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We are currently reorganizing the Arabic Forum, Riwaq, into a subsite with its own navigation structure - in the Arabic language. We hope to make it more user friendly for our Arabic visitors by combining all the material in Arabic under one roof and trying to be more consistent in observing Arabic for that collection. Given the fact that we are bi-lingual, and some of our activities might be coming more often from the circle of friends of the Chair in Cairo in particular, we owe it to our visitors. However, we will still operate, at least for some time, on the basis of a main site which will continue to embrace pages in both languages, accessible from the root directory, in addition to the upcoming all Arabic site that will be accessible from its logo - that familiar gilded dual arched doorway- which has now been tuned in to lead you to the 'Riwaq'....
M.A. F. - April, 2007
لمن يريد ان يتابع موقعنا الجديد تحت الإعداد ... قف هنا !!!.. والى اليمين دُر
واضغط على البوابة الذهبية، لتجدي أيتها الزائرة العزيزة، لتلقى أيها الضيف الكريم، ما يسركم ان شاء الله ..
ومرة اخرى مرحباً بكما معاً ، فرداً وجمعاً ، في موقعكم الأليف والمتجدد ابداً
... ان شاء الله
aswic-gamiya Brochure - arabic miraj-fasl al khitab 00 and a new feature:
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Welcome to the RiwaqA Message from the Chair* The
turning of the tide. The Abdin Chair for Women's Studies welcomes initiatives to work together, wherever there are those who share the same vision and are willing to invest of their energies, aspirations and resources to its fulfillment. The turning of the tide. The Muslim ummah today is living through a turning point in its history: Unless its scholars and intellectuals are committed to assuming their responsibility in providing the vision and the scholarship that can respond to its needs at this critical juncture, the chances are that we will be overwhelmed by the raucous tides that are remaking history. We are already experiencing the burden of the 'New World Order' and the events of the past decade do not bode well for our future. While the world panicked about the possibilities attending the advent of '2 YK ', the real catastrophes befalling the ummah went largely unnoticed, were downplayed and subdued, as Muslims were accomplices to their own disarray. It takes a sense of purpose and belonging among those of us who are lucky enough to be still alive and free, and who have the wit and mind to know something about the trends and events in our world today, to assume that responsibility.
The wages of survival in the 'new world order' : Muslim women have paid dearly for the untold suffering and afflictions wrought on their communities, from the breadth and depth of a once boundlessly fertile and golden global Crescent. From Europe to Central and Southern Asia, to the Middle East and Africa, there has been massive disruption of community and entire populations have been on the verge of extermination, frequently their only sin being their faith or 'ethnicity'. Those who have survived are scattered throughout refugee camps and living out their cold welcome in exile, as bereaved mothers, orphaned children, widows, and broken spirits. There is indeed little chance that these traumatized and brutalized remnants of historic communities will ever be in a position to rebuild, amid so thorough a devastation. The bitter irony of it all, is that the custodians of the new world mayhem have never ceased to pay lip service to the sanctity of human rights and the triumph of civility in a world where the only threat seems to come from Islam and its wretched communities. It is even more ironic to realize the various ways Muslims have been accomplices to their plight, from 'fundamentalists,' to 'liberals' to modernists and secularists and traditionists of all stripes and strokes. A call to action. Muslim women in short, can no longer afford to sit back and watch as the world goes by, if such was ever the case, or even an option. A mother is bonded to life and has the welfare of generations instinctively at heart. Motherhood is a cast of soul and spirit, not a cultural artifact, and even less a biological contingency. And it is the drenching experience of horror pain and death all round that stirs the deepest gut instincts, fundamentally maternal instincts, for life, purpose, and worth. For those who experience and are aware, it is only in the darkest of gloom that the meaning and value of light and hope are born: and as some live through the experience and others are witness to the extinction of this light and to the very extermination of community, the meaning of it all dawns. It is out of this realization that a new awareness, a new consciousness is being born throughout the ummah, including its women. Part of this consciousness is a new resoluteness and resolve. Muslim women will not be used as weapons to backstab their already blighted communities, anymore than they will continue to defer to the infirmities and pathologies that may for long have afflicted their communities. The birth of a new consciousness. In these conditions, many women who have received a public education today and who have graduated from higher institutions of learning feel that they carry a duty in addition to that of everyday living, wherever their lives may take them. This duty is one of cultivating a certain kind of consciousness and contributing to its formation and its dissemination. Doubtless, a Muslim's sense of consciousness frequently (indeed, by definition) begins with a God-Consciousness, and from there on one begins to take one's bearings in the world. This of course presumes that one is aware of one's being a Muslim, in a world where an affliction of false consciousness, as much as lost consciousness is frequently the norm. Today, many of us who may not have given much thought to their 'faith identities' in the past, or those who have simply taken it for granted, are increasingly becoming aware of what it means to be 'Muslim', for their Muslim identity is being flung in their faces, forced on their consciousness, by the very course of events. The only possible response in these circumstances is to face up to it: and choose between two alternatives, with little room for a third: One is to rise to the occasion and take up the challenge wholeheartedly, and drink up one's faith and beliefs and loyalties to the brim; the other is to be equally adamant, but in the reverse direction, to try and dissociate oneself, for all its proven futility, and to succumb to that broken reed within, despite a surface show of arrogance and indifference. In short, one is living an inevitable reality of polarization, and one that is not likely to dissipate in the immediate future. Why Muslim Women's Studies? We, as the advocates of Muslim women's studies in an academic setting where 'women's studies' have become the main growth 'culture industry' of our times, come to the field with these various concerns in our minds and hearts. We feel that this is an excellent opportunity to occupy a 'site' and engage a role, where we would contribute to this historic need of consciousness raising and lucidity, both within our 'thought communities' as well as within our core communities as part and parcel of a larger historic entity we identify with the ummah. At its simplest, this entity is a global community that takes its bearings from its God-Consciousness, its sense of indebtedness to its Creator, and unto whom is the Return. Our task as Muslim women scholars, is to sharpen this perception and to inquire into its implications for our life in this world in the here-and-now, with an eye on the world beyond and the reality of a hereafter. We believe that this is a unique task that is as much needed within our professional community as well as among our core social historical communities, because of the crass materialism and positivism that is a rampant hallmark of the times and threatens to so brutalize and trivialize our life on earth. There is a need to rehumanize our world and our sensibilities: and while this is a common task to which everyone qualified for the task can contribute, we feel that as women our stakes are more than doubled in this venture. As 'Muslimat', and as women of faith and loyalty, with access to the pristine sources of a religion of guidance that has openly addressed us as fully responsible and mature members of a privileged community, our sense of duty is compounded. From profession to vocation: We come to that task with a sense of mission and vocation: we use our profession as a means and not an end. Our professional training, may have afforded us the tools and the opportunity to approach our task, but that is only the beginning, to other conditions that are needed before we may qualify as 'vocationists.' Our priority goes to advancing our pursuit with the higher ends in view, beyond the individual gains and perks that attend the advancement of our worldly careers. We hope to instill something of that spirit in Muslim Women's Studies as a newly emerging field of scholarship - and vocation - in the New Academy. One of the foremost features of the latter is its openness: it is an academy without walls in every sense of the term. We may have a chance later, in the course of the Perspectives that we share in this cyber academy, to develop this idea further - 'au fur et a mesure,' as the French might say. For now, however, we bring up this trait, because it is the inspiration behind this forum of ours that we have called the 'Riwaq' - Cairo pioneers. It is no secret that much of the drive for making our venture a success comes from the dedication and spirited commitment of our circle of Friends of the Chair in Cairo. Particularly our young and upcoming friends: the hallmark of the future, the Spring of a generation, that has missed so many Springs. And Cairo is home to a rich and unbroken tradition of culture, from antiquity to the present. Central to that tradition is its historical role at the heart of a living community and a cultural heritage associated with one of the oldest universities in the world, al Azhar. The rebirth of the riwaqs. True, the Azhar is but a dim shadow of its golden prime, of a nearly thousand years odd. Still, it remains the symbol of a unique tradition of learning that embodies much that is treasured in the openness and inclusiveness that we cherish and invite into our own forum. The 'niches' that stand in the Azhar today, those welcoming alcoves that embrace its courtyard and soften its stately columns, were once the refuge and resort of generations of knowledge seekers who came from near and far, in a community that owed its very roots to learning and to the traditions of its transmission. These niches were called 'riwaqs', or 'colleges' ... Such riwaqs may have been unique to a culture or tradition, but they were certainly not confined to a privileged center in the Muslim world: they were simply embryonic of a cluster of institutions, a hive of learning that ran the length and breadth of the Muslim City wherever it may have flourished, from Samarkand to Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Morocco and Andalusia. Women were patrons and contributors to the munificence that made this lifeline possible everywhere and down the centuries.. For until well into the 18th century, we will encounter women whose faith and will kept them actively involved in the vital ongoing trade that welded generations and provided the ethos upon which the ummah thrived. I mean to say that women were vital links in the chains of transmission of that learning that constructed and confirmed community in Islam. From modest beginnings, in very different circumstances, in a world radically changed and a community deeply traumatized, we ourselves today, come as members of different generations and backgrounds, to make our contribution. Through the 'Riwaq Zahra,' named after the woman whose example inspires our Chair, and through its constellation of sister riwaqs as these steadily and graciously come into their own, we hope to give voice to the birth of the new consciousness and to channel energies thus infused to their appointed ends. In so doing we hope that we too will be able to make a difference, leave a small imprint, on our world.
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