Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (31 page)

One important eff of Hajja Faiza's adherence to protocols of doctrinal reasoning is that her contestations of religious norms are limited to those is.. sues that Muslim jurists have deemed debatable because of their unclear status in the Quran and the Sunna. On other topics, such as the wearing of the veil or women's subordination to their husbands, about which there is consider.. able consensus among religious scholars , Hajja Faiza's views are not that dif.. ferent from those of more orthodox daeiyat.21 There are two issues that are im.. portant to emphasize here. One, Hajja Faiza's views on the subject of female

zt
For example, as
I
will discuss in chapter 5, Hajja Faiza shared the view of the more orthodox daeiyat that women should refrain from demanding a divorce from immoral husbands, even if this compromised their own standards of piety. This was in contrast to other daciyat who believed that a husband's persistent errant behavior was grounds for divorce because it posed an obstacle to the wife's ability to remain faithful to God.

circumcision and women's leadership in prayers should not be taken as a sign of a "moderate position" since her views vary widely in regard to women's place within Islam. If anything, she consistently emphasizes the importance of following the logic ofjuristic debates and forms of reasoning, which makes her position on the question of gender relations within Islam quite unpredictable. Secondly, one must also note how Hajja Faiza's emphasis on the "right of Muslims to choose" from a range of juristic opinions, while informed by the discourse of rights and individual choice that permeates modem debates within Islam, infl these notions in ways that are quite different from their treatment within liberal humanism. Hajja Faiza does not, for example, pro.. pose that personal preferences and inclinations be made the basis for how one chooses from among the juristic opinions. Rather, the form of reasoning one follows in exercising a choice must be guided by the requisite rationale and capacities that the jurists have deemed authoritative, thereby complicating the sovereign subject of liberal..humanist discourse. It was, for example, quite common to hear Hajja Faiza say, during the course of her lessons, "You cannot just choose from religion [al..din] what you like, and reject what you don't like. What is absolute [�tmi] in Islam is beyond dispute: our attitude toward it should be, 'We have heard, and we have obeyed' [from verse 285 , Sii al.. Baqara]. There can be no discussion
[munaq ha
of God's commands [a�kam] . But the Quran has left many issues unresolved, and it is our right to choose from any of the interpretations that the eulama' have offered on these sub.. jects." It was within this space of nonresolution that Hajja Faiza's emphasis on choice unfolds, thereby modify the liberal notion of "individual choice"

considerably.

Notably, Hajja Faiza's statements about "absolute commands"
(a�kam bat, miyya)
entail an exercise of reason, assessment, and judgment that compli.. cates a simple reading of what it means to follow these supposedly clear in.. junctions.22 For example, even though Hajja Faiza concurs with the other daeiyat that alcohol is prohibited in Islam, they all diverge in their opinions on how Muslims should deal with the presence of alcohol in their lives-espe.. cially since alcohol is sold openly in Egypt. Hajja Faiza holds that one may transact with commercial establishments that sell alcohol as long as it does not involve dealing with alcohol; others say that Muslims should avoid any interaction with such establishments; still others argue that alcohol should be

22
Al).
ka
m,
the plural of
bukm,
derives fr the verb }:t which means "to withhold, pre- vent, and refrain." While
bukm
has specifi meanings in Arabic philosophy and grammar, in Is-

lamic jurisprudence it refers to a ruling of the sharta. In the opinion of Muslim j urists, a}:t about religious obligations Cibadat) are absolute (Qa,tm ). In common parlance, as in the case above (when Hajja Faiza refers to absolute commands),
�ukm
is used to signify those commands that are derived from the Quran and the Prophetic tradition.

banned from a Muslim country like Egypt and direct their efforts at securing such a prohibition. In other words, even when dealing with what Hajja Faiza calls al). batmiyya ( absolute commands), whose status is clearly estab.. lished by the Quran, the Sunna, and the consensus of the jurists, there are a variety of ways in which these commands may be implemented.

CITATIO NAL PRACTI CES

If Hajja Faiza represents the scholarly end of the mosque movement, the preaching style at the Ayesha mosque in one of the poorest suburbs of Cairo is emblematic of the other end of the social and educational spectrum. The Ayesha mosque offers lessons several times a week to accommodate the sched.. ules of the working..class women in this neighborhood. The lessons are deliv.. ered once by the male imam of the mosque, and twice by two women daeiyat: one who was trained at the daewa center of the organization that runs this mosque (al..Jameiyya al..Shareiyya) , and another who lacks formal training. In contrast to the Umar mosque, the lessons here are informal and unstructured; none of the three daeiyat follow either a canonical text or any particular order of themes. Each daeiya decides what she or he wants to talk about that day, and the lessons cover a range of predictable topics, such as the correct perf .. mance of religious rituals, the proper manner of conducting oneself with one's kin and neighbors, and edifi tory stories from the lives of the Prophet and his Companions.

The working..class (shaebi) flavor of the Ayesha mosque is evident in the speech of the daeiyat: in the expressions and vocabulary they use, and in the rhythm and tenor of their delivery. Women attendees often interrupt the three daeiyat ( including the male imam) to ask for clarification, and a slow steady stream of conversation always permeates the air. The rhetorical style employed by the three daeiyat relies heavily on the technique of invoking fear
( tarhzb ),
an emotion invoked through colorful and graphic depictions of God's wrath, the contortions of death, and the tortures of hell. Women of.. ten react with loud exclamations, followed by loud incantations of the gory details of the torture and religious chants to ward off the anticipated pain and evil. In a sense, the lessons are a joint production in which both the daeiya and the listeners play a performative role. The participatory quality of the lessons is further accentuated by the permeability of the mosque to neighborhood sounds, due to the close proximity of res idential and commer.. cial activities. In a social space where everyone knows what is going on in the house next door, the questions put to the daeiyat are frank; attendees fre.. quently bring up issues of incest, sexual problems, and neighborhood skir..

mishes. The atmosphere is charged with intense energy and excitement, with women often shouting their questions to the d�fiyat, arguing with posi.. tions they regard as erroneous, and protesting when the lessons are finished sooner than scheduled.

The most popular of the three daeiyat at the Ayesha mosque is a forty.- ar- old woman named Umm Faris who has no more than a high school diploma, and no formal training in daewa. Her religious knowledge comes from listen.. ing to sermons (both recorded and live), mosque lessons, and popular stories that recount events from the Prophet's life. When I met Umm Faris, she re.. ported that her interest in religious pedagogy was fairly new, sparked by the diffi ulties she encountered in her marriage when her husband, one of the neighborhood butchers, took a second wife. In order to soothe her pain, she started to attend mosque sermons and lessons. Soon after, she felt she was called to serve God in daewa, a calling that was repeatedly revealed to her in the form of a dream. She responded by asking the imam of the Ayesha mosque if she could gather local women informally to talk about issues of piety
( taqwa).
She was granted permission based on her reputation in the neighbor.. hood as a woman who "knew her religion": she had often helped to prepare
dea
d bodies for a proper burial. Umm Faris soon developed
a substantial fol.. lowing for her lessons. When I met her in 1 996, she was preaching twice a week, drawing crowds of between fifty and one hundred women.

Umm Faris has been criticized for her lack of command over authoritative sources, and at times for imparting doctrinally incorrect advice. Some attend.. ees have tried to have her removed as a d�f from the mosque, but to no ef.. feet since she is immensely popular among the majority of the women. When I spoke to her supporters, they said they appreciated Umm Faris's admonitory style as well as her ability to effect changes in their behavior, changes that en.. compassed learn to perform a range of religious obligations correctly ( such as ablutions, prayers, fasting, and so on) and becoming more observant of an Islamic manner of conduct in their da_y..to..day life. As was the case with Hajja Faiza, Umm Faris's audience too placed an emphasis on the passional condi.. tions of the daeiya's performance in evaluating her effectiveness.

maki up tradition?

Despite Umm Faris's lack of religious training, she often invoked authoritative canonical sources in her lessons ( such as the Quran and the badith), even if her familiarity with these sources came from what many would consider nonauthoritative channels (such as orally transmitted stories, local sermons, and popular devotional literature). When Umm Faris recounted the same abadith (singular: Q. as the more literate daeiyat, her rendition of and

engagement with the aQ. was distinctly different, marked by a form of colloquialism that corresponded with her audience's sensibility and level of literacy. Her lessons were punctuated by frequent incantations of devotional phrases and expressions that are popular in working..class neighborhoods of Cairo, and her audience would join her, imparting the air of a Baptist revival to her homilies. She often delivered her speeches in rhythmic tones, reminis.. cent of the style of certain storytellers in Egyptian cities and towns who are known to inhabit the tombs of Sufi saints, adapting the phrases to a lilting singsong pattern of high and low notes.

One practice that was particularly popular among the attendees was Umm Faris's habit of reciting short verses from the Quran and other supplicatory prayers
(aurad) ,
which members of the audience could memorize and repeat during the day to impart a sense of benediction to their chores. More educated members of the community criticized this practice, and other aspects of Umm Faris's durii (singular: dars) for their doctrinal impreciseness. Umm Faris was aware of these criticisms and obliquely addressed them in her lessons. In one lesson, for example, Umm Faris recounted an exchange between the Prophet and his son.. in.-law Ali that centered around the popular theme of "torture of the grave"
( �: dhab al�qabr
)-in this instance, they were discussing the claus- trophobic darkness that envelops one before the appearance of the angel of death who takes an accounting of the life one has led. What follows are ex- cerpts from the fi ldnotes I took when Umm Faris told the story; I have re- tained the Egyptian colloquial pronunciation in transcribing the Arabic in or.. der to capture the flavor of her speech:

Umm Faris began, "Everyone hopes to have light
[nur]
in their grave
[!)abr] .
I will tell you five things: if you abide by them, act upon them, and follow them from the moment you hear them, there will be light in your grave
[lau il� tazamtThum wi eamaltThum wi mishTti �: lehum min saeit ma simttThum yikun nur liki
fi
!) brik] .
There
is
a l) that our beloved Prophet came to Ali and told

him that he should do fi things before he went to sleep if he wanted his grave to be lit." There were cries among the audience: "Praise be to God!
[sub� ban allah] ."
Umm Faris continued, "Ali asked Muhammed: 'What are these,
0
Prophet of God
ral l! li 'ma hum ya rasul allah] ?'
The Prophet responded, 'First thing before you close your eyes is to read the whole Quran
[awwal l) !) bl ma titghamma4 eenak , tCra il--qur!)an kullu] ;
second thing before you close your eyes is to give charity of four thousand
dirham [tani �ga !) bl ma titghammcuJ eenak tit�ad!) bi..arbaet alaf dirhim] ;
third thing before you close your eyes is to visit Mecca
[ka va] ;
fourth thing before you close your eyes is to protect what you have in heaven; and fi thing, and this is between you and your God, you should make up with your adversaries
[khu�um]."'

In her delivery of this story, Umm Faris set up a metrical beat by ending

each sentence with a rhyming word, and by repeating a refrain that started with "before you close your eyes." She continued, "Ali was surprised. How do I say these things when I am going to sleep [since each requires considerable