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Manara – Forum Commentary.
How is the Qur’an to be understood and interpreted? Does a qur’anic hermeneutic call for a congenial ethos in addition to a compatible methodology? Is congeniality simply a matter of ‘taste’ that is contingent on subjectivity? To what extent is the intuitive sensibility at stake in the hermeneutic venture guided, informed and directed by a conceptual grasp of attributes intrinsic to the reading, independent of the reader and the context of reading? If the hermeneutic circle has a certain truth to it, and granted the fact that to every reading there is a reader who reads the Qur’an in a given context, are there certain predisposing factors external to the reading that may sensitize to these attributes, and would gender be among these salient variables? Conversely put, is there a ‘woman’s reading’ that might substantively differ from a ‘man’s reading’ of the same? And would that gender-conscious reading yield a ‘feminist’ reading to offset, or counter a ‘partriarchal’ reading of the Qur’an? Would this open the way to ‘unreading patriarchal texts’ in the Muslim legacy and empower women to reclaim the Qur’an and embrace their sources with renewed vigor and confidence? Does the Qur’an speak differently to men and women, and if this is the case as some may claim, then is there a prospect of their ever communicating? Or, rather, does the Qur’an speak to different needs, across a broad spectrum of diversity and complementarity, and does it not do so against a primal and universal sensibility that assures the fundamental unity and integrity of our species? What are the implications of this line of reasoning for our research agenda on Muslim Women Studies? What does it mean for re-examining women in Muslim history or for understanding the wide-ranging ramifications of the ‘woman question’ in our contemporary societies and cultures? How does it concretely affect our attitudes, aptitudes and interactions within the intellectual and academic space that has been evolving at the nexus of the disciplines and that has come to be identified with an interdisciplinary field of women’s studies? Can we address the latter without re-examining the scope and implications for other overlapping fields like Islamic Studies?
These are some of the questions that this thematic issue attempts to grapple with in its articles and entries under different rubrics, directly and indirectly, and with variable degrees of analytical or critical sophistication. The roundtable feature takes for its focus aspects of the methodological challenge in approaching the Qur’an, with the excerpted selections minimally edited - to highlight a sequence and retain the spontaneity of the interventions. The substantive discussions that took place on the articles themselves have not been included in this version. Each take on the methodological issue reflects a concrete reflection, expertise, or experience that, when taken together, as part of an incremental and sustained effort to introspect, articulate, interweave, share and cross-check, helps make a dent in the stonewall, a clearing in the thicket, on the pathway to laying the cairns and signposts for the long haul.
Perspectives on dealing with the Qur’an coming from the fiqh tradition are perhaps among the most invaluable and thought-provoking in view of the ambivalences that inhere in this tradition. On the one hand, this is the oldest and most ‘authentic’ tradition. It is the seedbed of a proud, self-conscious, sustained and collective effort that has worked at discovering and formulating resilient and productive approaches at synthesizing and processing the different sources of knowledge; it strove through the centuries to relate them to the practical and changing needs of historical Islamic civilization at its height. On the other hand, it is these very virtues today, in changed circumstances, that stand in the way of re-examining attitudes and a mindset that have encrusted and stultified and become the obstacles to reform and renewal, as the tradition has taken on a life of its own and lost touch with its source, misappropriating thereby its instrumental role. It is indeed refreshing, enlightening and reassuring, to engage an authoritative fiqhi voice from within, one that can bring us the best in a tradition, without the shackles and smog that bind and blind.
We have been privileged with more than one occasion throughout our work on the current issue of Women and Civilization to debate Dr. Taha al‘Alwani, in his own right a light in the contemporary ijtihadi revival in usuli circles. We hope to learn from his example the lessons we need to keep in view as we brace ourselves for a daunting and exhilarating knowledge experience in negotiating a legacy and reconnecting to the sources. One such lesson has to do with weighing our priorities, observing a hierarchy of sources, and being able to distinguish between them, and treat with each accordingly, discerning the implications and consequences as we went along. Another is about maintaining the right attitude that entailed an openness to the Qur’an and called for engaging our practical realities in terms of this openness. Another has to do with a disciplined endeavor at maintaining consistency on a number of fronts and learning to ask the right questions, some of which may not be entirely new, but have simply been forgotten, or were not carried through to their logical conclusion.
Thus, for example, in attempting to reconnect to the Qur’an on the woman question as a social question, the issue is not to seek ready answers, but to establish a viable methodology to correspond and respond to the complexities at stake. In this task, the challenge is not to formulate the rules, but to cultivate an ethos, a knowledge ethos, that can foster the ability for creative and critical thinking as well as for ethical problem-solving capabilities. The minhajiyya, or, the methodology for approaching Qur’an calls for a matrix of thinking, a cognitive map, that takes its bearings from the qur’anic worldview and the answers it provides to the ‘ultimate questions’… This makes for the ‘episteme’ or the paradigm, against which it might then be possible to tackle the particulars of the social question.
From the other end of the spectrum, with the modern disciplines in view, another voice brings its insights and orientations to the common hub. Drawing on a pioneering initiative in the eighties, Abul Fadl engaged her field as a political scientist against a qur’anic conceptual matrix and instituted a generative precedent that left in its wake a rich battery of semantics, concepts, and heuristic models for other scholars who came after to test, qualify, deploy and develop. Significantly, this precedent had also created a frame of mind, an attitude and aptitude that foresaw the possibilities which a new approach to Islamic sources, beginning with the Qur’an, could bring to both the social sciences and to socio-cultural reform. The key in this initiative was to recognize the epistemological unity in the qur’anic discourse against an awareness of its relevance and a grasp of reasons and ends in view. Supplementing this cognition was a resolve. The ‘text’ needed to be engaged with the urgency and appeal that attended the outstanding and perplexing contemporary issues and questions. Such an approach was shown to foster an integrated vision that was capable of relating the parts to the whole and of restoring the different aspects of the social world to their common grounds and ends. Clearly, the beginning for such a restorative trajectory would have to be at the level of a conception and a reflection that took the transcendent and the ‘umrani for two faces of the same coin. This was of the essence of the tawhidi paradigm.
Applied to women’s studies this approach paved the way for creating a space at the intersection of qur’anic and sociological studies and for redefining the parameters of a field against a cross-fertilized and extended expanse. Examples were given of how this reading could be practically translated into refining a conceptual matrix that made it possible to read the Qur’an holistically and that sensitized us to its cognitive coherence. It also enabled us to go beyond the binary and exclusionary categories that fragmented the field and added to the vulnerabilities and inconsistencies at the root of the ‘woman question’ and its gendered offshoots.
A case in point was given with a fresh reading of the nature-culture divide that is subsumed in the woman question. This, it was argued, could be transcended in a qur’anic hermeneutic that ‘transvalued’ nature by giving it a new and independent cultural content (eg the sperm and fluid out of which the fetus develops transform into the woof and warp of kinship and consanguinities that bind society - :surah:) or by imparting physicality with a generic cultural consonance (as with the ‘relations of the womb’ metamorphosing into the seedbed of ‘compassion’ and becoming the nexus of a web of binding legal and moral reciprocities.) Alternately, just as ‘gender’ had been introduced into the disciplines in an attempt to extricate sexuality from its exclusive biological determinants and open the field to viewing its social implications as contingent and historical, the Qur’an points us to meanings, vistas and categories that enrich gender studies and pave the way to charting the field anew away from its compulsive gynocentricities. Thus, instead of the category ‘women’ being arbitrarily abstracted, isolated and reified into a seemingly self-contained subject/ object of inquiry and reducing the world to their ‘gendered’ measure, women could be more properly elevated / situated in the wider context to which they contribute and against which their sense of identity, role, status, meaning and purpose is consistently evolved, reproduced, interrogated and/or reinforced.
The above intervention was fore-grounded in two epistemological caveats and some related considerations. First, there was the need to observe the precept of methodological compatibility as a condition for engaging the sources of knowledge as well as the site/s of inquiry and, second, it was equally necessary to embed each text in its context to discern the elements of historicity and relativity against which all human knowledge and social reality evolved. It was in part the kind of questions that are asked today that make it imperative to go beyond the legacy and find our answers by interacting with the sources in ways and means that may not have occurred to our forebears. Conversely, it is this realization that makes it questionable to rely on the assumptions and related approaches evolved in western social inquiry when dealing with the woman question against a Muslim context with its psycho-cognitive, moral, and societal horizons. What are the levels at which it might be possible to benefit from a discerning knowledge of existing scholarship without committing to the blind spots identified with the respective paradigms, whether in terms of the modern disciplines or of our own legacy? What are the venues and perspectives that result from resituating the woman question in an episteme drawn from a qur’anic vantage point? How do we go about systematically putting together the elements of a viable alternative to our methodological quest?
It was this epistemological stance attuned to a sociological-‘umrani sensibility that stimulated a fresh take on the topics addressed in this issue and that provided an opportunity for a generative and creative engagement with the text. Supplementing the general orientations provided by ‘Alwani and Abul-Fadl, more particular and concrete perspectives came from an introspection on the experience of each of the forum participants in the course of her topical foray. Mustafa brought her insights from re-examining the concept of ‘pairing’ in the Qur’an against the open horizons availed her through the tawhidi episteme. In the process she was sensitized to the inimitability of a discourse that was found to simultaneously set the norms and parameters of a relationship and through inculcating the values, attitudes and disposition, to create the conditions for their realization. There was a perfect consonance between the cognitive and the affective, the moral and spiritual and the physical and social. It was thus possible to gain hitherto neglected or ignored insights into the bedrock of marriage and to reconstruct and reform an institution from the inside out in ways that evaded conventional approaches, especially in the jurisprudential domain. Recovering the breadth and expanse of an intimate psycho-social space embedded in the qur’anic discourse was the function of a sensitive syntactic and semantic reading that was holistic and that lent itself to the complexity as well as to the sublime in that primary and most nodal of human relationships. This was a practical illustration of the methodological compatibility at stake in sociological inquiry. It was a case where the ‘what’ and ‘how’ were inextricably bound to the grounds of an episteme.
It was this dialectic that provided the premise for Saleh’s intervention as she sought to abstract and systematize the elements of a critical foray she engaged with a keen sense of reflexivity. By calling a spade a spade, she was intent from the outset on drawing boundaries, and distinguishing the scope, nature, ends and implications of the kind of inquiry at stake in engaging the Qur’an for the ends of a sociological inquiry from other modes of scholarly, intellectual or ideological encounter. In the first instance, it was necessary to take the measure of the Qur’an as a field of divine guidance that addressed the human intellect and called on a response in kind whereby an attentive and morally responsible reason would be deployed in the terms inscribed in its address, and not in our own. A primary challenge may therefore be conceived on the rational plane, as it prompted us to re-examine the alternative modes of rationality and the scope, uses, and ends of each. The corollary to this cognitive awareness was twofold: It established the ontic otherness of the Qur’an in a way that distanced it from the conventions of literary, philosophical, and anthropological discourses, and thereby circumscribed their applications to extrapolating on the qur’anic epistemic field. On the other hand it stimulated a purposeful, self-transcending, probing and constructive rationality that could be used to sustain, contain, orient, and supplement other modes of rationality that were of the stuff of human inquiry. With this important proviso in view, she proceeded to highlight the elements of a creative mode of deductive reasoning that could be productively applied in the phenomenological and sociological world against functional typological constructs and matrices induced and synthesized from a qur’anic episteme.
It was precisely by taking her own stance from within the qur’anic field and drawing on its median bearings that Sharif’s heuristic exploration of a typology of saintliness departed from conventional pursuits. Instead of choosing between variants of esoteric and exoteric departures, it demonstrated that the search for a feminine counterpart to the ‘insan al kamil’ perfectionist icon of righteous human conduct could be grounded in a semantic translucency that was strictly compassed by a generic qur’anic discourse. By establishing a taxonomy of attributes and synthesizing them against a qur’anic matrix of meaning and usage, it further suggested the possibility of evolving a conceptual model as part of a socio-cultural hermeneutic that could illuminate many a reading of the intangibles when dealing with Muslim culture and society, including such areas as women’s self-understanding of their piety, status, and roles. Ensconced in a qur’anic semiology such an approach was equally open to a potential symbiosis between approaches to qur’anic exegesis that may have hitherto been considered mutually exclusive. It was another instance of how the symmetry or congruence crafted between a methodological and an epistemic consciousness finds ample support in the discursive universe of the Qur’an. Other field retrospects followed suit.
Engaging the qur’anic narrative and parable, the qasas qur’ani, could not be (meaningfully or validly) effected from external or superimposed literary conventions but, in Yahia’s experience, had to defer to a conceptual and intuitive grasp of style, intent, and purpose in a mode of discourse and instruction that was intrinsic and authentic to the Qur’an itself. In other words, before engaging content, it was important to place both mode and node in the integrated matrix of the qur’anic whole: Only then, would it be possible to go beyond the particular to the general that was implicated in the ‘story.’ The Qur’an was not about particular stories or narrations but, as she contended, it was clearly about inculcating values, precepts, and admonitions that permeated a comprehensive, intelligible, and purposive discourse that assumed different ‘angles’, moments, and conjunctures in an integral and extended whole. This was a dimension that had often eluded many of the tafasirs of the past, and had accordingly provided the Achilles heel for many a biblical interpolation, or infiltration in the secondary literature. The challenge was to identify the matrix most productive for each reading, and to do so through engaging a holistic purview. Again, the crux of methodological compatibility was such as to bring out the most of a convergence defining the relevance between text and context – with the topic researched constituting the topos or ‘issue-area’ – whether one was looking for the creation story, or redefining typologies on motherhood, good governance, or ethics through the Qur’an.
Not everyone could bring her insights to the table, and some contributions would be left for individual readers to do their own garnering.
Researching from within a feminist empirical perspective, one such contribution to this issue tries to disengage the divine script from its human ‘transcripts,’ questioning the extent to which the former may have been held hostage to the latter. By situating a tradition of juristic interpretation into relief and focusing on a related contextual genre of qur’anic literature (asbab al nuzul), Abul Magd applies deconstructive tropes that verge on a hermeneutics of suspicion in an effort to free the original text from its contingent and often arbitrary accretions. While there have certainly been authoritative dissenting voices in fiqhi circles that have criticized the reductive propensities that have distorted the meaning of the Qur’an and misread its import on the woman question, it would seem that a systematic pursuit on this score provides a ready opportunity for women’s scholarship. On another keel, this article gives vent to a frustration with an authoritarian tradition that has interposed itself between women and the Qur’an and, seemingly, aspires through a radical interpellation of that tradition, to reclaim and negotiate a misappropriated space.
This resonates with one of the earliest and most eloquent voices of rebuke and protestation that comes from the depths of our tradition. According to narrator Abu Hurairah, the Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, had reportedly cautioned against three mishaps the occurrence of any one of which during the performance of salat might be reason enough to void the act of worship. These referred to ‘… a woman (passing by), a beast of burden, or a black dog.’ Even though the reliability of the account stood to question and its authority was tenuous, yet a strict interpretation in context could well provide the logic and rationale for that apparently strange combination of characters. In the context of a tribal, trading community such as that of sixth century Mecca or Madina, it was obvious that each event implicating one of these characters spelled the potential for stirring curiosities: Whoever can she be? From which tribe is she? Or, whose trade is this going by? What merchandise is coming into the city? Or, what’s this agitating that watchdog? Could there be a stranger in the vicinity? In each case, the distraction from one’s prayers was imminent. However, clearly too, if such a counsel were to be circulated out of context, as in fact it came to be, or if it were to be simply repeated in jest or malice, it could easily lend itself to abuse and misinterpretation – especially in a setting where elements of superstition were still rife and the teachings of the new faith that went against the grain remained vulnerable. It was this awareness that had provoked a sharp and unequivocal retort on the part of umm al mu’mineen, Ayesha - “Fie, fie… Would you equate us with beasts and hounds?! By Allah, the Prophet used to go about his salat as I reclined within range of sight, without this in the least diminishing his devotions…”
In squarely refuting the implicit misogyny of the piece and putting its perpetrator to shame, Ayecha was fending for the integrity of the teachings that elevated her own station in the community as well as disabusing that community of the remnants of a misguided culture and its notions. She would spend over three decades after the Prophet’s death, honoring a legacy and safeguarding a mission, transmitting knowledge, explaining and interpreting, correcting misperceptions and setting the record straight, uncompromising in her stances on what she took to be matters of precept and principle, dedicating herself to a lifetime of unremitting education and instruction by word of mouth, by deed and by example. Thus it was that Ayesha strove to live up to the trust that was doubly vested in her, directly, on the authority of the revelation and, in practice, through the consensus and deference of the community.
This provides an apt note on which to conclude this commentary. In the present issue of Women and Civilization, we opted for an open-ended title of our theme by referring to ‘Women in/and Qur’an.’ The question we leave our readers to ponder is this: To what extent might we take Ayesha as metaphor in an extended reflection that is only just begun? Ayesha figures prominently in the Qur’an, true, always indirectly, but at conspicuous junctures all the same. One has only to single out for attention, by way of example, an analogy occasioned by a reflection on the role of the divine revelation – al wahy – in exonerating the impeccability and honor of two women in ‘sacred’ history and at the center, each in her own way, of an unfolding tradition: Mary ‘the best of women among humankind’ and the ordeal that attended the virgin birth of Jesus, and Ayesha (‘she who lives’) in the full light of history, in the incident of the Slander that threatened to waylay the integrity of a mission and disrupt the peace of a nascent prophetic community. In both instances, the immediate issue at stake relates to a vulnerability that is particular to woman’s sex (and sexuality) and that is the bane of troubled minds and souls that have from time immemorial fed on malice and misogyny. It took the evidence or burhan of the miraculous speech in the crib to vindicate the purity of a mother - and establish all women potentially in an untainted spirituality. In the other case, the evidence was no less extraordinary. In the words of Ayesha, ‘I have none indeed to thank save Allah, for speaking in my behalf and establishing my innocence.’ She might also have added that it was through her foreordained trial and tribulation that preserving the honor and good name of all women would henceforth become a cornerstone in legislating the bounds of the moral community. In this sense, seeking out women in Qur’an and perusing the gendered perspective through the Qur’an can be amply rewarding. At the same time, no doubt, Ayesha’s life at the center of the prophetic household, from her tendermost prime and spanning the birthing of community in her sway, gave her an intimate and unique first-hand experience and understanding. She would spend her long and prolific years in relaying its yields to earlier generations, and it was that which would turn her into an icon of learning and authority for those men and women who came after. In a fresh take on one aspect of this rich legacy Zeinab ‘Alwani meticulously applies her field training to expose a missed opportunity that may yet be there for us today to recover and reclaim as we strive to redefine our academy in the critical consciousness of an age beyond that of the past.
‘Women in Qur’an / Women and Qur’an’ opens a pursuit and sustains a search that continues for each generation anew. It is the search for ourselves through the Qur’an that entails a thoughtful and scrupulous introspection on what Qur’an means for us and on how it impacts our understanding of our lives and our world. Ayesha, she who lives as ‘metaphor’, beyond the history, the memory and the example, surely epitomizes many of these generative intersections in ways that invite further reflection.
M.A. F.
Herndon, VA November 3 2002