Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (20 page)

terms
maeruf
and
munka
both in pre..Islamic Jahili poetry and the Quran, see lzutsu 1966,

213-1 7.

argue that the modern doctrinal justifi ion for daewa has been established primarily through the considerable moral scholarship conducted on the prin.. ciple of amr bil maerii . Since the principle of amr bil maeriif occurs in a num.. ber of places in the Quran that are concerned with the maintenance of public morality, Muslim reformers have paid close attention to its treatment within classical exegetical writings, especially in their attempts to rectify what they regard to be erroneous accretions to Islamic practices.
38

Michael Cook, in his exhaustive survey of the Islamic scholarship on amr bil maeruf, notes that the interpretation of this principle has historically var.. ied from school to school and scholar to scholar ( Cook
2000).
Cook's book is a remarkable synthesis of the diversity of opinions that have existed on the subject since early Islam. While I will draw upon his work, my concern here is more limited. I want to highlight those features of amr bil maeruf that under.. gird the daewa practices of the mosque movement, with particular attention to the shifts in the meaning of both these concepts that the modern Islamist movement has secured over the last century. My goal is to provide a brief ge.. nealogy of the fi of the daeiya, as she/he has come to lead the Islamic Re.. vival, by drawing upon some of the contemporary popular uses of the term da wa-primarily within the mosque movement but also generally within the
piety m
o
vem
e
nt
-
a
nd
the particular interpretation this term has been given in the Egyptian Islamist literature.
39

In contemporary Egypt, the activities denoted by the principle of amr bil maerii can vary substantially, ranging from delivering a sermon or a mosque lesson to expressing a concern for the maintenance of pious comportment ( for example, when a woman in a mosque, or on a bus, tells another woman that she should veil or pray) to addressing more general issues of moral and social conduct ( as when someone tells a mother not to neglect her child while ab.. sorbed in a conversation with a friend). While many of these practices also fall under the rubric of daewa, there are activities-such as helping to build a mosque, or establishing an Islamic printing press-that are, strictly speaking, referred to through the concept of daewa more often than through the princi.. ple of amr bil maeruf. Given the overlapping contexts in which the two no.. tions are used, I would summarize their interrelationship as manifesting itself

38
The principle of
amr bil rna ruf wal.- ean al.- nkar
occurs in a number of places in the Quran. The most cited verses include verses 104 and 1 10 in Surat al/Imran, and verse 71 in Surat al..Tauba. The verse in Surat al..Tauba addresses women and men equally, and women da�iyat frequently quote it to justify their involvement in the field of daewa. This verse reads:
"And [as for] the believers, both men and women-they are close unto one another: they [all] enjoin the doing of what is right and forb id the doing of what is wrcng, and are constant in prayer. . . . " All translations of Quranic verses are from M. Asad 1980.

39
See, for example, Amin n.d.; al.- 1991, 1993 ; Sultan 1996. On women's daewa, see al..wa� i 1993 .

in three different ways. Sometimes the terms are used synonymously, as in the case of someone off verbal advice or admonishment. At other times, dacwa is commonly understood as a kind of vocation (like that of a preacher, or a mosque teacher), while amr bil macril is regarded as a duty that a Muslim undertakes in the context of normal life. Finally, while both can be under.. stood as involving enjoinders to piety, the notion of enjoining as it is used in amr bil macril extends beyond acts of encouragement to the use of force in prohibiting undesirable conduct ( as suggested by the second part of the in.. junction, "the forbidding of evil and wrong") .40 Some have understood this to mean that the use of violence is justifi in order to bring about moral good, as was the case when members of the militant group Takftr wa Hijra killed Pres.. ident Anwar Sadat in 1981 for his alleged immoral conduct as a Muslim ruler.41 Thus, we fi that amr bil macruf is more likely to be used to legitimate the use of physical force than is dacwa; the latter remains primarily an instru.. ment of moral exhortation and reform.

A contentious issue involved in the interpretation of amr bil maeriif turn on who is qualifi to act as an agent of moral reform on the basis of this moral principle, especially in light of the tutelary role the state assigns to itself in re.. lation to society and its exclusive claim on the use of violent force. Increas.. ingly, as Islamic militants have used the principle of amr bil macruf to justify their actions, the Egyptian state has mobilized its own network of religious scholars to argue, fi t, that it is the state that is primarily responsible for its correct implementation, and second, that it is best to forego this religious duty if it results in social discord or chaos.42 The state has, in other words, sought to establish itself as the sole and legitimate undertaker of amr bil maeruf. The state's claim is widely rej ected not only by the militants, but also by a number of those Muslim reformers who are strongly opposed to the use of violence as

40
The particular logic of this interpretation draws upon a famous }:t that says, "Whosoever among you sees a munkar must correct it by the hand, and if not able to, then by the tongue, and if unable to do [even] that, then by the heart, and this is the weakest [manifestation] of faith."

41
A popular b. cited in support of the use of militant force against immoral rulers is: "The most excellent type of j ihad [striving in the way of Allah] is speaking a true word in the presence of a tyrant ruler" (al,Nawawi n.d., 200). For an example of the use of this Q. to urge militant action, see the pamphlet written by the famous Egyptian preacher Shaikh Umar Abd al,Rahman ( now jailed in the United States for his alleged role in the 1991 bombing of the World Trade Center) (al..Rahman 1989 ). Those who oppose this interpretation use an altern b. ac, cording to which Muhammed reportedly said that as long as rulers are effective in establishing the practice of worship or �ala (one of the minimal conditions by which one qualifi as a Muslim) in

the Muslim community
(
umma
)
,
people should not rebel against those rulers (al..Nawawi n.d.,

196).

42
See, for example, the widely circulated booklet put out by the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Daif 1995 ) in response to commentaries written by militant Islamists, such as Shaikh Umar Abd al,Rahman.

a means of bringing about moral transformation ( Cook 2000, 526-28). These reformers include key intellectual fi of the contemporary Islamic Re- vival, such as Muhammed Umara (1989 ), Yusuf al-- radawi (1 98 1) , and Fahmi Huweidi (1993 ) .43

historical imbrications

According to Roest Crollius , the fi notable argument in the modern period that links daewa to amr bil maeruf probably occurs in the work of Rahid Rida (1 865-1930) , in his commentary on the Quranic verses pertaining to amr bil maeruf ( Roest Crollius 1978).44 This commentary is considered to be the com.. bined work of Rida and his mentor Muhammed Abduh (1 849-1 905) , both of whom participated in founding the Salafi movement widely regarde as the intellectual forebear of the contemporary Islamist movement.45 Two elements of Rida's discussion are noteworthy for introducing a new perspective on clas.. sical discussions of daewa and amr bil maeruf wal--nahi ean al--munkar. The fi

is the emphasis he places on modern forms of knowledge and organizational practice-an emphasis that was absent in the work of earlier commentators ( also see Cook 2000, 510).46 Rida insists that, in addition to traditional
knowledges, a familiarity with
subjects such as history, sociology, psychology, and political science is necessary for the modem undertaking of daewa-even though these subjects did not exist in early Islamic history (Rida 1970, 39- 45 ). The second noteworthy aspect of Rida's interpretation is his unequivocal

43
The use of violence as a legitimate means to amr bil maeruf was also rejected by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 13 28) and Hasan al..Banna (d. 1949), two key intellectual fi of the Islamist movement who are revered by the militants as well as the reformers. Both Ibn Taymiyya and al..Banna advo..

cated that the practice of amr bil maerii required civility
(rifq)
and gentle admonition
(al..mauei?-a

al../:tas
rather than militant force (Cook 2000, 153, 523 ).

44
Rashid Rida compiled the lectures delivered by the then rector ofa l..Azhar, Muhammed Ab..

duh, between 1899 and 1905 , added his own commentary to the lectures, and published them in
the journal
al--
which he edited from 1889 until his death (Rida 1970 ).

45
The Salafi movement emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of
the twentieth in the context of European intellectual and political dominance in the Muslim
world. The Salafi articulated a strong critique both of the secularizing trend among Muslim elites, and what they perceived to be the stagnation of thought among Muslim jurists and the

eularna:)
(religious scholars ). The Salafi leadership argued for an interpretation of the founding

sources of the tradition, the Quran and the Sunna, in accordance with principles of scientifi ra.. tionality, liberal govern and natural law (see Hourani 1983 ; Kerr 1966). The term
Salafi
de-

rives from the term
al-- alaf al--
which refers to the virtuous forefathers who lived at the time
of the Prophet and the early Caliphs.

46
Rida was successful in establishing a short..lived school for daewa (1 91 2-1 914 ) for the train.. ing of Muslim missionaries, which attracted a considerable number of students from all over the Muslim world (Roest Crollius 1978, 278).

assertion that daewa activity is the obligation of every individual, and as such

_

constitutes what is called far4
al� eain
in Islam (Rida 1970, 35).47 Muslim jurists

have made a distinction between individual obligations (farc;l al..eain) and those duties that are incumbent upon the community as a whole, but which, when fulfi led by some members of the community, then no longer oblige oth.. ers
(far4 al..-kifaya) .
While scholars have differed historically on whether amr bil maerii falls under the former or the latter category, the common view has been that amr bil maeril is a collective duty best undertaken by qualifi reli .. gious scholars or Muslim leaders (Cook 2000, 1 7-1 8).48 By departing from this older, more established position, Rida makes the conditions under which daewa and amr bil maeril can be enacted fairly open: such an interpretation, as we shall see, has opened the space for women to speak in the name of daewa, as in the women's mosque movement I studied.

The two innovations that mark Rida's interpretation of daewa-its depen.. dence on modem knowledge and organizational frameworks, and its status as an individual obligation-were crystallized further by the work of the Muslim Brotherhood ( al..Ikhwan al..Muslimii ) under the leadership of its founder Hasan al..Banna (1906-1 949 ).49 Al.. Banna established the Brotherhood in 1928. This organization has since grown into one of the key reform..oriented Islamist political groups of the twentieth century, and its activities have been at the forefront of daewa.50 AI..Banna's elaboration of daewa was a key part of his larger program aimed at creating institutional structures and sensibilities capable of contesting Western cultural and political hegemony. Unlike Rida,