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We have a Vested Interest in Knowledge –
But What Kind of Knowledge?
Is Women and Civilization an exclusive forum for women? Are Muslim Women Studies exclusive to women? Can men join the forum? Can they contribute to the journal? These are questions that have increasingly been asked by colleagues who have shown a genuine interest in our work. Others have often assumed that this was indeed an exclusive women’s forum, and discreetly delegated their wives (who may also have been doing her own research) to attend a periodic study circle or an inter-group discussion. My answer, then as now, has been that there is nothing in our forum and prospectus that excludes men and, in fact, at the occasional functions we have held over the past few years, we have been privileged with a notable and invaluable male presence. Our policy, however, is deliberately to promote and encourage a platform that privileges women at the outset, in order to establish a foothold for women in a debate that has ironically been dominated by men, and to overcome some conventional habits of mind that have often left the front seats for men in contending the controversies that arise.
As partisans in this forum, we believe that women should pool and mainstream in the intellectual, cultural, and public arenas that address matters that directly impinge on their role and status and some of their primary concerns. Evidently, the issues at the heart of the public debate at any moment are not ‘gendered’ and, as such, they concern everybody with the interest and the requisite knowledge to make them their concern. In much the same way as ‘gendered issues’ are such as to concern all those affected by their outcome, which is to say, women and men alike.
This goes to the heart of the matter. It underlines the inclusive nature of knowledge, its quest, its production and yields, such that it lies outside the purview of segregation or discrimination under whatever label or hue. Indeed, even where the practice of segregation as a social institution has been historically adopted in some Muslim cultures in deference to mixed traditions, it is not to be confused with modesty. The precept of modesty as a hallmark of the Islamic tradition has been instituted, among other reasons, to protect against segregation being used to debar women from the public sphere.
Knowledge, learning, and piety are all integral to the vitality of a sane and healthy public sphere, admission to which lies in a competence and commitment that go beyond any gendered inhibitions or prohibitions. Propriety and probity go together to ensure that the equity of the measure is not violated and that, at least for Muslim women, destiny transcends anatomy.
One of the more provocative and creative contributions in this issue of Women and Civilization is made in an initiative to redefine gender beyond both feminist and 'salafi' usages. The former, in its many ambivalences, feeds off a conflictual and inadvertently self-destructing stump; the latter, through perpetuating the unexamined and presumptious in a legacy sanctified by custom and habit, feeds into the diminuitive reductionisms that derail a Message and its edifying intent. By taking its point of departure in a fresh and open reading of the Qur'an, mediated primarily through a semantics and matrix generic to the qur’anic field, this initiative comes up with an understanding that is infinitely and substantially more consistent with the reality of a civility that draws its bearings from a transcendent moral code. It affirms our above line of argument about knowledge being a shared “patrimony” in an open and all embracing public sphere which can not be hedged in by man-made norms and forms. Otherwise, to acquiesce in the prevailing conventions of the day without questioning is to invite complacency. Complacency all too often inverts and subverts, breeding its own nemesis in a stultifying closure.
Shuffling the pillars of the fortress from time to time and turning the stones to re-examine the grounds on which we stand may be a salutary practice, especially in times of upheaval when we are left little choice but to move with the current. To make a stand, notwithstanding, and take the initiative to examine for ourselves and then choose the direction in which to move is not to stay the tide. Rather, it is to take charge and direct the flow in a bid to rise to the mandatory agency and trust - the amanah - that morality and responsibility prescribe. This makes for the difference between us as sentient, God-conscious beings and the hapless pieces of driftwood caught in the flotsam curdling the ocean surface. We are not cosmic orphans.
Here, in our modest forum, away from the floodlights of fame and game, we are privileged to have access to the Qur'an that we see, in all its enduring inimitability, as a generous and unfailing source of guidance and light. It beckons and we respond. We believe that to rise to our call, we have only to tap into its inexhaustible bounty, and we trust that we may be worthy of our convictions. As we use a reason enlightened by revelation to exercise our options in pursuing a path to agency, morality and responsibility, we are under no illusions about the gravity of the challenge. The onus for drawing on the abundant reserves that have been made available to us through the grace of the All-Compassionate, Creator and Sustainer of unfathomable worlds, surely lies on our own shoulders, in the earnestness with which we dedicate ourselves to the task, and in the quality of the striving.
Women thinking for themselves and seeking to renegotiate their place and role in a changed and changing world, can no longer take ready answers on the authority of others, no matter how hallowed the transmission, or how daunting the credentials. We turn to the Qur’an to re-establish links with the source of some very basic knowledge about ourselves and our world, and with the fount of our values and convictions. We do so not just in remembrance and reassurance, but to ask critical questions about our role and status in society today, as well as about the issues and orientations in our larger community which will determine the direction of a future generation for whom we feel responsible. We act as thinking women with a stake in the moral outcome of the ongoing struggles in the world we live. Not unlike those who have gone before us.
At the root of our story as women with a vested interest in honoring and preserving the Qur’an as well as in understanding it and living by it, we recall the example of the earliest Companions and Mothers, the ummahat al mu’mineen. At a time when there were only 10 scripted copies of the Qur’an, 3 were cherished by the revered women of the Prophet’s household. Indeed, the original script out of which all subsequent copies were made, was the preserve and trust of one woman, Hafsa bint Omar. And these women were not simply safeguarding the Book, but they played a role in its active transmission and interpretation. Women’s intimate relationship with the Qur’an gave her a voice in the earliest days of the nascent community. It was, let us recall, the devout recitation of Fatima bint al Khattab that was instrumental in the conversion to the faith of one of its initial fiercest opponents who later went on to become al Faruq Umar .
The present issue takes us to the heart of our sources as we seek the foundations of a field in terms of a framework, horizons, ends and measure. In a forthcoming issue we hope to engage an evolving field of inquiry into Muslim women today and women in the Muslim world in terms of the primary and secondary discourses that have grown round it. These are only the very first steps on a long and challenging path where among other ends, we hope to eventually reclaim the field in terms of a knowledge grounded in piety as an alternative to hegemonic trends cast in the autonomous and self-referential modes that, wittingly or not, feed into the roots of arrogance. We believe we are not alone on this path. Given the nature and purpose of our forum, we measure our accomplishments in terms of the interest we generate amongst ourselves and our ability to sustain and follow through to share its outcome with a small and growing circle of readers.
The promise of a school of thought lies not in magnitude or physical layout, but in the paradigm it represents. We know that for a sea-change, it takes ripples to create the waves, and in the rough and tumble of the long haul, it may be in the orbit of Pluto, rather than in the grandeur of Jupiter or the lights of Venus, that we tap for the energy and momentum to sustain a course. So it is with this perception that we engage with the Revealed Signs - the ayat al dhikr al hakim - that encompass the boundless oceans and the galaxies they bridge as much as they provide us the compass for our paradigm.
It takes one Book to tune us to a world of learning. On condition that we practice the methodological virtuousity required to access the Source that can enlighten and illumine. Beyond the form in which this unique Book appeals to human reason and understanding, and beyond the imagery and the prose, Qur’an enshrines a message of guidance that is vital to our humanity and that continues to be relevant to our wellbeing in this world and the next. Balance and scales are crucial to its ‘eternal message’, and these are the keys that have frequently been lost on civilizations at their height. Modern civilization that struts in the guise of globalization and modernity is no exception. Indeed, the predicament today is greater in view of the gaping moral deficit that is put in relief by a strident science and technology and the uses to which these are put.
As women whose vocation is the culture of life we may be more vulnerable to the dangers that lurk, and feel justified in braving the frontiers as we strive to redefine the grounds on which we stand. As we reconnect to our sources and raise questions long taken for granted, we come to delve into areas that may even be taken by some for ‘esoteric’ – like cosmology and epistemology.
Knowing, too, that we can no longer opt for the safety and sanity of our own communities without regard to the currents blowing in our global village, we are compelled to articulate our concerns and formulate our stances in a language that can be understood by whoever shares our concerns. Hence our vested interest in a kind of knowledge that is ‘inalienable, indivisible, wholesome and whole,’ a knowledge that can heal and restore, and help us overcome the threat of an estranged conscience and humanity that are looming on our shrinking horizons.
Our challenge is to embark on this journey of rebuilding and renewing through the pathways of discovery and recovery, re-pairing and repairing as we go.
Mona Abul Fadl
