictions was a phenomenon of no small

proportion. Al-Jabarti was describing a social revolution in terms of unveiling and gender mixing that received the tacit approval of the new classes emerging under the French. This revolution, furthermore, was gradual. At first, the transformation in social mores was limited to those Egyptians who experienced close and steady contact with the French.

Following Cairo’s second uprising, the French seized the comeliest women of the Bulaq quarter and treated them like French women, which led the majority of women in Egypt’s cities to emulate French customs. Female slaves in Egypt were also touched by these ideas of the French Revolution, and al-Jabarti described mass desertion to the French authorities and instant liberation of female slaves.°

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 3

When the French were forced to depart Egypt only three years after their arrival, a reaction set in. The first victims were the “painted and Francophile” women who kept company with the French. Al-Jabarti

recorded that the restored Ottoman viceroy of Egypt personally directed the punishment of two notoriously Westernized females. These first victims of the restoration of the old order were the daughter of the chief of notables at Cairo, Sheikh Khalil al-Bakri, and another woman known only as Hawa. Al-Bakri’s daughter, Zeinab, was rumored to have been a mistress to Napoleon, although evidence indicates that her only crime was dressing like a French woman and appearing unveiled in public. Her father, al-Jabarti reported, disowned her before the Ottoman governor and did not intervene when the authorities disposed of

her by “breaking of the neck.” Hawa, on the other hand, had abandoned her husband, Isma‘il Kashif al-Shami, and married someone named

Nicola, a captain of ships. When Ottoman rule returned, her Egyptian husband brought her back to live with him and then sought official permission to kill her. He later strangled her, along with her white female slave. Al-Jabarti’s brief and limited account of these reprisals against women must have been only the tip of the iceberg, since his earlier descriptions spoke of a general feminine rebellion against established Islamic custom.* While most contemporary historians acknowledged the penetration

of French influence and culture as a result of the French expedition, only al-Jabarti alluded to this widespread female rebellion. The status of

women in the traditional society, we now know, underwent tremendous change following this first contact with the West. This makes 1800 a watershed, separating the traditional epochs of the eighteenth century from the early period of the nineteenth century, which turned out to be the beginning of modernity. As the French interlude in Egypt continued to challenge Egypt and the Egyptians, the modernizing policies of Muhammad ‘Ali’s dynasty reinforced the impact of Western civilization. Foreign travel accounts written later in the nineteenth century, such as that of the Frenchman Gerard de Nerval, supplied tantalizing information on the female condition in Egypt during the early 1840s. De Nerval, in his Voyage en Orient, described the audience at a theater known as the Teatro del Cairo as predominantly female. All the seats in the balcony were occupied by unveiled females, and he could not distinguish among Arme-

nian, Greek, Jewish, Coptic, and Egyptian women. After taking in a light French comedy, the women covered themselves with the usual

4 Chapter 1

street cloaks and departed on the backs of donkeys led by grooms carrying flares.°

The participation of women in public life was noted toward the end of the century in connection with a report on a memorable lecture by the pan-Islamic reformer al-Afghani. Decades after calls for the education of women were made by Tahtawi, the spiritual guide to Egypt’s first educational missions to France and the earliest advocate of modernization, and years after Khedive Isma‘il established Egypt’s first school

for girls in 1864, the theme of women’s liberation echoed more frequently. During al-Afghani’s famous 1879 lecture at Alexandria’s Zizinia

Hall, the great agitator not only preached against religious fanaticism and political absolutism but also called for freedom of assembly and of the press and reiterated earlier calls for the education of women. The report in Misr, a prominent daily, described the lecture as sponsored by an Alexandrian women’s association and heavily attended by women. The seating arrangement did not separate men from women. An admission fee pointed to the aristocratic background of the participants, members of the upper classes.° Clearly, although the French invaders were forced to depart in 1801, contact with ideas of the French Revolution produced more lasting changes. But although lower-class women eagerly fraternized with the French and emulated their manners, upper-class women benefited from later trends and policies. Mobilized by the official modernizing elite of Muhammad ‘Ali’s dynasty and by intellectuals and writers, women of the leisure classes began to invade male public places and to benefit from newly opened educational opportunities. Women of the petite bourgeoisie and the proletariat, however, had to await economic mobilization and destabilizing forces of a more penetrating nature. Thus, even the mass uprising and national struggle of the early part of the twentieth century failed to give rise to a widespread feminist

campaign. Women who participated in the events of 1919 enjoyed visibility and intercommunal representation of Copts and Muslims but not a mass following. The events of 1919, nevertheless, gave rise to Egypt’s first organized women’s movement. This movement did not develop in a vacuum. In a lecture delivered by Egypt’s pioneering feminist, Huda Sha‘rawi, on November 15, 1935, the link between social and political upheavals and the realization of women’s rights was stated clearly. Sha‘rawi reminded her audience that for Eastern women, rights were always confirmed in conjunction with national or intellectual move-

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 5

ments. Only when women supported men in these endeavors did women receive support for their own struggle. These elitist women, who experienced limited emancipation by forsaking the harem of the Khedive for the palaces and estates of great men and princes, at first expressed their views in a French journal, L’Egyptienne. Only by 1937 was an Arabic version of this journal, Al-Misriyah, made available to the general membership of feminist organizations. Also, liberal orientation of the women’s

movement was a reflection of the larger and more general nationalist

Egyptian revolution.’ :

The liberal phase of Egypt’s recent history, which began in 1919, inaugurated a multiparty system monopolized by Egypt’s newly emergent native bourgeoisie and landowning class. With liberation from British control as one of their main objectives, these nationalists proposed an agenda of political independence as well as social transformation. The moving spirits of this movement were a group of secular and religious reformers who communicated regularly and shared a general antipathy toward the ossified institutions and customs of the past. Among their most cherished beliefs was that the education and emancipation of women were preconditions for the modernization of society. Muhammad

‘Abduh, the mufti of Egypt, for instance, was known to have encouraged male advocates of female liberation. ‘Abduh constantly attacked those who abused their women, arguing that the deliberate mistreatment of women went against the teachings of Islam. Some of his views were aired in an article titled “Women in the Villages” that appeared in the official Egyptian gazette, Al-wagqa% al-Misriyah, on December 1, 1880. There ‘Abduh castigated males who punished women for failing in the performance of their tasks. ‘Abduh’s disciple, Muslim activist and scholar Rashid Ridha, went further and emphasized that women’s right to participate in public affairs was sanctified by Islamic tradition.® The secular call for the liberation of women was couched sometimes

in utilitarian terms. Salim al-Naqqash, a noted journalist, called for stamping out the Islamic practice of polygyny in order to curb the population growth. But when he went on to affirm, early in the twentieth century, women’s right to parliamentary representation, he sparked public displeasure. A reader named ‘Uthman Qassatili claimed that only those who performed military duties were entitled to this type of participation. Of greater significance was Mustafa Kamil’s innovation of addressing men and women during his public talks around the turn of the century. The most famous nationalist figure of that period, Kamil

6 Chapter 1 was acknowledging the presence of veiled women in gatherings, although his proposal that they be admitted openly to the ranks of alWatani Party was resisted by the traditionalists among his followers. When he died in 1908, a poet and writer, Zeinab Fawwaz, publicly eulogized him on March 20 on behalf of all female supporters of the party. Commentators on that period were later to acknowledge that two women in particular, Hafizah Muhammad al-Ulfi and Juliet Adam, editor of La nouvelle revue, exercised an enormous influence on Kamil’s intellectual development.’ Women’s own effort to enter the ranks of al-Watani Party continued

under Kamil’s successor, Muhammad Farid, who carried the national struggle against the British a step farther. Calling for the return to the Ottoman fold and emphasizing Egypt’s important role as a Muslim nation, al-Watani Party was not considered a secularist, liberal group. Yet the mobilization of women as active supporters, though not necessarily as formal members, continued. During an important international conference in Brussels in 1910 to seek support for the cause of Egyptian liberation, Muhummad Farid invited the attendance of ten prominent Egyptian women. A demonstration organized by al-Watani to celebrate the opening of the Legislative Assembly on January 22, 1914, also featured a large number of women cheering for the constitution and parliamentary life.’®

Support for the women’s cause by secularist liberals, such as Qassem Amin, earlier in the century cannot totally account for the appearance of distinguished female poets and journalists in fair numbers. Much has been written about these early female pioneers as an example of internal

mobilization, but one cannot overlook the friendly environment that permitted and welcomed their literary output. Female poets, such as ‘Aishah al-Taimouriyah and Zeinab Fawwaz, and writers, including Malak

Hafni Nasif, Nabawiyah Musa, and Huda Sha‘rawi, were tolerated as genuine reformers and gifted literati.'’ After all, Egyptians had heard arguments in favor of the education of women, even to the extent of allowing mixed schooling, as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then, Tahtawi argued that a wide gap existed between the civilized level of postrevolutionary France and post-Mameluke Egypt. One way in which this gap could be bridged, he argued, was through education, even to the extent of permitting coeducation. ‘Abdullah alNadim, the great orator and national hero of the ‘Urabi revolt, believed that ignorant women brought destruction to their families and called

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 7

for the education of women in the nineteenth century. Novelist and essayist Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti agreed.” How much Egyptian society could tolerate in the way of liberation was another issue. Male writers and reformers, it seems, rarely considered the ramifications of their message. Women’s literature was tolerated as long as it conformed to the recognizable themes floating in the sphere of male literary activity. Certainly, the flurry of women’s journals specializing in such themes as better home management, healthier methods of child rearing, and improved domestic arts were more than welcome. These journals, in which women addressed other women, rarely transgressed on the political male preserve. Female journalism in Egypt typified both the rising self-confidence of women and their continued subordination to the male power structure. Women began to write in national papers as early as 1899, when Labibeh Mahdi wrote several articles in Al-Mugqtataf, a national journal calling for reform and women’s rights to engage in literary pursuits. A female doctor, Labibeh Habiqah, wrote in favor of practicing the literary arts. Hind Noufal, a Lebanese expatriate, published the first female

journal in the entire Arab world in 1893. Under the title of Al-Fatah (Young woman), she opened its pages to women from other parts of the Arab world. Labibeh Hashem, editor of Fatat al-Sharg (Woman of the East) in 1906, dealt with many topics, such as official Egyptian policy toward the education of women and general prevailing social conditions. But the predominance of non-Egyptians in the field of feminine journalism was obvious. Expatriated women from other countries naturally found an outlet in Egyptian journalism, a field pioneered and monopolized by the Lebanese and Syrian residents of Egypt. The

first Egyptian woman to publish a journal was Jamilah Hafez, who founded Al-reehanah (The fragrant tree) in 1907 and devoted herself to a clarification of women’s rights in Islam."* Preoccupation with domestic arts also predominated on the pages of the female press. Titles of some prominent journals published by women

indicated the need to communicate ideas for the betterment of the family. For instance, Hind Noufal published Al-bawanem (The ladies) in 1900. Other journals appeared under the titles of Mir’at al-hinna’ (The henna mirror) in 1896, Al-jins al-latif (The gentle sex) in 1908, and Al-‘afaf (Virtue) in 1910.'* In 1898, Alexandra Ifrino first published Amis al-jalees (The friendly companion), a journal devoted to explanations of European customs and manners and known for its tips

8 Chapter 1 on bringing up children. The publisher was viewed as the official spokes-

person for Egyptian women and was invited in this capacity to attend the first international feminist conference on disarmament. Rose Haddad began a similar journal, Magellat al-sayyidat (Ladies’ journal) in 1903 to disseminate information on home economics and women’s welfare.}° The call to shed the veil and to advance boldly to the public arena began with the rare example of mixed literary salons. Exceptional literary women, such as May Ziyadeh, presided over these gatherings and debated the issues of the day. A Palestinian by birth, Ziyadeh was no

more typical than Princess Nazli Fadhel, who opened her doors to prominent male political figures for discussions of the national resurgence and the latest literary trends. Princess Nazli was intimately related to the royal household. Her father was the scholarly Prince Mustafa Fadhel, who donated his own extensive book collection to Cairo’s first national library. Among those who frequented her salon were the father of modern Egyptian nationalism, Sa‘ad Zaghlul, the two Muslim reformers Muhammad ‘Abduh and al-Afghani, and the Syrian journalist and student of al-Afghani, Adib Ishaq. ‘Abduh brought along Qassem Amin, the first to call for a comprehensive reshaping of society to liberate women.’° Qassem Amin, significantly, was not an isolated reformer. The first to issue a nationalist call for the emancipation of women, Amin was as much interested in general societal reform as he was in the progress of the female gender. His association with the leading figures of Egypt’s nationalist movement was evident from his frequent participation in the literary and political discussions of Princess Nazli’s salon. There is addi-

tional evidence that he read portions of his first controversial book calling for female emancipation, Tahrir al-mar’ah (The liberation of women), to a number of prominent national and reforming figures before bringing it out in print. Apparently, sections of this book were shared and discussed with Sa‘ad Zaghlul, the hero of the 1919 revolution, ‘Abduh, the famed Islamic reformer, and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, the founder of al- Ummah Party, at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1897. Since

the political program of pro-Ottoman advocates of a reformed and rejuvenated Islamic state died with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the ground was ready for the liberal philosophy of Qassem Amin’s friends. The new ideological configuration known as liberalism that dominated Egyptian politics following the 1919 revolt also developed its own views on women’s liberation. The centerpiece of this outlook was the struggle against the veil.'”

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 9

Al-Sayyid’s views on women, nationalism and society were aired on the pages of his newspaper, A/-Jaridah, where he preached a message of liberalization along European lines with the mild cooperation of Egypt’s British regime. Al-Sayyid believed that confrontation with British authorities should be avoided until Egypt was ready for independence.

Both al-Umma and al-Wafd, which developed the more anti-British confrontational tactics, subscribed to liberal political views, especially on the subject of women. Both dominated the Egyptian political arena following the 1919 revolt. But had the Ummah Party succeeded politically, the women’s cause might have experienced more emphasis on Westernization. Al-Sayyid’s Al-Jaridah also communicated to the Egyptian public his own concept of al-Misriyah, a view of Egypt along Euro-

pean lines. Al-Sayyid, who maintained cordial relations with Lord Cromer, the British high commissioner, advocated such novel ideas as language reform designed to accelerate the public’s ability to read simplified Arabic. Language reform was the theme of al-Sayyid’s series of

articles known as “Characteristics of the Nation” published in A/Mawsu ‘at. In this journal, which adopted an encyclopedic format, alSayyid singled out the liberation of women as one of the most important objectives of the struggle for independence."® Qassem Amin’s conversion to the cause of female liberation should be seen as one more facet of the anti-imperialist struggle. Indeed, some of Egypt’s present Islamist advocates view Amin’s campaign as essentially in defense of Islam. Since Islam defined the total culture of Egypt at the turn of the century, it was inevitable that any critique of any facet of Egyptian life should be seen as an assault on the divine faith. Most of Egypt’s reformers, furthermore, fought off Western—particularly French—assaults against Islamic institutions and society. Al-Afghani countered Ernest Renan’s vitriolic attack on Arabs and Muslims by exposing the French philosopher’s racism and prejudice. ‘Abduh rebutted another attack by the French foreign minister, Albert A. Gabriel Hanotaux, directed at the Prophet himself. A French orientalist’s dis-

tortions of Egyptian life under Turkish and Mameluke rule moved Qassem Amin in 1893 to write a book defending women’s rights under Islamic law. Amin was particularly incensed because the French writer

singled out the condition of women and the state of the family for ridicule.’” The campaign to liberate women followed later.

Although the call to shed the veil reverberated on the pages of an unusual paper called Al-sufur (Unveiling), Qassem Amin’s campaign awaited a greater mobilization of women.*°? As Huda Sha‘rawi indicated

10 ~~ Chapter 1

in one of her lectures earlier, women’s advancement had always followed national upheaval. Not until the 1919 revolt did direct agitation

by women penetrate the top levels of society. At first, the women submitted to the mobilization effort of the national leadership represented by the Wafd Party. Wives and relatives of the male national leadership were placed in the forefront of this mobilization. The first women’s committee of the Wafd was headed by Sharifah Hanem Riadh,

the wife of Mahmoud Riadh Pasha. One of its members was Huda Sha‘rawi, wife of ‘Ali Sha‘rawi, who was one of the original three-man delegation who entered the house of the British high commissioner to present their nationalist demands on November 13, 1919. The honorary chair of the original Women’s Wafd Committee was Sa‘ad Zaghlul’s wife, Safiyah Zaghlul, whom the Egyptians called “Um al-Masriyin”

(The mother of all Egyptians). Recognition came to the women as a result of their organization of massive all-women’s demonstrations, the most memorable occurring on March 20, 1919, and January 16, 1920. These demonstrations resulted in some casualties whose names became part of the lore and legend of Egypt’s women’s movement.*? As a reflection of the nonsectarian character of the male nationalist effort, the revolt of 1919 brought forward prominent Coptic women as well as Muslims. One of the women’s early organizing meetings was held on December 12, 1919, at the Great Coptic Cathedral at Cairo. It resulted in a statement protesting British efforts to crush the revolt by

exiling its leaders and criticizing the impending visit of the Milner Mission to draft a constitution acceptable to the British. Among the statement’s signatories were members of prominent Coptic families including the Wasefs, Iskanders, Sharobins, Khayyats, and Hannas.”

Between 1919 and 1923, when the Egyptian Feminist Union was born, the women’s movement was purely national, and their adherence

to the policies and platform of the larger movement was taken for granted. One of the movement’s first protests, issued through the Women’s Wafd Committee, emphasized the exiling of the revolt’s male leadership, denial of Egypt’s request to attend the Versailles Peace Conference, refusal to end the British protectorate in Egypt, and the violent suppression of the people’s revolt. The second target of the women’s protest movement was the Milner Mission and the British proposal to initiate an irrigation scheme in the Sudan. Since the status of the Sudan was defined in the past as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium, women felt that the British were not its sole rulers. The women reiterated the

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 11

widely held view that Egypt and Sudan were but two halves of the same valley. The women’s committee also dispatched to world leaders memoranda of protest complaining of British high-handedness and publicly

protesting the proroyalist policies of Egypt’s prime minister, ‘Adli Yakun.”°

Following the success of the 1919 revolt in forcing the return of Egypt’s male leadership from exile, the Women’s Wafd Committee began to lose prominence, and Huda Sha‘rawi formed Egypt’s first female organization, the Egyptian Feminist Union, in 1923. The union’s agenda centered on women’s political rights, such as voting and qualifying for parliamentary representation, but there were social aspects as well. In 1924, the union and the Women’s Wafd Committee presented

the Egyptian Parliament with a set of demands for increased educational opportunities for women and girls. In addition, the petition asked that election laws be modified to permit the women to vote and to serve

in Parliament, even if the female franchise were to be restricted by literacy and financial qualifications. The more difficult demands dealt with the need to eliminate polygyny and restrict divorce.** , The women also demanded the prohibition of legalized prostitution and an increase

in the age of marriage to sixteen for women and eighteen for men. Other demands centered on amending the Islamic laws of children’s custodianship, which favored husbands, not wives.”° Huda Sha‘rawi’s remarkable career undoubtedly constitutes a significant chapter in Egyptian feminist history. But it would not be possible to separate her patrician origins from her achievement, nor would it be possible to minimize her accomplishments. Yet her achievements clearly did not solidify as a feminist revolution but were slowly watered

down over the years by various forces and regimes. Daughter of the president of Egypt’s first National Assembly, Muhammad Sultan Pasha, and a Turkish mother, she learned from private French and Arab tutors at her father’s palace. Her husband, who was her first cousin, was one of the three original rebels and founders of the Wafd Party in 1919. Beside

founding the Wafd Women’s Committee and the Egyptian Feminist Union, she also became the president of the Arab Feminist Union and vice-president of the International Women’s Union. She participated in more than fourteen international women’s gatherings on behalf of Egyp-

tian women. She founded fifteen other women’s organizations and established a French-language journal and, later, an Arabic journal with the title The Egyptian. Her concrete legislative achievements, however,

12. Chapter 1

_ were limited to women’s right to enroll at the university and raising the marriage age for both men and women. By the time she died in 1947, she had been decorated by the heads of four Arab governments.*° Throughout her life, Sha‘rawi fought for equality between the sexes, believing firmly that women given the proper training were capable of any occupation. The list of her achievements pales next to the list of her demands and objectives. Much of her inability to transform the social reality of Egypt resulted from the male leadership’s reluctance to adopt her vision of total female equality. She burst on the national scene by attaching herself to the Egyptian movement for independence in 1919, but she quickly tired of the Wafd Party when, in her view, the hero of the revolt of 1919 bargained away Sudan’s future to establish Egypt’s independence. She completely turned against the Wafd by the 1930s, calling it a dissipated legacy and a tattered garment.’” Had she and the women she mobilized in her organization forced the granting of the franchise, she might have created an all-female political party. But the national leadership and liberal political parties were only willing to grant educational opportunities for women. Even the veil remained an acceptable form of dress for many women and faced a comeback at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1930s. Sha‘rawi and the Egyptian Feminist Union simply outdistanced the Wafd’s social agenda once

Egyptian nationalist males settled down to the task of governing. Sha‘rawi, however, remained throughout her eventful life the heart and soul of a liberal and democratic Egypt of the future.

The Egyptian Feminist Union was not Sha‘rawi’s first project. In 1908, she established Mabarat Muhammad ‘Ali (Muhammad ‘Ali’s Institution), with the help of Princess ‘Ain al-Hayat, to provide sewing classes for needy women and a medical clinic for women and children. In May 1914, the two women established two service organizations— Jam‘iyat al-Ruqgi al-Adabi lil-Sayyidat al-Misriyat (The society for literary advancement of Egyptian women) and Jam‘iyat al-Mar’ah al-Jadidah (The society of the new woman)—to train women and develop their abilities. Both groups specialized in providing lectures on the arts, literature, and music. The Women’s Wafd Committee, therefore, was a bold stride into a vastly different arena, but Sha‘rawi and other women did have activist experience through their prerevolutionary genteel activities and associations.”®

The women of Sha‘rawi’s generation who faced British bullets in 1919 were emboldened by Qassem Amin’s call to discard the veil as

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 13

something unhygienic and un-Islamic. It became the symbol of exclusion and backwardness, but short of an Ataturk-style governmental assault on its wearers, it could only be discarded as a worn-out tradition through example. Even Qassem Amin refrained from forcing his wife to discard the veil and limited his urging to his daughters. But two women shed their veils dramatically to make a point. First was Safiyah Zaghlul, who removed her veil to meet her husband as he triumphantly returned from exile in 1921. She had earlier received his permission to fling away her veil because he believed that the revolution demanded bold action. Second, Sha‘rawi and some of her companions also shed their veils in a public act when they returned from Rome in 1924 after attending the International Conference on Women. The debate on the merits or demerits of the seclusion, segregation, and isolation of women swirled around the issue of the veil. Some women of a younger generation, specifically the outspoken editor of Bznt al-Nil (Daughter of the Nile), Durriyah Shafiq, made the veil her theme and hated target. But those who favored keeping women in their place were also prominent; among them was the father of Egypt’s modern economic development, Tal‘at Harb, as well as the novelist and essayist ‘Abbas Mahmoud al-‘Aqqad.” The women’s reformist approach can be gauged from their stand on the issue of the veil. Recognizing that it was the main barrier to entering the public arena, the women and their male supporters defended their stance in word and in deed. The battle against the veil, however, did not assume a violent dimension and was not forced on reluctant women. Other national issues during the 1919 revolt took precedence. Safiyah Zaghlul and the wife of Bahi al-Din Barakat Pasha led a cam-

paign to boycott British goods and to collect public funds to assist Egyptian merchants. The movement targeted British businesses and drove them out of various cities and villages. A feminist magazine took

this effort farther by recommending that local merchants develop a special uniform made from local material for both veiled and unveiled

women. Anticipating a favorite theme of the Islamic writers of the 1970s, advocates of boycotting British goods claimed that 90 percent of all European merchandise was used by women.*”

Sha‘rawi’s efforts on behalf of women and her involvement in the national liberation struggle failed to mesh completely. Creating the Egyptian Feminist Union in 1923 and leaving Sharifah Riadh to direct the Women’s Wafd Committee were indicative of developing troubles within the women’s adjunct group in the party. Although the Women’s

14. = Chapter 1

Committee and the Egyptian Feminist Union continued to cooperate on general national strategy, such as the boycott campaign, the rift between Sha‘rawi and Sa‘ad Zaghlul began early and concerned purely political differences. Upon Sa‘ad Zaghlul’s return from exile in 1921, he issued a congratulatory statement to Prime Minister Tawfiq Nassim Pasha for declaring King Fu’ad to be the legitimate ruler of Egypt. Sha‘rawi’s anger was caused by Zaghlul’s deliberate refusal to assert the

official Egyptian national position, which always claimed that Sudan was part of Egypt and that the sovereign of one must be considered the sovereign of the other. Nassim Pasha’s expressed position was obviously a compromise between the nationalist position and the imperialist Brit-

ish stand over Sudan. Sha‘rawi’s anger at Zaghlul for ignoring this significant oversight in the prime minister’s statement led Zaghlul to drop her and the Women’s Wafd Committee from the party’s annual conference in 1922. During the conference, Zaghlul publicly thanked all those who supported his efforts while he was in exile, including the Women’s Wafd Committee. Sha‘rawi, however, reacted to her exclusion from the meeting by resigning her post with the committee.*? As soon as the Egyptian Feminist Union became a reality, it adopted a specific political agenda that in many ways outdistanced the Wafd. The union demanded the total independence of both Egypt and Sudan, neutralizing the Suez Canal in times of war, entrusting Egypt with the

defense of the canal, absolving Egypt of the debts of the Ottoman Empire, canceling the capitulation agreements, and strengthening of the Egyptian army. The most important demand called for establishing

a new framework for Anglo-Egyptian negotiations by amending the Egyptian constitution to grant the women’s franchise. Sha‘rawi’s relationship with the Wafd continued to ebb and flow, and she ended up switching allegiance to the Sa‘adian Party. The Feminist Union’s attack on the Wafd was always motivated by

politics, although the Wafd’s lack of responsiveness to the women’s social agenda also contributed. A memorable dispute developed between Sha‘rawi and Prime Minister Mustafa al- Nahaas over the signing

of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. The treaty was met by general approval, yet the union criticized it for eliminating the British occupation while allowing British bases to remain. Sha‘rawi also published statements critical of the Montreux conference, which tackled the capitulations issue, and of al-Nahaas’s dispute with two political figures, Mahmoud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi and Ahmad Maher.*?

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 15

Interjecting the Egyptian Feminist Union in a purely political dispute concerning domestic policy may seem unusual, but it did pay off. Sha‘rawi’s male political allies officially proposed admitting women to

the Egyptian senate in 1938, but the measure failed.*? By 1946, Muhammad ‘Ali ‘Aloubah, speaking for a Liberal Constitutional cabinet, offered a resolution in the senate calling for the extension of the franchise to women, with literacy qualifications. By March of the following year, a prominent Wafdist, ‘Ali Zaki al-‘Urabi, attempted to test the constitutionality of excluding women from the voting rolls by claiming that the constitution did not specifically limit this right to males. A Senate constitutional committee, however, concluded that the electoral | law that restricted this right to men was not unconstitutional. The same committee was then entrusted with the task of investigating the issue of female franchise separately, but nothing was achieved.* The right to attend parliamentary sessions was granted only as a result of public demands by the feminist press. First one and then two balconies were assigned to women.* Perhaps the greatest victory of the women’s movement before 1952 occurred in the right to education. Although the early feminists were not deprived of educational opportunities, it was important to extend these to less-advantaged women. Women of the upper bourgeoisie, both Muslim and Coptic, were educated at private schools long before Khedive Isma‘il opened the first public school for girls during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. An Anglican school was operated in Cairo by a Miss Holiday as early as 1835, and two French missionary schools opened in Cairo’s Muski and Shubra neighborhoods in 1845 and 1861, respectively. The Islamic Charitable Association opened a school in 1878, and Coptic organizations established two schools in 1860. Some of the early advocates of female education, however, were interested only in teaching well-born women. Nabawtyah Musa established her first school in the early 1920s under the name of Madrassat Banat al-Ashraf (School of daughters of nobility). Her later endeavors extended to Alexandria, and her schools became open to daughters of the working class and the petite bourgeoisie.*° The idea of making public education available to all women did not lack opposition. But more and more feminist pressure on the minister of education to provide public schools for girls at the secondary level finally succeeded. University education was another matter, and opening up opportunities for higher education for women proceeded gradually. A big step was taken when the newly founded public university

16 Chapter 1 opened up its evening classes to women in 1908 as a result of pressure from Sha‘rawi’s literary society. The first women to be admitted to the

national university, a total of five, graduated in 1933. All accounts credit Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, Egypt’s liberal journalist and first president of the university, with making this possible.*’ Women’s right to work was also one of the demands of the Egyptian Feminist Union and other groups of that period. Egyptian women were actually recruited to the industrial sector as early as the 1930s. Women of modest means engaged in various professions in addition to agriculture and were especially visible as textile workers at the Mahillah Kubra industrial development, a project of the Bank of Egypt (Bank Misr). The right of affluent women to work, however, met considerable opposition. The novelist Muhammad A. al-Mazini argued that women’s rightful place was in the home. An Azhari sheikh, Muhammad Abu al‘Uyoun, called in the 1940s for limiting girls’ education to home economics and child care.*®

Women’s own organizations fluctuated between total and conditional approval of the right to work. Sha‘rawi’s organization supported women’s right to enter any male arena. She called for special legislation to protect the nghts of working women, especially those employed in

ginning cotton and in harsh agricultural work. But disapproval was widespread, despite the fact that female workers constituted close to 5 - percent of the labor force in 1914. By 1930, international organizations estimated the number of women and children engaged in rural and urban employment to be between 20 and 25 percent. With these significant numbers, male opposition began to run out of rational arguments. Makram ‘Ubeid, a noted Wafdist statesman and a leading Copt, claimed that work and equality would destroy women’s gentle character. “We will always be in need of women’s gentleness, purity, simplicity, and tears,” he wrote. Prince ‘Umar Touson anticipated arguments by Islamic groups of the 1970s by claiming that women’s entry to the workplace would inevitably narrow male employment opportunities. Women should not compete with men for every available position, he claimed. Only the needed number of female teachers and nurses should graduate each year.*” Despite all these obstacles at home, Egyptian women under Sha‘rawi’s leadership had quite an impact on other Arab feminist groups and on international women’s organizations. Because of her great interest in political and nationalist causes, for example, Sha‘rawi could not ignore

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 17

the developing crisis of Zionist immigration and Arab resistance in neighboring Palestine. As soon as the 1936 Great Strike by Palestine’s Arabs created a near civil war in that country, Sha‘rawi’s journal, AlMisrwyah, began to champion the cause of Palestine and support the leadership of Haj Amin al-Husseini. She did not stop at educating her readership on this issue; she also convened in Cairo in October 1938 the first Arab women’s conference on Palestine, calling it the Eastern Women’s Conference. The conference achieved a great deal, including publicizing the Palestinian Arab cause, issuing statements to world leaders and Arab heads of state, and producing a set of demands and resolutions. The conference also constituted a great challenge to traditional

culture since it was the first time Arab women attended a regional conference without male escorts. In 1944, however, a purely feminist Arab conference was convened in Cairo to publicize the social agenda of Arab women. This meeting resulted in recommendations for reforming Shari‘a laws and calling on all Arab governments to employ qualified women in positions hitherto held only by males. The lasting achieve-

ment of this conference was the creation of the Arab Feminist Union with representation from most Arab countries.*° Sha‘rawi’s efforts inspired a variety of feminist organizations. The earliest of these became a Muslim Brotherhood unit in 1935. But as the union shed its activist and feminist agenda following Sha‘rawi’s death in 1947, those unwilling to confine themselves to charitable activities chose

a different direction. There was a brief attempt in 1951 by Cesa Nebrawi, , Sha‘rawi’s companion and secretary, to participate in anti-British activities in the canal zone by creating a women’s committee of workers and

nurses.** Of more lasting impact was Ittihad Bint al-Nil (Union of daughters of the Nile), created in 1949 by Dr. Durriyah Shafiq. This organization sought passage of positive laws for women. Viewing women’s political rights as the most significant objective of Egypt’s feminist movement, as well as the most elusive, Bint al-Nil fought for these rights on the pages of the feminist and national press.** Having claimed for many years that gender equality was undesirable because of gender differences, Shafiq changed her position by 1948. Stressing the injustice of granting all males the franchise and denying this right to women irrespective of their qualifications, she exclaimed in one of her 1948 editorials, “Is it not a shame that one’s male cook is given the right to vote, while his mistress is denied that right?”*? This elitist view typified the entire feminist leadership until the revo-

18 Chapter 1 lution of 1952, after which women’s anger at their total exclusion from the political process took on the form of agitation. Two years after the officers’ government takeover in 1952, the Egyptian Feminist Union called for a meeting of all women’s groups. Discussion revolved around problems of the family, the need for a new personal status law, profeminist

labor legislation, and a serious governmental effort toward family planning.** Shafiq, however, staged a highly publicized sit-in and fast at the

Cairo headquarters of the journalists’ union on March 12, 1954, to publicize women’s impatience with over thirty years of battling for political rights. A simultaneous sit-in was staged at Alexandria. Members of the foreign press, as well as prominent male writers such as the Islamic reformer Khaled Muhammad Khaled, were drawn to the event at Cairo. A representative of the officers’ regime came to the union asking for a memorandum detailing the women’s demands. The moment was propitious for such demands since the Free Officers had just annulled the 1923 constitution and appointed a legislative commission to write a new document. A verbal message from the Egyptian president, Muhammad Naguib, finally persuaded the demonstrators to disband. Agitation for women’s right to vote and to serve in Parliament continued until President Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasser introduced the 1956 constitution on January 16, 1957, and announced that women would receive their political rights.*° Shafiq’s sit-in proved the last hurrah for independent women’s groups.

The assault on women’s organizations actually dates back to 1946, when the government of Isma‘il Sudqi disbanded all leftist organizations, along with their women’s committees. In 1953, the Free Officers’ government closed the offices of the Egyptian Feminist Union and the Union of the Daughters of the Nile, claiming that they were political parties. From that time until the Sadat era in the early 1970s, women became affiliates of various cadres of the one-party state.*° The inauguration of Egypt’s republican phase and the demise of the competitive party system forced drastic changes on Egypt’s feminist movement. Most of these changes grew out of the elimination of the _ party system, which tolerated women’s independent organizations as an expression of the dominant liberal, progressive ideology. The new army

officers, most of whom were children of the petite bourgeoisie, regarded the leadership of the women’s movement as politically aligned with the defunct political parties and the old royalist regime. Shafiq and her cohorts in the sit-ins of 1954 were regarded by Egypt’s new rulers

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 19

as intimately related to the old dominant class—ideologically, socially, and culturally. The new officers’ regime, nevertheless, was not averse to

admitting women to the public arena or to granting most political rights. But the new government needed to harness the women’s movement to the regime’s socialist program and to develop a new female leadership more compatible with the officers’ social and economic out-

look. Two goals of the women’s movement, as it turned out, were perfectly acceptable to the officers’ social outlook: women’s right to work and to participate in parliamentary life. The old female leadership, therefore, was quietly phased out after 1954, but much of its program was co-opted by the new rulers of Egypt.*

| During the 1957 national elections, two women, Aminah Shukri from Alexandria and Rawiyah ‘Arriyah from Cairo’s Giza suburb, were

elected to Parliament. Nasser began to encourage women’s political involvement, giving two speeches in 1959 in which he stated his position. In his statements before preparatory meetings of the National Union, his first political organization, he said that women should be encouraged to work because work preserved them from delinquency. In 1962, Nasser publicly repudiated an irate male citizen who asked the

president to restore the veil. He responded that he did not wish to engage in battle against 25 million people (Egypt’s population at that time), or at least half of them.*® Clearly, the regime was interested in mobilizing women in the battle

for economic production. To integrate women into the labor force and organize them within the one-party state system, it was decided that two things must happen: a new female leadership had to be recruited, and labor legislation protecting the rights of working women had to be enacted. These areas became the focus of the new regime. A new female leadership was found among the ranks of university women belonging to the same lower-middle layer of society as the Free Officers. In 1962 Dr. Hikmat Abu Zeid was selected to head a governmental department that increasingly specialized in the affairs of women, the Ministry of Social Welfare, which to this day supervises a battery of labor laws

pertaining to women. In 1963 an invitation for a general and wideranging women’s conference was issued by the ministry to discuss women’s work-related issues. Abu Zeid was named to head this conference, signaling her confirmation as the leader of the women’s movement. The conference discussed such questions as increasing women’s economic productivity, working women as leaders in family

20 Chapter 1

planning, and increasing family income through the employment of female members.” This conference also constituted a new approach to women’s issues by downplaying the previous feminist generation’s emphasis on genteel ideas such as education, culture, and international female solidarity. Several factors converged at the outset of the Nasser period and opened up new and wide-ranging employment opportunities for women. First, nationalization decrees issued beginning in July 1956 placed a large number of banks and commercial establishments at the disposal of the government. These institutions provided new employment opportunities when European workers fled. The rising cost of living also drove

young women into the labor market. New legislation by the Nasser government provided great incentive for women to retain their jobs after marriage. For the first time in the history of Egypt, profit-sharing plans were required by law, and workers began to enjoy representation on company boards and to own up to 25 percent of the capital assets of their companies. Nursing and pregnant workers were granted one hour of rest per day while working and a month of maternity leave with pay. A working mother could also take a three-year leave without pay. The minimum wage was set at twenty-five piasters per day and made equal for male and female workers.°° The revolution of 1952 also inaugurated a system of free education through the university level. Elementary and secondary education were free for both boys and girls as early as 1944, but in a speech on July 26, 1962, at Alexandria, Nasser declared university education free for both

sexes. This opportunity revolutionized the employment picture for women and had been a longtime goal of the early feminists, especially Sha‘rawi and Nabawiyah Musa. Many working-class women could not attend the national university or its college of commerce because of the high tuition. They had satisfied themselves by attending the free intermediary commercial schools. The opening up of university education to them combined with the nationalization decrees to provide employ-

ment opportunities in the commercial sector that had formerly been monopolized by women of European descent.°! Women were also included in the ruling party, the Arab Socialist Union, in 1962, at the level of popular committees, housing committees, and committees reporting on women’s activities to the governor of Cairo. Women were assigned 5 percent of the total membership of the national party, but several of these committees atrophied. The Arab

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 21

Socialist Union also established a secretariat for women, similar to the secretariat for youth.*? Yet the number of women who ran for election to Parliament failed to match the organizers’ grandiose expectations. Two women were elected to the 1957 parliamentary session, six to the 1960 session, and eight (out of a total of 360 members) to the 1964 session. The number of women elected to the 1969 session, however, dropped to three.*? Despite extensive efforts by various women’s groups to encourage voter registration among women in 1957, Egypt’s first election since

the female franchise, only 144,983 women registered along with 5,575,692 men. Fu’ad Diab estimated that 33.4 percent of Cairo’s population opposed a woman’s right to hold legislative office, apparently because they believed that women lacked the necessary preparation and the temperament to participate in drafting legislation. Neither religious nor social tradition favored women’s involvement in electoral politics. Women of all economic backgrounds approved granting females all political rights, while only affluent men favored the same. This

study also estimated that close to 76.7 percent of qualified females in the Cairo area refrained from registering because of the strength of traditional customs.**

The Nasser regime, it should be stated, appointed women for the first time to a number of significant posts. Beside Abu Zeid, who held the position of minister of social welfare from 1962 to 1965, Karimah al-Sa‘id was appointed in 1965 as undersecretary of the Ministry of Education. Membership of the Arab Socialist Union, Nasser’s second experiment in populist politics, included 4.8 percent women. Two seats were reserved for women in each political section within the union as well as in each provincial assembly. In 1962 women were also represented as a separate secretariat in the national conference leading to the creation of the Arab Socialist Union.°° The greatest recognition of the political, economic, and social rights of women was actually enshrined in Egypt’s two constitutions following the officers’ revolt. The Constitution of 1956, which granted women the franchise, also supported the notion of combining women’s duty to society and family. Article 4 of the constitution stipulated that social harmony was the foundation of Egyptian society, and article 5 stated that the family was the basic unit of society. The family, the constitution read, was based on religion, ethics, and patriotism. Article 6 stated that the state guaranteed freedom, peace, and security as well as equality of

22 Chapter 1 opportunity of all Egyptians. Article 18 spelled out the state’s obligation to support the family unit and protect motherhood and the rights

of children. Under article 19, the state pledged to assist women in fulfilling their duty to society and the family. The section concerned with rights and obligations affirmed that all Egyptians were equal before the law, irrespective of racial origins, ethnic background, language,

or religion. Article 48 stated that all Egyptians were entitled to statefinanced education. Article 52 indicated that the right to work was guaranteed by the state and that government was obligated to ensure equality of treatment according to the type of work, health-care, social welfare, or old-age assistance.*©

The 1962 National Covenant, which gave birth to the Arab Socialist Union, was Egypt’s second experiment in constitutional drafting and was heavily weighted in favor of women’s economic and social rights. Under the section titled “Regarding Production and Society,” the cov-

enant boldly asserted the need to establish male and female equality under the Shari‘a, since it would not be a departure from the egalitarian religious heritage. Women should be allowed to work alongside men, it stated, for to do otherwise would be to inflict paralysis on half of society. Thus, the covenant called for providing employment opportunities for women in a manner compatible with their dignity. Women should also be guaranteed a healthy working environment and an opportunity to reconcile their domestic duties with their work responsibilities. Al-

though women’s rights were spelled out in the personal status law, rights guaranteed by God’s law should not be circumscribed by manmade laws. The permanent Constitution of 1964 reaffirmed all these principles, especially the state’s duty to preserve the family and protect

mothers and children, as well as the state’s intent to provide equal opportunity for all of its citizens.°”

Clearly, some of the Nasser political reforms on behalf of women surpassed prevailing popular conceptions on work, political participation, and the family. The one area in which the revolutionary officers failed to satisfy women’s expectations was that of family law. Although

the Shari‘a in Egypt has been supplemented, and in some instances replaced, by European laws since the era of Muhammad ‘Ali, family law remained largely unadulterated and confined to the Shari‘a courts. Since 1920 only minor modifications have been introduced to the Shari‘a in

the areas of marriage, divorce, inheritance, and guardianship of children. These clarifications and modifications sought to overcome the

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 23

legal chaos resulting from the application of various Islamic jurisprudential schools of the four great Imams and from the infringement of European laws on court procedures.°® These modifications, however, were never intended to be a response to steady demands in the feminist movement for radical reform of family law. The women’s battle was a hopeless struggle as long as the adjudication of family law remained the exclusive domain of the Shari‘a courts. In 1955, Law 462 finally eliminated the Shari‘a courts and merged them with the national courts, causing another point of friction between the Islamic establishment and the Nasser regime, although the move was purely organizational and did not result in the reform of the personal status law. Religious judges of the old system were retained

within the personal status sections of the national court system.°’ Women’s interest in reforming Islamic marriage and divorce laws did not wane, except that the Ministry of Social Welfare represented the feminist agenda. Thus, in 1958 the ministry instigated an attempt in

the National Assembly to reopen this debate but was unanimously turned down. In May 1967, Aminah al-Sa‘id, a leading journalist and feminist, used the Third Convention of Islamic Jurisprudence at Cairo

to reopen the same debate. Responding to a paper titled “Women’s Role in Society,” by Dr. Zakaria al-Berri, al-Sa‘id reminded her audience of the judicial opinions of the great reformer, Muhammad ‘Abduh, who rationalized restricting polygyny and divorce laws. She followed this by a call for the institutionalizing of the same age-old demands of Muslim women. She listed several such demands including outlawing the taking of a second wife except with the permission of the first wife; outlawing summary divorce; outlawing the forcible confinement of a wife who demanded the dissolution of marriage; vesting the guardianship of daughters with the mother until marital age; increasing alimony payments; and excluding relatives from sharing in the estate inherited by a single daughter.” The outbreak of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war brought this debate to an end. From then until Nasser’s death in 1970, the state was preoccupied with the task of national recovery and retrieval of occupied Egyptian lands. Social reform had to await another time. In summary, Egyptian women had undergone a great deal of up-

heaval and change since the turn of the century. Feminism and the mobilization of women were issues largely of male concern, since the

emancipation of women was seen as a necessary safeguard against

24 Chapter | | colonial accusations of barbarism. Reformers like Qassem Amin, ‘Abduh,

Afghani, and Khedive Isma‘il saw the emancipation of women as an aspect of necessary modernization if the imperialists’ claims of barbarism and retardation as a justification of colonial control were to be refuted. The mobilization of women in 1919, although related to the nationalist and reformist consciousness-raising of the earlier reformers, had different goals. Unquestionably, women were mobilized in a conscious effort to enlist all sectors of society in the struggle for independence. Women were seen as particularly effective as demonstrators, as supporters of boycotts, and as a link to international progressive groups. The liberal politicians of the 1919 generation, nevertheless, did not

intend to defy the religious establishment on matters related to such things as the veil or the age-old inequalities of the Shari‘a. To safeguard against a battle between traditionalists and feminists, women were not accorded voting and representational rights. The liberal male leadership pursued its reforms by providing the proper example, but no Kemalist coercion duplicated the Turkish experiment of reform. The male lead-

ership was willing to go far on the issue of female education since it suited the ideal of educated females presiding over modernized households and raising educated offspring. Indeed, this image represented the female bourgeois ideal for women of the upper classes, familiar through the experience of Victorian England and which contrasted with the ideal of the pre-industrial, traditional women who were often part of communal family setting. The bourgeois ideal, it should be also emphasized, was a male con-

cept that, in the case of Egypt, began to diverge sharply from the women’s idea of emancipation and public participation. But since the 1919 women’s movement was a product of external mobilization, it perfectly mirrored the social background of the male leadership. The 1919 struggle for independence was not a complete bourgeois revolution, for it was led by the upper layer of this class and ignored and often suppressed the interests of the lower-middle class. Therefore, although studies of this phase of Asian liberation and women’s role in its realization attempted to show that considerable progress was achieved on the feminist front, liberation through this process remained elitist and devoid of massive popular following. This explains Sha‘rawi’s inability to organize a women’s political party; as expected, she was unable to rise above the confines of her class. Despite her immense political expertise on both domestic and foreign policy matters, she lacked the mass following to organize a party.®!

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 25

The Nasser government also mobilized women in its own ideological blueprint. Clearly in tune with the demands of elitist women, though not with their social origins, the regime granted the franchise to enlist women in the ranks of their populist political movement. The officers,

however, did not wish to empower these women as an independent political cluster.

Government-instigated changes in the leadership of the feminist movement were also intended to usurp and drastically alter the feminist agenda of the previous decades. Inevitably, this process led to an emphasis on women’s economic rights, an issue absent from the activism of upper-class women. But the officers’ regime was also unwilling to confront the traditional social system by reforming the Shari’a. Having concentrated on eliminating the political power of the Islamic Brother-

hood, the officers greatly needed the political support of the semiofficial Islamic sectors represented largely by the faculty and student community of al-Azhar. Nasser campaigned to enlist petit bourgeois women in the battle for economic production. In addition to opening up public higher education to poorer women, this economic and political mobilization brought large numbers of women into the labor force. Since Nasser refrained from pursuing legal reforms aimed at facilitating the emergence of the nuclear family, his assault on the traditional extended family was not effective. Egypt’s women, more than any other sector of its society, symbolized the economic weaknesses of the Nasser revolution and the residual strength of the traditional family system. Thus, women were only partially integrated in the socialist economic system. Large sections of the female population remained under the control of the patriarchical system, notoriously resistant to development and change. The relationship of the state to the women’s sector became inseparable from the relationship of women to the official ruling party. This

development left all the initiative to the official party and the state. Since the induction of women into the new state apparatus was a controlled process, women’s presence and participation were disappointingly low. Even when quotas were set aside for female representation at various levels of the Nasser legislative and administrative structures, women lacked the independent organization necessary to promote a specifically feminist agenda. Thus, most gains during this period were purely social and economic rather than legal in nature, limited to improved employment and educational opportunities.

26 Chapter 1

To understand the background of the socialist reforms, it is necessary to summarize the highlights of Egypt’s incorporation of women into the labor sector. Historically, female participation in the formal economy in Egypt ran parallel to the early introduction of mass-produced goods. Women’s recruitment to the industrial sector, however, developed gradually. Initially, women were not provided with environmental protection or economic equity with male workers. The early employment pattern of the officers’ period had women clustered in unskilled jobs, with clerical and commercial employment opening up only in the late 1950s. Textile industries, as well as sewing factories, were the first to hire women before World War I. Cotton ginning attracted female labor. Women also found jobs in a fez-manufacturing company and in oil press plants and flour mills. When trade unionism emerged in the early 1920s, pressure developed in favor of a labor law. A special committee, headed by ‘Abd al-Rahman Ridha, worked on such a law between 1927 and 1929 and established a subcommittee to look into the employment of juveniles and women. The outcome of this effort was a recommendation to prohibit the employment of women in dangerous or hazardous

occupations. The subcommittee also suggested that night-time employment of women and the hiring of pregnant women for hard labor be outlawed. These recommendations were not implemented and a milder law was substituted. A dramatic increase in manufacturing activity developed in the 1930s

when international companies were attracted to Egypt because of its supply of cheap labor. Large numbers of peasants streamed into Cairo and other cities because of comparatively higher wages. Women became visible in the labor market. The increasing employment of women in industry was alluded to in 1936 in Law 22, which sought to provide

better working conditions. This law limited women’s daily working hours and provided for annual paid vacations. By 1942 trade unions were Officially recognized, and a group called the Association of Female

Workers of the Egyptian Region emerged, largely representing female textile workers. With the onset of the Nasser period, a serious effort was made to revamp and revise all existing labor regulations and to bring both male and female workers under their purview. Women were now guaranteed wages equal to male workers and granted maternity and child-raising benefits. These improvements generated a new female influx into the labor market. Women began to account for large numbers

Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 27

in the processing industries, and the commercial sector soon followed. Of all employed women in 1971, for instance, 11.7 percent were in food-processing industries. Women were also clustered in the textile, sewing, and pharmaceutical sectors. At the same time the number of

women in trade unions also grew. Among the better-known female trade unionists during the 1960s were Jihad Damardash (petroleum industries), Kheiriyeh ‘Abd al-Karim (textiles), Zeinab ‘Amer (postal services), Samia Shatilla (transportation services), and Madelaine ‘Aziz (pharmaceutical industries).°° Women workers also flocked in large numbers to the general service sector, constituting 40 percent of all labor in that field by 1961. Of this number, 90 percent were engaged in social work. In the governmental

sector, a certain pattern of female employment emerged, with large numbers gravitating toward health and educational services. By 1966 educational and health services attracted 76 percent of all female workers employed by the government. During the same year, the following services attracted female labor: the transportation sector, the Suez Canal authority, housing, defense and security, cultural services, tourism, social services, scientific research, and financial and economic agen-

cies. The Nasser period witnessed the rise to prominence of some women in various areas, particularly in literature and education. Dr. Saheir alQalamawi was one of the first group of women to be admitted to Cairo

University. She founded the department of Arabic language studies there and was credited with developing a school of literary criticism. She also presided over the board of directors of the government-sponsored publishing authority. Another literary figure who integrated Cairo University in the early years was the short-story writer ‘Aishah ‘Abd alRahman. A conservative feminist, ‘Abd al-Rahman turned increasingly toward religious essays and became a household name on the pages of Cairo’s daily, Al-ahram. Another university figure was Saniyyah Qura‘a, who specialized in literary and historical writing and produced land-

mark studies on the history of Al-Azhar University. Women such as Aminah al-Sa‘id and Saheir Qalamawi rose to the highest ranks of the field of journalism and were appointed to the Higher Council of Journalism. Aminah al-Sa‘id became a member of the board of Al-/ilal and editor of a feminist journal, Hawa‘ (Eve). Nabihah al-Asfahani became the editor in chief of Al-styaseh al-dowaliyah (International policy), a publication of Al-ahram’s Center for Strategic Studies.

28 Chapter | Despite this impressive record accumulated in the 1950s and 1960s, Egyptian women actually lost their bases of power. Leadership of the

Arab Feminist Union slipped away from Egyptian hands following Sha‘rawi’s death. The headquarters of this organization shifted to Beirut, then to Damascus, and the presidency fell first to the Lebanese Ibtihaj Qaddurah, then to the Syrian ‘Adilah al-Jaza‘iri. Qaddurah again served as president between 1960 and 1966, then Saheir al-Qalamawi took the

position. Both the Arab Feminist Union and the Egyptian Feminist Union became shadows of their past selves, the latter becoming generally a club for the entertainment of the wives of visiting international dignitaries.°° Occasionally, a female voice would call for a greater effort on behalf of women, as with Aminah al-Sa‘id’s call for a revision of the

Shari‘a laws in 1967. There was even a serious call at one time to provide for more female representation in the official party. Early in 1970, Saheir al-Qalamawi called for the granting of half of all seats reserved for labor and for peasants within the Arab Socialist Union to women. Since Egyptian society was not prone to violence, she argued, Egyptians always reach their objectives after a long and patient struggle. Why not allow women to liberate the largest block in society? Have not women almost become half of the productive force in this country, she asked? Call this social justice, or equality of opportunity the socialist way, she wrote, but it all translates into the same thing.°’ Thus, the social and economic transformation of Egypt that began during the early years of this century greatly accelerated under Nasser. The net impact of these changes on women was immense, even though women did not achieve all of their declared goals, especially reforming the Shari‘a. Yet this social and economic mobilization did not empower women politically but merely allowed restricted political participation. Economic opportunities in the context of increased urbanization, however, made women, especially petit bourgeois women, available to all forms of mobilization. The cumulative effect of releasing the untapped economic and social forces of Egyptian society made entire classes, including women, available for political mobilization.

2| Che Cransformat ior of Class and Communal Relat ions

The manner in which the petite bourgeoisie was transformed in the twentieth century caught the eye of Islamic writers, who generally deny the relevance of class analysis to Muslim history and society. Since all Muslims were members of al-ummah, an ideal community based on the bonds of religious fraternity, class divisions and class conflict do not apply. In their view, the only possible conflict was between divergent and opposing communities, not between members of the same Islamic community. This view was based on direct quotations from the Qur‘an and the Prophet himself that alluded to the brotherhood of all Muslims

and their equality in the eyes of God. This new emphasis on communalism, solidarity, and equality is also based on a firm beliefin Islam’s call to social justice and liberation.’ The rise of Islamic fundamentalism

since the 1970s sparked renewed interest in early Islamic history and the rediscovery of the sociology of Islam. Since most modern Islamic political thought is inspired by the early period of classic Islam, the sociopolitical milieu of pre-Islamic Mecca and Medinah have been subjected to greater interest and scrutiny than ever before. Class conflict is said to have prevailed during that period only to be replaced by egalitarlanism among members of the succeeding early Islamic ummah. Some radical Islamic scholars today claim that class conflict was partially responsible for the rebellion that was Islam. Thus, the pre-Islamic Meccan city-state is now portrayed as an oligarchic community, presided over by a tribal aristocracy that ruled a mass of slaves, clients, destitute people, small traders, and the lower strata of the bourgeoisie. Because the op29

30 Chapter 2 pressed classes were made up of tribally divergent Arab groups, as well

as Persian, Abyssinian, and Byzantine slaves, only a universalist and egalitarian ideology could motivate and unite them against the Meccan aristocracy. Such was the allure of the message of Islam, it is now believed, that the new religion attracted large numbers of converts by evolving as a doctrine of liberation and a message of social justice and equality.’ Several current Islamic writers draw an analogy between conditions prevailing at the birth of Islam and conditions surrounding the modern

revival of Islam. The key strata in society, then and now, is the lower bourgeoisie, burdened by onerous economic conditions and discriminated against by the heathen aristocracy above them. A great effort is thus expended on detailing the emergence of this strata in Egyptian cities and its suffering under the royalist and officers’ regime. Interestingly, Coptic writers also use this analysis to explain the unusual activism displayed by the Coptic religious hierarchy during the 1970s. Both cases provide a clear background for the activism of the 1970s. These writings also offer a better understanding of the recent emphasis on women’s issues.

One of these views focuses on the perpetual tension within the two strata of the bourgeoisie, specifically between children of the uppermiddle and lower-middle classes. Since the beginning of this century and due to a special historical configuration, the upper-middle class

monopolized positions of authority and controlled most sources of wealth. The antagonism and grievance of the lower stratum has taken a religious form, partly because of the type of education that shaped and

molded the attitudes of the ruling group. It should be recalled that children of the upper-middle class have received their education mostly in schools influenced by Westernization. Some were even educated at European universities, where they imbibed principles of liberalism and democratic political tendencies. Those who did not benefit from this type of education fought back by accusing the upper stratum of exposure to secularist education. Succumbing to liberalism and accepting Western democracy, the traditionalists said, contradicted Islamic principles and constrained the Shari‘a.* The rise of the lower-middle class, on the other hand, began during

the 1930s and became visible in the early 1950s. Those in this layer who arrived at the sources of wealth and power began to take on the characteristics of the bourgeoisie, the same characteristics of the hated

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 31

upper-middle class. Instead of resolving this tension between members of the same class, the lower-middle class intensified differences separating the two to replace the upper-middle class at the helm of the Egyptian state.*

The rise of Islamic extremism beginning in the 1970s, however, should not imply that members of the lower-middle class are destined to be radicalizers and destructive elements. This stratum produced some of the great nationalist leaders who fought for Egypt’s independence and sovereignty, including Sa‘ad Zaghlul, Mustafa al-Nahaas, Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak. It is also difficult to ignore the background of the leaders of the Islamic radical groups or to

overlook the fact that they came from the ranks of the professional middle class. For instance, those involved in the Islamist attack against the Military Technical College in 1974 were graduates of the medical, engineering, and military technical colleges. Their fathers, true to the origins of this stratum, were mostly government employees and members of the petite bourgeoisie in the cities and villages of Egypt.° But it would be misleading to conclude that the lower-middle class that emerged in the early twentieth century acquired its identification with Islamic ideology only in the 1970s. A closer examination of the beginnings of Egyptian modernization reveals that the culture of that stratum suffered massive erosion and retreat as a result of industrializa-

tion and was always religious and traditionalist, whether Muslim or Coptic. The outlook of this traditionalist culture was shaped by religious hegemony over the existing system of education. Both the Islamic and Coptic religious establishments maintained control over the entire system of village religious schools. The Muslim schools led to al-

Azhar, Egypt’s foremost religious university and the one institution tapped by Muhammad ‘Ali’s first educational missions to European countries. Muhammad ‘Ali’s modernization momentum, however, necessitated the use of foreign teachers and the introduction of Westerninspired curricula in Egyptian schools. This aggressive and accelerated educational reform program created an irresolvable dualism symbolized

by those who donned the fez and those who continued to wear the turban.° Since most of the educational missions during Muhammad ‘Ali’s period were selected from al-Azhar and its network of Islamic village schools, Coptic schools were left behind. Only wealthy Copts could

educate their children abroad. But no sooner did Pope Kyrelos IV

32 Chapter 2 begin his educational reforms during the mid-nineteenth century than the invasion of Protestant and Catholic educational missions began, resulting in increased competition between the two missionary groups

as well as with the Orthodox Coptic Church. The net result was a dramatic increase in the number of modern schools catering to Coptic children. Because the state directed the modernization of schools in the nineteenth century, the mosque school declined and al-Azhar felt left out. By contrast, the Coptic Church was afforded a genuine opportunity to take charge of the community’s education. This process did not eliminate friction between those educated in Egypt and those educated overseas or at European- and American-directed schools. In time, a gap developed between those who were exposed to foreign education and the conservative clergy, who received their education domestically. This dichotomy between the clergy and the Coptic elite widened with the establishment of lay councils. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Coptic modernized elite established direct contact with the state through the lay councils, thereby bypassing the clerical church hierarchy, which retained legitimacy only in the countryside.’ The Coptic Church, therefore, faced great challenges in this century. Not only did it lose its right to represent the entire community vis-a-vis the state, but it also faced defections to the two Western-directed missionary churches, Protestant and Catholic. The pressure on the church to modernize increased greatly over the years, culminating in the elec-

tion of the modernizing Pope Shenoudah in 1971 and the massive return of Protestant and Catholic Copts to the mother church. The Pope’s rise to power signaled the rise of a Coptic middle class in competition with the wealthy landowning and commercial upper class repre-

sented by the Westernized Coptic elite. This competition within the Coptic national community drove the upper and middle classes to the Wafd and Communist parties before the 1940s. After the elimination of all political parties by the officers’ regime, the middle class rejoined the church, this time to establish a base from which to compete with the upper class, who were allies of the state. The return to the church was conditional upon the modernization of the institution of the church, a task pioneered by Habib Girgis, who strove to educate the clergy and lay following. The vehicle for this church revival, a process stretching over half a century, was the institution of the Sunday school. Begun in

1918 as a means of combatting Coptic defection to rival Christian missions, the Sunday schools acquired a social welfare role in the 1940s

and a political role in the 1950s. By educating the mass of Coptic

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 33

people in the tenets of their native faith and the history of their ancient community, Sunday schools attracted members of the Coptic middle class to the native church.®

The leadership of the Coptic Church itself underwent substantial transformation beginning in the 1940s. This process was symptomatic of the frustration of the Egyptian middle class. But while the Muslim middle class turned to secret activities, especially within the army, the Coptic middle class took a route typical of most minority politics, seeking to revolutionize its own particularist institution in Egyptian society—the church. During this silent revolution, Shenoudah’s generation

migrated back to the church to give voice to the grievances of their class. While the church attracted new leadership groups in the 1940s, it

increased its following dramatically during the 1960s and after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Thus, the leadership and modernizing generation that began to flock to the church in the 1940s reached positions of power twenty years later. This phenomenon coincided with an increasing number of youths joining the church, itself an expression of the ailing general national condition. The migration of young people to the church was undoubtedly caused by the church’s demonstration of concern for social problems confronting the young and interest in daily public affairs.’

There were similarities and differences in the metamorphosis of the Islamic institution in Egypt, especially where religious-state relations were concerned. The Islamic institution faced the dilemma of how to reconcile heritage, of which it always acted as the guardian, and the new modernized environment around it. This situation caused a split in the entire populace, some siding with al-Azhar and some with the modernizing state. Under the Nasser and Sadat governments, al-Azhar developed a dualistic response to the state to salvage its own autonomy and prestige. On the official level, the university seemed to be obedient to the state, accepting all formal responsibilities assigned to it. But on the level of intellectual thought and educational practice, al-Azhar continued to offer a traditional and heritage-laden thought that quietly contradicted the modernistic and socialistic premise of the state. This policy assured the continuity of al-Azhar as an institution, since no Muslim government could easily oppose the teaching and dissemination of the Islamic heritage. This traditionalist retrenchment, which survived under

the intrusive eye of the state, militated against the development of modernist Islamic thought. Thus, even when Islamic reformist schools developed at the begin-

34 Chapter 2 ning of this century, they were tolerated only if they developed within the confines of this institution. But when some reforming sheikhs who participated in public life as educators, jurists, and literary writers attempted to force reform in the name of al-Azhar, either the mosque or the state silenced them. Such was the fate of ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq in the 1930s, who denied the canonical necessity of the caliphate. Any Islamic reform movement had no choice but to side with the state and incur the wrath of the religious institution.’ While al-Azhar produced some of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and advocates of fundamental change, such as ‘Abd alRaziq and Taha Hussein, the university itself maintained its outer armor against intellectual change. This confrontation only widened the gap between the attitudes of the city and the village. Under Nasser’s socialist government, however, the state needed to control al-Azhar and its religious educational network, just as it sought control of all of Egypt’s institutions. Al-Azhar was skillfully transformed from a distinct institute of higher religious training into a regular educational institution, thereby permitting controlled modernization and the infiltration of Azhari scholars into various governmental positions. These changes produced a new wave of religious protest that at first manifested itself as political diatribes delivered in the course of public religious sermons. The rural origins of one of the better-known stars of religious sermonizing in the 1970s, Sheikh ‘Abd al-Hamid Kishek, and his rise to popu-

larity under the wing of al-Azhar illustrate the phenomenon of the university in public life. But other luminaries existed in the field of political sermonizing during the 1970s, including Muhammad alMahilawi. Sheikh Muhammad Mitwalli al-Sha‘rawi specialized in deliv-

ering sermons on social issues and Muhammad al-Ghazzali and Dr. Yousef al-Qirdhawi on cultural and civilizational issues. All of these leaders attracted large crowds, especially Sheikh Kishek, whose sermons

circulated on cassette tape. Al-Azhar was finally able under Sadat to produce sheikhs with populist followings, a phenomenon absent from the reform strain of Azharite thinking in previous decades."! The institutional control of al-Azhar and the entire Islamic religious establishment begun under Nasser went beyond modernizing al-Azhar’s curriculum. The entire Islamic institutional hierarchy felt the impact of

socialist controls. By the 1950s the Islamic institution in Egypt was constituted entirely of al-Azhar sheikhs, headed by the Great Imam of al-Azhar mosque. There were also the mufti of all Egypt, the head of

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 35

the Islamic legal system, and various clerical committees, such as the Committee of Senior Clerics (‘ulema), and the Institute of Islamic Research (Majma‘ al-Buhuth al-Islamiyyah). The minister of religious bequests and trusts (al-awgaf), a government appointee, was chosen from the same Azharite group. Associated with these groups but considered outside of the mainstream institution are the sheikhs of Islamic mystical orders. Nasser’s regime placed men loyal to the regime at the head of these organizations. The Committee of Senior Clerics was disbanded, and the position of Sheikh al-Azhar became appointed rather than elected. By 1960, the Grand Sheikh of the mystical orders became subject to the office of the deputy president, ‘Abd al-Hakim ‘Amer. The religious institution appeared to be loyal to state objectives, whether in the domestic or international arena, throughout this period. Contro-

versial state measures including neutralism, family planning, and nationalization laws were warmly supported. Only the issue of reforming the Shari‘a on behalf of women elicited the strong protest of the Islamic institution. Significantly, there was no attempt to control the Coptic religious institution during Nasser’s presidency.” One explanation for the absence of anti-Coptic confrontational tactics on behalf of the government before the Sadat era was the church’s relative depoliticization. The Coptic community insulated its church from the vagaries of political life by assigning the role of communal

protector and representor not to the church but to the Westernized elite. They, in turn, became influential participants in national affairs in

the 1930s and 1940s through their membership in political parties, especially the Wafd. Not until the rise of Pope Shenoudah to the top leadership position in the church did the Coptic religious institution face the confrontational tactics of the state. But the insularity of the church before the 1970s did not preclude the rise of a nonofficial religiopolitical party, the Coptic Nation, and an inevitable clash with its Islamic counterpart.

There could be no doubt but that the Coptic Nation (Jama‘at alUmmah al-Qibtiyah) grew in response to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, partly because the latter disturbed the existing Coptic-Muslim

equilibrium in cities. Since both communities had previously sought representation through membership in political parties with the Copts dominating al-Wafd and leftist parties, the rise of an unofficial Islamic political party like the brotherhood prompted a response, al-Ummah al-Qibtiyah, a development of the mid-1940s that was greatly influ-

36 Chapter 2

enced by the Sunday school network. The Coptic Nation, however, symbolized the reaction of Copts in the city, where they had always predominated, to the rising tide of the Islamic Brotherhood. The broth-

erhood, on the other hand, represented the rebellion of the recently arrived rural people against increasing Westernization, against the presence of privileged European elements in the city, and against the erosion of traditional values in favor of the social values of industrialization.!*

Since the brotherhood failed to move beyond general statements on tolerance, confessional freedom, and equality of Muslims and other minorities, enough space was left for the emergence of genuine antiCoptic sentiment. Thus, an extreme faction of the brotherhood emerged in 1940 under the name of Shabab Sayyidna Muhammad (Muhammad’s young men), totally denying the legitimacy of any un-Islamic historical identity that preceded Egyptian Islam. This group directed much of its attacks against Salamah Musa, the great Coptic writer, accusing him of linking the destiny of Egypt’s Christians with that of world Christians against Egypt’s Muslims. Shabab Muhammad also rejected the idea of excluding foreigners and non-Islamic minorities from the jurisdiction of the Shari‘a, claiming that the Shari‘a applied to all.'* Just as the brotherhood and Shabab Muhammad were populist movements, so was the Coptic Nation. This organization succeeded in establishing many political centers as well as various social welfare institutions to assist and recruit the poor. The Coptic Nation called for the revival and teaching of the Coptic language to strengthen the community’s identity.’’ Although the movement was forcibly disbanded by the state in 1954, echoes of its ideology, particularly its nostalgia for the

Pharaonic age, resurfaced later in the thought of expatriate Coptic communities in Europe, the United States, and Australia.’ Events leading to the banning of the Coptic Nation were proof of its radical ideol-

ogy. The nation was outlawed after an attempted kidnapping of the Coptic Pope in 1954 following the failure of an attempt to alter the papal election laws of the church.’”

The failure of the Muslim Brotherhood to seize power in the late 1940s and its demise at the hands of the officers’ regime resulted in the greatest traumatic crisis of the revivalist movement. While Islamic apologists today emphasize the democratic tenor of the brotherhood and its demonstrated willingness before the revolution to enter the mainstream of politics, Nasserites and Marxists accuse the brotherhood of fascist

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 37

tendencies. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. The brotherhood did devise a comprehensive Islamic program and did attempt to engage in legitimate politics, but it also engaged in violence. Hasan alBanna, the supreme guide, ran for a parliamentary seat from Isma‘iliyah, and his followers also ran for office in 1951. The Muslim Brotherhood, it is now understood, was willing to abide by a gradualist approach that would prepare society for the Islamic state. This became the philosophy of the moderate revivalist Islamic movement of the 1970s. But clashes

with the officers’ regime after 1952 set the brotherhood on a different course.!8

Thus, the immediate background of the Islamic revival movement of the 1970s and its previous confrontation with Coptic elements in the 1940s explain some of its later rigidity and preoccupation with women’s

issues. But two other aspects of the confrontation with the officers’ regime—the prison experience of Muslim leaders and activists and their migration to the Arab oil states—contribute greatly to an understanding of Islamic extremism. This extremism of the 1970s battled Copts, challenged the regime and lackadaisical Muslims, and sought to reframe the women’s issue. The brotherhood’s conflict with the Egyptian state preceded Nasser’s rule by many years. The first blow was struck by the state, which during the government of Mahmoud Fahmi al-Nugqrashi ordered the forcible

disbanding of the brotherhood in the late 1940s. This order was accompanied by a wave of detentions and persecutions aimed at suppressing the organization and its secret army, al- Nitham al-Khas. This policy led to the assassination of Nuqrashi and a retaliatory blow that ended al-Banna’s life. Violence and counterviolence between the Ministry of the Interior and the brotherhood did not end with the overthrow of the royalist regime: conflict was simply suspended while the brotherhood

negotiated new terms of cooperation with the officers’ regime. Dialogue between the brothers and the officers culminated in a total confrontation and an attempt on Nasser’s life that brought on the wrath of the Nasser regime in 1954 and a wave of mass arrests and the widespread use of torture in the 1960s. It is reported that Hasan al-Hudhaybi,

the brotherhood’s second supreme guide, debated younger brotherhood members while he was in jail on the issue of violence. He later published a refutation of the theory of violence under the title Du ‘at la guahat (Advocates, not judges).’ Islamic writers today emphasize the intensity of the philosophic revo-

38 Chapter 2 lution that took place inside Nasser’s jails. This experience led the prisoners to anathematize the government, which they considered godless for using violence against them. The imprisoned brothers also anath-

ematized society in general for maintaining its silence in the face of governmental oppression.”° Legitimizing violence as a religious response to oppression began with the rediscovery of the medieval Islamic writer Ibn Taymiyyah, who advocated violence as a way of defending Islamic society against the Tartar invaders, declaring the Tartars to be heathens,

worthy of extermination. Added to this strain of thought was the discovery of Abu al-A‘la Mawdudi’s writings on Islamic society and government and the Pakistani scholar’s impact on Sayyid Qutub. One of the most prominent Islamic prisoners in the Nasser period, Qutub also described modern Egyptian society as heathen in his two books, Ma ‘alem

fi al-tarig (Signposts along the way) and Fi thilal al-Qur‘an (In the shadow of the Qur‘an). Like Mawdudi, he called for submission only to God’s rule, which entailed declaring the existing system of rule to be heathen (jahz/z). Qutub called for a dedicated Qur‘anic generation and an Islamic vanguard to rid society of the Taghut, a Qur‘anic behemoth. Once the cleansing was done, societal structure would be redrawn along totally Islamic lines, and all relationships, especially those between men and women, would be reordered. Splits within the Muslim Brotherhood’s prison ranks began to occur in the late 1950s. The first splinter group emerged in 1958 led by Nabil al-Bur‘i, who called for armed violence against the state and society and for the application of Ibn Taymiyyah’s revolutionary program.”? Massive imprisonment under Nasser brought forth another unfore-

seen development, emigration. At first, this phenomenon produced significant changes only among members of the Islamic community. But after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Copts also felt the impact of years of exile. The Islamic emigration, which was brought on by the persecutions and imprisonments of the 1950s and 1960s, reinforced the fundamentalist tendencies of brotherhood members and significantly affected their attitude toward wealth, women, and veiling, largely because of the direct assistance extended by the Saudi government. The Islamic moderate reformer Muhammad al-Ghazzali, for instance, praised the Saudi royal family openly for its great improvement of the pilgrimage season. He also praised all Saudis for being faithful observants of their religion in a land that was a model of Islamic government.” But while Egyptian Islamic fundamentalists were exposed to a more

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 39

stringent Islamic society based on rules of the Shari‘a, they also saw a new kind of wealth. In the Persian Gulf countries, Egyptians began to associate wealth with faith and to acquire new consumer habits.?* These habits were contrary to what Sayyid Qutub had taught, especially in Almustagbal li-hatha al-din (The future belongs to this religion). In his book, he claimed that Europe lost its way to God because of the Renaissance and the age of industrialization.“* Egyptian Islamic immigrants, however, forgave the Saudis because their wealth was Islamic and was generated by the Shari‘a. Emigration to the Gulf countries, especially to Saudi Arabia after the persecutions of 1954, afforded Muslim Brothers unprecedented opportunities to generate wealth in partnership with Saudi and international investors. ‘Umar al-Talmasani, the supreme guide, noted in the 1980s the appearance of the phenomenon of Islamic banking in Egypt and its derivation from outside sources of wealth. Companies such as al-Rayyan and al-Sa‘ad became distinct Islamic banking institutions.”° One of the symbols of the newfound wealth and power of the Islamist groups of the 1970s was the monthly magazine Al-da ‘wa. Originally published by Salih ‘Ashmawi, the magazine was among the few organs of the Muslim Brotherhood that was allowed to continue publishing after 1953. The officers tolerated it because of Nasser’s awareness of the existence of friction between its founder and al-Hudhaybi. Both A/da‘wa and ‘Ashmawi escaped the Nasser persecutions. The voice of the reform wing of the Islamist movement, this journal reappeared in 1976, when Sadat gave permission to the Muslim Brotherhood to publish but not to operate as a political party. Publication of Al-da ‘wa was suspended in September 1981. After al-Hudhaybi’s death

in 1973 and the emergence of ‘Umar Talmasani as the voice of the brotherhood, ‘Ashmawi placed Al-da‘wa at Talmasani’s disposal, signaling the transformation of the magazine into the most authoritative of the Islamist journals. The magazine was placed under the management of the Islamic Publication and Distribution Company, and circulation quickly climbed to 78,000, according to a statement by its auditor designed to attract advertisers. The pages of Al-da‘wa served as the most reliable indicator of organized Islamist economic power. Its pages carried advertisements, including those for Islamist bookshops, food companies, foreign car dealerships, and imported clothes. Even Bank Misr placed a full-page advertisement in July 1981. The bank called attention to its Islamic operations, which promised to manage some

40 Chapter 2 investments according to Shari‘a rules. Some of the advertisers represented companies in the public sector, but at least 80 percent of the advertisements came from private companies. Three single advertisers represented half of all advertisements by private companies—al-Sharif plastics, al-Massara real estate company, and a foreign car dealer special-

izing in Japanese imports. All three were Muslim Brothers who made their wealth in Saudi Arabia after the 1950s. These magnates, moreover, benefited from the improved business climate resulting from the policy of znfitah, or opening to the West. The intimate connection to Sadat’s economic policy was a far cry from the activities of the Jihad groups. These groups sent their members to the Gulf countries in the

| 1970s to finance revolutionary operations against the Sadat regime.” Egyptian exposure to the economic opportunities of the Gulf countries was not limited to the brotherhood. A whole strata of the rural and urban lower-middle class emigrated following a change in Egyptian policy after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In addition to the accumulation of wealth, this class was also exposed to the social practices and values of

| the Arab oil countries, including their consumer habits.”” This strata, which had initially benefited from the redistribution of land and the general economic policies of the Nasser regime, faced increasing hard-

ship after Sadat’s policy of infitah. Thus, while the number of rural families living below the international poverty line in 1958 was around

35 percent, by 1965 it dropped to 26.8 percent. By 1974, under the impact of Sadat’s economic policies, the number of rural families living below the poverty line rose to 43.3 percent, largely because limits on

landownership were increased to two hundred acres. Even when no consideration is given to the rising cost of living, this phenomenon alone drove huge numbers of families to emigrate to the oil countries.”® If the economic emigration to the Gulf countries created new wealth in Egypt and exposed the immigrants to new Islamic social values, the earlier forced Islamic migration produced the articulation of these values. In a memoir on her prison experience in Nasser’s jails, the Islamic

female activist Zeinab al-Ghazzali described her contacts with Saudi officials while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 1950s. The amount of assistance extended to the beleaguered brothers and their families was apparently extensive. In addition to economic assistance and new employment opportunities, a large number of Islamic women were enrolled in Saudi schools.”? Egyptians in the Gulf countries thus experienced a cultural transformation and began to associate the new abun-

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 4]

dance and wealth with Islamic practices and even with the Islamic outer dress. Many believed that prosperity was a reward from God for strict observance of Islamic laws and practices. Islamic companies specializing in commerce were established in Egypt upon the immigrants’ return, and disappointing economic conditions in Egypt encouraged others to

emulate the Gulf countries. The new dress habits—beards and long djellabas for men and the veil for women—became symbols of a newly

acquired Islamic identity that was accompanied by the expansion of private Islamic schools and other institutions.*° This profound transformation of the Egyptian scene, nevertheless, went unnoticed by the Egyptian Left. Some of the Marxist leadership of Egypt during that period, while fully aware of the deterioration of the country’s economic condition, did not focus on the increasing strength of the Right. Mahmoud Amin al-‘Alim, a leading Marxist, wrote that

political parties and groups were not cognizant of the significance of the massive migration of peasants to the cities, partly because the Left was preoccupied with Sadat’s dismantling of the Arab Socialist Union. Sadat’s destruction of this significant edifice of socialism was carried out in the name of the greater democratization of Egyptian politics. Thus, the Left was caught off guard and, instead of including these new urban

arrivals in national politics, left the entire field of popular politics to rightist and religious forces. Al-‘Alim believed that this rural migration, which was caused by the inflationary consequences of Sadat’s infitah, placed these despondent and impoverished masses at the disposal of the returned and revived Islamist forces. The Islamists were welcomed back

to the mainstream of Egyptian politics by a Sadat anxious to defeat Nasserite elements of power. Although this mass influx to Islamic groups

and institutions began as a flight toward Islamic heritage in search of solutions to the endemic problem of poverty, it ended up as an expansion of the returned small bourgeoisie from the Gulf countries. Al‘Alim warned, however, that this Islamic bourgeoisie was not autonomous or national in character but was linked to international capitalism.* The Coptic emigration, on the other hand, produced a revolution in church-state relations rather than a comprehensive social and political change such as the Islamic emigration. The Coptic emigration was for economic reasons, dating to the 1950s and 1960s, and was not caused by persecutions. It was also mostly a flight to Western rather than to conservative Islamic countries. While the Coptic community was not

42 Chapter 2 subjected to harassment and persecutions by the Nasser regime, it did not escape the consequences of his economic and political reforms. The

immediate loss for the Copts was the elimination of the multiparty system that existed before the 1952 revolution, which deprived them of a national role as influential members of certain secular political parties, such as al-Wafd. In addition, Nasser’s nationalization measures targeted

capitalist institutions and cut a deep swath within the ranks of the Coptic bourgeoisie.* Relations between the Coptic Church and the state under Nasser, however, were generally excellent, largely because of Nasser’s open secular orientation and his determined campaign to curb the power and influence of the Islamic Brotherhood. Relations between Nasser’s government and the church were not only legally correct, they were always characterized by respect for the autonomy of the church. When the highest ecclesiastical council in the church decided to remove the Pope in 1955, for instance, Nasser backed the decision without any transgression on the church’s authority. First, the Coptic Council referred its decision to the Egyptian president and awaited governmental approval. Nasser reaffirmed the decision of the Coptic Council by issuing a presidential order removing the Pope. Thus, there was no interference in the action, which was seen as an expression of the will of the majority of the Coptic people. Other gestures, such as:Nasser giving permission to construct the Great Cathedral of Cairo in 1967 and his personal attendance at its inauguration ceremonies and donation of £100,000 toward the cost, are still remembered with gratitude. Nasser’s personal relations with Pope Kyrelos VI were extremely cordial.**

The warming of their relationship began with the revelation that Pope Kyrelos resisted a foreign attempt to induce a Coptic rebellion that was to culminate in the establishment of a Coptic state in the south of Egypt with Asyut as its capital. Kyrelos supposedly learned of this plot while on a state visit to Ethiopia and interrupted his stay there to stave off the rebellion. The Coptic community rewarded Nasser with total adhesion to his foreign policy goals. Shenoudah himself was one of Nasser’s great supporters before his election as Pope. While still a journalist, Shenoudah delivered a memorable lecture in 1965 at the Journalists’ Union building in defense of Nasser’s policy toward Israel. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Copts, church and community alike, were extremely supportive. The Copts’ position was later strengthened by the Israeli takeover of a Coptic property, Deir al-Sultan Monas-

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 43

tery near Jerusalem. More important, however, the Egyptian state un-

der Nasser was in full control of the country. No sectarian attacks disturbed the communal peace, a situation that was greatly appreciated by the Copts, especially in retrospect.** The emigration of the Coptic community to Western countries later introduced changes in the political posture of the church, and it strained church-state relations to an unprecedented degree. In the 1950s and early 1960s, substantial waves of upper-middle-class Copts left to escape Nasser’s nationalization decrees and life in a socialist state. Coptic

youths began to leave the country in large numbers because of the decline of the private economic sector. Since this emigration was directed toward Western countries, it provided a significant political opportunity when relations between the United States and the Sadat regime began to improve. When Muslim-Coptic communal strife developed in the 1970s, the expatriated Coptic community began to bring reports of Coptic persecutions to the Western press, hoping that the United States would pressure the Sadat government. This development also generated a great deal of pressure by the expatriated Coptic community on their own church in Egypt. The ¢migrés demanded that serious pressure be applied to the Egyptian government to force the cessation of Islamic acts of violence. With the development of Coptic institutions in exile, such as the American Coptic Committee, and with the articulation of Coptic grievances on the pages of U.S. Coptic journals, a reinforced Coptic national identity began to emerge. Extremist

notions shelved in Egypt as of the 1930s, such as the claim that the Copts were the purest Egyptian race and the Arabs merely alien colonizers, began to circulate. That the mood of Egypt’s remaining Coptic community was more restrained and realistic did not dampen the expatriates’ enthusiasm. The outside Coptic community continued to clamor for Western pressure against Egyptian authorities.*° The Egyptian Coptic Church itself began to widen and improve its contacts with foreign churches in the West after the 1967 war, when younger cadres of the church ascended the leadership ladder. While the church shunned such contacts in the past for fear of jeopardizing its nationalist standing in Egypt, in the 1960s such contacts were seen as necessary and modernizing. This view increased the ever-present risk of exciting the suspicion of the Muslim community, which has historically regarded the West and especially its churches as potential adversaries. The Copts, however, were anxious to gain acceptance for their church

44 Chapter 2 in foreign circles to remove the stigma of backwardness and doctrinal impurity. At first, these contacts served Egyptian national goals well. Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, for instance, the Coptic Church utilized its foreign church contacts to promote the Egyptian national foreign policy program.*°

When the intent was to bring pressure on the Egyptian government, however, foreign church contacts were not acceptable to the mass of Egyptians, in part because of the historic reluctance of the Coptic Church

to cooperate with Christian foreign invaders in the past, which made foreign contacts unacceptable and unprecedented. Because the Copts failed to cooperate, the Crusaders forbade them to perform the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on the pretense that they were heathens. When the Crusaders took the Egyptian city of Dimyat, they mistreated its Coptic population and appointed over it a Latin bishop. During the ‘Urabi revolt in the nineteenth century, the Copts supported the majority of the population against the British. The Coptic patriarch declared the British traitors of Christian dogma and teaching. Thus, it was a great shock to the Egyptian body politic, particularly to Sadat, when the Copts took their complaint against Muslim attacks to the Western press. Such unprecedented accusations appeared first in 1972 and later in the pages of the Manchester Guardian and the New York Times. The campaign against the Egyptian government that coincided with the Camp David negotiations in 1978 and with Sadat’s visit to Washington was seen as a deliberate embarrassment to the Egyptian president.*”

Therefore, the second half of the twentieth century witnessed the transformation not only of class relations but also of communal relations. Both direct and indirect mobilizations of the Egyptian communities have occurred. The lower-middle strata of society within these two communities were the first target of this mobilization. Some of these changes were a direct result of Nasser’s socialist decrees, which opened up new employment opportunities, especially for women, and provided free university education for children of the lower-middle class. But the other side of these socialist measures closed many economic opportunities to all elements of the Coptic community. Muslim transformation came as a result of violent confrontation with the Nasser regime. Of fundamental significance here was the resultant violent outlook on life and on Muslim society in general, which represented the beginning of radical Islamic thought. Also important is the flight of large numbers of Islamic elements to the Arab oil countries in

The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 45

search of a safe haven and economic opportunity. Experiencing Islamic affluence generated by the oil wealth as well as life in traditional Islamic societies produced the Egyptian Islamic mind-set of the 1970s. Islamic dress habits, including veiling for women, and Islamic investment and

banking practices appeared in Egypt in the 1970s, introduced by the returned persecuted Islamic elements and by the poor rural migrants who left the country following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Failed socialist economics and failed political integration of the Islamic extremists

brought the Arab Gulf societies, with their distinctly unmodern and unsocialist tendencies, to the heart of Egyptian society.

Coptic migrations, which brought the Copts for the first time into direct contact with Western societies, governments, and churches, produced a Coptic reluctance to settle communal feuds with Muslims domestically. Through these emigrations, the Copts experienced a boost in their ethnic and religious distinctiveness. All these factors eventually gave rise to a clash of ideology and religious expectations during the Sadat period. This process culminated in a deadly contest for influence over government as well as over society. The battle for people’s minds, in most cases, revolved around the two communities’ perceptions of the place of the ideal family in society and the role of women in this family. This contest would not have materialized in the absence of the cataclysmic economic and migratory changes of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The Islamic resurgence of the 1970s, nevertheless, did not originate the emphasis on women’s issues. As this book will show, organizing and mobilizing Islamic women within the agenda of Islamic fundamentalism dated back to the early days of the Islamic Brotherhood.

3 Che Islamic (Dobilization

One of the most widely circulated myths in Western literature regard-

ing Muslim women is that Islamic political movements require the enforced seclusion of all women. There is ample refutation of this belief

in Egypt’s recent history. Indeed, the induction of women into the ranks of early Islamic organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood parallels the liberal mobilization of Egyptian women—both were moti-

vated by political reasons. No one can fail to be impressed by the seriousness of this Islamic effort or the persistence of women’s organizations throughout the period of Nasser’s trials and persecutions. The

urge to enlist women in Islamic groups, furthermore, is evident in revolutionary organizations of the 1970s.

A little-known aspect of the pre-World War II Egyptian feminist movement is that it provided training and organizational experience to the future leader of the women’s auxiliary to the Muslim Brotherhood. This organization, founded in 1937, was known as the Muslim Sisterhood (Al-akhawt al-Muslimat), and was led by Labibeh Ahmad. After operating for many years at Cairo, the organization shifted its headquarters to Isma‘iliyah during World War I.! Ahmad had a long history of semi-secularist feminist activism before joining the Muslim Brotherhood. Early descriptions of her activities while president of the Society for the Renaissance of Egyptian Women (Jam‘iyat nahdhat al-sayyidat al-Misriyat) indicate a quiet proclivity for Islamic concepts and solu-

tions long before the final conversion to the doctrine of the brotherhood. Ahmad’s conversion to Islamic activism appears to have been 46

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 47

motivated by the vast array of social services that the brotherhood offered to poor residents of the major cities. In her earlier organization,

she devoted her effort to educating women of the poorer sections of Cairo about the nature of the British occupation. Before 1952 the brotherhood established five hundred educational units and one hundred nighttime classes for adult students. There were also fifty scout troops and twenty athletic clubs. Two elementary schools and twenty religious schools were operated primarily to teach the recitation of the Qur‘an. The brotherhood established ten textile shops to train orphaned and poor children. A health clinic and a medical dispensary were opened to take care of the needs of the brotherhood’s following. Several mosques were established at Isma‘iliyah and other places. Finally, each of the brotherhood’s branch offices was equipped with a section dealing with the settlement of all manner of disputes, including domestic ones.* Most of these services targeted the male population, but some also

benefited women. All of these projects helped Islamic youths to get over the hardship of city life. The Muslim Sisterhood was conceived as an effort to educate women in the ways of true Islamic behavior. The women’s centers were used to disseminate religious knowledge, to explain the duties and rights of Muslim women, and, most important, to explain the means of raising good Muslim children and keeping a Muslim home. Women were educated about the lives of female members of

the Prophet’s family. By 1935 a special program was established to teach general cultural topics to women. The same program established the system of home visits to women by experienced female workers to reach those not permitted to attend public meetings. Leaflets and publications addressing women exclusively were also produced.* The Muslim Sisterhood began simply as a women’s committee of the

brotherhood at Isma‘iliyah and Cairo, composed mainly of wives of male members. Ahmad, the most active woman available, became the president of the Muslim Sisterhood’s Cairo headquarters. At the time she served as the editor of a journal, Al-nahdha al-nisa%yah (Women’s renaissance), and held the presidency of her own organization, Jam‘iyat nahdhat al-sayyidat al-Misriyat, from 1921 until 1939. It was estimated that by 1948 there were fifty such women’s committees affiliated with

the brotherhood. Significantly, the general director of the sisterhood remained Hasan al-Banna, the supreme guide of the brotherhood. He alone was entrusted with the task of delegating a male secretary to act as

a liaison between the brotherhood and the sisterhood. A committee of

48 Chapter 3 twelve women selected through a secret ballot assisted the female president in directing the various committees of branches. This Committee of General Guidance included a vice-president, a treasurer, and a secre-

tary. Its only avenue to contact the brotherhood’s headquarters was

through al-Banna’s designated male liaison officer. Most of the sisterhood’s charitable projects were run according to a set of guidelines established by the Committee of General Guidance. These guidelines

were validated by the brotherhood’s Office of Guidance, which retained the right to amend the women’s guidelines in the interest of the general good. Membership qualifications, as well as the financial obligations of members, were the same for the women’s and men’s organizations.*

It appears, however, that until 1952 the women’s parallel organization did not participate in any of the brotherhood’s political debates or political advocacy work. Since Ahmad herself was more dedicated to social activism than to politics, she did not impart any political overtones to her organization. As to the brotherhood, its main goal was to educate the largest number of women in the principles of the faith. The ideal held up as the essence of Islamic womanhood was a woman who excelled in raising children for future recruitment to the ranks of the brotherhood. Thus, the ideal for women’s activism was presented as being a home bound but religiously enlightened woman who left the

home only to carry out the task of educating other women. Ahmad carried this philosophy a step farther by calling for the establishment of

a cultural club for women to educate and provide working skills for those in need. She even suggested that each province should have an Islamic women’s committee for recruitment purposes. After they were trained in food canning and processing, as well as sewing, the women sold their products through the women’s committee. Ahmad also suggested that two other tasks should be pursued by the women’s provincial committees: directing women to hospitals and charitable institutions and providing health education to village mothers. She demanded a general survey of all Muslim families in each province and village before undertaking these tasks, but the only place where her ideas were put into practice was al-Sayyidah Zeinab quarter of Cairo.° Ahmad succeeded in imparting a social welfare tone to the Muslim Sisterhood and its following, but she was less than enthusiastic for the causes dear to her secular feminist contemporaries. While still in charge of the Society for the Renaissance of Egyptian Women, Ahmad showed

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 49

little interest in the issue of veiling, calling for a very modest adjustment of the veil. While still an editor of Al-nahdha al-nisa Yyah in the 1920s, she joined the debate on the inadequacy of the prevailing marriage and divorce customs by claiming that one factor contributing to men’s lack of interest in early marriage was the young women’s disinterest in the domestic arts. Ahmad, however, called for levying a tax on single men

until they agreed to commit to early matrimony. She wrote that a woman owed her husband complete obedience—protecting his money and property, refraining from entertaining female friends except in the absence of her husband, maintaining a quiet demeanor when walking in public places, and avoiding noisy street corners. Al-nahdha al-nisatyah condemned divorce as the greatest cause of societal disruption and the misery of children. Ahmad did demand reform of the personal status law, especially its section on divorce. She called for new laws to demand clarification of the prospective husband’s financial and medical status as well as the maintenance of divorce laws according to the rules of the Qur‘an. She also suggested that family planning should be forced on poor families.° By 1937, following the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood on the national scene, a crisis concerning female students at the Law and Liberal Arts Colleges of Cairo University developed. Because of increased harassment of female students by their male colleagues, the female students appealed to the president of the university to add religious subjects to the curriculum, establish a dress code for female students, and segregate female students. Ahmad’s journal immediately followed this demand with a strong appeal to the government to end the coeducational system altogether because it violated Islamic religious teachings, a remarkable reversal considering the past difficulty in gaining public and official acceptance for the integration of the university.’ Labibeh Ahmad remained committed to providing social welfare services to women, but she never advocated equality or inducting women into the world of politics. Zeinab al-Ghazzali was also active in the Islamic Brotherhood and became an acknowledged Islamic leader and role model. Her relationship to the brotherhood went back to the founding days of the Muslim Sisterhood in 1937, and her life provides important glimpses into the early period of the sisterhood. According to al-Ghazzali, when al-Banna invited her to merge the Jama‘at al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat with the brotherhood, she and her executive committee rejected the idea. Thus, the

50 Chapter 3

Muslim Sisterhood was created as part of the brotherhood, while the Society of Muslim Women retained its independence. This arrangement did not diminish the bond between Ghazzali’s organization and the Muslim Brotherhood, but the women’s decision apparently left the supreme guide unhappy. The value of this independent women’s organization was realized in 1948, when it became the only group that remained outside the reach of government persecution: the decision to dismantle the brotherhood and seize its assets was not applied to the Society of Muslim Women. Al-Ghazzali was so moved by government attacks that she told the supreme guide during her last meeting with him before his assassination that she was willing to place her organization at his service, but he counseled her to postpone any action and agreed to communicate through her brother’s residence. This agreement inaugurated al-Ghazzali’s role as the secret weapon of the beleaguered brotherhood and its sole link to the outside world.® Al-Ghazzali’s activities on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood provide evidence of a different kind of feminist activism within the pre1952 Islamic movement. While Ahmad shunned political activity, al-Ghazzali was a political operator of the first order. She alone was responsible for the subsequent activity of numerous female family members of the brotherhood leadership. Al-Ghazzali stated in her memoirs

that al-Banna delegated to her the responsibility of healing the rift between the brotherhood and the ousted Wafdist prime minister, alNahaas, on the eve of al-Banna’s assassination. Al-Banna sought to form a front against the palace. She also wrote that al-Nahaas’s special emissary to the brotherhood, Amin Khalil, warned her of the impending assassination of al-Banna but that she was unable to relay this warning in time. Al-Ghazzali apparently was not prevented from frequenting the brotherhood’s headquarters, where she sometimes delivered lectures before an all-male audience. She continued her activities as a head of her own organization, defended its operations before a court of law in 1950, and resumed her leadership role again until 1952.’ Al-Ghazzali’s remarkable career illustrates another aspect of Islamic politics, namely the Islamic movement’s tolerance of some activist females and its willingness to relax the rules in times of crisis or great danger. Al-Ghazzali, it is clear today, was accepted as a valuable leader despite her gender. Not only did she receive prominent male politicians in her home, but she also influenced the brotherhood politically. Just

before the 1952 revolution, she received in her home Muhammad

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 51

Naguib, the future first president of Egypt, accompanied by a member of the Saudi royal family and other Islamic leaders. When the revolution ended the monarchy, al-Ghazzali continued to sow doubt in people’s hearts about the officers’ good intentions. She argued on the pages of the society’s journal that no brotherhood member should agree to join the officers’ cabinet until the latter consented to apply Islamic laws.

When the second supreme guide, Hasan al-Hudhaybi, asked her to postpone this campaign, she ceased her writing. She also boasted that from the 1950s onward, all her activities were subjected to the approval of the supreme guide.’° Al-Ghazzali’s greatest value to the brotherhood materialized following the trials of 1954, when she emerged as an organizer of a network of women to relay messages to the imprisoned brothers. At first, there were contacts with female relatives of al-Hudhaybi and Sayyid Qutub to coordinate relief efforts on behalf of families of the imprisoned brothers. Hamidah Qutub was asked to request Sayyid Qutub’s advice about

what books to use when rebuilding the Brotherhood’s network. Al-

Ghazzali then began the arduous task of tracing the location of recently , released brothers and passing to them Sayyid Qutub’s articles in order to rebuild the brotherhood. Young men from all over Egypt visited her house surreptitiously to organize, study, and rebuild. She claimed that all her efforts were educational in nature and that it was estimated that the educational effort to build an Islamic following would take up to thirteen years. If at that time surveys showed Egyptians, men and women, were ready to accept Islamic rule, then a public call for the reestablish-

ment of Islamic government would be issued. Throughout this secret campaign, al-Ghazzali remained in constant touch with the imprisoned Qutub through his female relatives. Al-Hudhaybi was a frequent lecturer before groups of young men at her home.” By that time al-Ghazzali had become indispensable to the Islamic effort in Egypt. She was an organizer, a treasurer, a dispenser of welfare assistance, a teacher, and a recruiter of men and women. Judging by the

events described in her book, she probably became the third most important leader after al-Hudhaybi and Qutub, especially during the second wave of persecutions, when by 1965 Nasser’s jails had swallowed up large numbers of brothers, including Qutub. Her imprisonment, however, followed Qutub’s, and she experienced the same kind of treatment as the imprisoned brothers. Clearly, the Nasser government regarded her just as important as Qutub and al-Hudhaybi and

52 Chapter 3 accused her of plotting to topple the government. Al-Ghazzali was so clear about the direction the brotherhood was taking that she insisted under interrogation that the brotherhood at this stage was merely preparing the ground for an Islamic revival. The brotherhood continued to project this view until the 1970s as a way of distinguishing itself from more radical and revolutionary Islamic groups. Even under torture, alGhazzali was also clear as to what her ideal role as an Islamic feminist and activist should be. When asked how she would rule the country if she held power, she insisted that many generations would pass before Islamic rule was realized. But when it was, she added, Muslim women would retreat to their natural domain as nurturers of the nation’s men.”

After the demise of Islamic organizations and the mass flight of Muslims and brotherhood followers to the Arab oil countries, a different phase of feminist activism began. This activism did not materialize until the 1970s and developed mostly in the universities. Because the universities were always the natural recruiting grounds for the Muslim Brotherhood, it was not surprising to see the spread of Islamic political thought among students. But until the 1970s, it seems that the broth-

erhood limited itself to organizing only male students. By the late 1930s it controlled many student cells, at both the university and the high school levels. Most of these student cells focused on women’s right to study and work, which they opposed vigorously.'* By the late 1940s, the brotherhood ran military training camps for their own followers with the approval of the Wafdist cabinet on the campuses of the universities of al-Azhar, Cairo, and ‘Ein Shams.'* The purpose of these camps was to prepare for the battle for Palestine. The Wafd cabinet tolerated this expansion of the brotherhood’s campus influence as a countervailing measure against the palace. The university also proved the ideal setting for establishing a model Islamic community that abided by all the rules and regulations of the Shari‘a as represented by Islamic activists.!° The infiltration of Islamic influence into the universities was particularly noticeable in the 1970s, when radical Islamic groups sought to prepare for a vigorous struggle against heathen society. Indeed the greatest increase in the spread of Islamic ideas was at the universities, so much so that Islamic students defeated all others for student government positions between 1975 and 1979.'° According to some experts, Islamist organizations, known collectively as Jama‘at Islamiyya, were the only branch of the Islamist movement possessing a genuine mass organization. Never officially regis-

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 53

tered as student organizations, the Jama‘at became a voice against the Sadat regime. Khalid al-Islambuli’s brother was one of the Jama‘at’s leaders at Asyut University. His ill treatment at the hands of the Egyp-

tian police led to Khalid’s decision to involve himself in the plot to assassinate Sadat. But the Jama‘at’s hostility toward the Sadat regime does not explain their rise to prominence on Egyptian campuses. Their success in transforming themselves from small clubs (usar, or families) devoted to cultural and religious studies during the Nasser period into an organized and militant movement under the Sadat government resulted from their early collaboration with the Sadat regime, which supported them in order to defeat Marxist and Nasserist student blocs. The link between the Islamist students and the Sadat regime was said to be Muhammad ‘Uthman Isma‘il, a former governor of Asyut who played a major role in Sadat’s consolidation of power and who encouraged the Jama‘at Islamiyya in Cairo and other parts of Egypt.'” Much of the power of the student movement in the 1970s was due

to rising numbers. Between 1970 and 1977, the number of students enrolled in public universities rose from just under 200,000 to about half a million. Free access to higher public education opened the door

to organized manipulation from outside. The ability of the Islamist movement to provide special services to its own student following, especially to its female students, soon established the Jama‘at as a domi-

nant force on university campuses. Female students who had always suffered assaults on their modesty as a result of packed lecture halls, congested buses from home to campus, and cheap and crowded lodging facilities welcomed the Islamists’ assistance. The Islamist paper, A/da‘wa, began to devote a column to news of the youth and their frus-

trations on university campuses. Complaints regarding the mixing of the sexes in the universities began to appear in print frequently, along with suggestions for safeguarding the dignity of female Muslim students. Veiling began to spread first among university students and was encouraged by the Jama‘at. A special minibus service for female students was first provided in March 1977, organized by the Jama‘at at the medical school of Cairo University. The service attracted more applicants than it could handle, enabling the Jama‘at to require the donning of Islamic dress as a necessary condition for the use of the minibuses.

The Jama‘at also demanded the segregation of male and female students by rows in lecture halls.'® Women in Islamic dress began to appear in large numbers in univer-

54 Chapter 3 sity lecture halls by the early 1970s. This phenomenon apparently met grave opposition from university professors, who sometimes dismissed students dressed this way. The battle against the veil soon reverberated

on the pages of the feminist press. In a memorable editorial on the pages of the feminist journal Hawa‘ on November 18, 1972, veteran feminist Aminah al-Sa‘id attacked the veils, calling them “these white garments, resembling the shrouds of the dead.”’’ A few months before that, on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Huda Sha‘rawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, Sa‘id dwelled on the virtues and merits of removing the veil. The choice of this occasion was also significant because it coincided with the first dramatic gesture of unveiling by Sha‘rawi, Cesa Nebrawi, and Nabawiyah Musa upon their return from an interna-

tional feminist meeting. Sha‘rawi became convinced during that journey that the veil was the greatest impediment to women’s progress and participation in public life. Al-Sa‘id recalled that although the men who assembled at Cairo’s railroad station to greet the returned women reacted with disgust, women in the crowd shed their own veils. From that point on, she insisted, women destroyed the last remaining obstacle on

the road to equal educational opportunity. The same movement to discard the veil, al-Sa‘id wrote, spread to other Arab countries. Leaders emulating the courage of Sha‘rawi, such as Ibtihaj Qaddurah in Lebanon and ‘Adilah ‘Abd al-Qader al-Jaza’iri in Syria, led antiveiling cam-

paigns in their own countries. The veil, she asserted, was truly the greatest enemy of civilization and progress.*° There have been many interpretations of the phenomenon of Islamic dress in recent writings. The return of the veil during the 1970s differed from the veiling custom during the early days of the Egyptian Feminist Union in that in place of a covering of the face the whole dress changed

to Islamic garb. Women were no longer wearing modestly tailored Western dresses along with a facial veil but a stricter form of dress, covering the body from head to toe. The Islamic veil, thus, was an invented garb to conceal the contours of the feminine physique and was intended to be devoid of any adornment. Writings of the leadership of

the Islamic groups emphasized the return to a female uniform and traditional male dress as well. The emphasis on Islamic dress for both

men and women went beyond the need to restrict women’s public roles.

In the writings of Saleh Siriyyah and Shukri Mustafa, two of the prominent figures of the Islamic Jihad groups of the 1970s, the issue of

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 55

a distinctive dress for both sexes took on political meaning. Shukri Mustafa, whose group was called by Egyptian security forces Al-Takfir

wa Hyra (Repentance and flight) and who was responsible for the assassination of Egypt’s minister of religious trusts, Sheikh Hussein Dahabi, in 1977, addressed this issue. Mustafa wrote that the true Muslim community should follow certain principles to establish its distinctiveness from other groups. Among these principles should be resisting any rival forms of worship or apostasy to communism, Baha‘ism, or Masonic organizations and the donning of Islamic dress. Saleh Sirriyah,

whose Jama‘at al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic liberation group) was responsible for the attack on the Military Technical College, considered the issue of Islamic dress important enough to call for strict measures. In his description of the proper punishment for those who opposed the

principles of Islam, he insisted that certain actions called for anathematization, punishable by death. Thus, those who complained against the system of 4udud (Islamic criminal law) were heathen and did not qualify as Muslims. More important, those who opposed Islamic dress for women and advocated indecent dress deserved to be killed. Sirriyah concluded that the difference between those who recognized their inadequacy by not following these practices and those who

ridiculed these customs is that the latter were heathen because they deliberately rejected Islam.” The Islamic veil was therefore important because it defined the Islamic movement and gave it an identity distinguishable from the rest of society. Any other explanation of the spread of the veil—attributing this custom to hard economic times and general inability to purchase Western clothes—is far from valid. Neither is it accurate to claim that women cleverly assumed the veil to facilitate their freedom of movement. The veil was conceived by the originators of the radical Jihad group as an assertion of the superiority of Islamic societal rules of the past, as well

as an identity symbol to separate the true believers from the quasi believers.

The veil also did not produce segregationist attitudes on the part of men and women of the new Islamist movement. The phenomenon of activist Islamic women on the campus refutes this theory. Egyptian journalistic literature abounds with accounts of campus incidents involving veiled women who often acted out their grievances jointly with Islamic men. As late as 1989, almost twenty years after the heyday of the radical Jihad groups, female students in Islamic dress were still

56 Chapter 3

making their presence felt on various campuses. In February of that year, veiled female students and Islamic male students protested what they considered to be harassment at Cairo University. The demonstration disrupted the minister of education’s motorcade and protested the continuing closure of prayer rooms at various colleges.”” Female students were obviously an important asset to Islamic groups. The phenomenon of the Jihad organizations dates back to the late 1960s, although it did not make its presence felt dramatically in Egypt

until the early 1970s. Reference has already been made to the role played by Nasser’s jails in the development of revolutionary, extremist

Islamic thought. First the writings of Qutub, then the movement of Mustafa, began to inspire various radical groups. The prison experiences of the Islamic Brotherhood during the Nasser period produced predictions of the total failure of socialism and secularism. The radicals then proceeded to make these predictions a reality. Living through the corruption and consumerism of the Sadat period strengthened the faith of the Islamic leadership in the Islamic alternative system.** Islamists refused to concede the logic of Sadat’s economic reforms and were outraged by his tilt to the West. They also did not appreciate his attempts to open the domestic economy to foreign capital. Having decried Nasser’s socialist measures, they complained against Sadat’s economic policies, including the weakening of the public sector and the creation of free zones to facilitate recovery in trade, industry, and finance. This change was announced in the “October paper,” which led to Law 43/1974 and made possible the inflow of foreign capital. Foreigners were invited to invest in vital areas of the Egyptian economy,

such as the oil industry, housing, and tourism. Joint ventures with Europeans were encouraged, and the regime began to explore the possibility of joining the European Common Market. But along with these measures, an effort was made to consolidate the alliances of the regime, a process that entailed raising the salaries of top government employees, such as members of the judicial branch, the police, and the military.”* The initial results were encouraging as the implementation of the infitah policy achieved rising economic growth and a high level of foreign investment. But although the private sector’s share of industrial

output rose from 17 percent in 1973 to 32 percent in 1981-82, the regime’s objective of bringing in productive foreign investment had failed to materialize.*® The result was the widening of class differences. The category of Egyptian millionaires, lacking under Nasser, increased

The Islamic Mobilization of Women — 57

by the late 1970s to about 100,000.”° Rising inflation and the spiraling cost of living made the spectacle of consumerism and Western dress habits more and more painful to the mass of impoverished Egyptians. If

anything, it worsened the public’s faith in the distributive justice of Sadat’s regime.*” The trial of Sadat’s assassins in 1981 finally produced evidence demonstrating the impact of these events on the angry Islamic elements present in Egyptian cities. Interrogating the accused assassins

brought forward a whole array of grievances against Sadat, including applying non-Islamic laws; concluding a separate peace with Israel; public

insults directed at Islamic scholars; imprisonment of thousands of Islamic Jihad figures; rampant economic injustice; close relationships with

Christians in Egypt and the United States; immoral practices by the president’s wife; and ridiculing Islamic women and Islamic dress for men and women. The police investigator summed up these grievances as three types: political, economic, and religious.’® The radical Jihad organizations that engaged in violent acts against the government in the 1970s were raised on Qutub’s rejectionist ideol-

ogy and were seared by the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood. These organizations were the radical metamorphosis of one wing of the brotherhood leadership, while the rest remained reformist. Not since the split caused by Shabab Muhammad in the late 1940s did the brotherhood face a schism as serious as that caused by the Jihad organizations. The first split took place in 1958, when Nabil al-Bur‘i, while still in jail, called for armed struggle against the heathen state. Calling for the immediate adoption of Ibn Taymiyyah’s revolutionary program, he was followed out of the ranks of the brotherhood by such future leaders as Isma’il al-Tantawi, Muhammad ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Sharqawi, Ayman al-Thawahiri, Hasan al-Hillawi, and Mustafa ‘Alawi. By 1973, ‘Alawi left this group to lead his own Jihad organization in the war along the Israeli-occupied canal zone. In the same year Saleh Sirrtyah established his own Jihad group, often referred to as the Group of al-Fanniyah al‘Askariyah, and was soon joined by al-Hillawi. In 1975, another group was formed under the leadership of Yahya Hashem and tried to storm the jail housing Sirriyah.”’

Sirriyah, who was introduced to Imam al-Hudhaybi in the early 1970s by Zeinab al-Ghazzali, became disillusioned with the gradualism of the reformist wing of the brotherhood. He was one of the propagators of the idea of Jihad, of Islamic activism against Muslims who did not adhere to the pure teachings of Islam. He also wrote on the neces-

58 Chapter 3 sity of liquidating unjust rulers.*° Even though Sirriyah was executed in 1975 for his failed takeover of the Military Technical College, the Jihad movement spawned another violent group in 1977, Takfir wa Hira, led by Shukri Mustafa, who was among the Muslim Brothers jailed in 1965

along with Qutub. He too began his call to the Jihad from inside prison. He argued that the heathen society should be physically abandoned (a reenactment of the Prophet’s Azra, or flight to Medinah) in favor of caves of the wilderness until Muslims could retake the heathen society. Shukri’s assassination of the minister of Islamic trusts led to his execution in 1987. A group called al-Jihad al-Islami, led by Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj and ‘Aboud al-Zamer, organized in 1979 and carried out Sadat’s assassination in 1981.*! In Sirriyah’s well-known tract, Risalat al-Iman, he explained that all Muslim countries were ruled according to jahili practice, a term normally reserved for the pre-Islamic era in Arabia. Islamic societies that practiced socialism or the democratic system could not really be Muslim because the Shari‘a was not applied. Humans could not be the source of legislation for they cannot legitimize what is forbidden by the Qur‘an or delegitimize what the Qur‘an allows. Islam had become a matter of rhetoric. Those who were satisfied with the Islamic creed but denied the need to practice it or to abide by its morality and laws were heathen. All societies that permit blasphemy, the drinking of alcohol, gambling, and adultery are heathen. Governments that preside over these societies must be removed, their removal an act of Jihad. Sirriyah also stressed

that Jihad was an obligation for both Muslim men and women. He condemned those who objected to the dress of decent women, claiming that such criticism indicated a lack of civilization.” Faraj, perhaps the most deadly of the Jihad leaders, called openly for the destruction of the existing government of Egypt and its replacement by an Islamic government. This call was based on the duty of the Jihad since God considered the erection of the Islamic state to be an obligation of all Muslims. During his interrogation by state authorities,

Faraj stated that one of his reasons for plotting the assassination of Sadat was the Egyptian leader’s ridiculing of Islamic dress for men and women. He also resented the Egyptian president’s insulting remarks regarding the Jihadists’ custom of marrying girls without their fathers’ consent.** The difference between the brotherhood’s understanding of the Jihad obligation and that of the radical groups of the 1970s illustrates the major contrast in their respective ideologies. The issue of the

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 59

Jihad obligation and to whom it applied arose in 1947, when Egyptians

began to volunteer for military service in Palestine. When al-Banna urged his followers to volunteer for the Palestine campaign, he stressed the applicability of the Jihad principle. Since Palestine was a Muslim

land that had been defiled, and the Aqsa Mosque was endangered, it could be liberated only through Jihad. Under these circumstances, not only does each man serve, but his wife and son may join the battle without receiving his permission.** The grand mufti of the Republic of Egypt also addressed this issue in the wake of Sadat’s assassination in 1981, issuing a lengthy refutation of Muslim writings, particularly in regard to their emphasis on the Jihad. The mufti, Egypt’s highest Shari‘a authority, reiterated the classic theory of the Jihad as an obligation required of each male and female Muslim in every age and decade if the land of Muslims falls to invaders. Fulfill-

ment of the Jihad could be through action, financial contribution, or verbal commitment. Only during the first years of Islam, he added, was the Jihad an obligation to all, since the Prophet asked all defenders to proceed to battle. What the Jihadist groups propagated about Islam, he added, reflected the orientalist view that Islam spread by the sword.*° Thus, while the classic Islamic view of the Jihad insisted on a defensive meaning and then defined the term defenszve in the strictest of ways, the classic view also made the Jihad applicable to women. This conformed to the Qur‘anic view of women as subject to Islamic obligations. The radical view of the 1970s widened the concept considerably and also applied it to women. What role did women play in underground Islamic organizations? Because of the secret nature of these groups, information about female members remains sketchy and can only be gleaned from general news stories. Upon interrogating the Islamic Jihad group following Sadat’s death, security forces in Egypt became fully aware of the structure and composition of this group and the names of its members. The structure was apparently pyramidal, headed by a consultative council composed of seventeen members. They were the top officers of the organization,

including Faraj and al-Zamer, and all were male. Preparation, economic, and advocacy committees were formed from the consultative council. No women’s names appear among members of these committees, and none were mentioned as accomplices throughout the trial of Sadat’s assassins.*°

According to Israeli sources, however, only one of the Jihad organi-

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zations, Mustafa’s Takfir wa Hijra, permitted women in its ranks. In July 1977, according to these sources, Egyptian authorities arrested twenty-one women as suspect members of this organization upon the assassination of the minister of Islamic trusts. Takfir wa Hijra was known

for maintaining the most secretive organization and for requiring its members to sever their ties to outside society, which the group considered heathen. The Takfir followers lived in remote areas, isolated from centers of civilization, and formed their own insular and alternative society.*” The proliferation of these utopian and isolated Islamic communities continued even after the banning of the Takfir group. Al-Jihad al-Islami was apparently involved in similar activity and probably involved women in its scheme. Egyptian authorities discovered a secret community belonging to al-Jihad at ‘Ein Shams in 1988.*8 Some accounts of young women leaving their family home to join the secret cells of al-Takfir occasionally surfaced during the military trials of the Sadat period. During one such trial, a witness recounted for the benefit of the court how two of his college-age daughters disappeared into the organization. It turned out that either his son induced the two girls to accept husbands within his secret Islamist cell or the girls willingly contracted such marriages. Takfir wa Hijra was already building an alternative society based on purified Islamic principles that did not honor the conventions of the heathen society. There was evidence that Mustafa himself had arranged these marriages and that the couples shared communal quarters. The society, it was reported, often nullified a marriage of its recruits if one of the partners refused to join the Jihad group.*’ But the most shocking practice in the eyes of most Egyptians remained al-Takfir’s sanctioning of their own brand of Islamic marriage without observing the customary requirement of a representor and witnesses. This kind of marriage took the trappings of elopement and contravened Islamic practice, which had always denied a woman’s right to marry herself off by herself even if she was considered of consenting age.*° Sadat in 1980 publicly ridiculed the new custom of Muslim girls giving themselves in marriage to members of Jihad groups without being represented by family members as required by tradition. This statement was another reference to women enrolling in the Jihad groups and accepting the idea of anathematizing heathen society and its conventions.*?

Evidence of the participation of women in the radical Islamic organi-

- gations was itself a symptom of the Islamization of society. Egyptian

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society at large, which experienced the impact of the returned Islamic exiles and workers in the Gulf region during the 1970s, was already a changed environment. Not only was there a quiet conversion to a new way of life, but a new Islamic infrastructure sprang up and a rising level of religious observance was evident everywhere. These changes targeted and transformed women from all levels of society but particularly from the universities. By the early 1980s, it was estimated that four thousand new mosques were constructed in Egypt, about one thousand of them erected through private efforts and outside the purview of the official Ministry of Islamic Trusts. But official Islamic activity did not lag behind. Government authorities, as well as the official Islamic institution represented by alAzhar, attempted to coopt this Islamic wave in a variety of ways. First, al-Azhar and the Ministry of Islamic Trusts increased their activity. AlAzhar itself acquired a larger block of time on official radio and television for religious broadcasts, which spread its message three times daily. A special radio station was designated exclusively for the recitation of the Qur‘an and for religious programming. The curriculum of government schools was heavily infused with religious subjects. Islamic mystical orders quadrupled their membership, especially in the large cities, and began to develop their own financial and commercial institutions. The increase in charitable and economic support services of the believers was also visible among the radical Islamic organizations. The number of books and publications dealing with Islamic themes rose dramatically.*” These books not only expounded the thesis of the resurgent Islamic groups but also dealt with the history of early Islam. Studies of the lives of Islamic female historical figures became popular, such as the scholarly account of the life of the well-known female mystic and poet Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyah.** Even the feminist maga-

zine Hawa‘ became interested in publishing accounts of the lives of women of the Prophet’s family.** Most accounts insist that the Sadat government opened up the official communication and the educational systems to the Islamist movement to weaken the Islamic social welfare infrastructure. This system, which paralleled the official infrastructure, consisted of hospitals, clinics, and schools that offered cheaper services than the government could offer. Despite the state-religious confrontation of the 1970s, indepen-

dent mosques were still increasing even in the 1990s. Most of the imams serving these mosques were not on government payroll. All

62 Chapter 3 debates within the country were, thus, constantly kept within an Islamic circumference.*®

Anxious to avoid unnecessary confrontations, the government was sometimes less than enthusiastic in prosecuting attacks by militant Islamic students against college administrators. Several of these attacks took place against uncooperative Muslim university professors, such as Dr. Shalabi, dean of the College of Sciences at Alexandria University. Most of the attacks were directed at Coptic students, such as the 1979 incidents at Asyut University.*° The presence of organized Coptic student organizations on Egyptian campuses did not soothe the feelings of the Islamist students. Coptic groups, which grew out of the Sunday school phenomenon and included male and female students, encouraged a system of student “families” clustered around individual colleges and universities that made clashes with Islamist student groups inevitable.*”

Politicizing the campus was the inevitable by-product of the religious turmoil sweeping Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s. By contrast, university politics were not as socially focused during the Nasser period, nor were student associations as autonomous. After the demise of the Islamic Brotherhood in the mid-1960s, the socialist government man-

aged to keep a tight grip on student formations and expression in institutions of higher learning. For instance, a student incident in the cafeteria of Cairo University’s Law College in 1967 that made headlines involved a clash over miniskirts. Protesting students, many of them

females, demanded the banning of this unsuitable form of dress. The feminist journal Hawa‘ however, publicly lamented the absence of social consciousness among female students and their obsession with the superficialities of life.** Student interest in public affairs did not improve until the military defeat of 1967. In September of that year, a magazine devoted to covering student affairs reported sarcastically that the most exciting piece of news to make headlines recently was the announcement of an impending meeting of all student unions to discuss the students’ role in the fight against Israel. The convener of that meeting was the Union of Alexandria University. The journal cheered this shift toward reality after years of parties, university trips, and poetry festivals.*? These unions were, of course, official and affiliated with the ruling party. Egyptian students joined factory workers in street demonstrations in February 1968 to protest lenient sentences handed down to high mili-

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tary officers responsible for the defeat. These demonstrations signaled the emergence of the student movement as an opposition force. The students’ main demands in 1968 were a strong military performance against Israel and some accountability on the part of the regime. The Nasser government could not ignore this force and sought to give it a collective voice. Thus, a special institution for students was created by government decree 1533 in 1968, which created the General Union of Egyptian Students. At first dominated by the competing forces of Marxist

and Nasserist students, the union eventually fell to different forces. By the middle of the 1970s, this organization was controlled by the Jama‘at Islamiyya.°°

Although the Jama‘at Islamiyya was responsible for radicalizing the student movement, its aim as an organized effort of the Muslim Broth-

erhood differed from that of the Jihad groups. The ideology of the reform-minded Islamic Brotherhood of the 1970s and that of the Jihad

groups differed on many points. The two ideologies, however, had some ideas in common. When the returned brothers, led by their supreme guide, ‘Umar Talmasani, integrated themselves into society under the Sadat regime, they were a chastened and changed organization. In exchange for their legitimization, the group was willing to be satisfied with an educational role that was destined, in their view, to prepare the ground for the Islamic state. Therein lay the major difference be-

tween the brotherhood and the Jihad groups, who sought to uproot violently the heathen government and all its institutions. Women were crucial to both types of organizations, although each group projected a different vision of the ideal Muslim female. The brotherhood’s gradualist approach to the Islamic struggle surfaced in its position on the application of the Shari‘a. When asked about the need to apply the Shari‘a here and now, Talmasani gave an answer that appeared to contradict the brotherhood’s historic call for the establishment of the Islamic state. Talmasani gave his response officially before meetings of the Egyptian National Assembly when some groups in Egypt were demanding the institutionalization of the Shari‘a as Egypt’s only source of legislation. Talmasani counseled the utmost patience and

care before making the Shari‘a the source of all legislation and sug-

gested that not all of its tenets be applied in toto. The reason, he explained, is that society should be made ready first, so that the Shari‘a would be accepted intelligently and out of conviction. He also said that the manner in which the Shari‘a would be adopted in Egypt was bound

64 Chapter 3

to be emulated in other countries, hence the need to study the matter carefully. He then enumerated his reasons for adopting this position. Applying the Shari‘a should be preceded by the realization of social and economic justice. A period of study should also be devoted to unifying and synthesizing past and present legal opinions in a manner suitable for the needs of Egyptian society. There was a need to utilize worldly laws borrowed from other societies but not in conflict with the Shari‘a. Finally, those who called for the immediate application of the Shari‘a

should realize that no complete model existed anywhere. Therefore, when Egypt produced the first model of a Shari‘a-based system of laws,

that model should be flawless so as not to disillusion those in other countries who wished to do the same.*? Moderate Islamic jurists also argued against the immediate application and institutionalization of the criminal laws of the Shari‘a in particular. The criminal laws should only be applied after the creation of a

community of devout and just believers and after the erection of a system based on political, economic, and social justice. To apply hudud

before that would be to risk putting the Shari‘a to illegal use. Unjust rulers might also apply these criminal laws against other Muslims, as happened in previous periods of history.°? In contrast, the Jihadist position called for the immediate application of the criminal laws of the Shari‘a to remedy what was ailing society. Saleh Sirriyah, for instance, wrote that over the centuries Islam became all talk. Although most Islamic countries stressed in their constitutions that they were Muslim,

and although they built mosques and recited the Qur‘an from their official radios, they also called themselves national, democratic, or socialist states. A state that applied Islamic criminal laws but ignored the message of Islam in other aspects of life was not an Islamic state. Nothing less than proclaiming the message of Islam inside and outside the land would suffice. Islam should be allowed to permeate all levels of society so that new generations faithful to Islam would be raised. All laws that contradicted Islamic laws and were legislated by parliaments were heathen. Faraj claimed that removing colonialism from the land

should not take precedence over the erection of an Islamic state at home.*?

Clearly, both the brotherhood and the Jihad groups advocated revolutionary programs that aimed at nothing less than rebuilding Islamic

society anew. Their differences were merely over the timing of that revolution. They shared a fundamentalist philosophy that underlaid

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 65

much of their respective programs. Both types of organizations emphasized the role of women as educators and molders of the new Islamic

man. Both recognized the greatest role of women as advocates of a regenerated Islam and as guides to other women. That these two groups sought to regiment women’s movements, work, and dress did not seem appalling because men were subject to the same regimentation. Muslim women were also subject to the obligation of the Jihad as were men.** The women too will have to carry out the responsibility of reshaping society. The definition of women’s new role was not the product of the male mind since it was the product of the true Shari‘a. The emphasis was as much on women’s dress as it was on their role and work. But whatever women did, their activity must serve a divine purpose, for if the two groups, reformist and Jihadist, shared anything in common it was a loathing of the parasitic role of women in heathen society. Surprisingly the reformist Islamist group borrowed a significant concept from Qutub and applied it to the women’s issues: the concept of fitrah (original nature or true Islam) on which early Islam built its system. The return to fitrah was the only means of ending the alienation and Westernization (al-ightirab) of Muslims.°> Women’s lives under the current social order were un-Islamic because they diverged from fitrah. To begin with, argued Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Islam bestowed upon men and women equal rights and equal obligations. But if there were

any differences between the sexes, it was merely due to the human origin of things. This fitrah is what decreed a distinction between men’s and women’s roles. The most natural role for women and the role most suited to their nature was that of mistress of the home and nurturer of children. This role was decreed by her special nature, her special physique, which was totally compatible with the duty of motherhood. AlGhazzali then proceeded to list physical weaknesses of women, especially at the time of menstruation and childbearing. Since God absolved women of many arduous duties because of these weaknesses, should society impose on them more than they can bear? The unsuitability of

women for certain jobs was even attested to by the World Health Organization, which expressed disapproval of women being employed in hard industrial work.*° Al-Ghazzali also argued that women should not be inducted into the military service. While the early history of Islam was replete with stories

of heroic women who stood on the battlefield shoulder to shoulder with Muslim men, such should not be the case today. Implying that the

66 Chapter 3 exceptional era of early Islam called for exceptional roles for women, alGhazzali would only entertain the notion of female nurses in battle.°”

Another reformist authority, Hamid Suleiman, argued vehemently that Islam never taught that the right to work belonged equally to men

and women. Neither the Qur‘an nor the Prophet himself defined women’s work. The Shari‘a, he wrote, did not deal with this issue since the matter of what was suitable for women depended on circumstances

of time and place. But he added, when the sense of the Shari‘a and tenor of higher Islamic principles were taken into account, it became clear that Islam called for respecting innate differences between the sexes. Then he proceeded to examine specific cases of women who participated in battle during the early years of Islam. These women earned the straightforward praise of the Prophet, who described some of them as stronger than men. But what distinguished that kind of service from the activities of today’s women was the manner in which these early women conducted themselves. Unlike feminists who frequented beauty salons prior to attending meetings, the early female heroines of Islam joined battle unpainted and unadorned. Therefore, women could engage in employment outside the home if no social or moral damage accrued from their service and if their work did not interfere with their domestic duties.*° Women’s essential nature also defined their ability to assume politi-

cal roles. But there was no Qur‘anic verse or a clear statement by the Prophet prohibiting women’s engagement in legislative, judicial, or political work. Citing examples of women who participated in public political discussions in the presence of the Prophet, Suleiman again reaffirmed women’s right to engage in these activities. He even asserted women’s right to participate in extending a legal mandate to the ruler (al-bay‘ah). He acknowledged the existence of a canonical dispute over whether women qualified for the post of judge, imam, or head of state. He added that al-Imam Abu Hanifeh, founder of one of the four Muslim juridical schools, approved of women’s right to assume a judgeship. The historian al-Tabari collected various legal views approving of this

position. The juridical consensus, he concluded, was against women assuming the grand imamate or the headship of state but not any other legal position. He even disputed the common interpretation of a statement attributed to the Prophet predicting that a people headed by a woman will never succeed. Citing supportive arguments from Egyptian

Islamic reformist writers such as Khaled Muhammad Khaled and

The Islamic Mobilization of Women 67

Muhammad ‘Amarah, as well as from the former president of the Sudan, Sadeq al-Mahdi, Suleiman argued that women could not be denied the headship of state. He concluded by delving into the provenance of the

Prophet’s statement by insisting that what the Prophet said applied to one specific case only, a report that the Persians had selected a woman, Buran, the daughter of Xerxes, to rule them. Yet the Qur‘an was full of accounts of the wisdom, sagacity, and greatness of the queen of the Sabaens (Queen of Sheba), Balqis, Suleiman explained.*” Islam granted women the right to education and to work, Suleiman

added, as well as a choice between seeking employment outside the home or devoting all energies to domestic duty. A woman could also demand that a servant serve her husband and children, Suleiman stated, for Islamic jurisprudence did not force women to serve their husbands.

Islam based the marital bond on love and understanding, not coercion.®? Women’s work clearly was not only defined in conjunction with

women’s essential nature but also with their primary duty as teachers and nurturers of children. If women engaged in any activity in defense of other Muslims or a Muslim state, then their activism was justified. The question of whether this type of activity aggravated the male head of the family was moot, since it was inconceivable that a devout husband would obstruct the furtherance of Muslim interests. The principle of women’s nature was, therefore, contingent upon several conditions and was not defined in absolute terms. While reformist Islamic writers held out the example of political and military activism of early Islamic women, radical Islamic groups actually recruited women for revolutionary activity. Obviously, not all of the female followers of radical organi-

zations engaged in direct military activity. University women sympathetic to the political agenda of the Jihad organizations were clearly freed from the strictures against any employment or outside activity. The reformers and radical groups also based one other cardinal belief, male headship of the family, on a principle derived from Qutub. Under the impact of his prison experiences, Qutub not only anathematized heathen society; he also demanded total and undivided submission to the one authority of God. This reformulation of the original underlying philosophy of Islam, the total submission to the one and only creator, was motivated by the desire to distinguish heathenism

from Islam. Known as taw/id (the unity and oneness of God), this theory stressed that only God’s laws were legitimate and only one God was worthy of worship. Thus, God’s sovereignty was the only liberating

68 Chapter 3

force capable of creating a civilized world, while the sovereignty of man-made laws would only create heathenism. Similar to Ayatollah Khomeini’s and ‘Ali Shari‘ati’s thought of the 1960s and 1970s, Qutub’s

and Mawdudi’s writings postulated that justice and liberation could only result from this undivided submission to God’s laws.°' Similarly, true Muslims could only be a unified nation, since submis-

sion to God must be total and absolute. Radical Muslims naturally stressed the illegitimacy of any activity outside the boundaries of God’s community. Reformist Muslims, on the other hand, believed that dissent among members of the same community was permissible as long as

it did not violate the boundaries of the ideal Islamic community. According to one author, the emphasis on unity went all the way back to Afghani and ‘Abduh. In their 1884 Paris journal Al-‘urwa al-wuthga (The firm bond), the ideal Islamic society was presented as an organic body politic characterized by unity. A healthy society, they advocated, possessed interdependent parts and purposeful unity. The family should also be a unit with one leader, the male head of the family. But a woman’s obedience to her husband could not exceed her submission to God, since only God was the supreme sovereign. Male headship of the family was a burdensome duty, not a sign of honor, wrote al-Ghazzali. Muslim women accepted the system with the

understanding that it was based on the innate equality of male and female believers. He then drew an analogy between the family and the relationship of people to rulers. Males, he wrote, should not assume that abuse of their duty was tolerable, no more than a government’s abuse of its authority was natural. Al-Ghazzali also used the analogy of the institution to describe the ideal Islamic family. If the home were an

educational institution or a financial corporation, he wrote, then it needed a head. But headship here did not cancel the need for consultation, mutual understanding, and the exchange of views. Such was the

rule of the universe, and the home was no exception. Finally, he asserted, the family was a kingdom with boundaries requiring protection.® This emphasis on the organic unity of the family was not intended to deny women’s spiritual worth, Suleiman added. Though distinguishable from males because of physiological differences, women could overcome these constraints through virtuous attributes and supe-

rior education. Islam treated men and women as equals and did not prefer one gender to the other.® Western thought and materialism, wrote another reformist Islamic

| The Islamic Mobilization of Women 69 figure, Muhammad ‘Amarah, invaded Islam’s most cherished institutions beginning with al-Azhar and the Muslim family. This invasion motivated al-Banna’s generation to create the Muslim Brotherhood in 1929. The assault of ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Razigq on the institution of the caliphate and Taha Hussein’s application of Cartesian philosophical methods of criticism to stories in the Qur‘an enraged al-Banna, wrote ‘Amarah. Because ‘Abd al-Raziq and Hussein were Azharites, the calamity seemed

greater than if the attack was launched by someone from outside the historic institution.® It was important for the brotherhood to roll back this foreign invasion, which penetrated the aristocratic home more than anything else. This goal could be accomplished by reviving Islamic customs within the home, including changing the form of greeting, use of the calendar, manners of dress and furniture, food and drink, and even schedules of work and rest.° According to ‘Amarah, Qutub described how the essence of Islamic civilization was threatened by the West. This civilization was distinguishable by servitude to God, a disdain for materialism, an exaltation of human values, and the preservation of the sanctity of the family and the caliphate. ‘Amarah himself decried the total Western imperial control over the Arab world, which was accomplished first and foremost through the expansion of Western commerce until Arab lands became peripheral to Western commerce. The Western economic invasion, added ‘Amarah, introduced new consumer products and seduced the intellectual elite with the glitter of Western civilization.”

Other writers believed that the significance of the family made the need to discipline and regulate women’s behavior a top priority. Muhammad al-Ghazzali did not neglect to praise women’s capabilities, especially if they devoted their energies to the service of Islam. Women should not be denied higher education, since Islam would benefit from women educating other women. They could also block the cultural invasion of the West, but to do so they should receive education, especially religious education. The greatest value of women was as the mov-

ing spirit behind men, prodding them to greater achievement.” Qutub’s thought provided two other significant reformulations of Islamic teachings with special relevance to women. His elaboration of Mawdudi’s concept of the heathen society and the need to return to the true faith became the cornerstone of the ideological outlook of the Jihad groups of the 1970s. Most of Mawdudi’s works, such as Islamic Government and The Road to Unity of the Muslim Nation, were trans-

70 Chapter 3 | lated from Urdu into Arabic. But the notion of a heathen society that should be abandoned because it allowed nationalism to share in the sovereignty of God spawned another idea, the concept of a religious vanguard (tali‘ah). Thus, instead of the caliphate of the nation (alummah), Muslims should create a disciplined revolutionary group. This group, like the Prophet’s first band of Muslims, should start from point zero. This revolutionary group was a rededicated true Islamic vanguard

that would perform the duty of establishing true Islam, even if by violent means. The tie binding this vanguard to the nation had been severed and could be restored only with the reestablishment of Muslim society, just as in the Meccan period of early Islam. It was not enough to reinstate the Islamic doctrine, wrote Qutub, by subjecting it to study and theorization. The doctrine itself must be embodied in the revolu-

tionary group until the latter becomes not a state or an authority but a believing and faithful group. Even if this group did not exceed three people, the true Islamic community would have been born and, in time, the three would become ten, and the ten would multiply.” The vanguard was to be ruled by secrecy and commitment, but the idea was not confined to the underground revolutionary groups of the 1970s. The vanguard consisted of all those activated men and women who were willing, in the face of Nasser’s and Sadat’s regimes, to live the idea of Jihad by physically changing the evil around them. Zeinab alGhazzali screamed to her jailers when asked about her revolutionary plans, “We are seekers of truth, vanguards along the way. But we do not intend to seize power.””’ The female members of the vanguard naturally were exempted from many of the rules of Islamic feminine orthodox behavior. Thus, Zeinab al-Ghazzali’s husband did not object to a stream of nocturnal visits by the young men of the Islamic movement. The public demonstrations and organized activism of female university students of the 1970s were also above reproach because they served a higher purpose. Women enrolled in the secret organizations were permitted to step outside the boundaries of feminine Islamic decency, even to the extent of entering into less-than-orthodox marital unions. Whether Islamic activism was revolutionary, seeking to destroy the state, or trans-

formational, seeking to change society, the vanguard always led the way. In time of peace, al-ummah knew no class barriers and shared many types of wealth. The vanguard, then, was an extraordinary forma-

tion for extraordinary times. Women, it was assumed, would resume their place in the Islamic utopia of the future, where men would carry the burden of managing the affairs of the family.

The Islamic Mobilization of Women = 71

Educated university women were also recruited to Islamic politics and activism because of the social gospel preached by the revivalist movement. This social gospel remained the same from Afghani to Sirriyah. It promised to eliminate poverty and inequality and assured welfare and well-being to one and all. Muhammad ‘Abduh described the ideal society as one where all wealth belonged to God and humans were simply entrusted with it if they benefited all Muslims. The social interdependence of the community, wrote ‘Abduh, safeguards Muslims from the disruptive class struggle.”” Hamid Suleiman quoted the Prophet

to show that maintaining the social balance was one of the economic necessities of the Islamic state. Islam refused to see wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, hence the principle of alms-giving to restore the balance. The ruler in the Islamic state was expected to play an important role in restoring the social balance.”* Muhammad al-Ghazzali joined the debate by quoting the caliphah ‘Umar, who refused to apply criminal laws against those who stole because of dire need. The grave social imbalance in the Nile Valley branded poor people as thieves, leaving the rich thieves to go free. In no other Arab country he visited, claimed al-Ghazzali, did he witness any variation of wealth as great as existed in Egypt. In Egyptian villages, he wrote, were only undernourished people and abject poverty. Cities had scattered signs of wealth, but the masses did not partake of it. Most

of the boulevards and public squares were monopolized by foreign businesses. Native quarters, however, were dominated by architectural

chaos and material degradation. This condition, of course, was not Islamic. Islam guaranteed everyone’s economic well-being because the Prophet emphasized equality as a primary condition of Islam. Al-Ghazzali also related the Prophet’s statement that Muslims shared three things in common: water, fire, and grazing ground. He then went on to suggest the necessary economic steps to end the country’s most serious political, social, and moral problems, including nationalizing public services, limiting landownership, taxing capitalist wealth, retrieving public properties from foreign ownership, instituting a worker profit-sharing sys-

tem, and imposing a graduated estate tax. In addition, the state must work to eliminate illiteracy completely, make elementary and secondary

education free, and institute a military draft. In short, the state must guarantee equality of opportunity.” The Islamic movement in Egypt, therefore, has had a long history of mobilizing women. Since the institution of the family was always perceived as the cornerstone of the traditional Islamic community and the

72 Chapter 3 embodiment of Islamic values, women were the object of great emphasis and study. Both the gradualist reformers and the revolutionary groups looked to the family as the vehicle for the reestablishment of the ideal Islamic community. Both of these groups, furthermore, recognized the

vulnerability of the Islamic community to the pressures of Western ideologies and economic consumer habits. The role of women within the family, both as economic consumers and as nurturers and educators, was seen to be of the utmost importance. But while the reformist Muslim Brotherhood sought to organize women as recruiters and advocates of the puritanical ideology, the Jihad groups sought to enlist women for direct action against the state. Thus, the gradualism of the Muslim Brotherhood and the revolutionary nature of the Jihad groups were amply illustrated through their contrasting approaches to women. This serious preoccupation with the female issue, furthermore, was not deterred by the apparent contradiction between the traditional call for the seclusion of women and the revolutionary call for their recruitment and activation. Here, the ideas of Qutub provided a new Islamic map leading to utopia. All Muslims were one body, indistinguishable by the differences of nationality and class. This concept was also emphasized by the earliest Islamic revival figures such as ‘Abduh and Afghani. The family was a single unit, but it was presided over by a single head and was held together by the bonds of compassion and understanding. The family replicated the Islamic community. If built on the principles of Islam, the family was incapable of generating friction or rebellion. Qutub’s elaboration of the theme of a dedicated Qur‘anic generation to serve as the vanguard of the sacred struggle also defined the ideal role of women. Since Qutub and the Jihad organization sanctioned the use of violence to eradicate the heathen society, women were seen as also subject to the Jihad. Thus, the concept of freeing the enlightened few from the traditional domestic roles of Muslim women came into being. The Muslim Brotherhood, which saw its entire group and its politicized female members as part of this vanguard, viewed its role as essentially transformational. The Jihad groups, however, saw their small secretive groups, organized in pyramidal structures, as the revolutionary vanguard. Women enrolled in these efforts were typically freed from the conventions of traditional society. But as Zeinab al-Ghazzali explained, Muslim women would gladly return to their exalted prerevolutionary status as honored educators of the future generations of Muslims. Women, especially those who were university educated, were also

The Islamic Mobilization of Women = =73

attracted to and mobilized by the revivalist social gospel of economic equality and authentic Islamic existence. A significant part of the reformed Islamic and Jihad doctrine stressed the original egalitarianism of Islam. This message was powerful in the midst of Egypt’s economic crisis and despair. Islamic propagandists shrewdly articulated a vision of abundance and domestic tranquility that promised hard-pressed working women relief from the drudgery of their employment. The message was buttressed by the network of Islamic welfare institutions that healed

the sick and succored the poor and in the process won countless new converts. But since neither the social welfare approach nor the revolutionary Jihadist approach worked, the Islamist movement fought a significant legislative battle against the Sadat regime. This battle, which

hinged on a concerted Islamic effort to reinstate the Shari‘a as the source of all legislation, also opposed efforts to rewrite the personal status law. Both of these efforts centered on the issue of women and their rights within the family. Both Islamic campaigns also pitted the Islamic movement against secularist women. In addition, a set of historical circumstances that transformed the Coptic community placed the Copts and the Islamist movement on a collision course. This collision, in several of its aspects, revolved around the issue of women.

Al

Che Confrontat ior) of State, Mosque, and Church

No one would have predicted that the Sadat era would aggravate Islamist-state relations as well as communal peace. The Sadat government began with conciliatory moves toward healing the schism between the

mosque and the state, but its tenure in office ended with a deadly confrontation between the state and the reform and Jihad wings of the Islamist movement. The eleven years of Sadat’s rule saw the escalation of Coptic-Muslim conflict in the poorer sections of Egypt’s cities and

provinces as well as at the universities. This confrontation brought about unprecedented changes in the Egyptian communal balance and forced a readjustment of the manner in which the state treated the official institutions of its largest minority, and it soon led to an interreli-

gious debate on the status of women. The Islamist movement, moreover, launched its strongest polemical campaign on the subject of women

in order to confront the Copts and to combat a renewed secular feminist campaign. Thus, what began as deliberate political reconciliation slowly turned into a prelude to renewed secularization, reform, and confrontation. Sadat himself fluctuated between tolerance and suppression of the

Islamist current. Although he began relations with the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide and with its other major figures, such as Muhammad al-Ghazzali and Zeinab al-Ghazzali, on a good note, frustration with the movement’s militant wing and its popular advocates increased steadily. Sadat began his reconciliation in 1971 by releasing all Muslim Brothers from jail and restoring them to their former posi74

The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church =75

tions in government. He also granted them a financial compensatory package amounting to each individual’s total salary since his suspension

from work. This step brought ‘Umar Talmasani, then the acting supreme guide, to the president’s office to register his thanks and his loyalty.’

The general mood of the public, however, became more sullen as the economic crisis deepened and visible material consumption increased. At the same time, Sadat’s tolerance of the Islamist reform wing, which he consciously cultivated in order to weaken his leftist critics, began to

predispose the general public to Islamic ideas. Some figures of the regime adopted the new Islamist lifestyle. Sadat’s own chief of staff, ‘Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazalah, for example, openly courted Islamic opin-

ion. At one time he recorded a television report stressing the importance of religious education for the army, a report that was speedily suppressed. Abu Ghazalah consistently refused to attack Islamist groups, which, along with the fact that his wife always appeared veiled in public, earned him the gratitude of the Islamist movement. Islamist support of Abu Ghazalah, whom both Sadat and Mubarak feared, was a constant reminder of the power of Islamist public opinion.’ In addition, Sadat patronized popular sheikhs who were induced to

use their sermons in defense of the regime. This policy toward some Islamist figures backfired as the sheikhs began to preach against Muslim secularists and Copts. One of them was Sheikh Muhammad Mitwalli alSha‘rawi, who was often accused of having consciously or unconsciously stirred up the Muslim public against Christians. Frequent references in

his lectures to the Trinity as the practice of worshiping three Gods helped exaggerate Muslim-Christian differences. His emphasis on the inappropriateness of the assumption of higher office by non-Muslims in a nation where the majority were Muslims also inflamed Muslim opinion. Sha‘rawi’s position appeared to some to be a thinly veiled advocacy of establishing the Shari‘a as the source of all legislation.° Sha‘rawi was part of a significant trend that dominated the religious institution in the 1970s but was partially coopted by Sadat. This trend, which infused Islamic public sermons with themes of social and political

protest, represented a serious and quiet rebellion on the part of the religious establishment. Although Islamic public sermons were historically more worldly and political than theological in nature, the level of their political content was noticeably higher in the 1970s. The popularity of these sermons clearly indicated the rising prominence of figures of

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religious protest. Sha‘rawi was a case in point. One of the most promi-

nent religious figures of the period, he grew up in the provinces and acquired fame in Cairo by widening his sermons to cover a variety of social topics. Not openly hostile to the regime, Sha‘rawi nevertheless specialized in providing a religious perspective on every social or cultural issue of the day. But avoiding political commentary did not translate into refusal to express religious views on every possible topic. Even his deliberate emphasis on points of difference between Christian and Muslim theology inflamed a large sector of Egyptian public opinion. Muhammad al-Ghazzali and Yousef Qirdhawi were similarly lukewarm toward the state. Their social, cultural, and civilizational sermons contributed greatly to strengthening the Islamist trend in Egypt and weakening the secular legitimacy of the state. The sermons also attempted to reestablish the leadership of conservative religious figures beyond the

confines of the religious institution. The religious sermon became a vehicle for the popularization of the conservative religious outlook on social issues, religion, and issues of development. Themes covered in these sermons were not necessarily opposed to progress, modernization, and industrialism but simply imparted and stressed values distinctly different from those emerging from industrialization.*

Thus, the foundations of modern society came constantly under attack. Some of these sheikhs became progressively more hostile to the regime, accusing Sadat and his government not only of political transgression but also of excessive Westernization. One such confrontation

developed between Sadat and Sheikh ‘Abd al-Hamid Kishek; it was beamed at Egyptian and Arab audiences outside of Egypt and carried over the airwaves and on the pages of major publications. Sadat accused Kishek of backwardness and opposition to progress, and Kishek accused Sadat of liberalism and rejection of religious values.° A more serious confrontation developed between Sadat and Sheikh Muhammad al-Mahilawi, who preached at Alexandria. Al-Mahilawi at-

tacked not only Sadat but also Sadat’s wife, accusing her of extravagance and un-Islamic behavior. Most of these sermons were distributed on cassette.° When several of those accused of plotting Sadat’s assassination, including ‘Abd al-Salam Faraj, were interrogated by security agents, one of the reasons they gave for the deed was Sadat’s public insults directed at al-Mahilawi, including a reference to the sheikh being confined to jail like a dog.’ One of the accused, Hussein ‘Abbas Muhammad, explained that he was aroused against Sadat because of the

The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church 77

imprisonment of Mahilawi, Kishek, ‘Abdullah al-Samawi, and Talmasani

in September 1973. Another of the accused, ‘Atta Tayel Hamideh, admitted that his discovery of the books of past Islamic authorities calling for Jihad came as a result of listening to the sermons of Kishek and Mahilawi. Khalid al-Islambuli, Sadat’s assassin, also admitted his rage when Sadat referred to the great sheikhs like Talmasani, Hafez Salameh, and Kishek as mad preachers.®

The impact of this wave of religious protest on the discontented youths of the country was extensive, especially in light of economic conditions. A source of particular aggravation was the spread of West-

ernized customs associated with affluence and wealth. In a country accustomed to the austere conditions of socialist economics, the sudden return to such things as advertisements for Christmas and New Year’s parties was devastating. Younger people—the children of the petite bourgeoisie who benefited from free university education but were denied decent employment and economic stability—who struggled to get suitable employment and decent housing could not overlook the signs of affluence.’ Thus, the repressed anger of the religious figures who survived the secularization of the Nasser era combined with the increasing poverty of a large sector of Egyptian society to create a wave

of general anger and despair. Sadat’s deliberate effort to dismantle Nasser’s economic policies began in 1974 with the issuance of law 43, which amended and expanded in 1976 as law 34. This law restricted the role of the public sector in the economy and released the energies of the private sector. This move permitted more freedom of action for Egypt’s banks, currency traders, and foreign capital. Both the industrial and

agricultural sectors deteriorated as a result, and the local economy, instead of being productive, turned to exports and imports, real estate, the service sector, and a great deal of speculative activity.'” Egypt’s urban classes experienced what is known as relative depriva-

tion and became ready material for the religious protest movement sweeping the country. But not only the economy was changing. Government monopoly over religious discourse and intellectual activities of the religious establishment waned. Some of this relaxation of govern-

mental control was a deliberate attempt on the part of the regime to encourage the growth of a counterbalance to the leftism of the previous era. The relaxation worked so well that an entire independent religious

institution developed alongside the official one. When al-Islambuli, Sadat’s assassin, was asked during his trial what mosque he attended, he

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replied that he only frequented independent mosques. He added that the mosques of the Ministry of Islamic Trusts did not allow the truth to be heard.”!

If the convergence of religious revival, economic failure, and the conspicuous display of wealth was the primary motivating force behind

the religious discontent of the 1970s, the increased secularization of the privileged class lit the fuse. This secularization acquired a sinister significance in the 1970s in light of Sayyid Qutub’s past writings about industrialism and Westernization. In his book, Al-mustagbal li-hatha al-din (The future belongs to this religion), Qutub explained that the Enlightenment and the Renaissance led to industrialism and Europe’s

alienation from the church and to what Qutub called “the unhappy schizophrenia,” or severe separation between faith and science.’* To the Muslim generation of the 1970s, wealth, Western technology, and enlightened ideas outside the realm of religion were symptomatic of the schizophrenia that Qutub wrote about a decade earlier.

Although Sadat tolerated and sometimes encouraged certain elements of the Islamist movement during the early 1970s, he also initiated several moves on behalf of women. First, the Ministry of Social Welfare was again entrusted to a woman, ‘Aishah Rateb in 1971 and later Amal ‘Uthman. The constitution of September 1971 reaffirmed the nature of Egyptian society as based on social integration. It also guaranteed equality of opportunity for all citizens, emphasizing that the family was the pillar of society. The state, the constitution read, would preserve the true nature of the Egyptian family and all its values and traditions. The state was greatly concerned with the protection of mothers and children and would do its utmost to reconcile a woman’s duty to

her family with her duty to her work. Furthermore, the constitution promised to provide equal opportunities for men and women in all walks of life—cultural, political, and social—as long as this equality did not contravene the Shari‘a.'®

Mention of the Shari‘a in conjunction with women’s equality with men made women’s constitutional rights conditional and was a new twist on the language of the previous constitution. But in April 1974, in what is usually referred to as the October Paper, the Sadat government announced its intention to introduce changes in the structure of the Arab Socialist Union. These changes were heralded by highlighting some principles such as assuring the social development of Egyptian society, including women, who were half of society.'* Clear reference to

the inherent equality of men and women brought on substantial, if

The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church 79

peaceful, protest by some Azharites, who protested that women’s equality

should always remain within the limits placed by the Shari‘a.’° Thus, women’s issues became a matter of a constitutional continuum stretching through the Nasser and Sadat periods. By 1977, it was decreed that thirty seats in Parliament should be reserved for women." Presidential order 58, issued in 1971, introduced substantial measures on behalf of women in civilian employment, decreeing that men and women were equal when it came to appointment, salary, raises, financial compensation, promotion, and retirement. This order granted a month’s paid leave to expectant working mothers on condition that it not be taken more than three times in the course of one’s employment. A new and detailed labor law prohibited the employment of women in environments harmful to their health or morals, including hard physical labor, bars or gambling places, and metal works or asphalt manufacturing plants. The law also forbade the employment of women between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. and stipulated that any industrial plant employing one hundred or more female workers should provide a nursery on the premises. Law 62, passed in 1971, guaranteed a woman’s right to receive her husband’s pension following his death and removed any obstacles barring concurrent government employment for husbands and wives.*’

The Sadat government was also concerned with the issue of illiteracy

and how it affected women. A 1971 presidential order created the Higher Council for Adult Education. The course of study in elementary schools was lengthened to combat illiteracy among women. By 1973, the law of public service was issued, requiring new female graduates to

work for one year in a government anti-illiteracy campaign for the state’s family planning effort."®

Feminist voices demanding more affirmation of women’s rights contributed to the momentum for reform. Some of these reformers linked the necessity and urgency of family planning with the need to reform the Shari‘a. On January 27, 1973, for instance, a male feminist, Fikri Abaza, delivered a speech along this theme to the women of the sports community at the Gezira Club. The lecture dwelled on the urgent need to make family planning mandatory because of population explosion. Abaza explained that in 1940 Egypt’s population was 16 million, and by 1973 it had reached 35 million. One way to achieve the desired control over the runaway population explosion was to restrict the right of divorce and the institution of polygyny.’”’

By the 1970s, feminists of the 1940s generation were beginning to

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react with irritation to the rising Islamist complaints about working women. One of the first signs of the convergence of deteriorating economic conditions and the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism was the frequently repeated theme of the unfair competition of women in the workplace. Even female university students were beginning to sow doubt in people’s minds regarding the established right of a woman to work outside the home. One such student wrote emphasizing that for women, work was a right but never a duty. An editorial in Hawa presumably

by Aminah al-Sa‘id, responded that the right to work had become a national, social, and economic necessity.”° In another article by al-Sa‘id, the veteran feminist confronted head

on the issue of working women and the Egyptian economy. Her response resulted from a letter from an irate male reader who had complained against al-Sa‘id’s recent call for women to seek employment as an affirmation of their liberty and economic independence. The reader wrote that he feared the impact of women’s work on the family. Given the working woman’s inevitable irritability and fatigue, the family was

bound to suffer. He wrote that he recognized the Egyptian family’s eternal economic problem but added that having two working parents was not the right remedy.”’ Al-Sa‘id replied that although a woman’s right to work could not be questioned, the time had come to dispel certain doubts about this right in the minds of educated critics. Women’s right to participate in public employment amounted to a civilizational gain that could not be turned back. Women’s work was a principle approved by technologically advanced societies and all nations that valued culture and social development. Eastern and Western societies, both capitalist and socialist, accepted the idea of women’s right to work outside the home. Because of the economic factor, the primary force propelling women into the workplace, Egyptians were able to tear down the high fences of the harem

and to transform women into productive, useful, and good citizens. But economic factors were always the primary cause of progress. AlSa‘id emphasized that for Egypt, women’s participation in the workplace contributed greatly to the elevation of the family’s economic status. As to the negative impact of working women on the well-being of the family, women’s work did not create psychological problems for children. The negative impact was in reality the result of the mother’s anxiety over the possibility of summary divorce, polygyny, unjust alimony laws, and unjust rules governing children’s guardianship. Chil-

The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church 81

dren developed psychological problems only when they witnessed husbands treating their wives as unpaid servants threatened by expulsion like stray dogs.”

Al-Sa‘id was also concerned that in the midst of this antifeminist rhetoric, the general public would forget that men created the conditions for women’s renaissance. Women should always remember that the male vanguard of the modernizing movement—Afghani, ‘Abduh, Qassem Amin, al-Imam Mustafa al-Maraghi, Lutfi al-Sayyid, and Taha Hussein—led the way. When Huda Sha‘rawi publicly removed her veil in 1924, men preceded her in preparing the right atmosphere for such a step. Men also strengthened the feminist movement by opening up the doors of schools and universities and by preparing employment oppor-

tunities for women. At first, women were their own worst enemies because of rampant illiteracy. The current generation of educated women was merely the first step.”*

Culture and education, added al-Sa‘id, would not bear fruit except after becoming indigenous and taking root in the land. To facilitate the penetration of culture to Egyptian hearts and minds, there was a need for several generations of educated women. But this process was becoming more and more difficult because Egyptian women were accustomed to living in slavery and being subservient to males. The legacy of this psychological condition still inhabited the inner recesses of the self, causing a multitude of social contradictions for educated women. Practicing female physicians who knew their social rights and status in life often existed as pale shadows of complete citizens. When Qassem Amin fought the severest of battles for the sake of liberating females, some of

his contemporary female poets used to sing the praises of the veil and the withdrawn life of the harem. Similarly, when al-Sa‘id herself launched

an effort to reform the personal status law to conform to the original essence of Islam and the requirements of modern life, some educated women refused to cooperate. Their excuse was that they had not yet been married and issues of divorce and polygyny did not concern them.” Al-Sa‘id’s feminist rhetoric, like that of many others, demolished the

possibility of reaching any common ground with the Islamist movement. The secular feminists stressed the need to live according to the requirements of the modern age and stressed that modernization applied a universal standard. But the Islamist groups saw no need to veer away from the hallowed practices of the Prophet’s era. The Islamist movement was preoccupied with the problems of society as a whole,

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while the secularist feminists were focused exclusively on women’s issues. There was little concern on the part of the secular feminists with the economy and how it affected people’s lives. But the Islamist groups saw the deterioration of the economy as a symptom of moral decline. Even though the secular feminists, both men and women, criticized the pace of governmental reform touching on women’s lives, the Islamist movement was either seriously critical of the regime or openly calling for its overthrow. Finally, secular feminist forces were far from organized, while the Islamist movement, in both its reform and its radical wings, was highly organized and regimented. Emerging from the Nasser era, the secular feminists were already highly dependent on the female minister of social welfare. A creature of the regime, the minister was expected to initiate and push for reforms. Islamist groups, on the other hand, were experienced veterans of agitational politics and could call on the seasoned leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood or the charismatic leadership of the Jihad groups. Not until 1982 was an organized secular feminist association, the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, born. This group, led by Nawal Saadawi, was itself a radicalization of the early secularist movement, which never broached the subject of women’s

sexuality and individual freedom. In the 1970s, the vacuum in the secular women’s leadership was filled by the president’s wife, Jihan Sadat. Thus, the Sadat era followed Egyptian historical precedent by spawning a feminist movement that shared the regime’s social, political, and economic goals.

If the Jihad groups demonstrated utter loathing for the extravagance, economic liberalism, and pro-Western policies of the Sadat government, the Muslim Brotherhood sought only to find its niche in the new Sadat regime. The government, however, manipulated the Islamic reform movement, using its symbols primarily as instruments against

leftist and democratic currents, especially between 1974 and 1981, when relations between the Coptic Church and the regime worsened. Since the beginning of the Sadat era, the brotherhood demonstrated its loyalty to the government as a gesture of gratitude for compensating imprisoned brothers and readmitting them to society. But the brotherhood had a major goal, to gain legitimacy either as a legal political party or as a legally constituted social organization. By July 1976, the first issue of the brotherhood’s long-banned paper, Al-da‘wa, appeared on the market. Talmasani began to call for legalizing the activities of the

brotherhood to facilitate, as he put it, the brotherhood’s mission of restoring the nation to heights of greatness.”

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When the Sadat government did not respond, Talmasani sued the state, requesting that the brotherhood be restored to its pre-1954 political and legal status. He also demanded the restoration of all of the brotherhood’s confiscated properties. Sadat dealt with this issue personally. He had a private meeting with Talmasani during which he indicated his willingness to constitute the brotherhood as a religious charitable association under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Welfare. Talmasani was instructed to work out the details with ‘Uthman. When Talmasani resisted this loss of status, Sadat told him clearly that if he objected to ‘Uthman because she was a woman, he could call on alNabawi Isma‘il, minister of the interior. This veiled threat, hinting at a police crackdown, left Talmasani defiant, claiming in A/l-da ‘wa that the role of the brotherhood was not over yet.”° Refusal to legitimize the brotherhood as a political-religious organization did not mean that the brotherhood lost the battle. The regime’s interest in coopting the Islamic current to dull the edge of the radical

critique of state and society in general worked in the brotherhood’s favor. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, continued to demonstrate its loyalty to the regime, one of the few groups to condemn publicly the

demonstrations of May 18-19, 1977, protesting the lifting of subsidies to basic foods and services. The Sadat government finally decided to give in to some of the brotherhood’s demands when it decided in May 1980 to propose that the Constitution of 1971 be amended to make the Shari‘a the main source of legislation. In their enthusiasm to applaud this measure, the brotherhood overlooked the fact that the same decree also increased the police powers of the state. Commenting in his memoirs, Talmasani wrote that genuine reform could not be achieved except through a ruler who walked the straight and narrow path.’ Sadat’s concession regarding the establishment of the Shari‘a as the

primary source of all legislation was the straw that broke the Copts’ back. Communal strife was aggravated yet Sadat’s friendship with the brotherhood was not affected. Talmasani was credited by the minister of the interior with exercising a calming effect on the Coptic and Muslim parties involved in the Zawiyah al-Hamra incident in June 1981, which began when a Coptic family in one of Cairo’s poorer neighborhoods allowed dirty water to spill onto the balcony of a Muslim family sharing the building. This incident led to a verbal argument between

the two families that escalated into a battle fought with stones and machine guns and involving the entire neighborhood.** Talmasani, on his part, continued to declare that the brotherhood would not join any

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antigovernment activity, but on September 3, 1981, Sadat struck, imprisoning most of his critics and presumed enemies and blaming them for stoking the fires of communal unrest. The brotherhood was swept into the net of the security forces, which linked it to the extremist Jihad groups and arrested nearly sixteen hundred leaders from the Right, the Left, and the Islamist and Coptic movements. Talmasani and the highest religious adviser to the Jihad groups, the blind Sheikh Ahmed ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Rahman, were arrested. The government also ordered the suppression of major Islamic journals such as Al-da ‘wa, Al-1‘tisam, and AImukhtar al-Islamt. The arrests targeted primarily members of the Jihad

organizations whose remaining free cadres decided to avenge themselves by carrying out Sadat’s assassination.””

As for the historic goals of feminists, Sadat was always supportive. In September 1970, he issued a decree authorizing the creation of a women’s secretariat within the Arab Socialist Union and appointed Su‘ad Abu al-Su‘ud to head this section. Women were also encouraged to run for local elections, and Jihan Sadat was elected as the head of the local council of Minoufiah governorate in October 1975. During the same elections seven women were elected to the Daghaliyah council, three in Qalyoubiyah, one in Giza, four in al-Minoufiah, four in Alexandria, three in al-Shargiyah, one in Dimyat, and two in Isma‘iliyah. Five women were elected to the Cairo governorate council alone. In 1971, when the National Assembly was renamed the People’s Assembly, nine women were elected to it.°° Sadat also followed the previous practice of appointing a woman, ‘Aishah Rateb, as minister of social welfare. But, unquestionably, the leader of secular feminists turned out to be the president’s wife and not the minister of social welfare. Unlike Nasser’s wife, the reticent and traditional Tahiyya ‘Abd al-Nasser, Jihan Sadat emerged as a formidable advocate of women’s rights, exercising an open Westernizing influence on Egypt’s women. Jihan Sadat began her formal feminist career by involving Egyptian feminists with international and Arab feminist efforts. She would, from then on, head any governmental or quasi-governmental effort touching on the lives of women and their development. An Arab League commission on the rights of working women attracted attention when she inaugurated its sessions. Her attendance at these discussions, focusing on the legal rights of working women in other Arab countries, specifically on the rights of expectant mothers, brought along the president of the Arab League, Mahmoud Riyadh, and the minister of social wel-

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fare.*1 When a United Nations conference on the social development of

Afro-Asian women was convened at Alexandria on March 8, 1975, Sadat was chosen as honorary chair. This session brought to Egypt delegates from forty-five countries and launched the UN Decade for Women, 1975-85. Egypt not only acted as the host country for this important conference but distributed a special appeal on behalf of women,

written by Sadat, as an official UN document. Egypt also played an important role in the follow-up conferences on this theme held in Somalia and Zaire. From then on, Jihan Sadat became the official face of Egypt’s feminism.” Sadat’s greatest confrontation with the Islamic movement, however, occurred over the issue of the personal status law. Although her secular

feminist proclivities were widely known, her concerted campaign to repeal the personal status law gained her the enmity of the Islamist sector. Her role as the president’s closest confidante on all matters, not only on the issue of women, opened him to a variety of charges. It would not be an exaggeration, therefore, to state that Jihan Sadat became unpopular not only with the Islamist groups but also with many sectors of public opinion, which decried the president’s unwillingness to abide by the views of the democratically elected opposition while yielding to his own wife’s informal advice. In addition, Jihan Sadat’s increasing unpopularity must be ascribed to the role model she pro-

vided for the women of Egypt, that of an influential, powerful, secularized, and politically minded woman. This feminine archetype contradicted the feminine Muslim virtues advocated by the Islamist movement and stood in opposition to the traditional model of Egyptian womanhood. Finally, the president’s wife represented the epitome of Western values and all that was objectionable about the regime. The personal status law campaign was viewed as simply the most flagrant demonstration of the Western orientation of the Sadat era. The demand for repeal of the personal status law, one of the oldest objectives of the Egyptian secularist feminist movement, burst unexpectedly onto the Egyptian scene. The law itself had a long and tortuous history. Efforts to repeal it went back to 1958, when a deputy in the National Assembly proposed a reform measure suggested by the Ministry of Social Welfare. Aminah al-Sa‘id repeated this call in 1967 during the Week of Islamic Jurisprudence conference. The battle was resumed in early March 1978, with efforts orchestrated by Jihan Sadat and designed to mount a publicity effort on behalf of the proposed legislation.

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A series of articles titled “An Educational Service about Women and Their Persona! Status” appeared on the pages of Al-mussawar, an influential weekly. The series began with a report that ‘Azizah Hussein, the head of the Family Planning Association, had conducted parallel studies

on polygyny and divorce and concluded that they were the two worst crimes committed against Muslim society. On March 10, public television began running a dramatic series called “The Desired Night.” It concerned a man specializing in marrying widowed and divorced women and then escaping with their money. As if through deliberate orchestration, movie houses began showing a film titled Uridu hallan (J need a solution), based on a story by Ihsan ‘Abd al-Quddus. It dramatized the plight of two women, one unable to convince the courts to grant her a divorce and the other divorced but unable to obtain an equitable settle-

ment. It was as though Jihan Sadat was competing with the author of this novel over the honor of leading Egyptian women to their liberation, cried the editor of an Islamist journal.** The Islamist reaction to Jihan Sadat’s open support for reforming the personal status law was politically destabilizing. When the People’s Assembly began discussing this measure, a huge demonstration of Azharite students marched to the building, where they were dispersed by force. In addition, some of the radical sheikhs made open references in their sermons to the Sadats’ extravagance and un-Islamic ways.*° Jihan Sadat’s overt interest in all affairs of state, as demonstrated in her book Sayyidah min Misr, was unacceptable, especially to the Islamist movement. Details of the sectarian rebellion pitting the radical Islamist group against the Copts and similar crises appeared on every page. The book also expressed her personal criticism of Pope Shenoudah, accusing him of excessive politicization and deliberate incitement of his flock.*® What made Jihan Sadat’s influence alarming was the president’s habit

of seeking assistance from a close band of loyalists. Even though Jihan Sadat usurped the role of the minister of social welfare as the foremost official advocate of women’s rights, the position itself was always entrusted to friendly hands. Thus, ‘Uthman was also a trusted adviser. She was asked occasionally to prepare special legal reports concerning such matters as the desirability of insulating members of the judicial branch of government from politics.*” These duties reached beyond her official line of work, but Anwar Sadat expected to call on his aides regardless of their specialization. Jihan Sadat functioned in a variety of capacities, all of them extensions of her position as Egypt’s first lady. But no one doubted that she

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brought multiple talents to her unusual role as the acknowledged powerhouse behind the president. One of those who knew her well before and during her husband’s accession to power was the former chairman

of the board of Dar-al-Hilal, Ahmad Baha‘ al-Din. By virtue of his wife’s long-standing friendship with Jihan Sadat and his own intimate association with both Sadats, Baha‘ al-Din was able to observe them at close range. Jihan Sadat, he wrote later, had expressed her feminism and rejection of the life of a prominent socialite before her husband’s presidential ambitions were realized. Social welfare activism, providing services to the wounded victims of war and the returned Egyptian prisoners following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, came naturally to her. But once she became the first lady of Egypt, her public service standards changed and her love of luxuries and social prominence alienated many Egyptians. One such behavior involved the televised broadcasting of her master’s thesis defense at Cairo University’s College of Arts and Sciences. Later, Egyptians were amazed to learn that she summoned some of Egypt’s top experts in Egyptian and Arab history, classical music, and other branches of knowledge, to sharpen her ability to converse with world leaders. Thus, the public always accused her of excessive ambition. Baha‘ al-Din reported that the only time her influence over her husband was diminished was when she lost out to the influence and valued advice of the Sadats’ latest in-law, millionaire ‘Uthman Ahmad “Uthman.*®

But Jihan Sadat was also capable of courageous gestures on behalf of women. Baha‘ al-Din, for instance, told the story of when she decided to accompany the president on a trip to Saudi Arabia. She descended from the plane with him rather than remain inside the cabin until met by other women, as Saudi custom dictated. While the Saudis reacted

with aplomb, greeting the first lady as though this was part of the accepted Saudi protocol, the president remained glum. He was apparently hoodwinked into approving this gesture, which challenged Saudi segregationist customs. Jihan Sadat also baffled the Egyptian public with her self-control, extreme intelligence, and bold behavior, qualities not normally associated with women. Even after the assassination of her husband, she maintained a calm and polished exterior while performing the duties of a bereaved first lady. Baha‘ al-Din claimed that he suggested to her, after the death of her husband, that one reason for her difficulty with public opinion was that she often indulged in activities acceptable to American rather than Egyptian public opinion.” The women’s issue also played a large role as a source of friction in

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Coptic-state and Coptic-Islamic relations, most importantly because of the inevitable exaggeration of Muslim-Christian theological differences as a result of rising Islamic religious-political consciousness. But other internal Coptic developments reached fruition during the 1970s. These alterations to the traditional Coptic outlook on social issues also resulted in heightened religious-political consciousness, particularly on the part of the clergy and youths. While the Islamic revival was far greater in its intensity than anything comparable among the Coptic community, the two developments bear some resemblance. Both were by-products of the massive rural migration to the cities as well as the historic mobilization of the petite bourgeoisie across communal lines. Also both developments pitted the communal religious institution against the Egyptian state. The Coptic rebellion, however, paled next to the Islamist confrontation in its insurrectionist nature and intensity. The accession of Pope Shenoudah III to leadership within the Coptic Church dated to October 31, 1971. His rise to the top illustrated the emergence of a new elite within the church that combined a modernized outlook with political and social activism. Shenoudah was born Nathir Geed on August 3, 1923, in the provincial town of Asyut and was raised by his sister-in-law after his mother’s death. He received a secular education at first, having graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cairo University in 1947. When he decided to enter the priesthood he attended the Coptic Clerical College. He also enrolled for a time at the Institute of Archaeology, a natural interest for a Copt since the ancient history of Egypt intensified the Copts’ pride in their Pharaonic heritage.*°

Shenoudah also dabbled in politics before joining the priesthood, becoming a member of al-Kutlah (The bloc) Party during the 1940s. Al-Kutlah al-Wafdiyah was founded by the Wafd Party’s most prominent Coptic member, Makram ‘Ubeid, whose expulsion from the party caused the resignation of many members. ‘Ubeid, who always represented a strong nationalist Coptic trend, attracted like-minded Copts.

Shenoudah was attracted to ‘Ubeid’s party because of its history of opposition to sectarianism. Shenoudah was remembered as a poetryreading young star of al-Kutlah’s meetings. More important, Shenoudah served as a reservist in the Egyptian army. His love for journalism continued throughout his clerical career, and he was among the first Coptic popes to master the English language. He was a regular contributor to the Egyptian daily Al-jumbhuriyah and was an avid student of Islamic and Christian history as well as a noted lecturer.*

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Shenoudah began his priestly career in 1954 when he retreated to the Sourian Monastery at Natroun Valley, where he took the name of Antonious al-Souriani. He spent close to eleven years in that remote area, translating ancient manuscripts. His rise through the clerical hierarchy began with his appointment to the position of personal secretary

to Pope Kyrelos VI. He later became a bishop in charge of clerical education and proceeded to attract university-educated youths for study

at the theological college. Women were also admitted to nighttime study at the same college to enrich their spiritual education.** The contrasting personalities of Shenoudah and his immediate predecessor,

Kyrelos, tell a great deal about Shenoudah’s impact on the church. Kyrelos was famous among all Egyptians for his immense spirituality.

His prayers were rumored to be a sure way to heal the sick. Copts claimed for years that Nasser appealed to the Pope to pray for sick members of Nasser’s immediate family. The contrast between the spirituality of the former Pope and the apparent political and cultural awareness of the current Pope were visible to most Egyptians.** The first sign of the impending crisis between Shenoudah and Sadat developed over the role of the state in validating the election of a new

Pope. A highly guarded privilege reserved for the church hierarchy only, the election of a new Pope was governed by ancient rules designed to ensure the independence and fairness of the election process. As was customary, several months after Kyrelos’s death on March 9,

1971, the list of finalists was reduced to three men from among five names representing the Coptic community of Cairo and the provinces. The three finalists were Anba (bishop) Samuel, al-Qims Timota‘us, and Shenoudah. The election process, which concluded with a blind draw by one of the congregation’s children randomly chosen, was also supervised by a bevy of government, church, and diplomatic officials, including Muslim cabinet ministers, the head of the Ethiopian Church Del-

egation, and a number of senior foreign diplomats. Thus, when Shenoudah was chosen as the 117th Pope of the Church of Saint Mark, there was no question in people’s mind that divine providence guided his election. Normally, the state’s role did not go beyond the ratification of the election results. Thus, Sadat issued presidential order 2782 in 1971, which confirmed Shenoudah’s election.“ Sadat, however, acted as though the state had a right to influence the final selection of the Coptic Pope. According to Muhammad Hassanein Haikal, journalist and presidential adviser, Sadat began to inquire about the personalities and political backgrounds of the three finalists as soon

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as their names became known. He even held a special meeting with Haikal, Minister of the Interior Mamdouh Salem, and Vice-President Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam al-Zayyat, a noted constitutional expert, to discuss options. Sadat was told that the only serious competition would be between the young, committed, and modernizing Shenoudah and a traditional, older candidate. Haikal, unlike Salem, supported the older candidate, because he would be removed through natural causes sooner

should he prove troublesome for the state. Sadat ended up voicing support for Shenoudah, who was well known to Salem. Haikal’s account rankled many people since it revealed Sadat’s early determination to interfere with the affairs of the church. Sadat’s cordial relations with the Pope, however, lasted until the flare-up of Muslim attacks on Coptic properties.*°

Shenoudah quickly began to assert himself as more than just the spiritual head of the Coptic Church. Rumors circulated that he was about to banish Samuel to a less prominent position. Samuel was the international expert who always represented the Coptic Church at meet-

ings of the International Council of Churches and who maintained contacts with Christian leaders around the world. However, he managed to remain in the Pope’s good graces. Throughout the Coptic confrontation with the state, Samuel exercised a calming influence on both. Sadat later appointed Samuel to the special committee charged with carrying out Shenoudah’s religious duties after the latter’s removal from office.*° Until his assassination with Sadat on October 6, 1981, Samuel was the only potential rival to Shenoudah. Shenoudah’s assertiveness, particularly in matters of church-state relations, was made possible because of the changes he introduced in the hierarchy of the church. He succeeded in surrounding himself with university-educated bishops who supported his drive to become the sole representative of the Coptic community in all matters pertaining to the state. Church positions were quickly staffed with lawyers, engineers, and university professors. Government selection of members of lay coun-

cils was made only after Shenoudah’s approval. The prime minister began consulting with Shenoudah before making some appointments to the People’s Assembly.*” Under Shenoudah, not only were the tradi-

tional leaders of the church sidelined, but the church itself began to represent the Coptic community before the state. Such was Shenoudah’s revolution, which wrested leadership of the Orthodox Coptic commu-

nity from the hands of the aristocratic Coptic politicians. Shenoudah

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achieved these changes through his great interest in political and social issues of the day and through his own charisma, but he would not have succeeded had the Nasser era not weakened the traditional and aristocratic leadership cadres of the Orthodox Coptic community. Shenoudah’s charismatic abilities enabled him to reach out to significant sectors of the Coptic community, particularly politically active ones, and to infuse them with his own definition of Coptic welfare and progress. He coordinated with the Sunday school network, begun by Habib Girgis years

earlier, and with the system of Coptic university families that linked Coptic students on each campus.*®

Shenoudah’s determination to attract Coptic youths and university students to his own program stemmed also from his desire to control and contain dissident elements within the Orthodox Coptic community. The most prominent of these groups were spiritual and separatist communities formed around a religious leader and in opposition to the organized church and to society. Through their intense concentration on Christian spiritual teachings, the religious identity of these groups overcame their national identity and attracted the animosity of the

| Islamist religious current. This phenomenon alarmed the church leadership and forced the disciplining and sometimes the exiling of the movement’s leaders. For example, Father Danial al-Baramusi, who as a graduate engineer left society and dedicated himself to the church by entering al-Baramus Monastery, was assigned the duty of religious adviser to Orthodox youths in the Minya governorate. When his lectures

began to draw huge crowds in Cairo, the church leadership assigned him to the sleepy provinces away from the capital. A prolific writer on religious subjects, Father Danial was totally opposed by Shenoudah’s lieutenants. His confrontation with Islamist students while studying at one of Cairo’s universities cost him one of his eyes but did not deter him from pursuing his mission. Among his many publications were such titles as They Defeated Him and The Trap Broke, which dealt with Jesus’ struggle against the devil. These intense religious tracts overemphasized attributes of true Christian believers who followed in the steps of Jesus. Father Danial defined the kingdom of light as that of the true Christian and charismatic community and the kingdom of darkness as anything outside of these boundaries in Egyptian society. For Coptic youths, this was a heady message akin to that of the Jihad organizations

which anathematized anything and anyone who did not conform to their religious agenda.”

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Another example of this semi-independent charismatic trend within the Coptic Orthodox Church was the phenomenal popularity of the priest Zacharia Butrus. The resident priest of Mar Murqus (Saint Mark)

Church in Masr al-Jadidah until 1979, he was forced to leave on Shenoudah’s orders and was barred from delivering any sermons. He published his defense against the church in a book titled Orthodoxy Is My Creed. It was not the Coptic Church’s hierarchy which feared his

influence. The state asked for his removal and arrested him in the massive wave of arrests in September 1981. After his release from de-

tention, he remained under house arrest until 1988, when Pope Shenoudah ordered his restoration to the Church of Mary Girgis at ‘Ein Shams. This move did not end his political sermons or friction with

members of other religious communities. Finally, the church and the state agreed to relocate him to Australia. Butrus was apparently the most problematic of these leaders because he not only stressed religious zeal but also attacked the state’s policies toward the Christians of Egypt and defended Christian dogma against Muslim attacks. The most serious accusation leveled at him, however, was that he engaged in proselytizing to the Muslim community. This grave accusation stemmed from the wide distribution of his book The Single God in the Holy Trinity, in which he discussed Trinitarian doctrine and responded to Islamic distortions of this subject.°°

Shenoudah’s effort to represent the Orthodox Coptic community before the state grew out of the disastrous events surrounding the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. This massive national debacle eliminated Nasserism as a focus of loyalty and left the church unopposed in its effort to coopt Coptic youth. Although the church remained loyal to the state on the surface, it continued its undeclared but steady campaign to attract the masses. By the beginning of the 1970s, the church was more able than the state to fulfill this role, which entailed greater church involvement

in the daily social and political concerns of its community. Without necessarily mounting a political opposition to the regime’s foreign policy,

the church maintained its competition with the state by emphasizing the church’s embodiment of Coptic aspirations. Coptic denouncement of the Camp David Accords and peace with Israel was an exception that

was shared by the Islamist movement, but this opposition developed largely because of Israeli seizure of Coptic properties near Jerusalem. At the same time, the church did not refrain from demonstrating the state’s

lax support for minority rights, thereby strengthening the Coptic

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community’s attachment to the church and deepening and enriching Coptic identity. Without opposing the state through violent means, the church withheld badly needed support from the regime.*! Thus, while the church became the symbol of the Coptic population as a result of the decline of secular nationalism, a phenomenon shared by the Muslim

community, the church also found itself adopting a sectarian role to respond to the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism. Shenoudah also confronted the challenge of Coptic sectarianism and isolationism in the 1970s. Some of these ideologies were outgrowths of the Arab secularism of the previous era, but others represented older trends within the church that resisted and avoided the national question. First, the secularist outlook affirmed the separation of church and state, especially as emphasized in Christian tradition. This outlook stressed

the importance of nonintervention in the political sphere. The best representative of this stream within Coptic Orthodoxy was Milad Hanna. A product of the Sunday school system, he became an ardent Nasserite

and, later, one of the founders of the Tagammu‘ progressive party. Never believing in a special political role for the church in the 1960s, he was unable to shift focus in the 1970s when the church acquired significance as a result of the development of the religious question in Egypt. But he continued to express concern for the deterioration of communal relations and for the need to develop a political solution to the problem of the Egyptian church. Conflict between Hanna and Shenoudah reached its highest point in the 1970s, when the Pope began his vigorous efforts to represent the Copts before the state. A considerable ideological gap stretched between the two, with Hanna firmly convinced that the fires of sectarianism could be extinguished with a strong display of Coptic moderation. Hanna also rejected any sectarian solution to the communal problem, for example, establishing a quota for Copts to assure their adequate political representation in state institutions. Hanna condemned both Christian and Islamic fanaticism in equal terms. He believed that the Coptic community’s interests could best be represented by Coptic statesmen and officials, not by church officials. Shenoudah’s tactics in mobilizing the Coptic community, however, stemmed from his despair of the effectiveness of secularist solutions. By 1981, Shenoudah felt that

the Coptic community could only defend itself by rallying around its church.°*?

Coptic isolationism also posed a threat, emphasizing religious education and avoidance of political and social problems. This ideology popu-

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larized the idea of escaping from the turbulent world into spirituality and religion and was espoused by Father Matta al-Miskin. The church frowned on this trend as much as it did on the spiritual trend of Father Danial, which resulted in Christian-Muslim clashes. Another school of thought within the church felt that it had an important national as well as religious role to play, namely, resisting Western imperialism. This school was led by William Suleiman Qiladeh, who was considered part of Shenoudah’s generation of enlightened Copts. Qiladeh and his followers advocated maintaining a balance among the church’s varying roles. A great believer in Nasser’s pan-Arab socialist policies, Qiladeh believed that if the church joined the state in its struggle against the forces of imperialism and Zionism, church and state would become closer. Another common threat, in his view, was Western Christianity and non—Orthodox Coptic churches, which were instruments of Western imperialism. Qiladeh, therefore, stressed a nationalist rather than a

political agenda for the church.** :

Shenoudah’s ascent to the leadership of the Coptic Orthodox Church signaled the triumph of the school advocating a comprehensive Christian solution that was represented by the Pope and by one of his closest associates, Anba Gregorius, the bishop of Academic Research and Higher Coptic Studies. In the view of one of Egypt’s foremost experts on the Coptic Church, Rafiq Habib, both Gregorius and Shenoudah believed that Christianity was a religion and a state (dim wa dowlah, or return to the past), a concept that duplicated the Islamic fundamentalist motto. This view, just like the Islamic revivalist movement of the 1970s, sprang from an emphasis on the authenticity of the Christian heritage and the need to emulate the lives and deeds of the great figures of the church. Described as salafiyah, this view paralleled the Islamic emphasis on the ideal utopia of early Islam and relied on Christian texts as a source of wisdom and inspiration. The Bible, Gregorius felt, was a point of reference for all worldly things and the source of all legislation governing the lives of individuals and affairs of the family. He also advocated total Christian obedience to the state, seeking mercy for its subjects only if the state abused their rights. The church should try to establish a safe

niche for itself within the state as one of its institutions. In summary, Gregorius believed that the church should have a position on all social and political issues, including what was forbidden and what was permit-

ted in Christian dogma. This position placed him in the forefront of those who articulated the church’s response to Protestant and, more

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important, Islamic misrepresentation of Christian dogma. In his response to an Islamist fundamentalist piece by Al-Hamza Du‘bus, for instance, Gregorius lamented the aggressive and hateful spirit in which

the fundamentalists presented their views. He described the type of Islam portrayed by the fundamentalists as incapable of coexisting with any other religion. He added that Du‘bus’s tone was inflammatory, leading to a permanent state of sectarian rebellion. Gregorius also responded to attacks by Sheikh al-Sha‘rawi, mocking his assumption of the title of the Khomeini of Egypt. Gregorius threatened Sha‘rawi with dire consequences for having challenged the theology of Christ.°* Similarly, Shenoudah defended church dogma and expounded on it whenever the state appeared ready to jeopardize the church’s jurisdictional autonomy or when the Islamist movement emphasized the superiority of Islamic laws. Shenoudah’s response often centered on the issue of women, an issue that increasingly came to dominate Islamist discourse during the 1970s. When the question of reforming the personal status law came up in the 1960s, Shenoudah, then only a bishop, wrote a popular book elaborating on Christian family practices, The Law of Monogamy in Christiamtty and Our Personal Status Principles. In 1971 and 1972, Shenoudah wrote a series of articles for the Cairo daily Al-jumhurtyah, touching on a variety of spiritual topics but also empha-

sizing the distinctive nature of Coptic Orthodox dogma. He hinted in these articles at what would be spiritually appropriate as a weapon against

the state. On July 9, 1972, the Pope condemned rumormongering without making specific reference to whispers about his involvement in a plot against the state. In a book titled The Spiritual War, Shenoudah explained that whereas Christ condemned violence, there was nothing in Christian teaching that forbade “negative violence.” This principle, which approximated civil disobedience, recurred frequently in the Pope’s writing and was understood to be directed against the state. It was also the principle that Shenoudah applied when he canceled religious celebrations in 1980.°° In another article in Cairo’s largest daily, Al-ahram, on January 7, 1973 (the date of the Eastern rite Christmas), the Pope explained the divine purpose behind Christ’s birth and life journey. In “Christ Came with an Intellectual Revolution and Reformed People’s Thinking,” he launched into a purely religious discussion of the Christian message of love and redemption, stressing the implications of the message of love and how it translated into everyday existence. He described Christ’s teaching on freedom, emphasizing that it meant free-

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dom from the tyranny of lust, of rooted customs, and of the ego. He then proceeded to explain how Christ elevated the status of women and protected them against divorce, making adultery the only grounds for divorce.°°

The Pope’s ability to deliver subtle warnings and messages was dem-

onstrated again during a February 8, 1977, meeting with Sadat and Egypt’s religious leadership that was called to secure religious backing for Sadat’s crackdown on the bread riots of January 17-18. Shenoudah

began by requesting the creation of a permanent Muslim-Christian committee to deal with sectarian matters. He also condemned the riots, |

adding that the destruction of property was not the best means of expressing people’s grievances. He thanked the president for supporting religious unity and for his interest in religious education. He al-

luded to Islam and its early tolerance of Ethiopian Copts, quoting statements by the Prophet in which he beseeched Muslims to show kindness toward Copts and other people of the Book. Shenoudah reminded Sadat and the assembled Islamic leadership of past Muslim promises to the Copts and the Copts’ solidarity with the Muslims of Egypt during the Crusades. Shenoudah also alluded to the Copts’ rejection of confessionalism during the early part of the century. He proposed that Muslims and Copts author books together about atheism, the attributes of God, and monotheism, in which they all believed. When Copts invoked the Trinity, he added, they always followed by repeating that God was one. Shenoudah said that he wished to teach his young children to love the land—every street, every corner, and every institution. He repeated that he wanted to teach people how to respect each other, even those with whom they disagreed.°’

The struggle of the Coptic Orthodox Church to maintain its autonomy and status in Egyptian society would have remained limited to verbal sparring with Islamist extremists had not acts of violence against

the Copts dragged the state into the fray. The initial reaction of the Sadat government to Muslim-Coptic tension centered on repeated calls for national unity. This situation changed when the Copts appealed to the state for protection after the Khankah incident, the latest in a series of sectarian attacks involving the Muslim and the Christian communities. In 1978, Muslim elements burned a building structure in the town of Khankah where Christians assembled to pray. The government belittled the significance of this event, claiming that the structure was no

more than a shack, but Shenoudah insisted that the structure was a

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church. Sadat later admitted that the land on which the structure stood belonged to the church and added that it was customary for the Copts to overcome government restrictions on the building of churches by designating any structure to be a house of worship. His anger at Coptic protests was fueled by his previous authorization for the building of fifty churches, which he felt was a generous offer.°® Shenoudah’s response to the Islamist attack on what he considered to be a house of

worship was to send a busload of priests to perform services at the burned-out building. Sadat resented this gesture even more than the original attack, considering it a genuine act of incitement.” Another crisis developed over Sadat’s recommendation to the People’s Assembly to declare the Islamic Shari‘a the primary source of all legislation. According to Jihan Sadat in her book A Woman from Egypt, Sadat

first punished extremist Islamist groups to restore confidence to the Christian population and then yielded to persistent Islamist demands regarding the Shari‘a question to even the balance. The Shari‘a measure was apparently approved by 98 percent of all Egyptians in a national referendum conducted in May 1980. Shenoudah openly opposed this proposal, his anger deepened by further Muslim-Christian clashes at alZawiyah al-Hamra in June 1980. Jihan Sadat wrote that the Pope over-

stepped his boundaries as a religious leader and indulged in unsuitable political argumentation. Anwar Sadat complained publicly about Shenoudah’s active opposition to the Shari‘a legislation and his call to Coptic voters to oppose the referendum. Shenoudah responded by convening an emergency session of the church’s highest council. Shenoudah later explained that he needed to pacify Coptic fears regarding their status under the proposed legislation. Most of his followers were anxious to learn if their citizenship rights would be diminished or

if their ability to apply their own personal status law would be affected. The Pope was soon angered to learn from certain press accounts that another proposal before the People’s Assembly would impose the death penalty for the crime of apostasy. This proposal caused great concern because it could be applied to Christians who adopted Islam but returned later to Christianity. Shenoudah retaliated by ordering prayer and fasting in Coptic churches.° The greatest source of friction was clashes between Christian and Muslim university students. These attacks reflected the startling diffusion of communal tension through all areas of institutional life, and they invariably involved women. Coming on the heels of communal

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disorder in provincial towns and in the poor quarters of major cities, these disturbances further inflamed the most articulate members of the two communities. Among the most affected universities were those at Alexandria, al-Minia, and Asyut, a town of great Coptic concentration. Christian students, both men and women, were becoming increasingly visible as a separate entity on campuses and as a highly ideological and organized group. Some made public declarations of their willingness to die for Jesus. At the same time, the influence and power of radical Islamist students over university administrations and professors was evident everywhere. Islamist students would often forcibly prevent coeducational entertainment events. At Asyut, extreme Islamist radicals prevented Christian celebrations on the campus. The response of Christian

clerics was often to encourage more declaratory statements and the wearing of crosses as jewelry by female students. Security officers attempted to persuade Coptic officials to limit or cancel large public gatherings for Christian youths every Saturday during which inflammatory religious lectures were delivered. Christian leaders, however, demanded that Sadat remove the governor of Asyut for siding with Islamist attackers.© Sadat, in return, demanded the removal of the bishop of

Asyut for his similar role in these events. The Pope claimed that the bishop merely aided students after they came under attack and that a bishop could only be removed by action of the religious council after a fair examination of his errors.°°

The most serious incident that aggravated relations between the church and the regime was the kidnapping and forced conversion and marriage of a high-born Coptic woman. Rumors circulated that a member of a radical Islamic group raped the niece of the Pope’s secretary (himself a priest) and forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. Sadat ordered a special investigation by the minister of the interior, who questioned the woman’s parents and a number of Coptic deputies.“

Jihan Sadat reported the story as one more incident of exaggerated rumormongering. She wrote that one of her Coptic female friends appealed to her to stop the wave of Islamist kidnapping of Coptic girls

for the purpose of forced conversion and marriage. Jihan Sadat then commented that it was customary for the Copts to exaggerate accounts of Islamist attack in order to force the government to intervene. The government’s investigation of this incident supported the contention that it was no more than a case of intercommunal love and elopement.® Mounting tension between Sadat and the Pope led to a momentous

The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church 99

public attack in which Sadat aired his long-standing complaints. Sadat’s address before the People’s Assembly was delivered on May 14, 1980, in a rambling manner that permitted coverage of a host of issues. Sadat accused Shenoudah of working to detach Upper Egypt from the rest of the country and establish a separate Christian state with the capital at Asyut. Sadat also bitterly attacked the campaign waged in the Western media by expatriate Copts in the United States and Australia. Although

these attacks could not be directly linked to the Pope, Sadat felt betrayed. Most of these press attacks decried the inability of the government to suppress Islamist violence against the Copts. Sadat was particularly resentful because these attacks generated adverse publicity for him

and for Egypt while he was on a state visit to Washington in 1978. Engaged in a very sensitive phase of the Camp David negotiations, Sadat felt that his crucial meetings with President Jimmy Carter should

not be disrupted by the intrusion of this domestic subject. He also contrasted Shenoudah’s political role in mobilizing Coptic opinion against Islamist attackers with Kyrelos’s saintly ways and quiet patriotism. After running through all the focal points of tension, such as the building of churches, alleged kidnapping of Coptic women, and vio-

lence at the universities, he made strong allusions to the substantial wealth of most Copts. To illustrate the benign conditions under which the Copts lived, he mentioned that much of the land in his ancestral village, Mit Abu al-Koam, was owned by Copts.® In another public address following Shenoudah’s arrest on September 5, 1981, Sadat announced presidential order 491, which canceled the 1971 decree confirming the assumption of the papacy by Shenoudah. In place of the Pope, Sadat appointed a church committee that consisted of four high-ranking priests, including Anba Gregorius, the bishop of Academic Research and Higher Coptic Studies, and Anba Samuel, who headed churches outside Egypt. In a subsequent press conference to answer questions about this unprecedented act of arresting and imprisoning the Pope, Sadat stressed that no single individual damaged the Copts more than Shenoudah. He again raised the issue of Coptic wealth and parallel Muslim poverty. He cited the example of Toukh,

where the Copts had owned half of its total land area since ancient times. Sadat said that his family and fellow villagers always worked the

village lands of Toukh and gave the revenue to the Copts, but no violent incidents ever took place. Think, he said, of what might have happened all over Egypt if Copts faced Muslims in hostile confronta-

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tions. In an interview with the French paper Le Figaro, Sadat also disputed the Coptic estimate of their numerical strength, claiming that they numbered no more than three million as opposed to their figure of eight million.°”

Pope Shenoudah was not released from jail until 1985, four years after Sadat’s assassination. But tension between Egypt’s two main religious communities had grave consequences for the entire country and particularly for women. Indeed, the Sadat era saw the unusual convergence of several factors that led directly to the intensification of religious loyalties and the disintegration of the Egyptian national agenda. Sectarianism and mounting communal violence were the most visible indicator of that breakdown. The violent sectarianism sweeping Egypt during the Sadat era resulted from a great historical accident—the convergence of Sadat’s and Shenoudah’s political careers at that moment in time.

Even though Coptic particularism during the 1970s did not necessarily hinder the progress of women, it fed and strengthened Islamist sectarianism. Thus, the Islamist movement, already focused on an antiWestern theme, saw another alien influence at work in Coptic resistance, consciousness-raising, and assertiveness in political-communal matters. The Islamist movement struggled to reaffirm its religious identity to survive the changed realities of Egypt. Naturally, no single issue defined the Islamic way of life more than women. Egypt’s economic crisis and the sudden shift from socialist to capitalist and consumerist economics also negatively affected Egypt’s starving masses. One of the accepted axioms of religious fundamentalism is that it influences the petite bourgeoisie and feeds on the collapse of national politics. Egypt in the 1970s was no exception, especially as socialism was replaced by a service and parasitic type of capitalism. In addition,

the reintroduction of a Western economic value system, which the Islamist movement thoroughly rejected, contributed to the resolve of the Islamist movement to remove the consumerist vulnerability of women

and the family institution. No single institution promised to act as a bulwark against Western consumerism like the family, resulting in emphasis on the re-Islamization of women. The Islamist concern over infitah was also deepened by the political feminist activism of the president’s wife. Jihan Sadat’s example denied

the validity of the Islamist model of the ideal wife and mother and threatened the political ideology of the Islamist movement. Never did

The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church 101

Egypt experience anything akin to Jihan Sadat’s proximity to political power. Even the influential and politically well connected feminist leader Huda Sha‘rawi lacked Jihan Sadat’s open access to the top executive office and all the channels of power. Sadat’s wife, moreover, personified the ideal womanhood of infitah. Articulate, influential, and unabashedly pro-Western, she appeared to all eyes to be an informal vice-president, if not a co-president. Her mobilization campaign and battle in favor of reforming the personal status law unmasked her true intentions regarding the Shari‘a. Finally, Egypt’s communal disintegration and the intensification of the Christian and Muslim sectarian identities, with all that the latter implied for the status and prospects of Muslim women, must be attributed to Anwar Sadat’s tactics and policies. A master of the politics of cooptation, Sadat played along with the Islamist trend to achieve several objectives. Some of them were quickly attained, like the dispersal of the Nasserist front; others, like the domestication of the Islamist viewpoint,

were not so easy to achieve. The Islamist movement, for instance, mounted a strong campaign against the Egyptian-Israeli peace. It was not possible to tame the Islamist movement and deal with it on a quid pro quo basis. Granting it official support to declare the Shari‘a as the primary source of law could not defang the movement, in part because of Coptic mobilization and opposition. Furthermore, Sadat was unable

to satisfy the total demands of the Islamist movement because they sought to reconstruct the social order rather than to reform it. Even though the Islamist movement consisted of gradualist and radical currents, both aimed at comprehensive restructuring of society. The Islamist Movement was simply disinclined to participate in the politics of cooptation all the time. Even some of the sheikhs cultivated by the regime countered the regime’s secular orientation by emphasizing Islamic distinctiveness and Christian separateness. Sadat’s secularist politics that encouraged the co-optationist approach could not reconcile the regime’s agenda with that of the Islamist movement. One of the biggest political battles of the 1970s concerned the personal status law. This conflict alone alienated the reform wing of the Islamist movement, which could not reconcile Jihan Sadat’s feminist program with its own vision of Egypt’s Islamic society.

5 Che Personal Status Law Redefined

The two significant battles that eroded Anwar Sadat’s political base were fought over the Shari‘a. These battles, it turned out, not only pitted Muslim secularists against Muslim fundamentalists but also Copts against Muslims. Within the secularist-Islamist transfiguration, however, women were further polarized between those who defended the

traditional interpretation of the Shari‘a and those who clamored for a new definition capable of distinguishing between Islamic ftgh (human definition of divine law) and canonical rendition of Qur‘anic laws. Having embarked on a course never attempted by Nasser’s socialist regime, Sadat entered these conflicts with the usual co-optational ends in mind. By sponsoring liberal measures favoring women, he hoped to dull the edge of his leftist critics and appeal to his Western allies. By sponsoring regressive measures favoring Islamist elements, he hoped to quiet his

religious opposition. Jihan Sadat openly alluded to these tactics and explained that her husband undertook this balancing act to even out Islamist and Coptic forces. Once the Islamist forces exceeded tolerable limits, Sadat suppressed their rebellion with an eye to calming the fears of the Copts. But then Sadat felt a great need to repair his relations with

the Islamist camp, which he attempted to achieve through another radical constitutional measure designed to mollify the Islamists in which the Shari‘a was declared the main source of legislation in Egypt. The measure overturned a less restrictive previous constitutional statement, which read that the Shari‘a was a main source of legislation.’ These tactics diminished Sadat’s political assets among several key 102

The Personal Status Law Redefined 103

constituencies. More important, as the regime swung its support from one camp to another, Egypt’s traditional sectarian harmony began to recede. Relations between Copts and Muslims were aggravated as an indirect result of amending the Shari‘a in favor of a new family law. Islamist religious forces felt badly wounded as a result and vigorously began to define and defend Islamic family law, raising the ire of the Christian community. The intensification of Islamic religious identity was a natural defense against Sadat’s secularizing measures, and it led to a counterintensification of Coptic identity. The sheikhs waged the battle of the personal status law as though the new proposed civil legislation represented a transgression on sacred territory. Through ridicule and direct attack, Islamist forces attempted to show that the Shari‘a was eternally flexible and immune to reform. They also attempted to demonstrate that clamoring for reform was the

harebrained idea of a certain group of dysfunctional women. Other male voices, however, were impelled by the heat of battle to define what the Shari‘a was and to show the historical role of the state in amplifying some of its laws. To understand the ramifications of these contending positions, it is necessary to summarize the evolution of personal status laws. Islamic legislation began during the Prophet’s era, when law making was based

largely on the Qur‘an and sunna (tradition). Once Islam spread in all directions and entered many nations, the need to amplify and elaborate on the original laws became urgent. Thus arose the field of fiqh, which became necessary in light of the application of this law to newly converted people. Fiqh developed several strains: the tendency to emphasize the hadith (the Prophet’s statements), centered in al-Hijaz, and the tendency to emphasize opinion, centered in Iraq. The hadith approach eventually produced the Maliki, Hanbali, and Shafi‘i schools of law, while the Iraqi approach produced the Hanafi school. The Shafi‘i school was considered a compromise between the two approaches. The Shari‘a

did not finally materialize in its current shape until the ‘Abbasid age, following the collection and verification of the hadith, which then became established as one of the main sources of the Shari‘a. The process finally ended with the emergence of the four well-defined schools, each with its own recorded canons and distinct following.” Nevertheless, the religious imagination, intellect, and juridical genius were severely limited after the fourth Muslim century (the ninth century A.D.). In the words of Ibn Khaldoun, imitation in all countries

104 Chapter 5 was confined to these four schools and their founding imams. Freezing the Shari‘a at the ninth century, however, did not eliminate the possi-

bility of civil legislation to fill the gap between the practices of past centuries, enshrined in the Shari‘a, and newer practices. Egypt in particular witnessed the process of expanding the jurisdiction of the Shari‘a

judges to include a degree of control over some financial matters, including palace finances and those of religious trusts (al-awgaf) as well as civil and criminal cases. Non-Muslim residents of Egypt were given a choice between submission to the Islamic Shari‘a or remaining under the jurisdiction of their own judicial system. Two parallel court systems thus arose, the Shari‘a and the communal (mz/let). Following the Crusades, the influx of foreigners to Egypt prompted Saladin to grant the

Italians extraterritorial rights, including the right to be tried before their own consuls. By 1860 seventeen foreign states enjoyed extraterritoriality in Egypt. Each operated its own consular courts alongside the Shari‘a and communal courts.°

During the reign of Khedive Isma‘il (1863-79), an attempt was made to bring the anarchy of multiple consular courts under control. This effort resulted in the creation in 1875 of a new system known as the mixed courts. Eight years after the emergence of these courts, another system known as the civil courts was founded, their jurisdiction confined to civil, commercial, and criminal cases. The Shari‘a courts retained jurisdiction over personal status cases and affairs of the royal palace.*

These revolutionary legal changes diminished the jurisdiction of the Shari‘a courts and were part of a lengthy process related to the estab-

lishment of Egypt’s autonomous status and its separation from the Ottoman Empire. The process of separation culminated in 1841 in the granting of an Ottoman charter (firman) that recognized Egypt’s legal autonomy. Even though a parallel process of legal modernization was under way in the Ottoman Empire, Egyptian legal developments followed a separate and more accelerated course. Laws and regulations were issued from the beginning of Muhammad ‘Ali’s era as a means of facilitating the modernization of Egypt. These state edicts were finally collected and published in 1829-30 as a new code titled al-Muntakhabat (Selections). Another set of state laws pertaining to criminal matters related to land disputes and peasant-landlord relations was published in 1830 under the name Qanun al-fellah (Peasant’s law). A special court, Jam‘iyat al-haqqaniyah, was created in 1842 to try army officers and

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government employees. A few years later, special courts were created to

process commercial cases, even those involving European nationals. The commercial courts, moreover, were governed by the Ottoman

Commercial Code of 1850 and 1851 as well as by French law. In addition, similar judicial bodies were established in Egypt’s provinces to

provide the entire country with a secular judicial system. The Shari‘a courts remained, in theory, as the courts of general jurisdiction, but in reality their jurisdiction was gradually limited to personal status cases and to cases involving land disputes.° Another significant development during the nineteenth century involved the codification of the three fields of the Shari‘a, civil law, personal status law, and the law of charitable trusts, by Muhammad Qadri (1821-88), one of the legal luminaries of his time. Qadri translated French codes and had a great impact on the formulation of new laws. His codification of civil law was based on the Hanafi school and was government inspired. Egyptian authorities apparently intended to duplicate the Ottoman experiment that resulted in the Mayallah, the definitive modernized accumulation of Ottoman civil laws inspired by the Tanzimat, the comprehensive state reforms of the nineteenth century. The Egyptian government, however, later diverged from this commitment to Hanafi law.°®

Qadri was also credited with being the first jurist to coin the term personal status ( al-ahwal al-shakhstyah), used in his Al-ahkam al-Sharvyah fi al-ahwal al-shakhstyah (Shari‘a laws pertaining to personal status laws).

This work was a compilation of laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and the custody of children. But even this achievement did not please everyone, because the jurists who followed the Hanafi school ignored other schools in all matters pertaining to the family system and civil cases. Jurists who applied Hanafi law, regarded by many as the law

of the ruling class, were accused of basing their interpretations and judicial opinions on a body of ancient commentaries scattered in numerous books. Among the first to protest the consequences of this rigidity and to accuse the Hanafi jurists of undue dependence on precedence was Imam Muhammad ‘Abduh. As the mufti of Egypt and the

highest ranking Islamic authority in the land, ‘Abduh believed that judicial opinion should be based on all the four schools of law. He began his campaign after the establishment of the mixed courts and the

civil courts, which confined the Shari‘a courts for the first time to matters pertaining to the family. Khedive Isma‘il himself had previously

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explored the issue of compiling a reference work on rights and penalties along European practices and asked Tahtawi to undertake this task. But

Tahtawi balked at this bold Europeanizing step because of the furor expressed by Azhari sheikhs.’ Asked by the ruling authorities in 1896 to study the issue of reforming the Shari‘a courts, ‘Abduh produced a critical report that was at first ignored. The report was later the subject of study by the highest judicial and religious authorities in Egypt. What weakened ‘Abduh’s case was

the support of Lord Cromer, Egypt’s high commissioner, who expressed his views in an article in ‘Abduh’s journal, Al-manar, in 1902. He warned that unless the Shari‘a courts were reformed, Egypt would

face the same atheist trend that was overtaking Turkey at the time. Cromer also openly criticized polygyny. Although a battle between traditionalists and reform-minded forces ensued, ‘Abduh’s project succeeded. Apparently, Cromer’s intervention in the conduct of Egyptian Shari‘a courts, though considered an attempt to Westernize the nation, won the day.®

The reforms entailed improving the curriculum of Shari‘a law at alAzhar, bridging the gap between Hanafi laws and other schools, and improving the salaries of the Shari‘a court workers by bringing them up to the level of other public employees. Significant pro-Islamic papers such as Al-mu ‘ayyed and Al-lhwa‘ voiced their vigorous opposition. But ‘Abduh’s legitimacy as a Muslim reformer and his ability to suggest reforms based on the Shari‘a gained a degree of popular acceptance for his proposals. ‘Abduh also introduced opinions supporting the rights of wives that were approved by Sheikh al-Azhar, Salim al-Bishri, and later incorporated in personal status laws in 1920 and 1929. Personal status law 44 in 1979 was a continuation of that trend in that this law carried out ‘Abduh’s efforts to restrict summary divorce and polygyny.?

Attempts had been made over the years to restrict the laws of polygyny and summary divorce. Some of these efforts were the result of pressure by Huda Sha‘rawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, which clamored

for a new legal interpretation. The 1920 reform followed ‘Abduh’s suggestion of basing the divorce law on the opinions of Imam Malik ibn Anas, thereby improving the conditions under which divorced women received alimony. But the law also benefited males in one area by closing the door before women with rich relatives if they continued to seek financial support.'° In 1921, Egyptian women won the right to sue for divorce when the

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husband was found guilty of mistreating the wife.'’ Personal status law 56, enacted in 1923, was much more pro-feminist, invalidating any marital judicial case involving a wife under the age of sixteen and a husband under the age of eighteen. This part of the law was intended to encourage a higher age of marriage for both males and females. In 1943 the minister of social welfare and Sheikh al-Azhar, Muhammad Mustafa al-Maraghi, attempted to restrict divorce and polygyny by establishing a penalty of three months’ imprisonment or a £100 fine for those who did not comply. The 1943 law was tabled by the prime minister, then revived in 1945 at the behest of the minister of social welfare but to no avail. During the late 1940s and 1950s there was a decline in religious reforming initiatives. Only women’s organizations continued to pressure for reform until the elimination of the Shari‘a courts by order 462

in 1955. The last attempt to reopen the debate on the Shari‘a and women’s rights was initiated by Aminah al-Sa‘id in 1967, but it was ignored as a result of the outbreak of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.! It should be clear, then, that the cause of Shari‘a reform in Egypt was

marked by a tortuous and uneven history. Intervention by Cromer negatively affected the cause of reform, as did the state’s general unwillingness to antagonize the religious establishment. Even when the state placed developmental objectives above religious legitimacy, as in Nasser’s days, reluctance to reform the Shari‘a forced the regime to hide behind

the rhetoric of development. For instance, only the government, declared a publication of the Higher Islamic Council during the Nasser regime, has the final responsibility to restrict religious practices to ward off the dangers of overpopulation.'* Opinions vary regarding the impact of the mixed court system on the Shari‘a reform initiative, however. Opponents of reform in Egypt have persistently derided the mixed courts and the civil courts as innovations that led to the contraction of the jurisdiction of the Shari‘a courts. The mixed courts were also lambasted for facilitating the infiltration of Western laws and ideas into the Egyptian legal system. In short, the establishment of the mixed and civil courts was viewed as no less than the first effective bombardment on the Shari‘a legal system."

On the other hand, advocates of change believed that the mixed courts, as well as the legal culture they engendered, were effective mod-

ernizing agents not only in Egypt but throughout the Arab world. Not only did the mixed courts require the adoption of modern civil and commercial codes derived from French laws, but these new codes greatly

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influenced the Egyptian civil courts. Thus, the two rival court systems diminished the jurisdiction of the Shari‘a courts and acted as an opposing pole to the monopoly exercised by the religious institution. The mixed courts were finally phased out in 1949, when a new civil code was drafted by the famed Egyptian jurist ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri.'® The final elimination of the mixed courts occurred because of Egyptian dismay at the manner in which the court system became a fortress of foreign privilege and extraterritoriality. The 1937 Montreux Agreement restored Egypt’s legal autonomy, stipulating that foreign privileges should be eliminated and that Egyptian laws should apply in all civil, commercial, criminal, financial, and administrative cases as long as

Egyptian laws did not depart from the general principles underlying modern legislation. After a twelve-year transition period, it fell to Sanhuri

to alleviate any shortcomings in the Egyptian codes, most of which were based on early nineteenth-century French codes.’° The new Egyptian civil code, later emulated by Syria, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, and Kuwait, derived more from Islamic law than from the earlier 1883 version. Sanhuri’s code, according to one modern authority,

“reflected the shari‘a in that it tended toward objectiveness, like the Germanic codes, instead of the subjectiveness characteristic of the codes of Latin countries.”’” But the Islamist elements of the 1970s disagreed, seeing only retrospective evidence of historic and persistent tampering with the Shari‘a. Jihan Sadat’s campaign to dilute these laws further was

viewed as part of this continuing assault. No one can question her impact on the 1979 campaign to ameliorate the injustices of Egypt’s operative family law, but controversy still surrounds her motives and her choice of strategy. Reared in the lap of a liberal, upper-middle-class family, her uncommon origins were also influenced by her British mother.

Her marriage to the future president of Egypt, she herself recounted, came as a result of a love match and her infatuation with the older and prominent Anwar Sadat. Her family appeared to have surrendered their right to select and approve a mate for their daughter. Until her husband’s

rise to power as the first vice-president under Nasser, Jihan Sadat led the life of an upper-middle-class housewife. During that phase of her life, however, she was allowed many freedoms not usually permitted to Egyptian women."®

Jihan Sadat’s awareness of the chronic gender imbalance in Egypt came, by her own account, as a result of her association with the women of her husband’s ancestral village, Mit Abu al-Koam. It was there that

The Personal Status Law Redefined 109

she came face to face with the traditional preference for male children and the concomitant determination of wives to continue bearing children until the birth of a son. She also began relating the oppression of

women, their inhuman work patterns in homes and fields, and their premature aging to gender inequality. In one of the most scathing passages in her memoir, she claimed that village males valued their cows more than they valued their wives, finding it cheaper to replace wives when death intervened. But she insisted that her conversations with the

women revealed an unusual degree of satisfaction with their lot. Her probing of village customs revealed an unexpected degree of female mobility and economic participation, a sharp contrast to the lives of most urban middle-class women, who, with the exception of the women of Cairo and Alexandria, led lives of social isolation and imposed confinement.!? In Mit Abu al-Koam she resorted to social welfare activism. The first solution to the village’s male economic dominance and female vulnerability was to organize a female sewing cooperative and look for marketing outlets. When that project succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations, Sadat and the village women transformed their sewing center into a cooperative for social development. The women also helped establish a male carpentry section in the nearby village of Tella, in the Minoufiah

governorate. Anwar Sadat, then president of the People’s Assembly, was apparently skeptical of the chances of this project succeeding. He did not oppose his wife’s efforts but merely withheld his open support until the results became more apparent. Jihan Sadat, who always accused him of the traditionalism of village men, asked that he save a corner for the women in his revolution. Sadat responded that he would manage affairs of state but would leave women’s affairs to her alone.” Thus began Jihan Sadat’s feminist career. At first, she modestly targeted women’s poverty and dependence through pragmatic, self-help projects,

but she graduated to political targets that greatly influenced Egypt’s secular fortunes.

In Jihan Sadat’s account of her early years growing up in Egypt during the 1940s, an older aunt made Sadat aware of Huda Sha‘rawi’s struggles. Sadat lumped the veteran Egyptian feminist with an array of historical female figures that apparently inspired her with their record of accomplishments. Indeed, there was nothing noteworthy about Sadat’s feminist evolution other than a desire to help Egyptian victims of class

and gender discrimination. Her activities during the 1967 war also

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betrayed the same spontaneity that characterized her response to women’s hardships in her husband’s village. She seized the initiative by organiz-

ing a female brigade of volunteers to provide support services to the nation’s military hospitals. Only later, when Egypt’s hospitals overflowed with the dead and wounded, did she coordinate her activities with the Egyptian Red Crescent Society. Her most effective network was always wives of other government officials. Even after she discovered the appalling lack of medical equipment in Egypt’s hospitals, she did not contact Egyptian diplomats abroad. She preferred to appeal to their wives to organize a female diplomatic relief network.’! Until the mid-1970s, Sadat’s activities appear to have been confined to social welfare projects. After the confirmation of her husband as Egypt’s undisputed leader following the 1973 war, her impact on Egyptian political life became pronounced. Whether this change came as a result of her husband’s entrenchment in office or of her association with Egypt’s feminist sector is not clear. During this period her social welfare

involvement blossomed into the presidency of thirty charitable and social organizations, not all of them related to women. By her own admission, she also began pressing her husband to stress family planning in his official pronouncements and to introduce legislation to safeguard the rights of women. Her mounting social and philanthropic responsibilities soon forced her to hire a personal staff of three. A press secretary was retained specifically to deal with the foreign media. Al-

though any such attention was bound to stir the ire of the Islamist sector, Sadat believed that the price would be worth the risk if she gained contributions for her various charities.” Yet Sadat’s social welfare activities were not waged entirely for altruistic reasons. She recognized that women’s involvement in social projects

was beginning to earn them a recognizable degree of public support and esteem. She perceived a ready opportunity to pursue women’s historic struggle for their rights. She knew that women’s agitation in the 1950s earned them the right to vote. The greatest challenge, she felt, was overcoming discrimination against women in their private lives:

it was not enough to overcome lack of recognition in women’s public lives. Sadat also believed that the burden fell on her shoulders to gain critical visibility in areas of urgent importance to women, such as higher education. For this reason, at age forty-one, she decided to pursue a degree in Arabic literature at Cairo University in a very public way. When she became a Ph.D. candidate, her oral exams were shown on

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Egypt’s public television station. She then plunged into the world of politics by running as a candidate for the elected council of Minoufiah Province, which controlled five hundred villages. Her intent, she stated,

was not to run as a candidate of one party or another but to open the way for women’s participation in provincial politics. She noted that while Egypt’s People’s Assembly at the time included eight female representatives, rural councils remained closed to women. Most rural women remained shut out of political participation by the endemic twin evils of illiteracy and spousal or parental disapproval. She also reminded her disapproving husband that this visibility would assure him and his

party of the support of female voters. To no one’s surprise, she won handily in 1974 and again in 1978, when she became president of the Minoufiah Council.”? She also linked the feminist struggle to the urgent question of family planning, seeing in it Egypt’s only salvation. Egypt’s ticking population bomb, she recognized, was aggravated by women’s desire to increase the number of their offspring as insurance against divorce. She lent her

hand to the national family planning campaign after realizing that efforts of the Higher Council for Family Planning were stymied by the ignorance and helplessness of village women. She sought to enforce the state’s family planning policy by pushing for the expansion of rural health centers. She also urged the training of rural midwives in dispensing birth-control information. She induced family planning experts to lecture village males on the urgency of curbing Egypt’s population growth. The president himself joined the renewed campaign with added determination after witnessing a slide presentation prepared by an Ameri-

can team on the catastrophic consequences of ignoring this problem.* In all of this, Jihan Sadat called on the assistance of specialized government agencies ranging from the Ministry of Social Welfare to the National Council for Family Planning to foreign population experts. She even spread the gospel of family planning to wives of African and Arab heads of state. The president’s wife thus quickly emerged not only

as Egypt’s first lady but as an informal president in her own right. Nowhere in her memoir did she indicate that she met any opposition from government functionaries. The only opposition to which she alluded came from Islamist forces, and she never paused to analyze it seriously. Remarkably, she never once expressed any degree of unease about the propriety of her actions and her liberal use of her husband’s influence. Instead, she wrote with admiration about certain Arab wives

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of heads of state, such as the late Queen ‘Alia of Jordan, for their determination to play active and interventionist roles in the social affairs of their countries.” Sadat felt that she and her women’s organizations succeeded in avoid-

ing a radical campaign revolving around a list of extremist feminist demands. She believed that she and her cohorts worked cautiously to gain rights that would build on each other in a logical manner, yet she recognized that the battle to repeal the personal status law was the greatest fight of her life.*° She also implied that she initiated the campaign in 1979 by consulting with ‘Aishah Rateb, who warned Sadat that the traditionalists would forcefully oppose the change, just as they led street demonstrations against earlier proposals to change the law.?” Rateb was referring to a draft law that she wrote in 1974 that became

the subject of a heated debate in the National Congress of the Arab Socialist Union on July 23, 1975. When Anwar Sadat recognized the extent of religious opposition, the proposal was shelved.”®

In 1979, Jihan Sadat’s strategy was to mobilize various Egyptian feminist organizations in favor of her reform program. Karimah alSa‘id, who served as the first head of the the Women’s Secretariat of the Arab Socialist Union, lent her support, as did three members of Egypt’s

top religious institutions: Muhammad ‘Abd al-Rahman Bisar, Sheikh al-Azhar; Muhammad ‘Abd al-Min‘im al-Nimer, minister of religious trusts; and Sheikh Jad al-Hagq ‘Ali Jad al-Haq, the mufti of Egypt. All three consented to serve on the sponsoring committee that was slated to present these amendments to the People’s Assembly. ‘Abd al-‘Akher Muhammad ‘Abd al-‘Akher, the minister of justice, later joined this committee. Jihan Sadat claimed that she consciously kept her name off the committee’s roster to secure support for the proposal in the assembly, but she did not resist making any lobbying effort outside of the assembly. Her efforts on behalf of the reform proposal, though consciously unofficial, were extensive. She reported that al-Sa‘id warned her against becoming too closely identified with the new law lest she expose herself to the possible wrath of the authorities. Al-Sa‘id feared involving the first lady in street demonstrations and other acts of public protest that would inevitably bring about police intervention. But Sadat’s expressed willingness to face imprisonment did not move her feminist colleagues, who feared being too closely identified with the regime.” Part of the women’s mobilization campaign involved the release of reports and public studies supporting their position, including a study

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by a Cairo University law professor linking juvenile delinquency to the high incidence of divorce. Also receiving wide circulation and publicity

was a study by Dr. ‘Azizah Hussein, one of the founders of Egypt’s Family Planning Association and the first female member of Egypt’s UN delegation, that established a correlation between Egypt’s rising birthrate and women’s fear of divorce. Hussein demonstrated that while

the incidence of divorce among women who had four children was barely 4 percent, the incidence of divorce among childless women jumped

to 62 percent. Despite these efforts and the all-male sponsoring committee’s careful research to provide a religious rationale for the reforms,

the proposals met with severe criticism, which did not surprise Jihan Sadat. What really surprised her was the public’s instantaneous identification of the reforms with her name only, beginning with the Islamist

sheikhs who inveighed against the reforms as “Jihan’s Law” during their Friday sermons.°*°

Opponents of the proposed new law resorted to the pages of every publication in Egypt, stressing the Qur‘an’s affirmation of men’s superiority and their guardianship over women. By Sadat’s own account, the Islamists targeted her more directly than anyone else, although both alSa‘id and Rateb were also attacked. The Islamists’ rage was prompted

by what they perceived to be an attack on the Islamic institution of polygynous marriages. Several of Sadat’s upper-middle-class male friends also came out against the new law, fearing a grave threat to the marital place of residence and the impact on privileges reserved to the first wife.

In response, Sadat began to feed ideas to her female friends so that pointed questions could be directed at the president during his public meetings. Anwar Sadat, moreover, not only convinced his political supporters to work for the passage of the reform decree but also yielded to

his wife’s suggestion to reserve thirty seats for women in the People’s Assembly. This decree, passed on June 20, 1979, the same day on . which Sadat presented the reform decree, also reserved up to 20 percent of all seats in provincial councils for women.*! When time came to debate the new reform in the People’s Assembly, Jihan Sadat admitted to some extensive strategizing sessions with Rateb and female assembly members. Rateb apparently instructed these assembly members against degenerating into an all-out war against men so as not to alienate like-minded deputies. This advice accounted for the strange passivity of female members on the day of the debate, July

3, 1979. After the presidential reform decree known as law 44 was

114 Chapter 5 approved by a sizable majority, female legislators celebrated at the Sadat residence.”

The manner in which the new reform decree was passed turned out to be a politicized maneuver typical of Sadat’s impatience with democratic procedures. The politics of the new law, not unexpectedly, enhanced the opposition’s argument. Aggravated by the intensity and polarization of the debate, Sadat decided to end the confrontation by issuing the reform as a presidential decree instead of securing prior parliamentary approval. But neither his official prestige nor his confidence in the overwhelming support of his legislative allies spared him the consequences of these tactics. Leftist male elements, who under other conditions would have approved such liberalizing measures, were angered by this flagrant display of authoritarian methods. Women who normally would be found on the left of the political spectrum were also alienated by the regime’s sponsorship of the decree. Most secular female ranks reacted with confusion and hesitation.** Law 44, which amended the personal status law of 1929, and the decree reserving seats for women in the People’s Assembly and in provincial councils were issued on June 20, 1979. The assembly was in

recess at the time and was not given an opportunity to debate the measure until two weeks after the date of issuance. Since the assembly was dominated by Sadat’s organized supporters, members of the National Democratic Party, the decree easily passed. But to understand the intensity of the debate inspired by this measure, one must recognize the law’s perceived significance to Egypt’s divided ideological spectrum. The law was intended to elaborate women’s rights as defined in the personal status laws without totally negating these laws. To begin with, law 44 stipulated that husbands must register their divorce decrees with the courts or inform their wives of their decision. This re-

quirement was intended to put an end to the practice of summary divorce. The new law introduced the principle of openness and mutual trust between marital partners, but other stipulations added a new concept to the language of the Shari‘a. The most controversial segment introduced the notion that taking a second wife constituted an injury (dharar) to the first wife and therefore could be considered grounds for divorce. Furthermore, if the first wife chose to seek a divorce on the grounds of injury while maintaining custody of children, she would be entitled to remain in the conjugal home. The law also increased a wife’s maintenance allowance if she was repudiated without prior knowledge.** Although Anwar Sadat managed to secure the support of prominent

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Islamic figures such as members of the Academy of Islamic Research, alAzhar’s fatwa (religious-legal opinion) committee, and the staff of some

of the Shari‘a courts, criticism by radical Islamist elements remained strong. Members of the reform-minded Muslim Brotherhood mounted stiff opposition on the pages of one of their papers, Al-2tisam.* A sample of these pages illustrates the severity of the Islamist attacks. Muhammad A. al-Samman directed his charges at al-Sa‘id, writing that she harbored a strong desire to stretch the personal status law until it resembled Catholicism by banning divorce and polygyny altogether. Al-Sa‘id was also ridiculed for her statements in Al-mussawar some twenty years earlier questioning the legitimacy and relevance of the opinions of the four great Islamic jurists who authored the Shari‘a. The veteran feminist was derided for admiring the West while blaming the moral decline of Muslim society on the personal status law. Muhammad

Khamis, an attorney and president of Shabab Sayyidna Muhammad, questioned the validity of concern for women’s rights. He stressed that any attempt to sanction women’s participation in government was no more than an innovation borrowed from the West. Law 44, he declared, constituted an attack on the last stronghold of the Shari‘a, family law. If taking a second wife was now established to be an injury to the first wife, then the inference was that the Prophet and the Shari‘a permit injury.*° The most objectionable facet of the new law in the eyes of the Shari‘a defenders was the stipulation that a second marriage constituted grounds for divorce by the first wife. Islamic jurists were particularly offended by

the manner in which this aspect of the new law impinged on law 25 of 1929, the previous personal status law. According to the 1929 law, a wife had to show evidence that the husband’s second marriage made

her life with him intolerable. The judge was under no obligation to accept the first wife’s complaint until all avenues of reconciliation were exhausted. The new law changed the situation by making it possible for the first wife to claim injury simply on the fact of her husband’s second marriage. Since polygyny was permitted by the Shari‘a, the Islamists and legalists contended, it could not be considered injurious to the first wife. The government, in defense of law 44, claimed that the legislation was based on Maliki and Hanbali precedents. Official spokesmen as-

serted that Islam made polygyny permissible but not obligatory and that the ruler was entitled, on occasion, to intervene by regulating what the Shari‘a permitted.°’ Some Islamist voices attacked the new law by questioning its neces-

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sity at a time when statistics showed that polygyny was in steady decline.

Sheikh Salah Abu Isma‘il, for example, alleged during the People’s Assembly debate that only 4 percent of all Egyptians practiced polygyny. He also researched what could be termed zmjury in Maliki law and declared that this term referred specifically to cases of desertion and physical and verbal abuse by the husband. He questioned the morality of a law that would punish a husband for taking a second wife because of the first wife’s barrenness. The law also could not force the husband to inform his first wife of his action if his motive for concealing the news was to spare her feelings. Did not the Prophet himself recommend an occasional white lie to a wife to please her, just as he justified an occasional lie to two antagonists to facilitate their reconciliation?*® Law 44 also enraged the Islamists because it signaled the demise of another Islamic practice, the house of obedience, one of the most embarrassing practices in the eyes of feminists. Since the Qur‘an considered men to be the protectors and keepers of women, a wife owed her husband obedience if he fulfilled all of his obligations toward her. If the wife showed signs of disobedience by leaving the marital home without prior approval, the husband was entitled to discipline her. He could call on the authorities to help him restore his wife to the conjugal home, where he would keep her under lock and key. Most Egyptians regarded the house of obedience as a barbaric and regressive procedure. Several

attempts had been made to contravene the legality of this practice, culminating in 1967 with a ministerial decree that simply eliminated the possibility of legal enforcement of this law. When the minister of justice issued this decree, he was challenged by Shari‘a supporters in the People’s Assembly. He defended his decree by stating that he did not

eliminate the law of the house of obedience, he merely banned its enforcement. But public opinion was so much on the side of reform that when the speaker of the assembly asked the deputies publicly about

who favored the enforcement of this law, all present answered in the negative. The house of obedience came under renewed attack in the 1979 law, which substituted the penalty of loss of maintenance for the punishment of the house of obedience. The wife would also be able to provide the court with a counterargument justifying her refusal to obey her husband’s court order. Under the new law, court-mediated reconciliation would be offered, failing which the judge would be obligated to sanction a divorce.°*’

The new law also went beyond the provisions of the personal status

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law of 1929 in compensating a wife who was divorced against her will. The aggrieved wife was now eligible to receive an allowance for two years over and above the amount to which she was entitled during the “addah period (the few months following the cessation of marriage to determine the possibility of pregnancy). In addition to being a charitable act in the eyes of God to help a woman adjust to the loss of marital support, the new allowance was intended to discourage husbands from

abusing divorce. Memoranda accompanying the new law referred to several Qur‘anic injunctions and recommendations by some of the Shari‘a

jurists that urged that wives be released from a marriage in a kind and generous manner. The innovation was that what was a matter of recommendation in the age of chivalry and honor became a matter of legal obligation in the modern age.*” Perhaps the most controversial provision of law 44 was the segment

that granted a divorced woman the marital home for the duration of her guardianship over minor children or until her remarriage. The new law made it possible for wives to maintain custody over daughters until the age of twelve and sons until the age of ten. The judge could also extend a wife’s custody over children if he deemed it to be in their best interest. This particular provision stretched the Hanafi rule regarding the marital residence by making it an entitlement of the wife. Under the Hanafi law, ceding the residence to the wife was conditional on her need. When faced with opposing arguments in the People’s Assembly, the minister of justice also cited a specific interpretation of Maliki opinion provided by Qurtubi’s Tafszry (Commentary) that called on the husband to vacate the marital residence even in the absence of children.*!

The debate over law 44 spilled outside the confines of the assembly and the Muslim Brotherhood’s papers. If attacks by popular writers on the reform decree lacked the sophisticated casuistry of judicial experts and learned Islamic scholars, these attacks did not lack political and social relevance. In a work titled The Conspiracy Against the Muslim Woman, Ahmad Faraj wrote that the whole concept of a personal status law was alien to the religious scholars and was instead a legal invention and an attempt to delimit the Shari‘a. Law 44 was merely the culmination of a long effort that resulted in the elimination of the Shari‘a courts in 1955. The battleground then shifted to the People’s Assembly and similar secular institutions, where attempts were repeatedly made to adopt radical alternatives to personal status laws of 1920 and 1929. Al-

118 Chapter 5 Sa‘id’s attempt to push for reform during the Third Jurisprudence Conference in May 1967 also constituted part of this effort.” According to the charismatic preacher ‘Abd al-Hamid Kishek, the official handling of law 44 distorted the concept of al-ummah by substituting the authority of the People’s Assembly for that of the legitimate community of the believers. The assembly, he claimed, represented no more than a handful of believers who were in no way qualified to accept or reject God’s Shari‘a.** The new law, added Muhammad Yahya on the pages of Al-mukhtar al-Islami, should be regarded as another instance of female chauvinism. One of the arguments advanced by the women

clamoring for the reform was that under the old personal status law women were denied the right of divorce. The irony of the matter, cried Yahya, was that the male night of divorce was now restricted as the price of granting the same freedom to women. Should not women put aside their competitiveness against males and their desire to enjoy the same educational and employment opportunities? Should not women instead outbid males in the service of God?** A major attack on the new law was mounted in an anonymous article in an Islamist journal called Resalat al-tawheed that claimed that the real motive of the authors of law 44 was not to uphold women’s rights

but to defame the Shari‘a. Another related motive was also to paint those who oppose the new legislation as the enemies of women and progress. But the argument of those who supported this law, the article continued, lacked logic and consistency. How could they claim that the new legislation favored women simply because it favored the first wife? What about the rights of the second wife? Did the second wife’s status exclude her from the female gender? Thus, the new legislation was not beneficial to women because it operated to the advantage of one and the disadvantage of the other. The anonymous author then posed the sly question of where Jihan Sadat would be in relation to Egypt’s history were it not for the Shari‘a law sanctioning divorce. Anwar Sadat’s divorce from his first wife to marry Jihan should be a reminder that law

44 did not actually defend the rights of women. This argument was simply a cheap appeal to the sentiments of current wives. The law was really the result of Egypt’s peculiar housing situation resulting from Nasser’s destructive system. Whenever Nasser suffered a defeat in Syria or Yemen, he would placate people by lowering rents and nationalizing

residential units. This policy worked toward the depletion of state resources and the reduction of available rental space in urban areas. Thus,

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the struggle over the marital home was unrelated to religion, personal status law, or men’s headship over the family. This struggle was simply a

reflection of the Egyptian obsession with the issue of housing that succeeded in blaming the Shari‘a for the country’s concern over the disposal of the marital home.*

Another tragic result of law 44, continued the article, was that it placed wives under severe pressure to seek a divorce as soon as news of their husband’s second marriages was revealed. Wives who did not seek divorce would now be regarded as suffering from low self-esteem. Until recently, there had always been wives who placed the interests of the family above their own and who accepted an unfavorable situation despite their own bruised feelings. Recognizing that the husband’s action was no more than a passing storm, these wives were willing to mount an

effort to restore the husband to his senses. Not only was this type of wife overlooked, but supporters of the new law ignored the plight of Coptic women, who were always denied the right of divorce. Surely, the Islamic system of marriage and divorce was superior to the Coptic system, which permitted no separation until death.*° Although applauded by many female sectors in Egypt, law 44 had

clearly aroused the strong ire of traditionalists and defenders of the Shari‘a. Jihan Sadat continued to receive credit, as well as criticism, for pushing the reform measure from behind the scenes. Islamic scholars

continued to attack the inconsistencies of the new law and its clear divergence from canonical injunctions of the past. Islamic jurists also criticized the excessive zeal with which the law was applied, condemning it as a means of imposing wifely tyranny over suffering husbands.

Males were portrayed as being thoroughly intimidated by this law, fearing eviction from their own homes. In addition, some Muslim au-

thorities who supported the reform decree at Anwar Sadat’s behest retracted their support after his death. Sheikh al-Azhar, ‘Abd al-Rahman Bisar, for instance, declared that he regretted his role in superseding the Shari‘a in matters of family law.*” But what finally led to the repeal of law 44 was a specific suit brought before the Badrawi Summary Court by a woman against her husband.

The wife sought the payment of maintenance, but the lower court determined in the process that the law on which the suit was based lacked constitutionality. The case was then referred to Egypt’s High Constitutional Court, which ruled on May 4, 1985, that law 44 was unconstitutional because failure to promulgate it according to accept-

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able procedure violated article 147 of the constitution of 1971. This decision referred to Anwar Sadat’s issuance of the decree while the People’s Assembly was in recess. The high court questioned the urgency of bypassing the People’s Assembly when the constitution clearly

limited and restricted the president’s powers of drafting such emergency measures. The court claimed that the minister of state for affairs of the People’s Assembly did not make a convincing case for the dire

need to reform the personal status law to bring it in line with the realities of a changing society. The personal status law, the high court stated, had been in place for a long time, and until 1979 there was no urgency to repeal it. All along, the high court emphasized that it was not passing judgment on the substance of the law in question but on the manner in which it was adopted.*® Groups of Egyptian women expressed a great deal of concern follow-

ing the repeal of law 44, organizing a committee to defend the family and women’s rights. The overall female reaction, though full of alarm, stopped short of mounting any real protest. There were some petitions to the assembly, but no massive effort calling for a new law materialized. The majority of Egyptian women reacted with disinterest to this assault on their fragile rights, a fact that did not escape the attention of one of Egypt’s prominent journalists, Mustafa Amin. With the exception of women like al-Sa‘id, who lamented the overthrow of this imperfect law, most women remained silent. Al-Sa‘id, however, was unchastened, reminding her readers that most of the rights granted to women

under this law were in the interest of minors rather than mothers. President Hosni Mubarak finally acknowledged women’s fears, as well as the Islamists’ antagonism to the reform law, by pursuing a middle course. He called on the assembly to draft a new law but instructed that it remain within the confines of the Shari‘a. This call reprised the 1979 battle over the Shari‘a, with the Islamists calling for safeguarding the integrity of Islamic laws and the modernists denouncing the irrelevance of the 1929 law. A new debate ensued over women’s maintenance and the definition of what constituted injury to the first wife. When another

law was finally passed in 1985 as a replacement for law 44, no one questioned its constitutionality. This law 100 made two concessions to the traditionalist position. The first demanded that a wife prove injury

before requesting a dissolution of the marriage upon the husband’s second marriage. No longer would the addition of another wife prove incontestably that the first wife had suffered injury. The framers of the

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revised law of 1985 added that injury meant the severe beating of a wife by her husband or subjecting her to gross mistreatment. Thus, law 100

could not be found to be in contradiction with the Shari‘a, which did not outlaw polygyny as such. The other concession eliminated the first wife’s automatic right to the husband’s residence in case of divorce, although the husband was still expected to find her an appropriate home. Law 100 again approved a wife’s abridged right to a guaranteed residence in consideration of the right of minor children. Without children, she could not hope to get a residence simply on account of her divorce.” The history of women’s legal struggle to align the Shari‘a with twentieth-century Egyptian practices thus progressed in fits and starts. There were serious reversals along the way but no consistent feminist effort to consolidate earlier gains. Much of this disunited and disconnected effort resulted as much from the politicization of the battle of reform as from the fundamentalist determination to block what was perceived as an assault on the Shari‘a. By entrusting their cause to the Sadat regime,

Egypt’s secular feminists of the 1970s were inevitably tainted by the regime’s authoritarian tendencies. But there was every indication that for at least some veteran and committed feminist agitators like al-Sa‘id, the Sadat regime was a last hope. Having experienced the reluctance of earlier secular heads of state to tackle the Shari‘a and its defendants, these feminists were willing to throw their lot with a president openly committed to modernization and reform. Several years after the passage of law 44, al-Sa‘id reflected on her support for this bill and the history of official support for feminist goals in Egypt. In an article in Al-mussawar on December 12, 1992, she responded to a letter claiming that women in Egypt need not continue in their struggle since they had achieved greater modernization than anywhere else in the civilized world. In disputing this claim, al-Sa‘id retraced advances made by Egyptian women since the days of Sha‘rawi. While acknowledging that the 1952 revolution elevated women’s rights to higher levels by granting constitutional equality in matters of work, education, and accessibility to higher ministerial office, the revolution did not tackle the personal status law. Al-Sa‘id then made the startling

revelation that when women petitioned Nasser to reform the personal status law, he suggested that they first approach the religious establishment. If the leading religious authorities approved of the proposed reform, then he would not object. Al-Sa‘id commented that this was a

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clever and cynical way of dismissing feminist demands since Nasser knew that the religious scholars would never agree voluntarily to reforming the Shari‘a. Real progress was achieved during the Sadat presi-

dency, she continued, for he genuinely believed in women’s signifi-

cance to the renaissance of nations. Only Sadat took daring steps untried by his predecessors. Only Sadat appointed women to ambassadorial positions and opened the way for the rise of women in the diplomatic service. But after Sadat’s assassination, a wave of hypocrisy and false flattery overtook members of the People’s Assembly, leading to

the cancellation of Sadat’s legislation. Even female members of the assembly spearheaded this effort after being promised reelection to the following session. But this effort was only the beginning of a wave of discrimination against women and the dismissal of several high government female officeholders. The religious sector, on the other hand, mounted a successful campaign when law 44 was proposed. Although it failed to block this legislation, it gave the Islamist argument wide circulation. This campaign spilled outside the walls of the People’s Assembly and prepared the ground for pushing back the tide of reform after Sadat’s assassination. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Islamist forces was the prevention of a galvanized feminist effort against the repeal of law 44. There was no disagreement over the motives of the Sadat regime, however. Anwar Sadat’s willingness to give prominence to his wife’s

role as the visible and public representative of Egyptian women reflected his serious interest in liberalizing all facets of Egyptian life. Jihan Sadat’s efforts on behalf of women, though occasionally costly for the regime, were in tune with the official determination to portray Egypt as

a modern and liberal state. This liberalization, it was quickly realized, could be achieved only through authoritarian means. The greatest resistance to these official efforts was offered by defenders of the Shari‘a. Traditionalists and Islamist forces feared the regime’s assault on the integrity of the Shari‘a, seeing this as part of a larger Westernizing wave.

But the extent of their furor also resulted from their ingrained view of the ideal Islamic woman. In that regard, the intensity of the battle of ~ the personal status law was simply a reflection of the clash of cultures, one modern and secular, the other traditionalist and communal, each with its own version of the public and private roles of women.

O

Women in the Islamic PDolemic

Islamist activists and writers have discovered that the issue of women

was the Achilles’ heel of the Islamist movement, the one issue that could not be obscured by an excess of idealism and romanticization of the classic age of Islam or by an overemphasis on politico-economic argumentation. Moreover, Muslim and Western secularists cited the women’s issue as the most objectionable feature of the Islamist blueprint for social change. This issue was also extensively utilized to demolish the Islamist pretense to rationality and moderation. Secular voices,

whether male or female, continuously harped on the incompatibility of the Islamist view of women and modernization. Yet Islamist writers who were conscious of these attacks also felt that Western experts on Islam, regarded collectively as orientalists, exaggerated the Islamic suppression of women. Islamists regarded the 1979 effort to reform the personal status law as an implicit attack on the Shari‘a. Along with the politicization of Islamist feminist ranks at the universities, this view demanded a coherent refutation of the arguments of Western and native secular forces.

The Islamist feminine ideal, moreover, drew ridicule rather than a serious secularist counterargument. To argue against the Islamist view of politics and society was one thing, the Islamists concluded, but to

single out that segment of the Islamist population relegated to the private realm was intolerable. These secular attacks touched not only a raw nerve but the innermost sensitivities of Islamist males. In a widely reported incident, for example, Dr. Fu‘ad Jirjis, a Christian university professor, insulted the Islamic religion by heaping ridicule on the treatment of women when he wrote, “The ridiculous Islamic religion which

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124 Chapter 6 represses women and sexuality is murder through and through.”! Thus, when Egyptian Christians fought against the rising Islamic tide, they also extolled the virtues of Christian monogamy. Finally, secular criticism of the veiling of Islamist university students often provoked an Islamist defense of their own brand of female activism and politicization. Not surprisingly, the plethora of Islamist writings on women beginning in the 1970s reflected the maturation of the Islamist total worldview. Since this worldview was developed with coherence and rational systematization, the role of women in the Islamist universe was carefully delineated. Attention to the gender issue, was, perforce, a necessary aspect of this conscious mapping out of the society of the future. Although little literature on the role of women emerged during the early phase of the Muslim Brotherhood, by the 1970s the Islamist vision of

the new society benefited from the insights of Sayyid Qutub and Mawdudi. Within this vision, women’s future role received great attention.

The most prolific contributors to this Islamist vision were the brotherhood’s reformist spokesmen, who believed in a gradual reIslamization of society. Leaders of the radical Jihad organizations also voiced opinions on such issues as women’s dress, the right to work, political duties, and the obligation of the Jihad. The Islamist view of the

women’s issue could also be gleaned from the secular utopia. This analysis always emphasized the role of the Muslim family. Non-Egyptian Arab and non-Arab writers contributed to the emerging literature

on the future Islamic society, much of it authored by men. Women such as Bint al-Shati‘ and Zeinab al-Ghazzali who contributed to this polemic were the exception rather than the rule.

Generally speaking, the polemical writings of the 1970s and the 1980s could be divided into four categories. The first and most rational category specialized in comparisons between the Islamic treatment of

women and their treatment by other religious systems. The second category focused on the elaboration of women’s rights and obligations in Islam. The third category outlined a systematic attack on the legacy of imperialism. Here, Western attempts at domination, particularly in the sphere of culture and consumerist economics, were loudly decried. Finally, much of this polemic was an attack on the legitimacy of female advocates of Westernization and secularization. Most writers inevitably

cast doubt on the religious credentials of secularized women in an attempt to banish them to the periphery of the debate.

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A great deal of significance was attached to the perceived superiority of the Islamic treatment of women relative to their treatment by other spiritual systems. The most frequent negative comparison was made with the teachings of Christianity. Judaic teachings were occasionally cited, but the Islamists strove hard to expose Christian shortcomings because of the Islamists’ perception of the West as a Christian universe. Western secular modifications that eroded ancient Christian regulations were not recognized. There were also numerous forays into the polytheistic religions of the East and their denigration of women. Polemical writers who engaged in debating the question of women

included representatives of the reform wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, professors in secular universities, graduates of al-Azhar, and Islamist journalists. Some were Lebanese but were read by an Egyptian readership anxious to reassert its faith. One of the most prolific of the Islamist writers was Muhammad al-Ghazzali of the reform wing of the brotherhood. Al-Ghazzali was in Saudi Arabia during the Nasser period and was influenced by the Saudi display of Islamic manners and religiosity. He was reconciled to the Sadat regime during the early 1970s and held an important position in the Ministry of Religious Trusts. The reactive nature of the Islamist polemic emerged clearly through references to practices of other faiths. The idea was not to produce a random comparison but to select the most frequently criticized Islamic

concepts and practices and explode the veracity of the purveyors of Western superiority. Here, the polemic resembled a rebuttal. No aspect of Islamic practices was more ridiculed than veiling. This old/new phenomenon was now the favorite subject of those wishing to emphasize women’s lowly place in Islamic society as well as their enforced isolation. In response, the veiling issue became the centerpiece of the Islam-

ist debate. Veiling, stressed Ahmad Z. Tufaha, was one of the most significant social issues emphasized by Islam. The veil was not invented by Islam but stretched back to the earliest stages of human history. In each of these eras, veiling was motivated by a different set of consider-

ations. Furthermore, these considerations changed from one generation to the next. Only Islam, however, imposed this requirement in a manner befitting human need. Will Durant reminded his readers that veiling in the sense of covering the hair was imposed by Jewish law. A man could divorce his wife among the ancient Jews if she received males with her head uncovered. Christianity ordered nuns to veil themselves completely, permitting the exposure of only the face, hands, and feet.

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The church, Tufaha added, did not permit entry to its sanctuary by women with uncovered heads. In ancient Iranian society, a married woman was forbidden by her spouse to cast eyes on her father and brothers. In ancient India, veiling constituted a severe limitation on women, although it was not clear whether it was introduced before or after the advent of Islam. Before Islam, veiling was an unknown practice. But Islam, he continued, demanded the covering of much of a woman’s body to avoid inciting social disturbances. Islam desired only dignity and respect for women to prevent them from becoming objects of immorality and lust. Those who claimed that deviant behavior would lessen if women were habitually unveiled were only burying their heads in the sand. Furthermore, veiling was never intended to prevent women’s participation in public life.’

Tufaha then attributed the decline of the Western institution of the family to women’s excessive liberty and unrestricted mixing with males. This behavior had truly taken women back to the stone age, so much so that they had forsaken married life. Had not Mawdudi in his book on veiling concluded that the percentages of illicit sexual relations in some European countries exceeded legitimate conjugal relations?° Mahmoud A. Muhammad claimed that even ancient queens were veiled, something that rarely impeded their greatness. The Queen of Sheba, so the Qur‘an said, lifted her clothing when she believed that she was treading on water, meaning that she traveled fully covered. Both Shajar al-Durr, who reigned over Egypt, and Sakinah, daughter of Imam Hussein who presided over gatherings of writers and poets, did so while completely veiled.* Al-Sahmarani asked why, if nuns’ clothing was in compliance with their Christian teachings, Muslim women did not exhibit a similar commitment to their religion?> Hamid Suleiman, an enlightened writer who deliberately attacked the full veil covering the face as un-Islamic, claimed that covering the body was required of males as well as females. The veil was also not expected to be a complete

facial cover or an excuse for the total separation of men and women. The total veiling custom was not sanctioned by the Prophet or by the first four caliphs. The custom was merely taken over from Byzantine and Persian cultures alien to Islam.° Polygyny and divorce ranked second as the focal point of Western diatribes against Islam. But polygyny was practiced openly by Christian kings as late as the sixteenth century, wrote Tufaha. The king of Ireland and Morevingian kings took several wives, as did prominent medieval

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Christian religious leaders. Martin Luther referred to this practice openly,

and there was no clear divine prohibition against it, as the Old Testament story of Abraham and his wives demonstrated. Islam, by contrast, did not demand or favor polygyny but merely sanctioned it while preferring monogamy. As a measure for emergencies, polygyny was found to be preferable to the acceptance of infertility, to exposure to temptation, and to celibacy. Polygyny, Tufaha added, did not deny a woman her freedom, for she could not be forced to accept a husband not of her own choosing. Thus, Islamic rules of marriage already considered all the spiritual and worldly ramifications of this great human question.’ When a Muslim woman married, wrote al-Sahmarani, she did not cease to exist as a legal entity, retaining the use of her surname and her civil rights. She also retained the right to negotiate and sign contracts and transact a variety of agreements and continued to enjoy the right to own property in her name, independent of others.® In contrast, Jewish practice deprived a woman of her civil rights after marriage, reducing her to the status of slave to her father and husband. Ancient Jewish law eliminated a woman’s right to choose and decreed that a widow marry the brother of her deceased husband. Similarly, Roman law consigned all rights to a woman’s father before her marriage, even the right to grant life or inflict death. These rights were transferred to the husband

after a woman’s marriage. Even the Napoleonic code, continued Suleiman, denied wives the right to dispose of their own property.’ A Muslim woman could also seek a divorce, reminded Tufaha, if she could prove utter dislike for her spouse and if mediation efforts failed to reconcile a woman and her husband. The only condition here is that a woman should be willing to return part of her dowry. Jewish law permitted husbands the right of easy divorce until Jesus warned against the cruelty of this practice and its injustice to women. The early Christian objections to divorce gave way to laws in Europe and the Americas that permitted divorce and accommodated the marital partners’ wish to live separately from each other. Islam, by contrast, permitted divorce in recognition of human failings while at the same time declaring it to be disliked and condemned by God.” One of the most intriguing arguments forwarded by Islamists concerned the absence of the concept of original sin in Islam. Only the Old and New Testaments attributed the fall from paradise to Eve, wrote alSahmarani. Eve’s willingness to lay herself open to the temptation of the serpent vested the original sin in all of Adam’s and Eve’s descen-

128 Chapter 6 dants. Jesus, al-Sahmarani wrote, was sent down to redeem this original sin and to reconcile God’s creations to their creator. The Qur‘an, how-

ever, amended this concept of original sin by lifting the historic guilt from Eve’s shoulders and putting an end to this lowly view of women as the original source of evil. Based on this concept, Christianity went far in discouraging marriage and encouraging the adoption of monastic life

as a result of its loathing of women. The Qur‘an amended this view drastically by postulating that sin was attributable to both Adam and Eve. Thus, the burden of the original sin was lifted because men carried many burdens, including the headship of the family and society.!! Chris-

tianity so despised women, added Mahmoud A. Muhammad, that it always considered them the source of temptation and demanded their total submission to men.” Islamist polemical writings devote a great amount of space to the presentation, explication, and rationalization of Qur‘anic regulations on women, most commonly presenting women as central to the survival of the family and society. The emphasis is not on women’s rights but on the relevance of these rights to the social good. Since the polemic is directed primarily at native secularists and feminists, the Islamist arguments present Islamic practices during the classic age of Islam rather than in their present, degenerate form. The picture that emerges is one of a world governed by sanity and rationality where women are the mainstay of society. Often, an effort is made to point out current abuses of Islamic regulations to contrast them with the ideal conditions

of the past, since the entire Islamist movement adheres to salafiyah + (glorification of the early and perfected age of Islam). It was natural for the issue of women and relations between the sexes

to emerge in the forefront of the Islamic-secular struggle, wrote Muhammad al-Ghazzali. Rulers intent on importing the sexual integration of Europe made sure to emphasize these subjects. Islam had always regarded women as the mainstay of the family, which did not mean that women should be denied the right to education, denied the freedom to leave their homes, or confined to the domestic roles of child rearing and childbearing. Islam had honored all humans, male and female. Did not the Prophet proclaim that “women are the sisters of men”? During the

Prophet’s age and that of the first four caliphs, women’s lives were intimately related to learning and acts of worship.’* Islam never demanded the confinement of women to the home or decreed that women be deprived of any activity concerning the present and future of Islam.

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Islam did not impose a life of isolation on women so that they could not see or be seen. Islam did not deny women the opportunity to engage in an intelligent form of employment. How would such women supervise their children’s studies or form an opinion on the threat of Zionism or

the modern Crusaders? Remember, added al-Ghazzali, the Prophet himself rewarded women for their willingness to follow the Muslim army and perform medical and civil duties. Women also gave the oath of allegiance to the early caliphs and fought against heathen enemies. A sensible veil that did not impede women’s movement or cover their face in early Islam, wrote Tufaha, also permitted women to participate in wars. Women took part in public prayer services at the mosque. Some engaged in trade and other legitimate occupations permitted to them as well as to the men. Tufaha added that seclusion in the home was required only of the female members of the Prophet’s household since his home was frequented by all manner of men. Veiling was never intended to inflict imprisonment or degradation, concluded Tufaha, but only to prevent temptation and preserve standards of decency and honor.'* The right to work was not an open-ended, unrestricted privilege, however. Advocates of the Islamist position resorted to the notion of fitrah (women’s basic nature) to distinguish between permissible and forbidden occupations. In the mad drive toward absolute equality, wrote al-Ghazzali, women have been driven to assume occupations that were neither suitable nor honorable. Witness Egypt’s congested buses, which assault the dignity of man. Someone once came up with the idea that women could be employed as conductors on public transportation lines, but the packed and crowded conditions on these vehicles ended this experiment after only one day. Men are able to withstand employment aboard airplanes but not women, so the job of air-hostess should be eliminated since it also requires staying at hotels away from the family. Even the World Health Organization’s eastern Mediterranean branch reported that certain occupations should not be open to women under any conditions, including industrial and hardship work. But occupations such as teaching, medicine, social service, and writing and publishing did not overburden women. Even in advanced industrial societies, women were paid less than men because their work was not regarded as equal in value to that of the males. Islam granted men and women similar rights and obligations and imposed certain distinctions only out of respect for women’s essential nature.’

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Suleiman emphasized that Islam never denied women the right to work, but the weight of Islamic principles and the Shari‘a fell on the side of recognizing differences in the abilities of men and women. Therefore, women could not be forced to engage in masculine occupations. The Prophet condemned women who behaved like men and men who behaved like women. Suleiman also cited several examples of women

who fought in the wars of early Islam, including Umayya bint Qays alGhaffariya, who received a medal from the hand of the Prophet for her daring exploits during the battle of Khayber. There was also the example of Um ‘Amara (Nusaibah bint Ka‘b al-Ansariya) who, along with seventy men, took part in the establishment of the first Islamic state,

known as the oath of ‘Aqaba. Um ‘Amara fought in the battles of Hunein, Khayber, al-Yamamah, al-Khandaq, and Uhud, where she per-

sonally defended the Prophet. Asma bint Abu Bakr, daughter of the first caliph, assisted her husband’s work without stepping outside the boundaries of respectability. Women who left the home for work or to wage battle would not be condemned as long as their activities did not impede their duties toward family and home.’® Mahmoud A. Muhammad said that a woman could assist her husband in his work and seek employment for the purpose of supporting her fatherless children, but Islam preferred marriage to this solution.'” ‘Abd al-Qader A. ‘Abd al-Qader added a modern twist to this conditional approval of women’s work in light of the early Islamic experi-

ence. Women who wanted to supplement the family income should find work that could be done at home to avoid neglecting family duties. By staying home, women would also ease the pressure on the crowding of public places.'®

The Islamists objected to work as a secular vocation. Al-Ghazzali, for example, did not object to women working in the field of political and

religious advocacy. The religious call today is in need of women of intelligence, judicial knowledge, and patience to teach in the largest mosques of modern Muslim cities. Upon listing a number of female advocates of Islam in the earlier centuries, al-Ghazzali recommended the enlistment of like-minded women to combat the wave of cultural and civilizational conquest to which the Islamic world was currently being subjected. Bint al-Shati‘ added that this women’s liberation movement was a painful comedy staged by men to drive women to support

and work for them. In truth, males drove women to work simply to relieve their boredom. But women paid a heavy price for progress by

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veering away from their natural and essential role and neglecting their domestic and child-rearing duties. Did the advocates of progress really believe that women were capable of combining domestic and public roles?’

The right to work should also be tempered by the husband’s approval. The Qur‘an decreed that men were to be elevated over women by one degree in the areas of obligations and responsibilities, not privileges. Even after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God placed the greater responsibility on Adam’s shoulders, wrote al-Sahmarani. This degree of preference meant greater custodianship and guardianship. Since the family was the main cornerstone of society, its discipline and management affect all of society, and it must have a responsible head. Women are expected to cooperate with their husbands, for disobeying any head of an institution will destroy its system and disrupt progress. Such is the true meaning of the Qur‘anic verse declaring men to be the keepers and guardians of women. This guardianship (al-giwameh) parallels that of virtuous rulers over their subjects. Furthermore, since the family was a social institution, its members would inevitably display differences of opinion. These disagreements should be settled by the head to alleviate the threat of further dissension. Men, reiterated alSahmarani, were always considered worthy of this guardianship by virtue of their strength and wealth, and women owed them obedience. The Qur‘an ordered that Muslims obey God, the Prophet, and those who are responsible (lz al-amr).*° The subject of male headship and guardianship never failed to stress

the equality of men and women in Islam. The sexes had equality in property rights, the pursuance of education, and the choice of a marital partner. Women were not excluded from giving testimony before offcers of the law in matters of disputed paternity: Their testimony would be accepted on its own merit. In all other matters, the testimony of two women equaled that of one man. Men’s guardianship did not extend to property rights. Women inherited half of the male’s share but were not required to provide for their families. Most of these distinctions between men and women resulted from two considerations, women’s emotionalism and their limited experience in public and financial affairs. Yet to recognize this emotionalism is not to demean women, for it is a necessity of women’s essential childbearing and nurturing.”? Women’s political rights and public roles were also main topics in the Islamist polemic. But unlike women’s familial roles, women’s rights

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to participate in public life and to qualify for public office were hotly disputed. Some reformists in the Islamist movement proved willing to stretch canonical injunctions in favor of a greater role for women. Radical Islamist figures tended to restrict these functions and roles. Democ-

racy, wrote Saleh Sirriyah, one of the executed leaders of the Jihad movement, was an ideology totally opposed to Islamic principles and teachings. Since the people are the source of all legislation in democratic systems, often their legislation runs counter to religious teachings. In Britain the democratic legislature legalized homosexual behav-

ior, and in Sweden a similar body legalized communal marriage. In Islam, wrote Sirriyah, even if the entire population agreed, it could not legalize what is forbidden by religion or delegitimate what religion has sanctioned. Therefore, to combine Islam and democracy is like combining Islam and Judaism: a Muslim cannot also be a Jew.” Naturally, this outlook on modern, Western-derived political systems did not accept the validity of certain modern political principles. Furthermore, it denied the need to grant political equality to one gender in the name of democracy. Because the political ideal was based on divine wisdom, no modern reforms or imports had any relevance. The Islamist perspective on issues of women’s voting rights, their right to assume the supreme imamate (headship of state), their qualification for judicial office, and their right or obligation to wage the Jihad could not

be subject to modernist political considerations. Based on practices during the Prophet’s era, wrote Tufaha, a woman could signify allegiance to a candidate by writing, by word of mouth, or by a handshake from behind a screen. A woman could participate in modern elections using ballot boxes if they voted for political candidates who would not transgress on divine law.”? There was no agreement, furthermore, on women’s qualifications to assume the top executive position or judicial office or to participate in the Jihad. Most writers concluded that women could not assume the great imamate or judicial posts. While there is general agreement on women’s right to wage the Jihad, there are opinions that deny women its leadership.** Women were not considered capable of assuming public office because of their emotionalism and inexperience in public life. But some quote extreme liberalizing Muslims, like the Egyptian authors Khaled Muhammad Khaled and Muhammad ‘Amarah, as well as Sudanese statesman Sadeq al-Mahdi. Khaled Muhammad Khaled, for

instance, argued that since Islam did not deny women the right to

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interpret and comment on the Qur‘an, there were no valid reasons to deny women the right to serve in judicial roles. But, explained another writer, women could not become the mufti, the highest religious authority qualified to issue religious-judicial opinions.”° The prohibition against women’s assumption of the highest political

office was attributed to a hadith in which the Prophet said that no nation would succeed if headed by a woman. But some commentators

believe that the Prophet’s statement was a prophecy rather than an injunction.*° Al-Ghazzali vehemently supported the idea that public roles for women did exist. He referred to his experience as a religious teacher in Algeria, where he confronted men who believed that a woman’s

primary sphere must remain her home. Quoting the Muslim Algerian scholar Ibn Badis, al-Ghazzali said that a nation could not soar without two wings, males and females.” Women could propagate God’s cause and instruct people in the virtues of Islam. They could also debate the unbelievers and, as in ancient Islamic times, support men along the righteous path.”® Women’s qualification for the Jihad is a given, since it is considered a

religious rather than a political right. There is disagreement, however, over the circumstances under which a woman could justifiably leave her home, abandon her primary role as stipulated by the religious culture, and seek the fulfillment of this duty. Despite the emphasis on women’s essential nature which predisposed them physically to childbearing and the gentler tasks of life, women’s religious equality dictated partaking of the defense of the faith. The Jihad is urged on women also because of historic precedent and the weight of the early Islamic experience when women fully participated in the Prophet’s wars. It is stated, for instance, that Islam preferred women over men because it urged against destroying women in an act of war, excused them from the performance of the Friday communal prayer, and excluded those women who commit apostasy from the penalty of death. Jihad was only urged on women; it was

not an obligation, as it was for men. Thus, the Prophet had to grant permission for women to join the Jihad, for without it women’s partici-

pation would have been objectionable. Present-day advocates of the Islamist view claimed that women needed their husbands’ permission to participate in the Jihad except in cases of naked aggression against the Muslim community.*? Only the militant Jihad organizations that actively worked to overthrow the government stipulated that Jihad was an obligation for both men and women because of its expanded defini-

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tion that included combatting outside enemies of the faith as well as coreligionists who rejected the true tenets of Islam.*° The Islamist polemic also targeted Western imperialism, cultural he-

gemony of the West, and foreign-imposed economic structures. The most effective part of the polemic, this argument placed women at the center of the national struggle as heroines and defenders of the fabric of Islamic society. Not only were women reminded of the degradation heaped upon them as a result of the economic imperialism of the West, but they were also placed at the center of a future regenerative effort to restore to the Muslim world its cultural, economic, and political autonomy. Women were offered a vision of future economic equality and plenty, where no one went hungry or unclothed. It is a vision, moreover, of a righteous society where dignity and humanity would be amply protected. After the imposition of total military and colonial control over the Arab lands and then the rest of the Islamic world, serious attempts were

made to Westernize Arab and Islamic civilization to contain Islamic influence, wrote Muhammad ‘Amarah. The Arab and Islamic world became peripheral to the Western economic system, offering it cheap raw materials. In the process, the Arab and Muslim world became merely a market for Western industrial products, which began to play a signifi-

cant role in winning some sectors of the urban population, especially the intellectuals, to a Western way of life. Western ideas and values contributed to the alienation of these sectors, dazzled by the glitter and the glory of European civilization. Several factors contributed to this alienation. The urban elites knew only the Mameluke/Ottoman version of the Islamic heritage. Orientalism had succeeded in sowing the spirit of defeatism in Muslim minds by emphasizing all that was negative in the Islamic heritage, attributing the positives in this heritage to ancient Greece and Rome. All centers of propagation and dissemination of the religious, intellectual, and educational aspects of Western civiliza-

tion augmented the defeatist spirit sown by the orientalists. Finally, Western universities and institutes of learning prepared and shaped the political, intellectual, and national leadership of Arab and Islamic countries. Thus, ‘Amarah wrote, generations of Arabs and Muslims were receiving their education at the hands of the enemies of Arabism and Islam, resulting in a wave of Westernization that produced a current of secularism, which appealed greatly to the educated elite.*' Women paid the heaviest price for this Westernization, which weak-

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ened the foundations of Islamic society by spreading immorality and destroying the Muslim family, wrote Anwar al-Jundi. Among the greatest dangers facing Muslim women was the call for the liberation of women at the beginning of the twentieth century. But this call rang hollow when Western influence introduced laws in Muslim lands legalizing adultery and corrupting styles of dress and ornamentation. Native writers who fell for Westernization played havoc with the Muslim value system. Everything written by Taha Hussein, an Egyptian educator and scholar, and Salamah Musa, a Coptic writer and thinker, was contrary to Islam and the laws of fitrah. Then the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, a poet of love and eroticism, took away women’s clothing and demeaned them. Other literary figures, like Egyptian novelists Naguib Mahfouz, Ihsan ‘Abd al-Quddus, and Amin Yousef Ghurab, also robbed women of their dignity.* The campaign against Western consumerism and economic domination produced a whole body of writing on Islamic economics that pro-

vided a blueprint for the ideal Islamic society and for women’s role within the restructured economy. This part of the polemic was probably

the most attractive to women, since it projected reforms where they were most needed. The strength of the Islamist economic argument derived from the common perception that both liberalism and socialism had been tried and had failed. Few voices persisted in reminding the

public that neither liberalism nor planned socialist systems was ever fully developed and implemented in Egypt. Both the nascent capitalism of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha and the national strategy of the landed class

during the 1919 revolution were torpedoed by the forces of Western capital and colonialism. Socialism, on the other hand, was more in the nature of state capitalism in Egypt. The policy of infitah during the Sadat period resembled a colonial system where the native population was turned into consumers linked to foreign exploiters through native commercial agents.*°

Islamist writers insisted that Islamic economics were the only alternative. They added that Islam, a total religion for this world and for the hereafter, could not be devoid of economic theory. Moreover, economics in the Islamic religion sprang from the nature of the faith, since it determined the goals and objectives of human conduct. The production, consumption, and distribution of goods and material services were all conditioned by human behavior and had to be determined according to religious values. The connection between the material and the

136 Chapter 6 spiritual in Islam was so strong that one must assume that good fortune can accrue only from observing the faith. But unlike other economic systems, the Islamic system was totally concerned with collective income as a standard of production rather than with the maximization of personal profit. Islamic economics were concerned not only with economic failure but also with things that might pollute the environment or disparage Islamic beliefs.* Muhammad al-Ghazzali claimed that Islam must concern itself with material well-being before all else, repeating the complaint of the wellknown writer Amin Rihani. To those who insisted that the East produced only philosophy, Rihani offered to exchange ideas for tanks and aircrafts. Spirituality had actually forsaken the East, claimed al-Ghazzali. Humans in the East are the same as in the West, combining materialism and spiritualism. Al-Ghazzali stressed that economic disarray would only result in moral disarray. He then described the calamitous Egyptian economic conditions during the 1970s, where rich and poor classes existed and where a minority monopolized much of the wealth while the majority wallowed in misery. But this situation is not acceptable in Islam, which denies the right of the rich to maintain exclusive ownership of their wealth and decries the total poverty of the poor. Sooner or

later, both the rich and poor must establish a society free from the extremes of poverty and wealth.* Al-Ghazzali devoted the bulk of his argument to a discussion of the meaning of social equality in Islam. This concept of equality denies the validity of social class while insisting on the right to private property and the innate differences among human beings. Poverty results in grave moral problems, such as adultery, by obstructing the path of those who desire marriage, the establishment of a home, or a secure income for young families. Islamic solutions to these endemic economic problems will not be satisfied with zakat (alms giving), which would be only a short-term solution. For long-term and comprehensive solutions, alGhazzali suggests the following: nationalizing public services, making the nation the greatest proprietor of the means of production; exiling foreign corporations that exploit the national wealth and refusing to grant these corporations exclusive rights to anything; limiting the ownership of agricultural land and supporting the emergence of small property holders, including agricultural workers;

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retrieving properties acquired by foreign nationals and outlawing property ownership for foreigners; establishing a profit-sharing system for the benefit of factory workers; and establishing a graduated tax on inheritances for the purpose of building a large charitable fund.*° Islamist writers argued that Western imperialism conspired in subtle

ways to destabilize the Muslim family. Not satisfied with their economic stranglehold over the economies of Muslim countries, Western powers were also determined to sabotage the Muslim family. Only the family continued to function as the creator of men and the last reservoir

of national power and strength during the long centuries of Islamic decline. Only the Muslim family resisted invading Crusaders, Tartars,

and Western military colonialism. It was no surprise, then, that the attack on the Muslim family singled out the feminine sphere, then that

of the male, and finally the sphere of children. This onslaught also attacked family laws and values. In the campaign against Muslim women,

the attackers used weapons of Westernization through the popularization of fashionable clothing and nightclubs. Muslim males were destabilized through the spread of cigarettes and drugs and were subjected to the distraction of women in workplaces, streets, schools, and higher institutions of learning. Sons and daughters were corrupted through imposing un-Islamic curricula on the school system as well as through coeducation. The final phase of this battle was the campaign to shake the virtuous values and divine laws on which the family was based, the most important of which were men’s guardianship over women and parental guardianship over children. A whole array of illegitimate laws of unknown origin were imposed on Islamic society.*” One of the most serious Islamist objections to the corruption of the Muslim family was directed toward family-planning programs recommended by American and international experts. Even mainstream Egyptian papers like Al-sha% have complained against this effort in such inflammatory headlines as “Americans Are in Our Bedrooms.” Much of this preoccupation with the conspiratorial family-planning schemes supplied by the Western powers is based on the work of Mawdudi. The Pakistani authority wrote a book detailing the evil intent of familyplanning programs, citing historical examples to argue that no relationship exists between the pressure of population and its talents and ener-

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gies. Indeed, some Islamist communities dominated new development settlements in Egypt’s deserts during the late 1970s. Mawdudi also argued that large, cooperative families achieved greater economic success and concluded that the Western obsession with imposing familyplanning schemes on Muslim peoples was no more than a thinly veiled fear of the consequences of Islamic demographic weight.*®

Part of the Islamist polemic, in addition, attacked the legitimacy of secularist and feminist Egyptian figures by demonstrating the distance separating these feminists from the true Islamic value system and by reviving the heroic tales and sacrifices of early Islamic female figures. It is not difficult then to demonstrate the illegitimate nature of the credentials of secular feminists. Although the life stories of these Islamic female figures are part of the collective popular memory, juxtaposing the record of female saints such as ‘Aishah, the Prophet’s wife, or the mystic Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyah next to the record of Aminah al-Sa‘id or Jihan Sadat is bound to be effective. Moreover, Egyptian feminists who called for the reform of family law held up the model of the independent and educated Western woman to the mass of Egyptian women, a tactic that further distanced the feminists from the Islamists, who always held the early Islamic female figures as the perfect model for every time and place. Huda Sha‘rawi, wrote one Islamist figure, was predominantly French in culture and was descended from a family intimately related to Egypt’s Turkish aristocracy. Her background and embrace of Westernization detracted from her Islamic credentials.*° Nawal Saadawi, a feminist activist, was often berated and mocked for her direct attacks on males. An Islamist male writer was incredulous that she remarked that behind every female in jail was a male figure. He claimed that war between men and women did not exist in Egypt and was a foreign phenomenon.*° Saadawi’s statement was taken to mean a rejection of the principle of male guardianship over women, which alone diminished her credibility. During the wide-ranging public debate on Egypt’s personal status law, women’s views were rejected on the basis that women were unfamiliar with the Shari‘a. Although some of these women held doctoral degrees, their expertise as interpreters of the Shari‘a, their zjtzhad, was gravely doubted.*! By contrast, views of the great Islamic reformer Muhammad ‘Abduh, who died in the early twentieth century, were seriously considered and analyzed. ‘Abduh, the highest religious authority in Egypt, attempted

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sweeping reforms of the Shari‘a but maintained his critique within an Islamic context. Among the issues he raised were the need to improve the status of women and to restrict polygyny and divorce. Ahmad Faraj, an Islamist writer, referred to one of ‘Abduh’s articles, “Hajet al-insan ila al-jawaz” (The human necessity of marriage), which appeared in A/-

waga al-Misriyah on March 7, 1881, without any hint of sarcasm. This omission was unusual since Faraj was fully cognizant of the extent of ‘Abduh’s collaboration with Lord Cromer, the British high commissioner, in matters requiring governmental support. Faraj, a professor of Islamic studies at Mansourah University, also understood the political and ideological ramifications of ‘Abduh’s proposed reforms. He wrote, for instance, that ‘Abduh’s call for change emanated from a nationalist

perspective. For ‘Abduh, the virtuous family was the nucleus of the virtuous society. Such a family consisted of a husband, one wife, and their offspring. The children in such a family would be free from the acrimony of parental divorce or discord that usually arose in a household of multiple wives.” ‘Abduh’s legitimacy in the eyes of conservatives and Islamists derived from his theological credentials and his ability to pitch his argument in the language of Islamic religious scholarship, which transformed his pointed criticism of the treatment of women and the misapplication of

Qur‘anic injunctions into a well-known argument. The rules of this debate, furthermore, were fully recognizable to all members of the Islamic scholarly community. The introduction of Western models and concepts by the secular feminists, on the other hand, muddled the issue and contributed to great confusion among those who adhered seriously to the casuistry of Islamic scholarship. The Islamic polemic of the 1970s and 1980s hence recognized that the rules of Islamic debate had shifted.

It was no longer Qur‘anic verse versus Qur‘anic verse, one Islamic authority versus another. The common language of years past and the nature of the target audience were no longer the same. Thus, it was inevitable that the polemic should turn heavily to exaggerated statements, ridicule, and casuistry. It was important that the secular audience be reminded of what virtuous Islamic womanhood was about and to punch holes in Western feminist concepts and ridicule Western female models. Since Islamic arguments were known to be ineffective with the secularists, pseudosociological debates occurred instead.

The intertwining of Islamist and nationalist rhetoric is also worth noting. Whereas ‘Abduh’s earlier argument was nationalist and pro-

140 Chapter 6 gressive, the later argument was nationalist and regressive. As an early precursor of the liberal argument of the 1920s, ‘Abduh was committed to a reconciliation of modernity and liberalized Islamic traditions. Latter-day Islamists, however, held a sanguine view of the West and its feminine ideal and sought to recover an activist feminist vision from the

Islamic past. This vision was distinguished by its dedication to the principles of an Islamized society. No parts of this vision conflicted with the primary objective of mobilization, which desired certain undertak-

ings of the mobilized population. Thus, the Islamist polemic was not simply a recitation and regurgitation of Islamic feminine virtues but a call to action and rededication that flattered female Islamist followers with a message that assigned them the most crucial role in the struggle for a just Islamist society. Whether as educators and nurturers of children or as revolutionary recruiters of other secluded female members, the women were viewed as the foundation of the reconstituted Islamic society. This role carried beyond acting as mere foot soldiers for the Islamist movement, as some secular feminist critics have contended. Secularists who resisted the notion of Islamist feminist self-direction and dedication labored under the false impression that the promised Islamist utopia held nothing but subjugation and loss of dignity and freedom for women. This view obviously resulted from focusing on the Islamist feminine ideal in isolation from the total Islamist societal vision. It would be woefully inaccurate, therefore, to describe women as inferior in the movement while they were promised a paradise laden with the fruits of Islamic socialism in which they were also accorded a position of dignity and honor. By contrast, the secular feminist polemic offered independence and freedom but no social or economic guarantees. The message of individual freedom and independence in the midst of poverty and national humiliation lacked the mobilizational force of the Islamist utopian program.

i or gy prion Fremin ism in The Balance

Changes in the behavior of Egyptian females as a result of external liberalizing forces were noted as early as the French invasion of Egypt in

1798. The women of that period demonstrated a rare spirit of rebelliousness and a surprising disregard for Islamic injunctions and tradition. The effect of such rebellion on the Egyptian male psyche was illustrated by the severity of the punishment meted out to women upon the departure of the French. No episode in Egypt’s recent history attests more to the seriousness with which the male hierarchy regarded women’s roles and behavior. In the twentieth century, women’s roles and place in the social order acquired an additional significance, the inevitable outcome of the rise of nationalist ideologies during Egypt’s confrontation with British colo-

nialism. Women’s status in society, particularly as perceived by the colonialists, became an important factor in colonialist and native culture wars. Egypt’s early liberal leaders, therefore, felt justified in sponsoring women’s emancipation and liberation. But given the elitist back-

ground of the early feminist leaders and the limited scope of their agitational tactics, the early movement remained limited in scope. Ten-

sion between the Wafd Party and the acknowledged feminist leader, Huda Sha‘rawi, prevented the development of an official women’s move-

ment. _ During the early phase of the officers’ regime, liberal feminists staged a dramatic bid for recognition but were sidelined because of considerations of class. Nasser’s government proceeded to mobilize women of the urban petite bourgeoisie and enlist them in the battle for industrial development, and women never experienced a closer identification with 141

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the official regime than at this time. Although many gains were made, especially for working women, the regime was reluctant to lead a campaign to reform the Shari‘a. Although successful economic reforms of that period opened up enormous educational and employment opportunities for women, eventually their economic well-being declined along with that of the general population. Egypt’s wars, its mismanaged economy, and its population expansion created great pressures on both rural and urban areas. Women began to feel the wrath of the unemployed in the early 1970s, when the call began to be heard to return women to the domestic sphere. As the last group to join the labor force and as the weakest and most dependent sector in the country, women were particularly affected by the twin blows of declining official sponsorship and a weakening economy. No single facet of society felt the impact of the failure of the socialist regime as much as women did. Their social and economic emancipation during the 1950s and 1960s, which realized some of the goals of the earlier generation of Egyptian feminists, dissipated during the Sadat

, era. The female sector experienced what Mervat Hatem terms “state feminism” during the Nasser era, only to experience defeat through a mixture of massive socioeconomic dislocation and manipulation during the Sadat years.' Not all members of this sector swung to the Islamist side. Radical and liberal feminists, though disturbed by the authoritarian handling of the 1979 reforms of the personal status law, remained committed to the secular version of female liberation. But for the vast majority of women, who were either untouched by secularism or badly affected by massive economic shifts, the Islamist ideology and call to action promised economic deliverance and a badly needed sense of dignity and worth. The 1970s, therefore, proved a time of crisis, particularly for members of the urban class. The role of the state in developing the private sector diminished. As indicated by some Egyptian writers who link the rise of Islamic fundamentalism to socioeconomic change, national capi-

tal was diverted to safe but lucrative investments. The state showed little concern for the negative impact of these practices on developmental needs. Sadat’s critics contend that this policy led to the collapse of the industrial and agricultural sectors. The national economy became dependent on marginal economic sectors, such as tourism, remittances of Egyptian workers abroad, Suez fees, and Egypt’s limited petroleum revenue. One result was a dramatic increase in the public debt, reaching

Egyptian Feminism in the Balance 143

$30 billion a year and costing $2 billion in annual service charges. A more serious outcome for the ordinary Egyptian was a huge increase in inflation. Corruption added to these woes by rendering the system of taxation inoperable. A serious brain drain developed, as skilled and educated Egyptians fled the country. The impact of this emigration on health, educational, cultural, and housing facilities was devastating. These shifts were felt in 1981 in the countryside as well, when law 143 set the

upper limit for landownership at 300 feddan. The most visible sign of this economic erosion was a change in Egypt’s ability to feed itself. By

the early 1980s, Egypt had to import 50 percent of its food.” | Along with this severe economic dislocation, Egypt experienced unprecedented communal tension and crisis. Rather than simply a facile and deliberate persecution of the Coptic community, Islamist attacks developed as a result of identity changes among members of both com-

munities. Although the Coptic Church leaders controlled extremists well, the leadership itself swung away from the time-honored pattern of passivity and uninvolvement. Having wrested the leadership of the Coptic community from its traditional political representatives, Pope Shenoudah

became the person to whom everyone turned in times of crisis. This historic shift in no way threatened the Egyptian state, and it could not be cited as an excuse for Islamist attacks and transgression on Coptic rights and property. But there is no doubt that an educated and activist

Coptic Pope, no matter how restrained, contributed to the Islamist crisis of confidence and feelings of insecurity vis-a-vis the secular state.

Before too long, relations between Copts and Islamists were further exacerbated by their differing views of women. Tension also mounted as a result of Coptic fears for the safety of their young females. Even when responsible voices within church circles attempted to define and present themselves to the wider Egyptian public, differences were expressed in terms of gender relations and the family. The secular campaign to amend the 1929 personal status law was, perhaps, the final and most public aggravation. The campaign was not

perceived by the Islamists as an attack on man-made laws but as an assault on the Shari‘a. The battle for a new definition of personal status law became an ideological confrontation of the first order. An increasingly unpopular president, although at first accommodating, performed an adroit balancing act between the Islamists and the Copts until neither group felt secure. To be threatened politically by such a leader was bad enough, but for him to transgress on the sacred territory of women

144 Chapter 7

and the family was intolerable. The leading secular feminists of this campaign, furthermore, violated every Islamist notion of acceptable female behavior. Jihan Sadat, for instance, played an extrapresidential and public role. To many eyes—not only to Islamists—she appeared to be determined to change the gender balance in Egypt. She thus violated the Islamist ideal of womanhood in two basic ways, by subscribing

to a non-Islamic definition of ideal womanhood and by negating the principle of male guardianship over women. Not surprisingly, the campaign to discredit her was waged with a mixture of acerbic wit and fear. The Islamist dread of an activist and secularist first lady was expressed most clearly in the trials of the Jihad figures. Such was the apprehension

of these figures that they cited this female co-president as one of the factors contributing to the anathematization of the Sadat era. The seriousness with which the Islamists elaborated their vision of women in the perfect Islamic society attests to their sincerity. By developing a coherent theory justifying their perception of the perfect family,

they sought to defend themselves against the unconverted in the nuances of the Islamic legacy by claiming that Islam is a religion for all times and places. Their polemic, furthermore, feasted on Egypt’s economic woes, promising a future of economic equality and abundance. More important, the polemic manipulated the average Egyptian’s sensitivity to Western economic control and international domination, seek-

ing to impress upon the public that all non-Islamist notions of gender were Western and colonialist. By equating secularism with Westernism, the Islamists tapped into the public’s frustrations. These efforts inevitably doomed any reform ideas to failure. Even the most educated Egyp-

tian women could hardly resist a message combining allusions to Islamic greatness, an economic critique of society, and a nationalist diatribe against the West. In a memorable line on Egyptian television, the educated and scholarly Bint al-Shati‘ (‘Aishah ‘Abd al-Rahman) accused those who seek to enlighten women (tanweer) of encouraging them to become Western ladies (khawagat).* Who in Egypt desired such a fate?

No such seriousness toward women’s issues was exhibited by male secularist forces, however. Since the days of Nasser, male elements generally sacrificed the women’s issue for the sake of avoiding a direct confrontation with traditional Islamic forces. Even when engaged in a deadly struggle with the Muslim Brotherhood, Nasser feared adding the women’s issue to the troubled mosque-state relations. Critics of

Egyptian Feminism inthe Balance 145

Sadat’s authoritarian methods on behalf of the reform decree of 1979 were no less disappointing. More important, secularist political literature has yet to present a coherent plan on behalf of women. The secular critique of the Islamist movement, of the politics of cooptation, and of the authoritarianism of the Sadat era habitually bypasses the issue of women. Few, if any, Arab and Muslim males are willing to view society through the prism of the gender divide. The mobilization of Islamic women in Egypt was an unusual effort in more than one way. It targeted one of the country’s most traditional sectors, and it took the form of a campaign that sought a restricted and tightly controlled process of activation. The effort to resuscitate the revolutionary spirit of Islamic women was, perforce, a careful and orchestrated endeavor to produce a new breed of Islamic feminine activists. While university women were among the most susceptible to the message of Islamist regeneration and renewal, more traditional and home-bound women were also targeted. Much of the Islamist rhetoric of the 1970s and 1980s was laden with religious textual references and canonical statements. The same injunctions that advocated a quiet role for women were now used to defend the Qur‘anic legacy and an Islamic way of life. Qur‘anic references were utilized to stress the importance of adhering to a specific outlook and lifestyle. The mobilizational effort of the 1970s and 1980s was also unique in the history of Islamic movements. For the first time what was considered the private realm became open to public debate and polemics. This transformation of the private into the public was also one of the goals of the Western feminist movement. In their eagerness to defeat the perception of women as neurotic beings, Western feminists sought to focus publicly on issues that influenced the lives of women, including middle-class marriage, women’s share of the labor market, and women’s exploitation by the advertising media. Yet some, if not all, of these issues were emphasized by Islamist writers. The main goal of Western radical feminists was to achieve recognition for their perception of the basic class division in society as between the sexes. In their view, the main motivating force in history was always men’s desire for power and control over women. The “dialectic of sex” was more significant than any other.*

In a curious adaptation of this theme, Islamist writers never tired of hammering at Western misconceptions of Islamic women’s lives. But the result was the same, an ideological campaign to remind native and

146 ~~ Chapter 7

Western audiences that the institution of the family, male and female relations, and the economies of Islamic societies were crucial. But the Islamists substituted the East-West struggle for the male-female one. Thus, although the Islamists rejected the notion of gender, they did not ignore issues concerning women. Yet, basing their ideology on Islamic teachings infused the Islamist movement with subtle differences that distinguished them from radical secular feminists. When it came to male-female relations, Islamists believed, Islam demanded justice, not equality.’ This distinction sanctioned close adherence to the Shari‘a, which mapped out a role of responsibility and guardianship for men but not women. The Islamists skirted the issue of gender by postulating a relationship of compatibility rather than equality. They also attempted to circumvent the issue of class by outlining the blueprint of a future classless society. But it is clear from the relevant sociological information that the Islamists mainly attracted members of the petite bourgeoisie.

The struggle for women’s rights in Egypt, as elsewhere in the Arab world, is a continuing battle affected by sectoral divisions within female

ranks, indifferent secular men, and authoritarian rulers schooled in cooptational politics. The history of the feminist struggle in Egypt offers the best lesson in gender strategization and demonstrates the dilemma of reconciling loyalty to gender and loyalty to nation. Egypt’s feminist history is richer than that of other Arab countries, offering a variety of experiences and political actors, but more than anything else illustrating the dilemmas facing most Arab women today.

Notes

Preface 1. Anwar Muhammad, A/-Sadat, 99-100. 2. Deutsch, “Social Mobilization,” 493-514. 3. Green, Revolution, 1-6. 4. Hudson, “Social Mobilization,” 51.

Chapter 1. Secular Feminist Change and Its Limitations 1. ‘Awadh, Tartkh al-fikr al-Misri al-hadith: Min al-hamlah, 196-97. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., 200-203. 4. Ibid., 204-5. 5. Ibid., 209-10. 6. ‘Awadh, Tartkh al-fikr al-Misri al-hadith: Min ‘asr, 107-8. 7. Al-Qadhi, Harakat, 14-18. 8. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 52-53. 9. Ibid., 52-55. 10. Ibid., 56. 11. Ibid., 55-56. 12. Ibid., 46, 49. 13. Khalifah, Al-harakah, 36, 46-52. 14. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar ‘ah, 50n.1, 56. 15. Khalifah, Al-harakah, 42-45. 16. Ibid., 27. 17. Baraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 18-22. 18. Ibid., 16-18. 19. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Qadhaya, 17-18. 20. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 21-22. 21. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar ‘ah, 56-57. 22. Al-Subki, Al-harakah, 26-28. 23. Ibid., 26-34. 147

148 Notes to Chapter | 24. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 61-63. 25. Rashid, Asfahani, and Murad, Tarikh, 23. 26. Al-Subki, Al-harakah, 193-95. 27. Ibid., 68. 28. Ibid., 101-2. 29. Ibid., 140-43. 30. Ibid., 50-51. 31. Ibid., 102-3. 32. Ibid., 105, 58-65. 33. Ibid., 106. 34. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 55-65. 35. Al-Subki, Al-harakah, 53. 36. Khalifah, Al-harakah, 100-121; al-Subki, Al-harakah, 159-60. 37. Khalifah, Al-harakah, 58, 121. 38. Ibid., 131-33, 140. 39. Al-Subki, Al-harakah, 170-76. 40. Ibid., 73-88; Rashid, Asfahani, and Murad, Tarzkh, 26-30. 41. Al-Subki, Al-harakah, 63, 65. 42. Ibid., 122-23. 43. Khalifah, Al-barakah, 174. 44. Rashid, Asfahani, and Murad, Tarikh, 33-36. 45. Khalifah, Al-harakah, 176-79. 46. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 69. 47. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 115. 48. Ibid., 116-17. 49, Ibid., 117-19. 50. Khalitah, Al-harakah, 141-43. 51. Ibid., 143-44. 52. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 70; Khalifah, Al-harakah, 180. 53. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 72-73. 54. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 77-81. 55. Ibid., 82-89. 56. Ibid., 71-72. 57. Ibid., 73-74. 58. Ibid., 94. 59. Ziyadeh, “Permanence,” 28. 60. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 150-51. 61. Jayawardena, Feminism, 256-61. 62. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 92. 63. Ibid., 93-95. 64. Ibid., 99. 65. Ibid., 134-37.

Notes to Chapter2 149 66. Rashid, Asfahani, and Murad, Tarikh, 30-38. 67. Al-Qalamawi, “Wa ayna al-mar‘ah?” 323-24.

Chapter 2. The Transformation of Class and Communal Relations 1. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Al-Islam, 26-27, 29-30. 2. Isma‘il, Soctologia, 45-50. 3. ‘Ishmawi, Al-Islam, 60. 4. Ibid., 61. 5. Ibrahim, “Al-Islam al-ibtijaji,” 13-14. 6. Habib, Al-chtijay, 25. 7. Ibid., 25-31. 8. Ibid., 32-34. 9. Ibid., 35-41. 10. Ibid., 30-31. 11. Ibid., 57-61. 12. “Al-mu/’assassah,” 16-24. 13. Habib, Al-thtija7, 95-108. 14. ‘Abd al Fattah, “Al-Islam,” 96-104. 15. Habib, Al-chtijaj, 110. 16. Yousef, “Al-Aqbat,” 188. 17. Habib, Al-shtijaj, 111. 18. Suleiman, Algham, 103-4. 19. Ibid., 168-74. 20. Ibid., 74. 21. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 27-33. 22. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Al-Islam, 12-14. 23. Sa‘ad, “Bayn al-tanmiyah,” 117-18. 24. Wahbeh, “Limatha,” 14-15. 25. Al-Mahdawi, Al-Ikhwan, 133-34; Habib, Al-shtijaj, 84-85. 26. Kepel, Muslim Extremism, 103-9. 27. Al-Sa‘ati, “Al-fi’at,” 107-8. 28. Ahmad, Al-Islambuli, 33-34. 29. Zeinab al-Ghazzali, Ayyam, 30-32. 30. Habib, Al-chtijaj, 68-72. 31. Munir, “Ru‘yat,” 54. 32. Anwar Muhammad, A/-Sadat, 50-52. 33. Ibid., 43-45. 34. Ibid., 45, 75-76. 35. Habib, Al-thtijaj, 72-74, 80-81. 36. Ibid., 46-47. 37. Anwar Muhammad, Al/-Sadat, 19-20, 76-80.

150 Notes to Chapter 3

Chapter 3. The Islamic Mobilization of Women 1. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 68. 2. Al-Subki, Al-harakah, 72, 116-17. 3. Ibid., 117-18.

5. Ibid., 119.

4, Ibid., 118-19.

6. Ibid., 140, 147-48. 7. Ibid., 165.

8. Zeinab al-Ghazzali, Ayyam, 23-24.

- 9. Ibid., 25. “10. Ibid., 26-27.

11. Ibid., 28-38. 12. Ibid., 39-42, 61-62, 143-44. 13. Al-Subki, Al-harakah, 165. 14. Siddiq, Al-Ikbwan, 56-59. 15. Habib, Al-shtijaj, 163. 16. Ibrahim, Misr, 24, 34. 17. Kepel, Muslim Extremism, 129-30, 132-34. 18. Ibid., 135-37, 142-44. 19. Al-Jundi, Al-tahadtyat, 68. 20. Aminah al-Sa‘id, “‘Id al-sufur,” 10-11. 21. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 44, 66-67, 118. 22. Bayyumi, “Humum al-Muslimin,” 59-61. 23. Rif‘at al-Sa‘id, “Ru‘yat.” 24. Aoude, “From National Bourgeois Development,” 11-22. 25. Cunha, “Economic Performance,” 87-88. 26. Ahmad, A/l-Islambuli, 30-31. 27. Ibrahim, Misr, 23-24. 28. Ahmad, Al-Islambuli, 82-83. 29. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 33-34. 30. Ibid. 42. 31. Ibid., 34. 32. Ibid., 53-85. 33. Ahmad, Al-Islambuli, 81-82. 34. Siddiq, Al-Ikhwan, 10. 35. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 161. 36. Ahmad, Al-Islambuli, 75. 37. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 20-21; Imam, “Laisat sahwah,” 28-29. 38. Habib, Al-zhtijaz, 163.

39. Kepel, Muslim Extremism, 86-90. |

40. Imam, “Laisat sahwah,” 26-29. 4]. Ahmad, Al-Islambuli, 82.

Notes to Chapter 4 151 42. Ibrahim, Misr, 33-34. 43. Al-Hifni, Radi Gh, passim.

44, Mahmoud, “Banat al-nabi,” 32-33. 45. Lalor, “Egypt,” 16. 46. Anwar Muhammad, Al-Sadat, 120, 135, 184. 47. Habib, Al-shtijay, 55. 48. Sharaf and Saber, “Al-mini gep,” 6. 49. Labib, “Ma‘sat,” 7. 50. Kepel, Muslim Extremism, 129-40. 51. Suleiman, Algham, 297. 52. ‘Ishmawi, Al-Islam, 183. 53. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 56-58, 65, 141. 54. Ibid., 61. 55. Ahmad, Al-Islambuli, 22-23. 56. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Qadhaya, 15-16, 116-18, 38-39. 57. Ibid., 170-71. 58. Suleiman, Algham, 333-35. 59. Ibid., 335-39. 60. Ibid., 335-36. 61. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 31-32. 62. Suleiman, Algham, 106-7. 63. Al-Azmeh, “Islamist Revivalism,” 44-53. 64. Suleiman, Algham, 354. 65. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Oadhaya, 34-37, 154-57. 66. ‘Amarah, Al-sahwah, 47-49, 48. 67. Ibid., 66. 68. Ibid., 44, 156-57. 69. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Qadhaya, 20, 30-33, 36, 81. 70. ‘Amarah, Al-sahwah, 146-49, 162-63. 71. Zeinab al-Ghazzali, Ayyam, 143-44. 72.‘Amarah, Al-sahwah, 33-34. 73. Suleiman, Algham, 119. 74. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Qadhaya, 64-65, 72, 147, 180-83.

Chapter 4. The Confrontation of State, Mosque, and Church 1. Al-Mahdawi, Al-Ikhwan, 129-30. 2. ‘Abdullah, Al-yjaysh, 16, 69.

3. Lalor, “Egypt,” 16-17. |

4. Habib, Al-chtijaj, 60-63. 5. Ibid., 63-64. 6. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 138. . 7. Ahmad, Al-Islambuli, 82.

152 Notes to Chapter 4 8. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 71-78. 9. Ibid., 130. 10. Al-Mahdawi, Al-Ikhbwan, 132-33. 11. Ahmad, Al-Islambul:, 133, 145.

12. Wahbeh, “Limatha,” 14-16. 13. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 75. 14. Ibid., 76-77. 15. “Al-mu’assassah,” 22. 16. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 81. 17. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 43-44. 18. ‘Abd al-Bari, Al-mar ‘ah, 91-94. 19. “Al-youm,” 35. 20. “Hatta yangashi‘,” 10-11. 21. Aminah al-Sa‘id, “Limatha,” 8. 22. Ibid., 8-9. 23. Aminah al-Sa‘id, “Manteq,” 10-11. 24. Ibid., 11. 25. Al-Mahdawi, Al-Ikbwan, 139.

26. Ibid., 139-40. | 27. Ibid., 134-35, 140-41. 28. Anwar Muhammad, Al-Sadat, 101.

29. Ibid., 143-50. 30. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 71-73. 31. “Lajnat al-mar‘ah,” 36-37. 32. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 12-13. 33. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 150-55. 34. “Qanun,” 47. 35. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 127, 138. 36. Anwar Muhammad, AJ/-Sadat, 99-102. 37. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 120. 38. Baha‘ al-Din, Muhawarati, 182-86. 39. Ibid., 186-95. 40. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 27. 41. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 105-6. 42. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar ‘ah, 28. 43. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 105. 44. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar ‘Gh, 29-40, 93.

45. Ibid., 71-72. 46. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 106. 47. Ibid. 48. Habib, Al-chtzjaj, 50-55. 49. Habib, A/-Masthiyah, 23-29.

Notes to Chapter5 153 50. Ibid., 32-34. 51. Ibid., 41, 43-46. 52. Ibid., 77-78, 89-93. 53. Ibid., 59-63, 79-88. 54. Ibid., 61-62, 64-73. 55. Ibid., 47-51. 56. Shenoudah, “Ja‘ al-Masih,” 249-53. 57. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 61-68. 58. Ibid., 78-118. 59. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 106-7. 60. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 99-102, 175-77. 61. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 106-7. 62. Ibid., 112-18. 63. Ibid., 172. 64. Ibid., 115. 65. Ahmad Taha Muhammad, Al-mar‘ah, 81, 100. 66. Ibid., 73-90, 222. 67. Ibid., 90-99.

Chapter 5. The Personal Status Law Redefined 1. Anwar Muhammad, AJ/-Sadat, 100. 2. Ramadhan, Misr, 293-95.

3. Ibid., 295-96. 4. Ibid., 296. 5. Ziyadeh, “Permanence,” 25-26. 6. Ibid., 26. 7. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 135-38. 8. Ibid., 49-50. 9. Ibid., 50-54. 10. Ibid., 147-48. 11. Public Commission, Al-mar‘ah, 34. 12. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 148-50. 13. Mansour, Al-din, 60. 14. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 138. 15. Ziyadeh, “Permanence,” 26-27. 16. Ramadhan, Misr, 296-97. 17. Ziyadeh, “Permanence,” 27. 18. Sadat, Sayytdah, 85-128. 19. Ibid., 225-30.

20. Ibid., 248-57. 21. Ibid., 269-71, 280. 22. Ibid., 355-58.

154 Notes to Chapter 6 , 23. Ibid., 364-72.

24. Ibid., 374-79. | 25. Ibid., 380-85. 26. Ibid., 393, 413-14. 27. Ibid., 417. 28. Najjar, “Egypt’s Laws,” 322-33. 29. Sadat, Sayyidah, 418.

30. Ibid., 419-20. 31. Ibid., 421-28. 32. Ibid., 428-30. 33. Hatem, “Economic and Political Liberation,” 243. 34. Najjar, “Egypt’s Laws,” 323-24. 35. Ibid., 324. 36. Ibid., 324-25. 37. Ibid., 329. 38. Ibid., 329-30. 39. Ibid., 331-32. 40. Ibid., 332-33. 41. Ibid., 334-36. 42. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 135, 150-51. 43. Kepel, Muslim Extremism, 184. 44. Yahya, “Adhwa‘,” 15-16.

45. “Qanun,” 42-46. 46. Ibid., 57-59. 47. Najjar, “Egypt’s Laws,” 336-37. 48. Ibid., 337-38. 49, Ibid., 338-42.

Chapter 6. Women in the Islamic Polemic 1. Kepel, Muslim Extremism, 167.

2. Tufaha, Al-mar‘ah, 121-31. 3. Ibid., 171-72. 4. Mahmoud A. H. Muhammad, Hugugq, 103-4. 5. Al-Sahmarani, Al-mar‘ah, 195-96. 6. Suleiman, Algham, 345-49. 7. Tufaha, Al-mar‘ah, 88-90. 8. Al-Sahmarani, Al-mar‘ah, 142. 9. Suleiman, Algham, 331-33. 10. Tufaha, Al-mar ‘ah, 109-15. 11. Al-Sahmarani, Al-mar‘ah, 95-107. 12. Mahmoud A.H. Muhammad, Hugug, 36-37. 13. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Turathuna, 48-49, 51.

Notes to Chapter 7 155 14. Ibid., 66-68, 96; Tufaha, Al-mar‘ah, 136-37. 15. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Qadhaya, 15-16, 38-39. 16. Suleiman, Algham, 333-35. 17. Mahmoud A. H. Muhammad, Hugugq, 67-68. 18. ‘Abd al-Qader, Al-gharah, 119-20. 19. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Turathuna, 160-61; Al-Jundi, Harakat, 910.

20. Al-Sahmarani, Al-mar ‘ah, 153-63. 21. Mahmoud A. H. Muhammad, Hugugq, 78-87. 22. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 56. 23. Tufaha, Al-mar‘ah, 45-46.

24. Ibid., 47-48. 25. Suleiman, Algham, 336-38. 26. Ibid., 338-39. 27. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Turathuna, 48. 28. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Qadhaya, 17, 81-84. 29. Mahmoud A. H. Muhammad, Hugugq, 60-62. 30. Ahmad, Tanthimat, 60-61. 31. ‘Amarah, Al-sahwah, 44-45. 32. Al-Jundi, Al-tahadtiyat, 11, 27. 33. Qunsuwah, “Al-da‘wa,” 74-75. 34. Al-Nayjar, “Al-Islam,” 62-63, 66. 35. Muhammad al-Ghazzali, Al-Islam, 26-27, 35-37, 89-93.

36. Ibid., 29-32, 66-67, 141-44, 180-81. 37. ‘Abd al-Qader, Al-gharah, 7-9. 38. Ibid., 13-14, 48-49, 55, 112, 131-33. 39. Al-Jundi, Al-tahadtyat, 35-39. 40. Review of Nawal Saadawi’s “Muthakarati,” 106. 41. Yahya, “Adhwa‘,” 16. 42. Faraj, Al-mu‘amarah, 48-49, 54-58.

Chapter 7. Egyptian Feminism in the Balance 1. Hatem, “Economic and Political Liberation,” 231-32, 240-41.

2. Al-Mahdawi, Al-Ikhbwan, 143-45. |

3. ‘Aishah ‘Abd al-Rahman, interview. 4. Hartmann, “The Unhappy Marriage,” 13. 5. Al-Sahmarani, Al-mar‘ah, 120.

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Index

Abaza, Fikri, 79 Ahmad, Labibeh, 46—50 ‘Abd al-‘Akher, ‘Abd al-‘Akher Ahmad, Rif*at Sayyid, xi

Muhammad, 112 Al-ahram (newspaper), 27,95 ‘Abd al-Qader, ‘Abd al-Qader ‘Aishah (Prophet’s wife), 138

Ahmad, xi, 130 ‘Alawi, Mustafa, 57

‘Abd al-Rahman, Ahmed ‘Ali, 84 Alexandria: conferences at, 85; ‘Abd al-Rahman, ‘Aishah (Bint al- demonstrations at, 18; elections

Shati‘), xi, 27, 124, 130, 144 in, 19, 84; schools in, 15 ‘Abd Al-Raziq, ‘Ali, 34, 69 Alexandria University, 62, 98 ‘Abduh, Muhammad: associations Algeria, customs in, 133

| of, 8; beliefs of, 5,9, 71, 105-6; ‘Ali, Muhammad, 3, 4, 22, 31, 104 judicial opinions of, 23; legacy ‘Alia (queen of Jordan), 112

of, 24, 68, 72, 81, 138-40 alienation, xi Abu Ghazalah, ‘Abd al-Halim, 75 Al-‘Alim, Mahmoud Amin, 41

Abu Zeid, Hikmat, 19, 21 alms-giving, 71, 136 Academic Research and Higher ‘Aloubah, Muhammad ‘Ali, 15

Coptic Studies, 94 ‘Amarah, Muhammad, 67, 69, 132, Academy of Islamic Research, 115 134 activism: control of, 145-46; justifi- ‘Amer, ‘Abd al-Hakim, 35

cation for, 67; origins of, 123- ‘Amer, Zeinab, 27 24; political versus social, 48, American Coptic Committee, 43 50; social welfare, 108-13. See Amin, Mustafa, 120 also demonstrations; feminism; Amin, Qassem: associations of, 8;

women’s movement beliefs of, 9, 12-13; legacy of, 6,

Adam, Juliet, 6 24, 81

Al-‘Adawiyah, Rabi‘ah, 61, 138 Anas, Malik ibn, 106

Al-‘afaf (journal), 7 anathematization: of government, Al-Afghani, Jamal ad-Din: argu- 38; and punishment, 55; of ments of, 4, 9; associations of, 8; Sadat era, 144; of society, 58,

legacy of, 24, 68, 71-72, 81 60, 67, 69-70 163

164 ~— Index

Anglo-Egyptian Treaty (1936), 14 Baha‘ism, 55

Anis al-jalees (journal), 7-8 Bakr, Asma bint Abu, 130 Al-Ansariya, Nusaibah bint Ka‘b Al-Bakri, Khalil, 3

(Um ‘Amara), 130 Bank of Egypt (Bank Misr), 16,

apostasy, penalty for, 97, 133 39-40

Apter, David, x Al-Banna, Hasan: death of, 37; inAl-Aqqad, ‘Abbas Mahmoud, 13 fluences on, 69; as leader, 47-

Aqsa Mosque (Palestine), 59 50; and Palestine, 59 Arab Feminist Union, 11, 17, 28 Barakat, Bahi al-Din Pasha, 13 Arab-Israeli war (1967): and Copts, Al-Baramusi, Father Danial, 91, 94

33, 38, 42-44, 92; effects of, Al-Baramus Monastery, 91

23, 40, 45, 62, 107; Jihan Al-Berri, Zakaria, 23 Sadat’s activities in, 109-10 Bible, 94, 127-28

Arab League, 84 Bint al- Nil (journal), 13 Arab Socialist Union Party: debates Bint al-Shati‘ (‘Aishah ‘Abd al-

in, 112; dismantling of, 41; ori- Rahman), xi, 27, 124, 130, 144 gins of, 22; structure of, 78; Bisar, Muhammad ‘Abd al-

women in, 20-21, 28, 84, 112 Rahman, 112, 119 Arab Women’s Solidarity Associa- Al-Bishri, Salim, 106

tion, 82 boycotts, against British products,

‘Arriyah, Rawiyah, 19 13

Al-Asfahani, Nabihah, 27-28 bread riots, 96

‘Ashmawi, Salih, 39 Brussels, conference in (1910), 6

al-assalah, xi Buran (Xerxes’ daughter), 67

Association of Female Workers of Al-Bur‘i, Nabil, 38, 57

the Egyptian Region, 26 Burnham, Walter Dean, x Asyut University, 53, 62, 98 Al-Bustani, Ahmad S., xi Australia, Copts in, 36, 92, 99 Butrus, Zacharia, 92 authenticity, xi

Al-Azhar University: autonomy of, Cairo: churches in, 42; elections in,

33-35; curriculum at, 106; 19, 84; industries in, 26; schools demonstrations at, 86; and edu- in, 15; social services in, 48; cational reform, 31-32, 34; Is- women seized from, 2 lamic camps at, 52; and Islam- Cairo University: demonstrations ization, 61; state relations with, at, 18; faculty of, 27; graduates

25; and Westernization, 69; of, 87, 88, 110-11; Islamic

women faculty at, 27 camps at, 52—53; student pro-

‘Aziz, Madelaine, 27 tests at, 62; veiling issue at, 49, 56

Badis, Ibn, 133 caliphate, 34, 69 Badrawi Summary Court, 119 Camp David negotiations, 44, 92,

Baha‘ al-Din, Ahmad, 87 99

Index 165

Carter, Jimmy, 99 33, 88-90, 92, 99; and 1919 reCenter for Strategic Studies, 28 volt, 10; revival of, viii, 30, 32children: caring for, 7-8, 48; cus- 33, 88-93; schools operated by, tody of, 11, 117, 121; and di- 15, 31-32; state relations with, vorce, 113; employment of, 26; 32, 35, 41-44, 74, 88-90, 92health care for, 12; and women’s 99; Sunday schools of, 32-33,

right to work, 80-81 36, 62, 91. See also Coptic-MusChristianity, vill, 94-95, 125-28. lim conflict; Copts; Shenoudah

See also Coptic Church; Trinity III (pope) Church of Mary Girgis, 92 Coptic Clerical College, 88 Church of Saint Mark, 89, 92 Coptic-Muslim conflict: and Coptic

coeducation, 6-7, 49, 98 foreign contacts, 43-45; counCommittee of General Guidance, termeasures for, 96; effects of,

48 100-101; escalation of, 35-37,

Committee of Senior Clerics, 35 74-76, 103, 143-44; ideology’s

communal relations, 68, 71, 93-94, role in, 94—95; incidents in, 83-

101, 103, 143 84, 96-98; and Shari‘a legisla-

communism, 55. See also Marxists tion, 102-3; and Shenoudah,

Communist Party, 32 90-91; and state relations, 88conferences: of Arab Socialist 90 Union, 21; on Egyptian control, Coptic Nation, 35-36 14; on Egyptian liberation, 6; Copts: emigration by, 38, 41-43,

on Islamic jurisprudence, 23, 45; as expatriates, 36, 96; Is-

85, 118; on Palestine, 17; lamic sermons against, 75-76; Versailles Peace, 10; on student organizations of, 62;

85 Church

women’s issues, 13, 19-20, 84— wealth of, 99. See also Coptic Constitution: of 1923, 18; of 1956, courts: jurisdiction of, 105-8; and

18, 21; of 1964, 22; of 1971, Law 44, 119-20; reorganization

78, 83, 120 of, 23; types of, 104-5, 107. See consumerism: and economic crisis, also Law; laws 57; and lure of wealth, 39-40; Cromer (Lord), 9, 106, 107, 139 opposition to, 100, 135; vulner- Crusades, 44, 96, 104, 129, 137 ability to, 72; and women, 13

Coptic Church: and Arab-Israeli Dahabi, Hussein, 55 war, 33, 38, 42-44, 92; attacks Damardash, Jihad, 27 on, 96-97, 143; and divorce, Daghaliyah, elections in, 84 119; and educational reform, Dar-al-Hilal, board of, 87 32; foreign contacts of, 43-44, Al-da‘wa (periodical): and brother-

90; hierarchy of, 32, 90-91; ide- hood, 82-83; focus of, 39-40, ology of, 94-96, 124; isolation- 53; suppression of, 84 ism of, 93-94; leadership for, Deir al-Sultan Monastery, 42-43

166 — Index

democracy, and Islam, 132 39-40; communal relations in, demonstrations: about subsidies, 68, 71, 93-94, 101, 103, 143; 83; bread riots, 96; against Brit- conditions in, 71, 136, 142-43; ish products, 13; casualties in, foreign investment in, 56-57, 10; at universities, 18, 62-63, 108; French occupation of, x1,

70, 86, 98; by women, 6 1-4, 141; housing in, 118-19;

Deutsch, Karl W., vii Islamization of, 60-61, 64-65; aharar, 114-16, 120-2] legal system of, 23, 44, 104-8,

Diab, Fu’ad, 21 119-20; 1952 revolution in, Dimyat, 44, 84 17-20; rural to urban migration divorce: debate on, 126—27; legisla- in, 41, 88; 1919 uprising in, 4—

tion on, 114-15; opposition to, 5, 10-12, 24. See also economic 49, 86, 113; rationale for, 119; crisis; National Assembly; nareform of laws for, 23, 106-7, tionalism; People’s Assembly 116-17, 120-21; restrictions Egyptian Feminist Union: activities on, 11, 23, 79, 107, 118; sum- of, 18, 28, 54; agenda of, 11-

mary, 23, 106, 114 12, 14-16; establishment of,

dress: changes in, 54—55; student 10-11; government closure of, protests over, 62; and Western- 18; leadership for, 13; and per-

ization, 137. See also veiling sonal status law, 106

Du‘bus, al-Hamza, 95 Egyptian (journal), 11

Durant, Will, 125 L’Egyptienne (journal), 5

Al-Durr, Shajar, 126 Egypt Legislative Assembly, 6 ‘Ein Shams University, 52, 60, 92

Eastern Women’s Conference, 17 emigration: context of, 38-40; by economic crisis: countermeasures Copts, 38, 41-43, 45; effects of,

for, 71, 135-37; effects of, vil, 125, 143; to Gulf countries, 39, x-xi, 75, 100; origins of, 56-57; 41, 44-45, 61; rural to urban,

reaction to, 73, 82, 135-36; rec- 41,88 ognition of, 41; and women’s equality: constitutional recognition

right to work, 80-81, 142; and of, 21-22, 78-79, 121; guaran-

| youth, 77 tees of, 71; implementation of, education: and class issue, 15; co- 12; and Islam, 29-30, 65, 68, educational, 6-7, 49, 98; con- 131-33, 146; Islamic polemic trol of, 31, 134, 137; free uni- on, 136-37; men’s role in, 81;

versity, 20, 44, 53; limitations in wages, 26-27 on, 16; opportunities for, 4-6, Ethiopia, Copts in, 96 11, 15-16; rationale for, 24, 48, European Common Market, 56 81; reforms in, 31-32; rights to,

12, 22, 67, 69, 71. See also uni- Fadhel, Mustafa (prince), 8

versities Fadhel, Nazli (princess), 8 Egypt: banking institutions in, 16, family: in Christian ideology, 95;

Index 167

constitutional statements on, response to, 21; struggle for, 21-22; decline of, 126; defini- 11-12, 14-15, 110 tion of, 139; legislation on, 103, Free Officers: administration of,

108, 115, 119-20, 138; male 23-25; coup by, 18-19; critiheadship of, 67-69, 131; and cism of, 51; and Muslim BrothNasser’s reforms, 25; role of, 69, erhood, 36-37 71-72, 78, 100, 124; and West- French Revolution, legacy of, 2

ernization, 135-37; and Fu’ad (king), 14 women’s right to work, 80-81,

130; women’s role in, 72-73, Geed, Nathir. See Shenoudah II

128-29. See also children (pope) family planning: enforcement of, General Union of Egyptian Stu-

49, 107; and feminism, 79-80; dents, 63 Islamic polemic on, 137-38; Gezira Club, 79 support for, 110-11 Al-Ghaffariya, Umayya bint Qays, Family Planning Association, 86, 130

113 Al-Ghazzali, Muhammad: back-

Faraj, Ahmad, 117, 139 ground of, 125; and church-

Faraj, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam, state relations, 74, 76; on ideal

58-59, 64, 76 society, 71; legacy of, xi; politi-

Farid, Muhammad, 6 cal sermonizing by, 34; recomAl-Fatah (journal), 7 mendations by, 136-37; on SauFatat al-Sharg (journal), 7 dis, 38; on women’s rights, 65-

fatwa, 115 66, 68-69, 128-30, 133

Fawwaz, Zeinab, 6 Al-Ghazzali, Zeinab: activities of, feminism: attack on, 124; and fam- 40, 49-51, 57; imprisonment ily planning, 79-80; focus of, of, 51-52, 70; legacy of, xi, 124;

81-82; goals of, 85-86, 145- Sadat’s relations with, 74; on 46; history of, xi; Islamic po- women’s roles, 72 lemic on, 138; leadership for, Ghurab, Amin Yousef, 135 84-85; limitations of, 141-42; Girgis, Habib, 32, 91 men’s role in, 81; and reform Giza, elections in, 84

legislation, 121-22, 144; and God, obedience to, 67-68 social welfare activism, 109-13 Great Britain: and Egyptian nation-

figh, 102-3 alism, 5-6; and liberalization of firman, 104 Egypt, 9; opposition to, 13-14, fitrah, xi, 65, 129 17, 44; politics in, 132; and

108 42

France: Egypt’s occupation by, xi, 1919 revolt, 10-11 1-4, 141; influence by, 2, 105, Great Coptic Cathedral (Cairo), 10, franchise (women’s): opposition to, Great Strike (Palestine, 1936), 17

132; rationale for, 17-18, 25; Green, Jerrold D., ix—x

168 — Index

Gregorious (bishop), 94-95, 99 Al-Hillawi, Hasan, 57 Group of al-Fanniyah al-‘Askariyah, hospitals, 110

57 house of obedience, 116

guardianship, 131, 138, 146 Al-Hudhaybi, Hasan, 37, 39, 51, Gulf countries: consumerism in, 40; 57 emigration to, 39, 41, 44-45, Hudson, Michael, x 61; wealth in, 39-40; workers’ hudud, 55 return from, 61. See also Saudi Hussein, ‘Azizah, 86, 113

Arabia Hussein, Taha, 34, 69, 81, 135 Al-Husseini, Haj Amin, 17 Habib, Rafiq, xi, 94

Habigah, Labibeh, 7 Ibrahim, Saad Eddin, xi

Haddad, Rose, 8 “ddah period, 117 hadith, 103 Ifrino, Alexandra, 7-8 Hafez, Jamilah, 7 al-ightirab, xi Haikal, Muhammad Hassanein, 89-— imamate, 66, 132-33

90 imperialism: effects of, 69; opposi-

Hamideh, ‘Atta Tayel, 77 tion to, 94, 124; and women’s

Hanafi school of law, 103, 105-6, liberation, 9, 24. See also secular-

117 ization; Westernization

Hanbali school of law, 103, 115 India, veiling in, 126

Hanifeh, Abu, 66 industrialization, 31, 36, 76, 78 Hanna, Milad, 93 industries, women’s work in, 26-27 Hanotaux, Albert A. Gabriel, 9 infitah, 40, 100-101, 135

Harb, Tal‘at, 13 injury, concept of, 114-16, 120-21

Hashem, Labibeh, 7 Institute of Archaeology, 88 Hashem, Yahya, 57 Institute of Islamic Research, 35

Hatem, Mervat, 142 International Conference on |

Hawa (woman), 3 Women (1924), 13

Hawa‘ (journal): editorials in, 80; International Council of Churches,

editor of, 27; focus of, 61, 62; 90 veiling discussed in, xi, 54 International Women’s Union, 11

Al-hawanem (journal), 7 Iran: mobilization in, x; veiling in,

Al-Hayat, ‘Ain (princess), 12 126

20 Ishaq, Adib, 8

High Constitutional Court, 119- Iraq, and Islamic laws, 103 Higher Council for Adult Educa- Al-‘Ishmawi, Muhammad, x1

tion, 79 Islam: authority of, 118; and com-

Higher Council for Family Plan- munity boundaries, 68; defini-

ning, 111 tion of, 64; egalitarianism in,

Higher Council of Journalism, 27 29-30, 73; extremism in, 31,

Higher Islamic Council, 107 37; focus of, 81-82, 100-101; Al-Hyaz, and Islamic laws, 103 journals for, 39; model commu-

Al-hilal (journal), 27 nity for, 52; and modernization,

Index 169 33; mystical orders in, 61; re- Israel: Coptic properties in, 92; form in, 33-34; and reform leg- Nasser’s policy toward, 42; ne-

islation, 85-86, 103, 114-16, gotiations with, 44, 92, 99, 101; 120, 122, 123, 137; revival of, and students’ role, 62. See also

30, 36-37, 40-41, 69-71, 75- Arab-Israeli war (1967) 78; social gospel of, 29-30, 71- Al-itisam (journal), 84, 115 73, 134-36, 142, 146; state re- Ittihad Bint al-Nil (organization),

lations with, 34-45, 61-62, 74— 17-18 78; vanguard for, xi, 70, 72; worldview of, 124. See also

Coptic-Muslim conflict; Islamic Al-Jabarti, ‘Abd al-Rahman (histo-

polemic; Muslims; Qur‘an; rian), 1-3

Shari‘a laws Jad al-Haq, Jad al-Hag ‘Ali, 112

Islambuli, Khalid, 53, 77 jahili practice, 58

Islamic Charitable Association, 15 Jama‘at al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat (so-

Islamic Jurisprudence conferences, ciety), 49-50

23, 85, 118 Jama‘at al-Tahrir al-Islami (organi-

Islamic polemic: and dress issue, zation), 55 54—55; and economic crisis, x— Jama‘at al- Ummah al-Qibtiyah

xi; and equality, 136-37; and (party), 35-36 family planning, 137-38; and Jama‘at Islamiyya (organizations),

feminism, 138; goals of, 38-39, 52-53, 63 144—46; and Jihad obligation, Jam ‘iyat al-haqqaniyah (court),

; ty), 12

133-34; and nationalism, 139- 104—5

40; and original sin, 127-28; Jam‘iyat al-Mar’ah al-Jadidah (soci-

origins of, 1, 123-24; and politi- e

cal rights, 131-33; and polygyny Jam(iyat al-Ruqqi al-Adabi lil-

and divorce, 126-27; and right Sayyidat al-Misriyat (society), 12 to work, 129-31; andJam‘iyat veiling, cs , nahdhat al-sayyidat al-

125-26, 129; and Westerniza_ 46-48 , , Misrtyat (society), tion, 134-37, 144 ; Islamic Publicat 4 Distrib Al-Jaridah (newspaper), 9

. amc ublication and MIstriDu- Al-Jaza‘iri, ‘Adilah ‘Abd al-Qader, tion Company, 39

Islamization: of Egypt, 60-61, 64- 28, 54

+ On BYP , Al-Jihad al-Islami (group), 58, 60

65; of society, 124; of universi- ‘had £84: dt ties, 61; of women, 100 I vdeored , net = an ie

Isma‘il, al-Nabawi, 83 adopte % os oe aa " Isma‘il, Khedive: legacy of, 1, 24; roles, 124; ideology of, 57-98, reign of, 104; school founded 63-73, 82; eT eased sup P ort by, 4, 15; and Shari‘a, 105-6 for, 61; and Jihad obligation, Isma‘il, Muhammad ‘Uthman, 53 58-59, 133-34; origins of, 56;

Isma‘il. Salah Abu. 116 and vanguard, 70, 72; women Isma‘iliyah: elections in, 37, 84; in, 59-61, 63, 69, 67, 70, 72 mosques at, 47; women’s orga- Alyins al-latif (journal), 7

nizations in, 46 Jirjis, Fu‘ad, 123-24

170 ~—— Index

journalism, 7, 27-28, 39 feminism; rights; women’s

journals, 7-8, 84 movement

Judaism, 125, 127. See also Israel literacy, 9, 71, 79, 111 judges, women as, 66, 132~33. See literary groups, 8, 16

also courts literature: increased Islamic, 61;

Al-jumburtyah (newspaper), 88, 95 and journals, 7—8, 84; women’s

Al-Jundi, Anwar, 135 influence on, 27; and women’s liberation, 6—7

Kamil, Mustafa, 5-6 Al-lhwa‘ (journal), 106 Al-Karim, Kheiriyeh ‘Abd, 27 lower bourgeoisie: conditions for,

Khaldoun, Ibn, 103-4 30-32; emigration by, 40; moKhaled, Khaled Muhammad, 18, bilization of, 44-45. See also pe-

66-67, 132-33 tite bourgeoisie

Khalil, Amin, 50 Luther, Martin, 127 Khamis, Muhammad, 115

Khankah incident, 96-97 Mabarat Muhammad ‘Ali (institu-

Khayber, battle of, 130 tion), 12

Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 68 Madrassat Banat al-Ashraf (school),

Kishek, ‘Abd al-Hamid, 34, 76-77, 15

118 Magellat al-sayyidat (journal), 8

Kléber, Gen. Jean-Baptiste, 2 Mahdi, Labibeh,7 —

Kutlah Party, 88 Al-Mahdi, Sadeq, 67, 132 Kyrelos IV (pope), 31-32 Maher, Ahmad, 14 Kyrelos VI (pope), 42, 89, 99 Mahfouz, Naguib, 135 Al-Mahilawi, Muhammad, 34, 76-

labor legislation, 19-20, 26, 79 77 landownership, 99, 143 Mahillah Kubra, industrial developLaw: 22, 26; 25, 115; 34,77; 43, ment at, 16 56, 77; 44, 106, 113-22; 56, Mayjallah (Jaws), 105 107; 62, 79; 100, 120-21; 143, Maliki school of law, 103, 115-17

143; 462, 23 Al-manar (journal), 106

laws: development of, 103-5; influ- Al-Manfaluti, Mustafa Lutfi, 7

ences on, 22-23; on labor, 19- Mansourah University, 139 20, 26, 79; schools of, 103; Al-Maraghi, Muhammad Mustafa,

types of, 104—6. See also courts 81, 107 Lebanon: expatriates from, 7; un- marriage: age for, 11-12, 107; cus-

veiling in, 54 toms in, 58, 60-61, 127; versus

leftists, 41, 76-77, 82-83, 102, employment, 130; obedience in, 114, 135, 142. See also Al- 116; Qur‘an on, 67; support for,

Nasser, Jamal ‘Abd 49; and women’s rights, 23,

liberalism, 8-9, 24-25, 135 127. See also divorce; polygyny

. liberalization, through Marxists, 36-37, 41, 53. See also authoritarianism, 9, 122 socialism liberation, 24—25, 81, 141. See also Masonic organizations, 55

Index 171]

Masr al-Jadidah, church at, 92 3-5; and women’s role, 121-22.

Al-Massara (company), 40 See also Westernization Mawdudi, Abu al-‘Ala: legacy of, Montreux Agreement (1937), 108 38, 124, 126, 137; teachings by, Montreux conference, 14

68-70, 138 mosques: construction of, 61; inde-

Al-Mawsu ‘at (journal), 9 pendent versus official, 77-78 Al-Mazini, Muhammad A., 16 Al-mu ‘ayyed (journal), 106 Menou, Gen. Jacques ‘Abd-allah, 2 Mubarak, Hosni, 31, 75, 120 military: draft for, 71; training Muhammad, Ahmad Taha, xi camps for, 52; women in, 65- Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha, 135

66, 130 Muhammad, Hussein ‘Abbas, 76—

Military Technical College, attack 77

against, 31,55, 58 Muhammad, Mahmoud ‘Abd al-

Milner Mission, 10 Hamid, xi, 126, 128, 130

Ministry of Education, 21 Al-mukhtar al-Islami (journal), 84, Ministry of Islamic Trusts, 61, 78 118 Ministry of Religious Trusts, 125 Al-Muntakhabat (laws), 104 Ministry of Social Welfare: and fam- Al-Mugqtataf (journal), 7

ily planning, 111; goals of, 23; Musa, Nabawiyah, 6, 15, 20, 54 influence by, 83; leadership for, Musa, Salamah, 36, 135 19, 21, 78, 84; recommenda- Muslim Brotherhood: activities of,

tions by, 85 39, 52, 63, 82; arrests of, 37—

Ministry of the Interior, 37 38, 50-51, 84; associations of,

Minoufiah, elections in, 84, 109, 17; demise of, 36-37, 62; divi-

lll sions within, 38, 57; emergence

Minya, Copts at, 91, 98 of, 49; ideology of, 63-69, 72Mir’at al-hinna’ (journal), 7 73; influences on, 37-39, 50Al-Miskin, Father Matta, 94 52, 56-57, 69; and Islamic po-

al-Misriyah (concept), 9 lemic, 124-25; legal status of, Al-Misriyah (journal), 5, 17 82-83; and personal status law,

Misr (newpaper), 4 115, 117; power of, 25, 42; remissionaries, competition among, sponses to, 35-36; social services

32 by, 47; state relations with, 74—-

Mit Abu al-Koam, conditions at, 75, 82, 144; and veiling, 12;

99, 108-9 women in, 46-52, 63, 65-67,

mobilization: components in, ix—x, 72. See also Muslim Sisterhood 4-5, 9-10; context for, 6-7, 23- Muslims: and class issues, 29-30; 25; shortcomings of, 28. See also divisions in, 102; emigration

demonstrations; feminism; by, 38-40, 44-45; Jihad obliga-

women’s movement tion for, 58-59; schools oper-

modernization: and class divisions, ated by, 15, 31; threats to, viii; 31; components of, 24-25; and and women’s roles, viti-ix, 5,

Islam, 33; and legal system, 50-52, 56, 65-73, 85. See also 107-8; and women’s condition, Islam

172 = Index

Muslim Sisterhood, 46-48, 50 nationalization, 20, 42-43, 118-19 Al-mussawar (journal), 86, 115, National Union, 19

121 Natroun Valley, monastery at, 89

Mustafa, Shukri: on gender and Nebrawi, Cesa, 17, 54 dress, 54-55; influences on, 56; Nerval, Gerard de, 3

as leader, 58, 60 newspapers, women writing for, 7 Al-Nimer, Muhammad ‘Abd al-

Al-Nadim, ‘Abdullah, 6 Min‘im, 112

Naguib, Muhammad, 18, 50-51 Al-Nitham al-Khas (army), 37

47,49 37

Al-Nahaas, Mustafa, 14, 31, 50 Noufal, Hind, 7 Al-nahdha al-nisa tyah (journal), Al-Nuqrashi, Mahmoud Fahmi, 14, Al-Naqqash, Salim, 5

Nasif, Malak Hafni, 6 October paper, 56, 78 Al-Nasser, Jamal ‘Abd: admuinistra- Office of Guidance, 48

tion of, 33-40, 56-57, 77, 141- orientalists, attitudes of, 123-24,

42; attitudes toward, xi; and 134. See also Westernization church-state relations, 34-35, original sin, 127-28 42-44, 92, 94; death of, 23; Ottoman Commercial Code (1850, family of, 84, 89; legacy of, 31; 1851), 105 and nationalization, 20, 42-43, Ottoman Empire, 8, 14, 104-5 118-19; opposition to, 53; per-

secutions by, 37—39, 42, 46, 51, Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza (shah of

56; and politics, 21; and student Iran), x

demonstrations, 63; and Palestine, 16-17, 59 women’s issues, 18-20, 25-27, Parliament, 11, 15, 19, 21, 79. See

121-22, 144 also National Assembly; People’s

Al-Nasser, Tahiyya ‘Abd, 84 Assembly

Nassim Pasha, Tawfiq, 14 pensions, for women, 79 National Assembly: leadership for, People’s Assembly: appointments

11; name change for, 84; and to, 90; authority of, 118; legislapersonal status law, 23, 85-86; tion by, 113-14; origins of, 84; speeches for, 63-64. See also and reform legislation, 86, 97,

People’s Assembly 113-22; Sadat’s address to, 99; National Council for Family Plan- and Sadat’s assassination, 122;

ning, 111 women in, 111, 114

- National Covenant (1962), 22 personal status laws: alternatives to, National Democratic Party, 114 117-18; and Christian ideology, nationalism: decline of, 93, 100; 95; components of, 106; develgoal of, 5-6, 13-14; and Islamic opment of, 85-86, 103-4; polipolemic, 139-40; versus Islamic tics of, 114; and Qur‘an, 113; vanguard, 70; and mobilization, reform of, 49, 73, 86, 112-20, 10; and women’s movement, 8- 143-44; role of, 23; women’s

11; and women’s role, 141 rights in, 22

Index 173 petite bourgeoisie: education for, Al-Qirdhawi, Yousef, 34, 76 24, 30-32; mobilization of, 88; Al-Quddus, Ihsan ‘Abd, 86, 135

and religious fundamentalism, quotas, 25 100-101; transformation of, 29. Qura‘a, Saniyyah, 27

See also lower bourgeoisie Qur‘an: and divorce, 117; and Pharaonic age, interest in, 36, 88 guardianship, 131; interpretapolitical parties: and economic cri- tions of, 69, 102-3, 145; and Issis, 41; and multiparty system, 5, lamic society, 58; and Jihad obli-

42; religious affiliations of, 35; gation, 59; and marriage, 67; and republican phase, 18-19, 42 and obedience, 116; and origipolitical party: Communist, 32; nal sin, 128; and personal status Coptic Nation, 35-36; Kutlah, law, 113; and social gospel, 71; 88; National Democratic, 114; and women in politics, 66—67 Sa‘adian, 14; Tagammu‘, 93; Qurtubi, Muhammad bin Ahmad, Ummah, 8-9; Watani, 6. See also 117

Arab Socialist Union Party; Qutub, Hamidah, 51

Wafd Party Qutub, Sayyid: beliefs of, 39, 67— politics: democratization of, 41; Is- 70, 78; imprisonment of, 51; in-

lamic polemic on, 131-33; fluences on, 38, 56; legacy of, women’s role in, 6, 10-14, 20- 57, 65, 72, 124 21, 66-67, 84, 111,113,115 polygyny: debate on, 126-27; de- Al-Rashidi, ‘Ali, 2 fense of, 113; elimination of, 11; Rateb, ‘Aishah, 78, 84, 112, 113

and injury, 114-16, 120-21; Al-Rayyan (company), 39 opposition to, 5, 86, 106; re- Red Crescent Society, 110 strictions on, 23, 79, 106-7; Al-reehanah (journal), 7

and women’s rights, 118 Renan, Ernest, 9 poverty, 40, 136. See also economic residence, in divorce, 117

crisis; Islam, social gospel of Riadh, Mahmoud Pasha, 10 presidential orders, 79, 89, 99 Riadh, Sharifah Hanem, 10, 13

primordialism, xi Ridha, ‘Abd al-Rahman, 26

profit-sharing plans, 20 Ridha, Rashid, 5 prostitution, 11 rights: attainment of, 4—5; constitupublic service, law of, 79 tional recognition of, 21-22; context for, 128; defense of, 9;

Qabbani, Nizar, 135 to education, 12, 22, 67, 69, Qaddurah, Ibtihaj, 28, 54 71; and Islam, 124, 136-37; poQadri, Muhammad, 105 litical, 17-19, 21; property, 131; Al-Qalamawi, Saheir, 27, 28 in religious systems, 125-27; to Qalyoubiyah, elections in, 84 representation, 5—6, 11-12, 14—

Qanun al-fellah laws), 104 15, 93; to work, 16, 19, 22, 66-

Qassatili, ‘Uthman, 5 67, 80-81, 129-31. See also Qiladeh, William Suleiman, 94 franchise (women’s)

Al-Qims Timota‘us, 89 Rihani, Amin, 136

174 = Index

Risalat al-tawheed (journal), 118 Al-Sa‘id, Aminah: activities of, 23,

Riyadh, Mahmoud, 84 27-28, 112; beliefs of, 54, 80Roman law, women’s rights in, 127 82, 120; criticism of, 113, 115;

Rosetta, French at, 2 legacy of, xi, 138; and reform legislation, 85-86, 107, 118,

Saadawi, Nawal, 82, 138 120-22

Al-Sa‘ad (company), 39 Al-Sa‘id, Karimah, 21, 112

Sa‘adian Party, 14 Saladin (Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn

Sabaens, 67 Ayyub), 104

Sadat, Anwar: administration of, salafiyah, 94, 128 33-34, 40, 56, 61, 142-44; as- Salameh, Hafez, 77 sassination of, 57-59, 77-78, Salem, Mamdouh, 90 84, 122; and church-state rela- Al-Samawi, ‘Abdullah, 77 tions, 44, 74-78, 82, 92, 102-3; Al-Samman, Muhammad A., 115 and Coptic-Muslim conflict, 96- Samuel (bishop), 89-90, 99 101; and Coptic Pope, 89-91, Al-Sanhuri, ‘Abd al-Razzaq, 108 98-99: criticisms of, 53, 56-58, Saudi Arabia: customs in, 87; eco-

76-77, 86, 142-43; economic nomic opportunities in, 38—41; reforms by, 56—57; foreign rela- influence by, 125 tions of, 43-44, 92, 99; impris- Al-Sayyid, Ahmad Lutfi, 8-9, 16,

onment by, 76—77; and Jihan’s 81 activism, 109, 113, 122; and schools, establishment of, 4, 15. See

leftists, 41, 76-77, 82-83, 102, also universities 114; legacy of, 31; on marriage, sectarianism, 88, 93, 96-97, 100.

60; and Muslim Brotherhood, See also Coptic-Muslim conflict 82-84; and reform legislation, _ secularization, 78, 93, 124, 144.

83-84, 86, 97, 102-3, 113-15, See also modernization; Western-

119, 121-22; and women’s ization rights, 78-79, 82, 84-85, 102, sermons: arrests prompted by, 92;

145 political content of, 34, 75-76;

Sadat, Jihan: activism of, 87, 108- on reform proposal, 113; Sadat 13; on Coptic-Muslim conflict, criticized in, 76-77, 86 98-99; divorce of, 118; election service sector, women working in,

of, 84; as leader, 82, 84-85, 27 100-101, 122; legacy of, 138; Shabab Sayyidna Muhammad (or-

and reform legislation, 85-86, ganization), 36,57, 115 97, 102, 108, 119; role of, 86- Al-sha‘b (newspaper), 137

87, 144 Shafi‘i school of law, 103

Al-Sadr, Musa, viii Shafiq, Durriyah, 13, 17-18 Al-Sahmarani, As‘ad, xi, 126-28, Shalabi, 62

131 Al-Shami, Isma‘il Kashif, 3

Index 175

Sha‘rawi, ‘Ali, 10 Al-styaseh al-dowaliyah (journal), 27 Sha‘rawi, Huda: activities of, 10- slaves, 2, 30 17; attitudes toward, 6; back- socialism, failure of, 135, 142. See

ground of, 138; goals of, 19; also Al-Nasser, Jamal ‘Abd legacy of, xi, 1, 109; and per- social movements, 4—5, 12, 23. See sonal status law, 106; and politi- also women’s movement cal parties, 141; power of, 101; social services: and activism, 46—47; shortcomings of, 24-25; unveil- Islamic versus government, 61-

ing by, 13, 54, 81; on women’s 62; for women, 47-49

rights, 4-5, 9-10 Society for the Renaissance of Al-Sha‘rawi, Muhammad Mitwalli, Egyptian Women, 46-48

34, 75-76, 95 Society of Muslim Women, 49-50

Shari‘a laws: and business, 39-40; Somalia, conference at, 85 for criminals, 64, 71; develop- Al-Souriani, Antonious. See

ment of, 103-5; elimination of, Shenoudah III (pope) 117-18; and equality, 22, 146; Sourian Monastery, 89 implementation of, 36, 58, 63- students: activism of, x, 52-53, 5564, 73; interpretation of, 102-3, 56; Coptic “families” of, 62, 91; 138; and Jihad obligation, 59; and Coptic-Muslim conflict, 97— jurisdiction for, 105-8; lacunae 98; demonstrations by, 18, 62-— in, 66; referendum on, 97; reform 63, 70, 86, 98; harassment of of, 17, 25, 28, 35, 106-8, 114— female, 49, 53; politicization of,

22, 139; as source of all legis- 123; and veiling issue, 53-56; lation, 75, 83-84, 97, 101, 102; and women’s right to work, 80 and women’s roles, 65, 78-79 Al-Subki, Amal K. B., xi

Al-Sharif (company), 40 subsidies, demonstrations on, 83 Al-Sharqawi, Muhammad ‘Abd al- Sudan, control of, 10-12, 14

‘Aziz, 57 Sudgi, Isma‘il, 18

Al-Shargiyah, elections in, 84 Suez Canal, 14, 17, 57

Shatilla, Samia, 27 Al-sufur (newspaper), 9 Shenoudah III (pope): arrest of, Suleiman, Hamid: on ideal society, 99-100; background of, 88-89; 71; on veiling, 126; on women’s

and church-state relations, viii, rights, 66-68, 127, 130 35, 42, 94-99, 143; criticism of, Sultan, Muhammed Pasha, 11

86; ideology of, 92-97; as Sunday schools, Coptic, 32-33, 36,

leader, 89-91; modernization 62,91

by, 32 sunna, 103

Shi‘ites, vill | Al-Su‘ud, Su‘ad Abu, 84 Shukri, Aminah, 19 Sweden, politics in, 132

Sirriyah, Saleh, 54-55, 57-58, 64, Syria: female expatriates from, 7;

71, 132 unveiling in, 54

176 ~—— Index

Al-Tabari, 66 education in, 20, 44, 53; Islamic Tagammu‘ Party, 93 activism in, 52-53, 61, 63;

Al-Tahtawi, Rifa‘ah Rafi‘, 4, 6, 106 politicization of, 61-63; and

Al-Taimourtyah, ‘Aishah, 6 social change, 34; and WesternAl-Takfir wa Hijra (group), 55, 58, ization, 134, 137; women

60 admitted to, 15-16. See also

talt‘ah, xi, 70 students; names of specific Al-Talmasani, ‘Umar: beliefs of, 39, universitres 63-64, 75; challenges by, 82- Al-‘Urabi, ‘Ali Zaki, 15 83; imprisonment of, 77, 84 “Urabi’s revolt, 6-7, 44

Al-Tantawi, Isma‘il, 57 Uridu hallan (film), 86 Tanzimat (legal reforms), 105 Al-‘urwa al-wuthga (journal), 68

tawhid, 67 ‘Uthman, Amal, 78, 83, 86

Taymiyyah, Ibn, 38, 57 ‘Uthman, ‘Uthman Ahmad, 87

Teatro del Cairo, 3 Al-‘Uyoun, Muhammad Abu, 16 textiles, women working in, 26-27 vanguard, xi, 70

Al-Thawahiri, Ayman, 57 veiling: adjustments to, 48-49; Toukh, landownership in, 99 debate on, xi, 13, 125-26; and Touson, ‘Umar (prince), 16 French occupation, 2-3;

trade unions, 26-27 opposition to, 8-9, 13, 19, 54,

Trinity, doctrine of, 75, 92, 96 81, 124; support for, 12, 53-55,

Tufaha, Ahmad Z., 125-27, 129, 129

132 Versailles Peace Conference, 10

Turkey: atheism in, 106; reform in, violence: legitimation of, 37-38,

24 44.72; negative, 95; rationale for, 57-59, 63; and state

‘Ubeid, Makram, 16, 88 intervention, 96 Al-UIfi, Hafizah Muhammad, 6

Um ‘Amara (Nusaibah bint Ka‘b al- Wafd Party: and British control, 9;

Ansartya), 130 feminist attack on, 14; influal-ummah, 29,118 ences on, 42; members of, 32, Ummah Party, 8-9 35; and Muslim Brotherhood,

Union of the Daughters of the Nile 52; offshoots of, 88; women in,

(organization), 17-18 10-14, 141; and women’s

United Nations, 85, 113 liberation, 10-12

UN Decade for Women, 85 Al-waga’ al-Misriyah, 5 United States: Coptic expatriates in, Watani Party, 6 36, 99; foreign relations of, 43- Weiner, Myron, x 44,92, 99; voter realignments Westernization: components of,

in, x viii, 68-69; countermeasures for,

universities: and Coptic-Muslim 36, 65; and education, 30-32; conflict, 97-98; Coptic student and French occupation, 1—4;

“families” at, 62, 91; free Islamic polemic on, 124, 134-

Index 177 37, 144; and personal status law, groups, 110; context for, 24-25;

85-86; and politics, 132; goals of, 17-19, 112; leadership punishment for, 3; reaction to, for, 18-20, 25, 28, 110;

76-78; and sexuality, 128; mobilization of, 112-13, 145vulnerability to, 72; women’s 46; and nationalism, 8—11; treatment in, 125, 135. See also relations among groups in, 11, consumerism; secularization 13-14; state relations with, 50;

women: agitation by, 10, 18; as support for, 5-9, 141-42; consumers, 13; and Coptic- targets of, 10-11, 13. See also Muslim conflict, 97-98, 100- activism; feminism 101; discrimination against, 122; Women’s Wafd Committee, 10-14 emotionalism of, 131-32; guard- work (women’s): benefits for, 79;

ianship for, 131, 138, 146; Is- limitations on, 65, 79, 129-30; lamization of, 100; Jihad obli- opportunities for, 20, 25-27, gation for, 59, 65, 72, 132-34; 44; right to, 16, 19, 22, 66-67, and reform legislation, 102-3, 80-81, 129-31; as secular 107, 118, 120-22; reprisals vocation, 130; types of, 16, 79, against, 3; seclusion of, 46, 72, 109; as unfair competition, 80, 128-29; secular versus religious, 142 124-25, 140; social services for, World Health Organization, 65,

12, 47-49, 111; state relations 129 with, 25-26; training for, 12, 48,

108; and Westernization, 125, Yahya, Muhammad, 118 135. See also franchise(women’s); youths: and Coptic revival, 90-91,

Islamic polemic; women’s emigration of, 43; and religious movement; work (women’s) protests, 77; return to church women’s associations: Arab by, 33; social services for, 47. See

Feminist Union, 11, 17, 28; also students Arab Women’s Solidarity Zaghlul, Sa‘ad, 8, 10, 14, 31 Association, 82; Association of Zaghlul, Safiyah, 10, 13 Female Workers of the Egyptian Zaire, conference at, 85

Region, 26; International zakat, 136 Women’s Union, 11; Muslim Al-Zamer, ‘Aboud, 58-59 Sisterhood, 46-48, 50; Society Zawiyah al-Hamra incident, 83-84,

for the Renaissance of Egyptian 97 Women, 46-48; Society of Al-Zayyat, Muhammad ‘Abd al-

Muslim Women, 49-50; Union Salam, 90 of the Daughters of the Nile Zionism, 17, 94, 129 (organization), 17-18. See also Ziyadeh, May, 8

Egyptian Feminist Union Zizinia Hall (Alexandria), 4 women’s movement: achievements of, 15; activities of, 4—5, 46; attack on, 18-19; and charity