Beyond the Veil
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington and Indianapolis
Muslim Women and
Fundamentalism
Introduction to the
Revised Edition
what are the salient, most significant events as far as women
are concerned that have taken place in the Arab and Muslim
world since 1973, the year I finished writing Beyond the Veil?
Writing a new introduction for a book I wrote thirteen years
agois like suddenly coming face to face, in one of those narrow
alleys of the Medina, with an old lover with whom you began
an affairthat was strong, definite, intense, and passionate but
ended in shallow confusions, painful self-affirmations, and a
dreamlike sense that you have, in spite of everything, gone one
decisive step further. Writing a new introduction obliges you to
do something that is scary but secretly exhilarating: engage in
a self-evaluation where past and present compete to make sense
(or non-sense, of course), and where the former has a cunning
capacity to make you slip smoothly from gloomy pessimism to
outrageously wild optimism. And in the starry nights of July
1986, I can't help but be incorrigibly optimistic. Not simply because
reading eighth- and ninth-century religious and historical
literature in the early morning and swimming in the Atlantic
waves in the afternoon gives one a strong sense of the effect of
time's erosion on societies that claim to be traditional. But also
because walking to the beach through hundreds of newly urbanized
rnultigenerational Muslim families exhibiting themselves
in bikinis in the midst of solemn tea-drinkers and
cardplayers is a reminder that, when it comes to change, one
has to distinguish between facts and discourses on facts. A few
weeks ago, the people of Temara (an expanding village ten kiiometers
from Rabat on the Atlantic coast road to Casablanca) and
the rural immigrants newly settled in the neighboring shanty-
...
Vlll
town had been quietly laboring through the long days of the
holy month of Ramadan. Fasting made them unusually withdrawn
and tense. The religious festival celebrating the end of a
hot month of Ramadan coincided with two happy events: the
closing of school for the long summer vacation, and the proud
performance of the Moroccan soccer team in Mexico. In addition
to the religious rituals, flocking to the beaches in donkey-drawn
carts and rented Hondas or on foot was a "natural" way of
expressing communal joy. It was a rather eclectic joy. The
crowd's delight in the centuries-old religious festival had to compete
with a new passionate nationalistic pride generated by televised
soccer games. That's Muslim reality today. And we are
not talking about "Westernized elites." We are talking about
slum dwellers and their casual leisure-time activities.
When analyzing the dynamics of the Muslim world, one has
to discriminate between two distinct dimensions: what people
actually do, the decisions they make, the aspirations they secretly
entertain or display through their patterns of consumption,
and the discourses they develop about themselves, more
specifically the ones they use to articulate their political claims.
The first dimension is about reality and its harsh time-bound
laws, and how people adapt to pitilessly rapid change; the second
is about self-presentation and identity building. And you
know as well as I do that whenever one has to define oneself
to others, whenever one has to define one's identity, one is on
the shaky ground of self-indulging justifications. For example,
the need for Muslims to claim so vehemently that they are traditional,
and that their women miraculously escape social
change and the erosion of time, has to be understood in terms
of their need for self-representation and must be classified not
as a statement about daily behavioral practices, but rather as a
psychological need to maintain a minimal sense of identity in a
confusing and shifting reality.
When Indiana University Press decided to publish a new edition
of Beyond the Veil, the editor asked me to write a new introduction
in which I would "identify the most important
changes that have occurred in women's situation since 1975,
when the first edition came out." I think that one of the major
trends affectingwomen rs the wave of fundamentalist conserMusliln
Women and Fundamentalism ix
, wonde
I these a
. .
vatism. But if we are to assess correctly women's prospects and
future in Muslim societies, we have to relinquish simplistic
stereotypes that present fundamentalism as "an expression of
regressive medieval archaisms," and read it on the contrary as
a political statement about men undergoing bewildering,
changes affecting their economic and sexual identity-hanges
so profound and numerous that they trigger deepseated,
irrational fears.
The r about the Muslim world is that people still manage
in pocalyptic, revolutionary times to make sense out
of absurd, aespotic forces scavenging their lives, that they still
have an unshakable belief in a powerful future. And this despite
the near collapse (or maybe because of it!) of their centuries-old
defense mechanisms.
To familiarize the reader with the present-day Muslim world
and how women fit into the conflictingp~liticalforces (including
religion), I guess the best way is not to overwhelm you with
data. On the contrary, what is most needed is some kind of
special illumination of the structural dissymmetry that runs all
through and conditions the entire fabric of social and individual
life-the split between acting and reflecting on one's actions.
The split between what one does and how one speaks about
oneself. The first has to do with the realm of reality; the second
has to do with the realm of the psychological elaborations that
sustain human beings' indispensable sense of identity. Individuals
die of physical sickness, but societies die of loss of identity,
that is, a disturbance in the guiding system of representations
of oneself as fitting into a universe that is specifically ordered
SO as
!life meaningful. Why do we need our lives to make
sensf
lse that's where power is. A sense of identity is a
sense ie's life is meaningful, that, as fragile as one may
be, one can still have an impact on one's limited surroundings.
The fundamentalist wave is a statement about identity. And that
IS why their call for the veil for women has to be looked at in
the light of the painful but necessary and prodigious reshuffling
of identity that Muslims are going through in these often confusing
but always fascinating times.
The split in the Muslim individual between what one does,
by rapid, totally uncontrolled changes in daily life,
to make
?? Beca~
i that 01
and the discourse about an unchangeable religious tradition that
one feels psychologically compelled to elaborate in order to keep
a minimal sense of identity is, as far as I am concerned, the key
point to focus on in order to understand the dynamics of Muslim
life of the late seventies and the eighties.
The ideas that we entertain about ourselves as individuals or
as members of national communities are not to be confused with
our pragmatic behavior. The latter expresses our reality as acting
entities, the former expresses us as reflecting entities. We all
know how wide is the discrepancy between what we do and
what we say to others (or worse, to ourselves) that we are doing.
Reality and the representation of reality are always far apart.
But the gap between the two reaches a breaking point when a
society experiences a deep crisis in which individuals don't have
enough time to formulate discourses to explain to themselves
what they are doing.
Everyone is afraid of change, but Muslims are more so, because
what is at stake are their fantasies about power. And
women all over the world know very well how important power
fantasies are to one's self-empowerment. The secret of Islam's
sweeping resurgence today is that it gives men at birth an inherited
right to claim world hegemony as a horizon and a guiding
dream. It gives, of course, also many other, more
constraining limits and hierarchies. But the ability of Islam to
equip its members to see the entire universe as their playground
is stunning to anyone who takes the time to go through the
classical religious literature.
Fundamentalism suddenly becomes intelligible when one
comes across an early imam's description of the concept of the
mosque. The prophet Muhammad is the only prophet who identified
the whole earth as a mosque: "The prophet said: 'The
whole earth was made for me a mosque. Whenever time for
prayer catches a purified man from my umma, there is his
mosque.' "'You can pray anywhere, you can always situate
yourself by reference to Mecca. Indonesians turn their facewestward
to Mecca, and we Moroccans face east to the same spot.
Islamis, among other things, a set of psychologicaldevices about
self-empowerment and making oneself at home everywhere
around the globe, in unf~miliaras well as familiar surroundings,
,$41rslimWomen and Fundnmenta~ism xi
~ i t h o u thaving to know the language or the culture. Its prodigious
world expansion in the seventh century would not be
without taking into account its spatial compo-
nent.
I:
tim
WOl
slam toc
e it is a
rid arou
, . ~ ~ ,
iay is expanding without missionaries. At the same
rooting, a grounding device, and a way to order the
nd you. It is a compass in a universe nf oT7psOW~~
~ ...--.L " L L LApanalng
norizons, a guide for navigating terrestrial space and
to prepare you to jump into unknown territories. Only if we
understand this will we understand why youth by the millions
are claiming it as their unshakable referent and forcing it on
women, who obviously face different problems and who need
to mirror themselves in different power fantasies.
-.. ~
--.It
tundamentalists are calling fo; the return to the veil, it must
be because women have been taking off the veil. We are definitely
here in a situation where fundamentalist men and nonfundamentalist
women have a conflict of interest. We have to
identify who the fundamentalist men are, and who are the nonfundamentalistwomen
who have opted to discard the veil. Class
conflicts do sometimes express themselves in acute sex-focused
dissent. And contemporary Islam is a good example of this,
because, beyond the strong obsession with religion, the violent
confrontations going on in the Muslim world are about two eminently
materialistic pleasures: exercise of political power, and
consumerism.~-...
Fundamentalists and unveiled women are the twogroups that
have emerged with definite disturbing claims and aspirations in
the ~ostcolonialera. Both have the same age range-youthand
the same educational privilege-a recent access to formal'zed
institutions of knowledge. But while the men seeking power
through religion and its revivification are mostly from newly
urbanized middle- and lower-middle-class backgrounds, unveiled
women on the contrary are predominantly of the urban
and middle class..
But before describing the salient features of fundamentalist
and those of nonfundamentalist unveiled women, along
w'th the political fight for a more just distribution of power and
wealth in our societies, let me share with you some of the unPretentious
mumblings of my illiterate Aunt Hachouma. I still
rience. A1
y cool-he:
:ion is ju6
Ml,s/im Women nnd Fundamentalism ...
xii XIU
find that the illiterate voices in Beyond the Veil give it probably possibilities, dear Fatima, all of them. That is the only way a
its most refreshing and age-defyingquality. woman can sunrive in this land of unbelievers." That is how
Aunt Hachouma refers to Muslims. Why?
Aunt Hachouma (now in her eighties) talks in such militant
Designing a Future Instead ot Growing Old: Aunt terms because of the only "serious political experience" she
HachoumarsReading of the Iranian Revolution claims she has had: her brothers refused to give her her legitimate
share of inherited land which God and the prophetrsshari'a
~~f~~~ these last few decades, women in our Muslim societies (religious law) granted her. She had married and given to her
were not allowed a future. They only grew old. Between these husband, in a contract duly signed in the presence of a bearded
two states of mind-growing old and designing a future-lies qadi (judge), the right to get the inheritance from her brothers.
the most important challenge of human civilization as history, He proceeded to do so in a long series of court trials, but then
that is, time-bound events, condensed, recorded, and frozenin he divorced her and kept it for himself.
carefully selected writings destined for later consumption by Aunt Hachouma's reading of all political events in the ~ ~ ~ l i ~
coming generations. Man-written history is what constitutes our world is interpreted through this highly charged emotional exor
rTcultural"heritage, in spite of the claim by the PC nd funnily enough, it does make as much sense as
theocracies that it is of divine origin. We know that it is VeV an ~ d e dintellectual analysis. For her, the Iranian revodifficult
for a woman to design for herself a past. Ironically, any lul ;t like the story of her inheritance: the Shah, she
other task, including designing a future, seems more feasible, argues, was like her brothers; he took the people's share of the
and definitelymore rewarding. Writing the past isa highly coded inheritance. Khomeini is like her husband; he "took power and
and serious act, thought of, up to now, as an exclusively male wealth from the Shah and kept it for himself, and told
endeavor, burden, and privilege. as my husband did, to shut up and put on the veil. ti^^,,,
B U ~what Muslim women (and, of course, all others) are dis- she told me, "don't bother me with your educated blah.blah, I
covering, in this apocalyptically shifting and thrilling galaxy in
am you the real qadiyn, as it actually took place in the land
which we live, is that stretching in the direction of the futureis of the Farsis!"
more operational than focusing on the past. And that is what I think that I am straying far from the subject, which
plan to do in this introduction: What is women's future in Mus-
'
to summarize the salientevents affectingwomen since 1975.
lim societies, as, of course, it can be discerned from today's
But I think I am when I am remembering Aunt Hachoumars
crisis? mumblingsas she listens to her transistor radio, which she litAre
we all going back to the veil, back to the secluded house, e r a l l ~integrates into her elaborate headgear. Because the main
back to the walled city, back to the national, proudly sealed, event, according to me, is the politicization of Muslim
imaginary boundaries? Of course, that would be the dream of and the new Perception they have gained of their problems,
many Muslim men. But, without taking on the role of a psychic, women, illiterate and educated alike, are coming to
I can predict that it is very unlikely. Not because I see it in a and verbalize their problernspreviously identified
crystal ball (had I seen it there I would not believe it as strongly and labeled as being emotional-as being essentiallypolitical. A
as I do), but because I remember what Aunt Hachouma used to anger and sorrow at being repudiated are no longer
say: "Don't get yourself totally drawn into the qndiya (event, Interpreted as being solely due to her incapacity to please her
problem, affair);try to look constantly at what is there under, Iejectinghusband or because a vamp came along who dazzled
above the qadiyn; ~ T Yto remember what was there before; and
him and
him away. Women are starting to wonder aboutthe
try to train yourself to guess what is likely to happen. ,411 the left mY village and my family, where I had some
law: "1
xiv ,a,fuslirnWomen and Fundamentalism XU
security, to come with my husband to the city," explains a dreams, unverbalized claims. I know as a woman,
twenty-three-year-old slum dweller interviewed in Le Mnroc m- frommy ordinary daily interaction as a professionalor emotional
conidparses femmes.' "But what guarantees do I have if my bus- person, that silence does not mean consent or surrender. I know
ban&s love fades with age? Why does he have the right to that acts, what you do, do not express you and your desires
repudiate me without my having done any wrong? The family totally. Every daily act we perform is embedded in an incredibly
no longer takes care of me, the state doesn't care about me at intricate network of pressures, constraints, necessary cornproall.
The only thing I have left is my husband and my children. mises. Nevertheless, in spite of all these obstacles and forces
~h~ children will grow up and go away. And my husband can blocking our way to happiness, we still manage to have our say
repudiate me and remarry. Why? Is thai God's law? Never. He about our inner desire forself-fulfillment,self-nourishment, selfcan't
be so unjust." enhancement, and self-empowerment.
hi^ for me is the substance of the revolutionary process that Every event, every act regarding women and how others,
is taking place in the Muslim world. It is a process not much mostly politicians, react to them, has to be decoded and read on
talked about, because it does not have the spectacular aspects two distinct levels: what it expresses in its manifest meaning,
that attract media coverage. It does not have the theatrical di- and what it does not tell or tries to suppress from expression,
mension that accompanies our romantic images of revolution. Whence my proposal to approach the fundamentalist tau for the
~ ~ ~ ~ l u t i ~ ~is noisy, it means huge demonstrationswith slogans veil, because that is one of the most salient events of the late
and flags and blood and police repression-and, of course, the seventies and the eighties, on two levels: its manifest significameras
and microphones of the national and international me- cance, that is, its factual dimension; and its unspoken, latent
dia right there on the spot. dimension. But first let's go back to Beyond the veil and find out
this introduction I am not going to try to impress readers if its key idea-space as an important component of sexuality
by overwhelming them with facts, dates, and political events.3 (or, if YOU prefer, sexuality as a component of spacebhas aged
l-he media do that. I am trying to share with you some imPres- and lost its pertinence with time.
$ions and reflections that have been slowly maturing in mY
mind. I do this as someone who is a passionate and partisan
observer-participant in Muslim society, as well as someone who andthe SacrrdThreshold: Allah's Boundaries and
is incorrigibly addicted to life-savoring and joy-seeking in that Men's Obedience
society. One thing which has become evident to me is that You
have to be careful, when dealing with the Muslim world, not to '?Iondthe is a book about sexual space boundaries, ~ttries
confuse the symptom, that is, the event (the only dimension the to grasp sex as it materializes, as it melts into and with space
media are interested in), wit11 the diagnosis, that is, the specific and h.eezes it in an architecture. It started from a harmless ques.
of forces, tendencies, compromises, and alliances can't I stroll peacefully in the alleys of the ~ ~ d i ~ ~
which produce it. that I like and enjoy SO much? 1came to wonder how ~ ~ ~ l i ~
a symptom, the call for the veil tells us one thing. Telling designs sexual space, how it projects into space a specific
us another thing is the specific conjuncture of the forces calling 'Ision of female sexuality,
forit, that is, the conservative forces and movements, their own . The book
an important dimension of religion that
quest, and how they position themselves within the social move- Often ignored, since religion is usually confused with and
merits dominating the national and international Scene. reduced to Islam is, among other things, an overa
woman and sometimes a sociologist, I have learned to whe'min61~materialistic vision of the world. lts field is not the
give great importance tb unspoken forces, unexpressed desires, heavens so much as terrestrial space and terrestrial power and
and Fundamenfalism mii
access to all kinds of plain worldly pleasures, includingwealth, problems, from colonization (trespassingby a forsex,
and power. That is the reason, I guess, why B p n d the Veil, Muslim community space and decision making)
in spite of dozens of other books treating the same topic of
women and Islam, stillmakes sense to students and other readers.
It does not treat Islam and women from a factual point of
view, but rather it identifies one of the key components of the
tifiememory, without flooding our own ~ u s l i m
ationaleconomicdependencyis, ofcourse, emiBeyond
the Veil doesnot seemtoage, becauseit knot somuch em of boundaries: the International Monetary
about fa& as data as it is about an ageless problem: the way on in fixingthe priceofour bread doesnot help
d e t i e s manage space to construct hierarchies and allot privi- of a distinct national identity. What are the
leges. One can easily trace, through the concept of threshold, e sovereigntyof the Muslim state vis-a-vis voofboundaries,
of limits, thehidden hierarchies determiningthe tmnsnational corporations?These am some
use of space, aswell as the lawsandmechanisms ofcontrolthat of the crisis that is tearing the Muslim world
underlieIslam as a sexualphilwophy, as a visionof both virility O f course, definite class lines.
and femininityas sacred architecture. erious as only a dutiful student can be, I did not
I did not understand why of all iny books Beyond the Veil has ' h t women's claims were disturbing to Muslim
been the most in demand for translations zind m t s (French : b u s ethey threatened the past but because they
in 1983, British and Dutch in 1985, German and Urdu scheduled , ~ b o h e dwhat the future and its conflicts are
for,l987),until I realized that, in fact, I have been working on scapabilityof renegotiating new sexual, political,
the same theme for thelast decade-women and space, because cultural boundaries, thresholds, and limits. Init
is a rather.practical magnifying,glassto use forlooking st the bd territory by alien inimical nations (the invasystem"s
functioning.The tentative title of my latestbook is anistan and Lebanon); invasion of national
Harm politique, which means that I am still ~ F P l i n gwith the
=me old topic: women and their space boundaries.
Islamisdefi~telyoneof themodem politicalforcescompeting
for power x o m d the globe. At least that is how many of us
experienceit. How can a "medieval religion,"ask Western students
raised in a secular culture, be so a&e, SO challenging to tely. Muslim societiesintegrated
the effectsoftime, somewablein energy?How canitbemean- ologicd innovations: the engine,
to educated youth? We'll soon see that one of the char- one, the transistor, sophisticated machinaeristics
ofhndamentalism is the attractionIslam hasfor kgh S without much resistance. But the s-1
a&evers amongyoungpeople today. In Cairo, Lahore, Jakarta, e trouble absorbing anything having to do
and Casablanca, Islam makes sense because it speaks .about authority thresholds: freely competing unveiled
power and self-empowerment As a matter offact, worldly selfenhancementissoimportantforIslam
that themeauingofspinwtyitself
has to be seriously reconsidmed.But what was not
clear for me the early seventies was that all the problems th free choice of the partners involved, the social
~ ~ ~ l i m swere to be faced with in recent decades are more Or to suffer some terrible tear. Women's unveiling
xviii
seems to belong to this realm. For the last one hundred years,
whenever women tried or wanted to discard the veil, some men,
always holding up the sacred as a justification, screamed that it
was unbearable, that the society's fabric would dissolve if the
mask is dropped. I do not believe that men, Muslims or not,
scream unless they are hurt. Therefore, the ones calling for the
reimposition of the veil surely have a reason and a good one.
What is it that Muslim society needs to mask so badly?
II Anatomy of a Fundamentalist
How do you picture a fundamentalist? If one did a survey by
asking this one question of average Americans, I suppose the
answers would all reflect the single image that the mighty, allknowing,
all-observing,quasi-divine American media give of the
Muslim fundamentalist. And that would be of an unscrupulous,
uneducated, uncultured, archaic, bloodthirsty, woman-hating,
economically deprived, politically frustrated (of course, inevitably
Muslim) terrorist, loaded with guns and bombs. And
strangely enough, this monstrous creature has eyes fixed on one
single enemy target: America and its lovely peace-loving, democratic,
scientifically minded, highly ethical, spontaneously
moral, prosperous citizens.
Well, the Americans who would have given that answer to
the imaginary questionnaire would have been wrong on at least
four key characteristics of the fundamentalist: he is neither uneducated,
nor unscrupulous, nor primarily anti-American, nor
necessarily antiwoman. And certainly he is not archaic; he is the
product of two extremely modern phenomena: rapid urbanization
and state-funded (therefore democratic) mass education.
The fundamentalist isneither uneducated nor uncultured. He
is, on the contrary, a well-educated and particularly brilliant high
achiever. In a recent study of the Islamic militants in Egypt,
Hamied N. Ansari gave the following breakdown of 280 militants:
43.0 percent were students; 12.5percent were professionals;
only 14.6 percent were workers, and 10.7 percent were
unemployed. As for farmers, they barely represented 2.2 percent
Muslim Women and Fundarnentnlism xix
of the whole lot.4In Iran, an analysis of eighty Mujahidin who
died during the struggle against the Shah's regime reveals that
the largestgroup (thirty) were college students. The second most
numerous group comprised engineers, professionals, and office
workers, who numbered twenty-four.5
~ u tthe most revealing account of the educational and achievement
levels among ECi-uits to Islamic militancy is Saad Eddin
rhrahim's in-depth study of the family backzround and social..~ " ~~
mobility of thirty-four Gyptian ~slamicmilitants as compared
to their fathers' educational and occupational s t a t u ~ . ~He found
L L - L
wi 1 to fathers' occupation, abouttwo-thirds (21out of34)
WI nment employees, mostly in middle grades of the civil
service. rour membershad fatherswho were in high-levelprofessionaloccupations
(twouniversity professors,one engineer, and
one pharmacist).Four members had fatherswho were small merchants;
three had fathers who were small farmers (owning between
6 and 11 acres), and two had working-class fathers. With
regard to education, only seven fathers (20 percent) had a university
education. A majority of 19 fathers (56 percent) had intermediate
education (rangingfrom secondaryschool to less than
four years of college).Five fathers had below intermediate certificates,
and three were illiterate.7
r the mi
., .
As foi litants themselves, they seem to have managed
to outdo rnelr parents, and thus illustrate one of the important
changes taking place in the previously fiercely hierarchical Muslim
world: the high rate of social mobility from one generation
to the next. Ibrahim's study shows that
the educationaland occupational attainment of the members [of
the militant group] was decidedly higher than that of their parents.
All but five(29 out of 34)were univers~tygraduates or university
studentswho were enrolled in college at the time of their
arrest.The rest were secondary schooleducated. Occupationally,
only 16 (47 percent) of the members were classifiable, the rest
being students. Most of these were professionals (12 out of 16)
employed by the government:5 teachers, 3 engineers, 2 doctors,
and 2 agronomists. Three were self-employed (a pharmacist, a
and an accountant), and one worked as a conductor for
a bus ~ompany.~
xx uslirliWomei~and Fundamntalism
xxi
~h~ militant is definitely not the son of a peasant or workingclass
man. He belongs to the middle or lower-middle class. He
iions with this important part of world civilization. But let's get
seems to favor scientificbranches of knowledge, and appears to
back to our Islamic militants, whom we can never understand
if we don't grant them their humanity first.
be quite well there: "Among those who were Students
at the time of their arrest (18members, or 53 percent), six Theother characteristic of the fundamentalist, besides his edumajored
in engineering, four in medicine, three in agricultural
cational level and his tendency toward high achievement, is his
two in pharmacy, two in technical military science, and geographical background-his rural origin and his haphazard,
one in literature."9 And Ibrahim notes that majors such as me&- ill- re pa red, poorly managed integration into rapidly expanding
urban settings. Islamic militants were identified in both Egypt
cine, engineering, technical military science, and pharmacy in
and Iran, the countries where their recruitment is the most spec~~~~t
require very high grades: "These four majors accounted
tacularand their activitiesparticularly visible, asbeing fromrural
for 14 out of 18 students (80 percent). In other words student
and small-town backgrounds. Writes Ibrahim: "Islamic move.
members of the militant Islamic groups were decidedly high in
ments [in Egypt and Iran, that is] have grown primarily out of
both motivation and a~hievement."'~
the middle and lower sectors of the new middle class; they are
well then! There seems to be only one possible explanation
of recent rural background, experiencing for the first tirne life in
left:these militants are, despite their educational scoresand high
huge metropolitan areas where foreign influence is most apmotivation,
emotionally disturbed children who come from braparent
and where impersonal forces are at maximum
ken homes. Unfortunately for the psychologically minded souls, strength."12
~ b ~ ~ l , i ~ ' ~study that "most members came from 'normal'
Militants can be expected to be found in two kinds of places:
cohesive families, that is, families with no divorce, no separaurban
slums and expanding provincial towns in economically
tion, no death of either parent. None in either P U P was an
stagnant areas. But you need the combination of two factors:
only child, and none reported any significant tragic events in
unplanned rural migration coupled with the mushrooming of
his familyhistory."" NOW we are in trouble, aren't we? Where
state-full~ied~lniversities.In the Egyptian case, ~~~~t~~cairo
does this violence come from? and provincial capitals such as al-~inya,~ s y u t ,and sohag are
~~t only does this analysis show that Islamic militants are
the places where Islamic militancy thrives. According to ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i
nice boys, it also reveals that their fathers are justl'ie yours and
and Minya, two spots with high recruitment, "represent
rnin&ecent, educated citizens. They are men (with wives,
the cut-offpoint in the rural-urban discontinuities. These are the
who are the unknown element of the equation; who are the
first areasin a predominantly traditional region to come under
mothers? no information available on that yet!) who strive to
the jrnpactof rapid urbanization. Hence, they are the most likely
raise good, honest families who can smoothly reproduce the places to
social instabilities manifesting themselves
system. e his is all just to say that the media do not help WestIn
sectarian and political violence. Asyut's urban population has
erners understand what goes on in the Muslim world, reducing, daubled in the past two decades.,,13
as they do, political figurestoTarzan's Cheetah. And even Chee- This
urbanization in Egypt, and in many parts of the
tab has some humane qualities about her, denied to Muslims as
Muslim world, is coupled with large-scale access to universities
they are described in the Western media. This dehumanization
by the children of rural migrants to the cities. And of course
of ~ u s l i m ~in American and European television has also, by a ther
cati( "8 'ink between rapid urbanization and mass edumirror
effect,a dehumanizing impact on the American and Eu-
OPP
Its flock to the towns in quest of good educational
ropean viewers. They become so frightened that their rational
for their children. Writes Ansari: "Part of the ex.
capacities are paralyze$, and only their defensive, quasi-animalistic,
aggressive energies are brought to bear on their relaplar'a"On
'Or the higher urban population rate for ~ ~ y ~ tis the
lnCrease in the enrollment of students at Asyut University, ~h~
xxii
available statistics show that student enrollment has jumped
from roughly 15,000in 1971172to 28,000 students in 1976/77."'*
Asyut has been identified as one of the towns with the highest
rate of communal disturbances, and consequently the highest
rate of repressive state response, among the provincial capitals
in Egypt. (Remember the bloody clash between the population
and the security forcesthere two days after the assassination of
President Sadat.)
The idea one often hears about fundamentalism is that it is
an archaic phenomenon, a desire to return to medieval thinking.
It is frequently presented as a revivalist movement: bring back
the past. And the call for the veil for women furthers slipping
into this kind of misleading simplification. If we take the Egyptian
town of Asyut as an example, we have to admit that it is a
modern town with a totally new cultural feature that Muslim
society never knew before: mass access to knowledge. In our
history, universities and knowledge were privileges of the elite.
The man of knowledge enjoyed a high respect precisely because
he was a repository of highly valued and aristocraticallygained
information. Acquisition of knowledge took years, and often
included a period of initiation that compelled the student to roam
through Muslim capitals from Asia to Spain for decades. Mass
access to universities, therefore, constitutes a total shift in the
accumulation, distribution, management, and utilization of
knowledge and information, And of coursewe know that knowledge
is power. One of the reasons the fundamentalist will be
preoccupied by women is that state universitles are not open
just for traditionally marginalized and deprived male rural migrants,
but for women as well.
Women's Access to Universities. State-Funded Education
as a Blurring of Class and Sex Privileges
The fundamentalist is not so much unscrupulous as selfcentered.
Women become an issue with him because they interfere
in his newly acquired modern identity as an educated
person who has the qualifications required to make a person fit
to run the world. As the class-background analysis has shown,
~ ~ s i i mWomen and Fundnmentalism xxiii
are primarily the manifestation of the structural
sodaldemocratizationof Muslim society. Unimaginative Marxist
analystsof Muslim societies (the only ones I am familiar with)
have been prophesying and awaiting the rise of a Muslim proletariat
in the East-a proletariat which would, according to
them, look likea twin brother tothe German, British, and French
proletariatsthat they project as their unique, inescapable model.
ofcourse, in their model, the state was intrinsically and totally
bad and could do nothing good at all. The state was going to
disappear, and, of course, the Marxists, as a brilliant avantgarde,
would run the Arab world.
What the Marxistsfailed to do was to grant some credit to the
new national Muslim state. They did not realize that a real ~ v o lution
in the conception of the state had changed the way ruled
and rulers louked at themselves as political actors, at least as
regards the welfare obligations of the state. As corrupt and inefficient
as it proved to be, the national state did nevertheless
carry out a mass educational program (limited to males only in
the rural area) afterindependence, and fostered the emergence
of a new class: educatedyouth of both sexes. This class is the result
of the interplay of three factors:(1) the demographic factor, the,,youthification"ofthe population; (2)a politicalfactor,the emergence
of the welfare state; and finally (3) a cultural factor, the
changein women's self-perception as actors in society. Iran and
are good examples of these phenomena, which are also
be found in all of the Muslim world and in the Third World
at large..
Persons under fifteen years of age constitute 45 ercent of the
total Iranian population and 39 percent of Egypt's.P5 The natural
annual population increase in Egypt and Iran is 3.1 percent.'6
The time span for doubling the population is twenty-two years
for and twenty-three for Iran. Secondary school enrollment
in Iran is 35 percent for women and 54 percent for men.
In 39 percent of women of secondary school age are in
fact there, as compared to 64 percent of men.I7 The same trend
IS
be found in other Muslim societies. Centuries of women's
fromknowledge have resulted in femininity being conlusrd
with illiteracy until a few decades ago. But things have
So rapidly in our Muslim countries that we women
xxiv Mus/imWomen and Fundamentalism x.m
today take literacy and access to schools and universities for
granted. However, illiteracy was such a certain fate for women
thatmy grandmother would not believe that women's education
was a serious state undertaking. For years she kept waking my
sister and me at dawn to get us ready for school. We would
explain that school started exactly three hours after her first
dawn prayer, and that we needed only five minutes to get there.
But shewould mumble, while handing us our morning tea: "You
better get yourself there and stare at the wonderful gate of that
schoolfor hours. Only God knows how long it is going to last."
Shehad an obsessive dream: to see us read the Koranand master
mathematics. "I want you to read every word of that Koran,
and I want you to answer my questions when I demand an
explanation of a verse. That is how the qadis (Muslim judges)
get all their power. But knowing the Koran is not enough to
make a woman happy. She has to learn how to do sums. The
winners are the ones who master mathematics." The political
dimension of education was evident to our grandmother's gen-
eration.
While a fewdecadesago the majorityof women married before
the age of twenty, today only 22.0 percent of that age group in
Egypt and 38.4 percent in Iran are married.'' To get an idea of
how perturbing it is for Iranian society to deal with an army of
unmarried adolescents one has only to remember that the legal
age for marriage for females in Iran is thirteen and for males
fifteen.19The idea of an adolescent unmarried woman is a completely
new idea in the Muslim world, where previously you
had only a female child and a menstruating woman who had to
be married off immediately so as to prevent dishonorable engagement
in premarital sex. The whole concept of patriarchal
honor was built around the idea of virginity, which reduced a
woman's role to its sexual dimension: to reproduction within
early marriage. The concept of an adolescent woman, menstruating
and unmarried, is so alien to the entire Muslim family
system that it is either unimaginable or necessarily linked with
fitna (socialdisorder).And the Arab countries area good example
of this demographic revolution in sex roles.
Young men, faced with job insecurity or failure of the diploma
to guarantee access to the desired job, postpone marriage.
Women, faced with the pragmatic necessity to count on themselves
instead of relying on the dream of a rich husband, see
forced to concentrate on getting an education. The
averageage at marriage forwomen and men in most Arab countrie!
;tereda spectacular increase. In Egypt and Tunisia
the ge at marriage for women is twenty-hvo and for
mer seven. In Algeria the average age at marriage is
eighree~, Nomen and twenty-fourfor men. In Morocco, Libya,
and Sudan women marry at around nineteen and men at
around twenty-five. The oil countries, known for their conservatism,
have witnessed an incredible increase of unmarried
youth marriage for women is twenty and for men is
twent And of course the patterns of nuptiality are influenc
~rbanization.The more urbanized youth many
later. m IYXu, in metropolitan areas of Egypt the mean age at
marriage was 29.7 formales and 23.6 for females. In the urban
areas of Upper Egypt, where the fundamentalist movement is
strong, the mean age at marriage was 28.3 for men and 22.8 for
women.20
j has regis
average a
1 twenty-!
...--<..-.
: age at
y-seven,
ed by I
. * - - Is
this rise in the age of both men and women at marriage due
to education or to other factors?The World Fertility Survey report
on Egypt, like many others, shows that there is "a definite positive
relationship between level of education and age at first marriage.
It may be inferred that increasing education opportunities
foryoung Egyptian women are largely responsible for the recent
decline in early marriage and the upward trend in age at marriage,
particularly in urban areas."21
Education for women in the West did not have such a rapid
and re lary impact. For decades women in America and
Europe less to education but still conformed to traditional
I edan's TheFeminine Mystique is an eloquent statement
a ~ o u tthat. Therefore, to understand the fanatic rejection
Of
I'beration in the Muslim world, one has to take into
accountthe time factor. Most of us educated women have illiterate
mothers. Access to education seems to have an immediate,
tremendousimpact on women's perception of themselves, their
and sexual roles, and their social mobility expectations.
World Fertility Survqy for Egypt shows that while the
' of children ever born to illiterate mothers is 4.4,
volutior
'had acl
ktty Fri
, . .
mean
~ ~ / s / i r nWomen and Fundamentalism xxvii
xxvi
it drops to 2.1 for women with secondary school education. The
mean number of, children ever born to university educated
women is 1.8.~'The same trend is found in other Muslim coun-
triesz3
The main thing to remember is that women's education disturbs
the traditional sexualidentity reference points and sexroles
in Muslim countries, which are obsessed with virginity and
childbearing. The way these countries tried to prevent premarital
sex was by segregating the sexes and institutionalizing early
marriage. Early marriage limited women's life and expectations,
regardless of class, to fantasizing about acquiring a rich husband
and about childbearing. Both processes took place in a female
hysterical atmosphere of magic and superstitious rituals. The
hysteria of a search for a husband and for begetting sons is more
than ever present today, precisely because men marry late. It
shows itself in the thriving business of psychics and sorcery in
many Muslim capitals, as well as in the continuation of marriage
and fertility cults.
The appreciable increase in the use of psychics and marriage
and fertilitymagicrituals in Moroccan towns in the late seventies
and in the eighties has been hastily interpreted by many observers
as a regression to archaic behavior. But it can be interpreted
as an anxiety-reducing reflex among women bewildered
by the metamorphosis of their self-image and the contradiction
between aspiring to strong self-affirmation through education
and paid work, and complying with the tradition of an impossible
early marriage. The Moroccan national census of 1982 revealed
that the percentage of unmarried urban men and women
showed a staggering increase in one decade. Between the censuses
of 1971and 1982, the percentage of unmarried urban men
among the population over fifteen years of age increased from
38.0 percent to 47.3 percent, while that of unmarried urban
women jumped from 23.5 percent to 31.9 percent. Not only is
it difficult to find a husband at an early age, but for those who
do marry, there is a high rate of instability: 16.6 percent of all
marriages end in divorce.24
Chances to remarry are higher for women who married before
the age of twenty, for women living in rural Morocco, and for
those who are less &ell educated. Relatively well-educated
,omen have difficultyin World FertilitySurvey also
shows that education drastically determines a woman's fertility
rate, Illiterate women have an average of 4.7 children, while
with secondary school education have an average of 3.7,
anduniversity educated women have 2.3 children on average.26
A woman's having an advanced education and earning a
salary have been pointed to by many Moroccanjudges as factors
creatingdissent within the couple and raising risks of confrontation.
Zineb Maadi, a recent Ph.D. from Rabat's Muhammad
v University, in her analysis of3,000 files of a Casablanca court's
cases relating to family conflicts, found that women's work outside
the home and earning an income were identified as loci of
Women who have achieved access to significant education are
highly visible, since they try to enter fields where they have a
better chance to compete: the liberal professions and the civil
service. A survey of Moroccan employment patterns revealed
that women constitute29.9 percent of the liberal professions and
scientific fields, and 27.7 percent of civil service employees.2R
One of the most popular television shows on Moroccan television
this summer of 1986is an Egyptian serialentitled "Married
But Strangers," by Nabil Ghulam. The show focuses on a retired
man who cannot accept the fact that his wife is taking over his
post as the general director ofan important company. The author
has no trouble making the audience laugh at the contradiction
between women's advancement as professionals and their total
infantilization as wives subject to Muslim law where a man's
Supremacy is unchallenged. Ikram, the proud and highly successfulwife,
findsherself stopped at the airport as she is taking
for a conference in Geneva for her company, because her
husband instructs the airport authorities to prevent her from
leaving the country. The show is shown at around nine o'clock
at
and is discussed to death into the cool summer evenings
and Passionatelytaken up the next day at the workplace by both
men and women.
The conservative wave against women in the Muslim world,
far
being a regressive trend, is on the contrary a defense
mechanismagainst profound changes in both sex roles and the
touchy
of sexual identity. The most accurate interpre-
xxviii i.l,ls,j,n Womet~and Fundamentaiism
xxix
tation of this relapse into "archaic behaviors," such as conservatism
on the part of men and resort to magic and superstitious
simplisticgeneralizations about how bad the state is and how
I !
I
rituals on the part of women, is as anxiety-reducing mechanisms
women are. And this weepy line leaves us unable to
I, in a world of shifting, volatile sexual identity.
llnderstandwhy all the political actors in the Muslim world are
,,obsessed with women and their clothes.
Fundamentalists are right in saying that education for women
has destroyed the traditional boundaries and definitionsof space
and sex roles. Schooling has dissolved traditional arrangements
1, of space segregation even in oil-rich countries where education
is segregated by sex, simply because, to go to school, women
have to cross the street! Streets are spaces of sin and temptation, Notes
because they are both public and sex-mixed. And that is the
1. al-Nisa'i. A! Sunan. "The Book of the Mosque," VOI. 2 (cairo; A I . M ~ ~ ~ ~ , ~
definition of fitna, disorder! Fundamentalists are right when they ai-~i~iiva,al-Azhar, n.d.) 26.
I talk about the dissolution of women's traditional function as 2. Fitima Mernissi, Le g r a . ramnte'po~~ e sfemrnes ( ~ ~ b ~ t :societe ~~~~~~i~~
des Editeurs Reunisf19&l); English translation, London: ~h~ press,
defined by family ethics; postponed age of marriage forces forthcornin
women to turn pragmatically toward education as a means for 3. For tk- s ecific data included in Beyond the veil, I the
Pin 1983for the rench edition, S~~xe.idColo~ic~,irinm(Paris:Tierce, 1983). and these
self-enhancement. And if one looks at some of the education have been tncluded in this cdition.
statistics, one understands why newly urbanized and educated 4. Hamled N. Ansari, "Thc Islamic Militants in E~~ tian politics,,, rnfPrnaliurinl
loar?znl of Middie Cnst Stiidies 16, no. 1 (1984), pp. 1Se4,
rural youth single out university women as enemies of Islam 5. Emand Abrahamian, "The Guerilla Mrlvclnents lran 196&1977/
and its tradition of women's exclusion from knowledge and de- .+lERiPM,ddie Enst Report, no. 86 (1980), p{,3-15.. . .
6. Saad Eddin lbrahim, "Anatomy of gypt's M C I , ~ ~ , , ~lslarnic G ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ , , ,
( i
cision making. The percentage of women teaching in Egyptian frm~~tio~~fl!Iournnl ofMiddle East Studi~~s12, no. 4 (1980), pp. 42>53.
: universities was 25 percent in 1981. To get an idea of how fast
7. Ibid., p. 439.
8. Ibid.
change is occurring there, one only has to remember that in 1980 9. Ibid., p. 440.
the percentage of women teaching in American universities was 10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
!'I, 24 percent and it was 25 percent in the Democratic Republic of 12. Ibid., p. 446.
Germany.29Even in conservative Saudi Arabia, women have
13. Ansari. 'The Islamic Militants in ~ g y ~ t i ~ , ,p~,litics,- p. 131,
, # 14. Ibid.
I invaded sexuallysegregated academicspace: they are 22 percent l 5
Populafion Data Sheet (Washington. D.c.:ti^^ ~~f~~~~~~
Bureau).
of the university faculty there. Women are 18 percent of the
I'
university facultyin Morocco, 16percent in Iraq, and 12 percent
16. Ibid.
! 17. "peo~ie'sWallchart,', Peop!e's Magnzine, "01. 12 (1985).
! in Qatar.30 18.Ibid.19. Ibid.
What dismays the fundamentalists is that the era of indepen- 20
S~wey.No. 42, "The ~ g y p t i ~ nsurvey,-~~~~~b~~ 1983.21. lbid.
dence did not create an all-male new class. Women are taking 22. [bid.
part in the public feast. And that is a definite revolution in the 2 3 See FprfiliV S u m q re om for various M U S I ~ ~
Islamic concept of both the state's traditional relation to women Fertility Slirr~ey,NO.47, M~~~~~~~s ~ ~ ~ ~ , , ~M~~ 1984,
and women's relation to the institutionalized distribution of
Maadi,''A] usra al-Ma hribiya bain al-&tab al.sha,.ya wa al.khitab
(The Moroccan Family getween the Shan'a Discourse and popular
(Ph.D. diss. Muhammad v universit ~ ~ b ~ t19~6).
lnts de p e ~ c t essu rcmpioi urbain (Ra&t: ~ i ~ e ~ t i ~ ~de la Stahstique,
Inire Stati$lique (paris: UNESC~,1980),
-I
ti^^ i,,fernissiwas born in Fez, Morocco, in 1941. Her home town
was one of the centersof the nationalist movement against French cola-
Preface
nization, and she benefited from the decision to admit girls to the nationalist
schools. She received her advanced education at Muhammad
A Note to the
v universityin ~ ~ b ~ t ,the Sorbonne in Paris, and Brandeis University, Western Reader
where she a ph.D, in sociology. Formerly a professor of sociat
~ ~ h ~ ~ ~ ~ dv University, she now holds a research appointment
at M ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' ~~ ~ s t i t u tUniversitaire de Recherche Scientifique.A
frequentparticipantin international conferencesand seminars. she has
heen a visitingprofessorat the University of Californiaat Berkeley and
~~~~~d university. Her publications include Le Maroc raconth Par ses
femmes, L~ fjarernpolitiqae, and numerous articles on the subject of
1s there a I female liberation movement in the Middle
women in the Third World.
~~~tand North ~ i r i c asimilar to those appearing in Western
countries? For decades this kind of question has blocked and
distorted analysis of the situation of Muslim women, keeping it
at the level of senseless comparisons and unfounded conclusions.
lt is a well-established tradition to discuss Muslim women by
them, implicitly or explicitly, to Western women.
This tradition reflects the general pattern that prevails in both
East and West when the issue is 'who is more civilized than
whom'.
When the Muslim countries were defeated and occupied by
the West, the colonizers used all available means to persuade
the defeated Muslims of their inferiority in order to justify
foreign occupation. Muslims were dismissed as promiscuous,
and many crocodile tears were shed over the terrible fate of
Muslim women.rln this situation Muslims found themselves %
defending anachronistic institutions (by many Muslims' own
standards) like polygamy, arguing for example that it is better
to institutionalize men's polygamous desires than to force them
to have secret mistresses.
Unfortunately the argument was not between the colonizers
and ordinary Muslims, but between colonizers and representatives
of the nationalist movement, intellectuals who had
Previously supported the liberation of Muslim women. Two
legacies of this conflict still influence the situation of women in
'he Muslim world.
Since Western colonizers took over the paternalistic defence
of
women's lot, any changes in their conditions were
Seen as concessions to the colonizer. Since external aspects of
women's liberation like abandoning the veil for Western dress
were often emulations of Western women, women's liberation
was readily identified as a surrender to foreign influences.
2. The question of women's liberation has been viewed
almost exclusively as a religious problem. The nationalist move.
ment started as a religious movement, and the fight against the
West was perceived very much as a modern religious crusade.
The nationalists had advocated the liberation of women in the
name of Islam's triumph, not in the name of any genuine
modern global ideology. The eclectic variety of meanings given
by kings and Palestinians and Maoists to 'Muslim socialism'
demonstrates that such an ideology is still lacking. 3
In this book, I am not concerned with contrasting the way
women are treated in the Muslim East with the way they are
treated in the Christian West. I believe that sexual inequality is
the basis of both systems. My aim is not to clarify which
situation is better, but to understand the sexual dynamics of the
Muslim world. I use comparisons between East and West only
when they underline the sui generis pattern of the heterosexual
relationship in the Muslim system.
Nor am I concerned with analysing women as an entity
separate from men; rather, I try to explore the male-female
relation as a component of the Muslim system, a basic element
of its structure. It appears to me that the Muslim system is not
so much opposed to women as to the heterosexual unit. What is
feared is the growth of the involvement between a man and a
woman into an all-encompassing love satisfying the sexual.
emotional and intellectual needs of both partnersgsuch an
involvement constitutes a direct threat to man's allegiance to
Allah, which requires the unconditional investment of all his
energies, thoughts and feelings in his God.
The change in relations between the sexes has been one of the
most explosive threats that Muslim society has had to face in
the twentieth century, and its dilemma has been expounded in
a prolific literature concerning the relation between Islam and
women.' Muslim societies, defeated, occupied and dominated
by foreign infidel powers, have concluded that the only way to
alleviate foreign domination is to free the whole Muslim 'personpower'
by involving both men and women in the production
A Note to the Western Reader g
P
recess. B U ~to achieve that aim, Muslim society would have to
g
women, now needed as workers or soldiers, all the other
rights which have until now been male privileges. It would
have to bring about a drastic desegregation of all spheres of
life and dismantle traditional institutions which embody
the inequality between the sexes.
One wonders if a desegregated society, where formerly
women have equal rights not only economically but
sexually, would be an authentic Muslim society.
Introduction
Roots of the
M n d ~ r nSituation I
wnat was, and is still, at issue in Morocco and other Muslim
m,.s;n,;,, :.--r --; A o n l n m v of formaleinferioritv. but rather a set>" LL,..Ld ,> l,", -.,...c"."e, -- ,.
of laws and customs that ensure that women's status remains
one of subjugation. Prime among these are the family laws
based on male authority. Although many instihltions have
LA". t"-- &l." ,.,,..+-,,I "6 To,;e;",,< la,&, (h,,si"essI withdra
racts for e
family la
. . . .
"CC.
cont xample), the family never has. The seventh-centurY
ws, based on male authority, were reenacted in
modem leaslation. The 1957 Code du Statut Personnel1 (which
incl: I,..,= ~ d . H ~ otn the farnilv) is no more than audes a i
iant tral
'"..* .-.l....o .- ...- ---- ~ - -,z
brill nsposition of Imam Malik's graceful and anecdotal
al-Muwatta' into a series of articles, sections, and sub-sections
in the concise Napoleonic tradition.
Sinre --*- ---'--:-A- I.-..--rnnnivoA tho nocoe~itvof alter- L- - llldlr l l l V U Cl,,, JLJ I I P V F .CLY61.11LY .I*--
-----
ing the sexual division of labour, and since heads of ArahMuslim
++ate=have affirmed their condemnation of sexual-.-.-- ~ ~ ~ - inequality,
it seems appropriate to inquire how, and with what
consequences, the emerging desire for sexual equality will be
met in modem Arab-Muslim societies.
In fact, the problem seems insoluble. Women's liberation is
directly linked to the political and economic conflicts rending
modern hX..-I:- -..-:..G-.. E..~.... ,,I;+;,~I ~ o t h a r koner rates a"LYa,,,,, 3UCICLICJ. L V C l J y"..~..". "-.-I--- new
necessity to liberate all the forces of development in
Islamic nations. gut paradoxically, every political setback inflictedby
infidelsgenerates an antithetical necessity to reaffim
the traditional Islamic nature of these societies as well. The
forces of both modernity and tradition are unleashed in a
Single stroke and confront each other with dramatic consequences
for relations between the sexes. I
Let us examine more closely how this conflict works itself out
symbolicallyin matters of policy in Morocco. Morocco claims to be
modem, Arab and Muslim. Each one of these three adjectives
refers to a complicated nexus of needs and aspirations, more often
conhadictoly than complementary, which gives the modem
Muslim way of life a powerful impetus and a specific character.
As a modern state Morocco is a member of the United
Nations and signed the Declaration of Human Rights which
stipulates, in Article 16 concerning family regulations: 'Men
and women, regardless of race, nationality or religion, having
reached the age of puberty, have the right to many and establish
families. They have equal rights with regard to marriage, in
the marriage, and in the event of its dissolution.'
However, as a Muslim society affirming its will to keep the
family under traditional Muslim law, Morocco promulgated a
code that, whenever possible, dutifully respects the seventhcentury
shari'a ('divine law'). Article 12, for example, reestablishes
the traditional institution of guardianship, according to
which it is not the woman who gives herself in marriage, but a
male guardian who gives her to her husband: 'The woman does
not herself conclude the marriage act, but should have herself
represented by a wali [guardian]whom she designates for this
purpose.' Article 11 stipulates that the wali should be male.
Another glaring violation of the Declaration of Human Rights is
Article 29, which forbids a woman to choose a husband from
outside the Muslim community. The marriage of a Muslim man
to a non-Muslim woman, however, is not forbidden. The differences
in rights and duties in marriage are so extreme that
they are stated in two different articles: Article 35, 'The Rights
of the Wife Towards Her Husband', and Article 36, 'The Rights
of the Husband Towards His Wife'.
The actual situation in modern Muslim Morocco will appear
incoherent to anyone looking for the secure and comforting
logic of Cartesian 'rational behaviour'. But if we discard childish
framesofmind and try to grasp the complexity of a situation
in which individuals act and reflect on their actions, responding
to the disconcerting demands of the world around them,
then what seems incoFerent becomes intelligible in its existential
context. This approach is particularly important in analysing
Roots of the Modern Situation 13
1
lllolL -female dynamics in modern Morocco, where the hopes,
fears and expectations of men and women are increasingly
numerousand c0ntradictory.i I will scrutinize three of the
,mperativesof modern Muslim life that have an immediate
bearing on the family structure and relations between the sexes:
1. The need for sexual equality: the Muslim male feminist
movementas an effort to change the sexual division of labour.
2. The need to be Arab: Arab nationalism as a survival reflex
in the face of Western domination.
3. The nerd to be Muslim: religion as the comforting cradle
.f a cosmic ideology.
rhe Need for Sexual Equality
~ 1 , ~feminist movement was an expression and byproduct of
~ ~ ~ b - M ~ s l i mnationalism. Qasim ~min'(1863-1908)and Salama
M~~~ (1887-1958) considered the liberation of women as a condition
sbie qua Iton for the liberation of Arab-Muslim society from
the humiliating hegemony of the West. By liberation of women
they meant complete equality with men in all spheres of social
life.In his book Woman Is No! the Plaything of Man? published in
1955, Salama Musa dismissed the Westem exampleof women's
liberation as particularly misleading because it did not, according
to him, elevate the woman from the status of a female to the status
of a human being. He urged his society to turn instead towards
China and other Asian nations as better models of liberation.iBut
here I am not so much interested in the content of the feznist
movement's programme as in its genesis and causality, its instrumental
aspect as part of the shategy for liberation.
A Prime characteristic of Arab-Muslim society is its obsession
y'h the West and the West's power to dominate others:
and Westerners differ in many things . ..Among their
differencesis the fact that Westerners, in general, dominate the
2nd deprive them of their cotton, rubber, copper, oil.
And beat them whenever they hy to rebel.'4
One of the pillars of Western domination, according to the
feminists,is its productiveness: 'Production in Europe and the
United States is considerable and this is due to the fact that in
those
both men and women are involved in the process
Of production." Consequently, one of the causes of Muslim
Roots of the Modern Situation 15
weakness is the fact that only half the nation works and produces,
The other half, women, are prevented from taking part in recognized their legal capacity, equal to that of men in all
production: 'Among the weaknesses in a society is the fact that
r l O
..
the majority of its members are not involved in a productive When the traditionalists set out to prove the opposite, they
work process.. . In every society women constitute half the had a rather easy task. Sheikh Ibn Murad, in a sweeping attack
population on average. To condemn them to be ignorant and on a ~ ~ ~ i ~ i a nmodernist who wrote a book asserting that the
inactive occasions the loss of half the society's productive liberation of women does not contradict Islam, labelled the
potential and creates a considerable drain upon the societySs an agent of Catholic priests paid to destroy Muslim
society." He proceeded to establish that, indeed, Islam believes
To educate women and prepare them to take part in pm. in sexualinequality: 'The meaning of marriage is the husband's
duction is therefore a necessity if the East is to rival the West in supremacy...Marriage is a religious act. ..which gives
power and productivity. Qasim Amin dismissed as idiotic the man a leading power over the woman for the benefit of
theories that women do not have the same capacity and intel- humanity."'
ligence as men. He affirmed that 'If men are superior to women this century the husband's supremacy has been seriously
in physical strength and intelligence, it is because men were undermined by the effects of modernization, which has graduengaged
in work activities that brought them to use their brains thrust women out of their homes and into classrooms,
and bodies and therefore to develop them.'7 He argued that officesand factories.Although sexual desegregation in Morocco
once women were given the same opportunities the differences has been slow and was for decades solely an upper-class urban
would quickly disappear. process, it nevertheless affected the society's sexual balance
But to include women in education and production implies seriously enough to provoke renewed claims that Islam and its
sexual desegregation, and in 1895 many believed this to be laws are the everlasting guiding light in sexual matters.
against Islam and its laws: 'Many people still believe that it is
not necessary to educate women. They even go so far as to think The Need to be Arab
that to teach women how to read and write is against the skari'a The need to reaffirm the essentially Arab nature of society,
and a violation of the divine order." with Islam as the source of society's ideals, is dismissed as
Amin tried to show that women's seclusion and their exclu- unimportant by some theoreticians of modernization. Daniel
sion from social affairs was due not to Islam but to secular Lemer, for example, makes his task as a social scientist rather
customs 'which prevailed in nations conquered by Islam and simple. After first equating modernization with Westernization,
did not disappear with Islam's teaching.'9 He affirmed that he affirmsthat Westernization is sweeping Baghdad and Cairo.
those secular traditions had been reinforced by reactionary, 'Underlying the ideologies there pervades in the Middle East a
secular political regimes throughout the Muslim nations' history. Sensethat old ways must go because they no longer satisfy the
Therefore, to change institutions that coerce women into se- new wants. . . Where Europeanization once penetrated only
clusion and ignorance was not in any way an attack on or a
the level of Middle East society, affecting mainly leisureviolation
of Islam. In Amin's argument, Islam becomes the 'lass fashions, modernization today diffuses among a wider
most liberating of religions towards women: 'Muslim law, POpulaiion and touches public institutions as well as private
before any other legal system, legalized women's equality with
with its disquieting "positivist spirit"."3
men and asserted their freedom and liberty at times when Lemer wrote these lines in 1958, two years after the Anglowomen
were still in the most debased condition in all the French-lsraeliattack on the Egyptian nation, at a time when
nations of the world. Islam granted them all human rights and demonstrationsin Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia,
Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Aden affirmed their
Roots of the Modern Situation 17
sympathy with Egypt as an Arab nation victimized by aggres. colonial union, but would remain as a storehouse for raw
sion. If Lemer had listened for fifteen minutes to any Arab. material and as a hatching ground for soldiers to serve France.
Muslim radio station in the Mediterranean, he probably would Morocco,s adherence to the Arab Union, on the other hand,
have given more credit to the 'underlying ideologies' and would bring Morocco within this Eastern family, to which she
accorded more importance to the itchy ambivalence the word has belonged for ten centuries and from which she had been
'Europeanization' provokes in both the 'leisure class' and 'the Excludedfor reasons beyond her control . . .'I7
wider population.' Fortunately for social science, he noticed In 1945 the Arab character of Morocco was far from evident,
that 'a complication in Middle East modernization is its own and ~ 1 1 ~ 1&Fasi had to plead his cause to persuade the first
ethnocentrism-expressed politically in extreme nationalism, membersofthe Arab Leaguela to define Arab in such a way that
psychologically in passionate ~enophobia."~ not-so.~rabMorocco could fit the definiti~n.'~
But I believe that Arab-Muslim ethnocentricity, dismissed by ~ i ~ t ~ ~ ~has proved Allal al-Fasi to be correct in his predictions.
Lemer as a complication, is one of the most meaningful features ~i~ party's wishes became those of the Moroccan state. Morocco,
of modernization. Being Arab and being Muslim influences as an independent nation, became a member of the Arab
institutions and sexual interaction alike. League on 1 October 1958. It affirmed its Arab identity in the
A peculiar feature of the concept of being Arab is that many Lei Fondamentale de Royaume (June 1961), which became the
people and nations who never thought of themselves as Arab bas 3 1962 constitution:
have claimed to be so since the Second World War. Nowadays . Morocco is an Arab and a Muslim country.
being Arab is primarily a political, not a racial, claim. According 'Artlcle 2. Islam is the official religion of the state.
to Anouar Abdel-Malek, Egyptians before the thirties took great 'Article 3. The Arabic language is the official and national
pride in being Egyptians, the inheritors of the civilization of the language of the state.'
ancient pharaohs, and they emphasized their difference from
Arabs.'' The predominantly Berber origin of the Moroccan The Need to be Muslim
population is no secret and was used for demagogic purposes By affirming its claim to be Arab and Muslim, Morocco
by the French colonizers interested in aggravating indigenous expressed a view of the world based on specific aspirations and
divisions. The division between 'Berbers' and 'Arabs' was a drawing its ideology from specificsources: If to be Arab implies
handy one.16 But many countries, like Egypt and Morocco. a political and cultural choice, to choose to be Muslim implies a
found they needed to unite as Arabs in the face of Western Particular global vision of the world and a specific organization
domination. This they did, in their distress, under the banner ofinstitutions in general and of the family in particular. Islam is
of Arab nationalism. not merely a religion>It is a holistic approach to the world,
The political and cultural meaning of being Arab is clearly ~haracterizedby a 'unique insistence upon itself as a coherent
expressed in Allal al-Fasi's analysis of the options open to and closed system, a sociologically and legally and even politiMorocco
in the forties: 'Morocco must, in order to live and organized entity in the mundane world and an ideologically
prosper, join a bloc of nations. Two such blocs are open for her Organized entity as an ideal.'20 We will now see what being
choosing: the French Union, whose form has not yet crystallized, Muslim implied for the Moroccan family.
and the Arab Union, which has become an actual reality. In the In the seventh century, Muhammad created the concept of the
promised French Union, Morocco will find herself-judging or 'community of believers'. There was nothing familiar
from past experience-in the utmost difficulties,because there this in the minds of his contemporaries, deeply rooted in
is a conflict of interests and beliefs between her and France . . . their tribal allegiances. He had to transfer the believers' alMorocco
is convinced that she would not be happy within this legiance from the tribe, a biological group with strong totemic
overtones, to the umma, a sophisticated ideological group based
on religious belief.21Islam transformed a group of individuals
into a community of believers. This community is defined by
characteristics that determine the relations of the individuals
within the umma both with each other and with non-believers:
'In its internal aspect the umma consists of the totality of
individuals bound to one another by ties, not of kinship or race,
but of religion, in that all its members profess their belief in the
one God, Allah, and in the mission of his prophet, Muhammad.
Before God and in relation to Him, all are equal without distinction
of race. ..In its external aspect, the umma is sharply
differentiated from all other social organizations. Its duty is to
bear witness to Allah in the relations of its members to one
another and with all mankind. They form a single indivisible
organization, charged to uphold the true faith, to instruct men
in the ways of God, to persuade them to the good and to
dissuade them from evil by word and deed.'22
One of the devices the Prophet used to implement the umma
was the creation of the institutions of the Muslim family, which
was quite unlike any existing sexual unions.23Its distinguishing
feature was its strictly defined monolithic structure.
Because of the novelty of the family structure in Muhammad's
revolutionary social order, he had to codify its regulations in
detail. Sex is one of the instincts whose satisfaction was regulated
at length by religious law during the first years of Islam.
The link in the Muslim mind between sexuality and the shari'a
has shaped the legal and ideological history of the Muslim
family structure24and consequently of relations between the
sexes. One of the most enduring characteristics of this history is
that the family structure is assumed to be unchangeable, for it is
considered divine.
Controversy has raged throughout this century between traditionalists
who claim that Islam prohibits any change in sex
roles, and modernists who claim that Islam allows for the
liberation of women, the desegregation of society, and equality
between the sexes. But both factions agree on one thing: Islam
should remain the sacred basis of society. In this book I want to
demonstrate that there is a fundamental contradiction between
Islam as interpreted in officialpolicy and equality between the
Roots of the Modern Situation 19
sexual equality violates Islam's premiss, actualized in
its laws, that heterosexual love is dangerous to Allah's order.
~ ~ ~ ] i ~marriage is based on male dominance. The desegreg,tion
of the sexes violates Islam's ideology on women's position
in the social order: that women should be under the authority
of fathers,brothers, or husbands. Since women are considered
by Allah to be a destructive element, they are to be spatially
confined and excluded from matters other than those of the
family. f :ess to non-domestic space is put under the;emale acc
f males.
~xically,a1
control 0
Paradc id contrary to what is commonly assumed,
does not advance the thesis of women's inherent inferiority.
Quite the contrary, it affirms the potential equality
between the sexes. The existing inequality does not rest on an
ideological or biological theory of women's inferiority, but is
the outcome of specific social institutions designed to restrain
her power: namely, segregation and legal subordination in the
family structure. Nor have these institutions generated a systematic
and convincing ideology of women's inferiority. Indeed,
it was not difficultfor the male-initiated and male-led feminist
movement to affirm the need for women's emancipation, since
traditional Islam recognizes equality of potential. The democratic
glorification of the human individual, regardless of sex,
race, or status, is the kernel of the Muslim message.
In Western culture, sexual inequality is based on belief in
women's biological inferiority. This explains some aspects of
Western women's liberation movements, such as that they are
almost always led by women, that their effect is often very
and that they have not yet succeeded in significantly
changing the male-female dynamics in that culture. In
Islam there is no such belief in female inferiority. On the
Contrary,the whole system is based on the assumption that
Wome:lare powerful and dangerous beings. All sexual institutions
(polygamy, repudiation, sexual segregation, etc.) can be
Perceivedas a strategy for containing their power.
nis belief in women's potence is likely to give the evolution
Of the relationship between men and women in Muslim settings
a entirely different from the Western one. For example,
lf there areany changes in the sex status and relations, they will
tend to be more radical than in the West and will necessarily
generate more tension, more conflict, more anxiety, and more
aggression. While the women's liberation movement in the
West focuses on women and their claim for equality with men,
in Muslim countries it would tend to focus on the mode of
relatedness between the sexes and thus would probably be led
by men and women alike. Because men can see how the oppres.
sion of women works against men, women's liberation would
assume the character of a generational rather than sexual conflict.
This could already be seen in the opposition between
young nationalists and old traditionalists at the beginning of
the century, and currently it can be seen in the conflict between
parents and children over the dying institution of arranged
marriage.
At stake in Muslim society is not the emancipation of women
(if that means only equality with men), but the fate of the
heterosexual unit. Men and women were and still are socialized
to perceive each other as enemies. The desegregation of social
life makes them realize that besides sex, they can also give each
other friendship and love. Muslim ideology, which views men
and women as enemies, tries to separate the two, and empowers
men with institutionalized means to oppress women. But
whereas fifty years ago there was coherence between Muslim
ideology and Muslim reality as embodied in the family system,
now there is a wide discrepancy between that ideology and the
reality that it pretends to explain. This book explores many
aspects of that discrepancy and desaibes the sui generis character
of male-female dynamics in Morocco, one of the most striking
mixtures of modernity and Muslim tradition.
The umma is a simultaneously social and religious group, and
the problem of the relation between secular and divine power
inevitably arises. Islam solves it by unequivocally subordinating
the secular to the religious authority and by denying the secular
authority the right to legislate.25H.A.R. Gibb noted:
'The head of the umma is Allah, and Allah alone. His ~ l eis
immediate and his commands, as revealed in ~uharnmadg
embody the Law and Constitution of the ummn. Since God is
himself the Sole Legislator, there can be no room in Islamic
political theory for legislation or legislative powers, whether
Roots of the Modern Situntion 21
by a temporal ruler or by any kind of assembly. There
c,t,uiebe no sovereign state, in the sense that the state has the
canright to enact its own law, though it may have some freedom in
determining its constitutional structure. The law precedes the
st,te, both logically and in terms of time, and the state exists for
the solf of maintaining and enforcing the law.'2b
In word, the Muslim's allegiance is not to a secular power,
be it the state or its legislators, but to the shnri'n, which transcendsboth
humanity and temporality. The fact that God is the
gives the legal system a specific configuration. First, it
denies the existence of human legislation: 'Strictly speaking,
lslamic theory does not recognize the possibility of human
legislation and that which the human rules must make regulations
for carrying the divine law into effect.'27 Second, it
asserts the inalterability of the law and its eternal hold on
human action: 'The shari'a .. .is universally accepted as the
Law of God. God, at any rate so far as human experience of him
may presume to go, is unchanging and to a pious mind this
may appear to imply that his law is also ~nchangeable.'~~Third,
it extends the scope of the law to matters which usually belong
to other spheres: 'Law, then, in any sense in which a Western
lawyer will recognize the tern, is but part of the whole Islamic
system, or rather it is not even a part but one of several
inextricably combined elements thereof. Shari'a, the Islamic
term which is commonly rendered in English by 'Law', is rather
"the whole duty of man", moral and pastoral theology and
ethics, high spiritual aspirations and the detailed ritualistic and
formal observance which to some minds is a vehicle for such
and to others a substitute for it, all aspects of
law: public and private hygiene and even courtesy and good
mannersare all part and parcel of the ~hari'a."~
Is it correct to say, then, that the Muslim world did not
a modem legal system in the Western sense of the
Word?Are the laws governing public and private actions of
today the same laws sketched by Muhammad? Of
course not. The shari'a had to confront the daily realities of the
lnCreasingl~numerous and culturally diverse members of the
Urnma.Schools of law were gradually created and specialists of
law appeared. They endeavoured to extrapolate and interpret
-
22
! , .
the divine principles in order to meet the earthly needs of the
believer in his day-to-day life.
The result was a gradual liberation of some subjects from the
8 ,
hold of religious law. Joseph Schacht distinguishes two kinds of
legal subject matter in Islamic law.30First, subject matter upon
which the shari'a failed to maintain its hold: penal law, taxation,
constitutional law, law of war and law of contracts and obli.
gations. Second, subject matter upon which the hold of the
shari'a was uncontested for centuries and in some areas is
uncontested even today: purely religious duties, family law
(marriage, divorce, maintenance), law of inheritance and law of
endowments for religious institutions. These have been, and
still are, closely connected with religion and are therefore still
!
; , ,
ruled by the shari'a.
Interference by the state in any matter seen to be within the
! 1 domain of the shari'a presupposes acceptance of the Western
idea of sovereign secular power. Schacht writes: 'Whereas a
traditional Muslim ruler must, by definition, remain the servant
of the Sacred Law of Islam, a modem government, and particularly
a parliament with the modem idea of sovereignty behind
it, can constitute itself its maste~.'~'Even though impregnated
with the Westem concept of sovereign secular power, the Muslim
umma, through the traditionalist supporters of the sovereignty
of the shari'a, strongly resisted the intervention of modern
legislators in family law.
Historical Interests Behind Modem Legislation
Modem legislation in the Muslim world did not spring from
I 8
any new ideological conception of the individual and sociev,as
had been the case in Muhammad's seventh-century revolutiona'l'
I Muslim order. Modem legislation was initiated and carried out
by the colonial powers32and after independence was continued
by the independent nation states. In both cases, the interests of
the individual in general and of women in particular were
secondary if not irrelevant compared with the interests of the
powers involved.
The colonial powers were motivated to intervene in Muslim
Roots of the Modern Situation 23
legislationnot by idealistic concern for the natives, but by their
economic interests. This was the case of the AngloownMuhammadanLaw
in India from 1772 onward and the Droit
in Algeria from 1830 onward.
The psychological result of the foreign powers' intervention
in Muslim legislation was to transform the shari'a into a symbol
of Muslim identity and the integrity of the umma. Modem
changes were identified as the enemy's subtle tools for carrying
out the destruction of Islam.
when the Muslim states became independent, modem legislation
was not initiated in the interests of the masses. The new
laws were closely connected with the battle between traditional
law practitioners and modernists, who were mostly lawyers in
the Westem sense of the It was not only a battle
between two different conceptions of law, but also a clash of
interests between two groups of professionals. The new laws
forcedthe traditional 'lawyers' to give up some of their power,
and their profits, to the young modernist lawyers.
The Moroccan nationalist movement never made the transition
from an independence movement to a nation-building
movement. After having 'driven the foreigners out', the
nationalists proved unable to transform their ideology and
political apparatus into an instmment for social change.
According to the Moroccan historian Abdallah Laroui, the
Creativity of the nationalist movement as a producer of ideas
forchange died out years before independence. He buries it in
1930-32." Nor did any other group among those that played
Importantroles from the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies offera
coherentset of solutions to the country's problems.
The main feature of post-independence policy seems to be
ad koc decision-making, rather than the subordination
of decisions to a long-term programme of action.35The
lmrnediiteinterests of the independent nation states were the
factors motivating the legislators. Their inability to
a genuine modem ideology made family legislation
dependent on traditional ideologies and contemporary
whence its inconsi~tency.~~
The absence of a genuine modem ideology strengthened the
hold Of Islam as the only coherent ideology that masses and
rulers could refer to. It is therefore not surprising that Morocco,
like other independent Muslim states, recognized Islam as the
ideology of the family in its otherwise Westem-inspired codr,
The law of 1957 creating the commission charged with the
task of writing a Muslim code was justified thus: 'Considerin
8
that the Kingdom of Morocco is going through a period charac.
terized by deep changes in all matters and especially in legis.
lative matters; considering that Muslim law constitutes a,,
eminently delicate matter susceptible to many interpretations;
considering the absolute necessity, therefore, of gathering the
rules of this law into a code so as to facilitate its teaching as well
as its application . . . we have decided on the creation of a
commission entrusted with the task of elaborating the Muslim
code of personal tatu us.'^'
The Code du Statut Personr~elstipulates that in all cases that
cannot be resolved by reference to the Code, the source to turn
to for guidance is the jurisprudence of the Malekite school.38
The founder of the Malekite school, Imam Malik Ibn Anas, was
an Arab who lived in Medina and was a judge in the eighth
century. In two chapters of his Muwatfa, one on marriage, the
other on divorce, he spelled out the basis for the institution of
the family. There is more than an inspirational similarity between
Malik's Muwatta and the Moroccan Code du Statul
Personnel. The idea prevailing in Malik's time that sexuality is a
religious matter to be regulated by divine laws seems to be one
of the concepts modern legislators did not question at all.
The seventh-century concept of sexuality, as embodied in the
modem family laws, conflicts dramatically with the sexual
equality and desegregation fostered by modemization. In the
first part of this book I want to explore, through early Muslim
sources, the Muslim ideology of the sexes as revealed by the
institution of the family. In the second part, I will analyse,
through my data and other sources of information on the
present situation, the modernizing trend as embodied in
women's gradual acquisition of the right to be educated and to
compete for jobs. I will look especially closely at the effectsof
modernization on male-female interaction both inside and outside
the family.
The Traditional Muslim
View of Women and Their
Place in the Social Order
1
The Muslim Concept of
4ctive Female Sexualitv
~ ~ ~ ! y l l l ~ ~
' 1 1
~h~ Christian concept of the individual as tragically torn bell'([
tween two poles-good and evil, flesh and spirit, instinct and
I rcason-is very differentfrom the Muslim concept. Islam has a
more sophisticated theory of the instincts, more akin to the
Freudian concept of the libido. It views the raw instincts as
I " '
:I arises only when the social destiny of men is considered. The
,il!l~ll~ individual cannot survive except within a social order. Any
fll/l,; social order has a set of laws. The set of laws decides which uses
of the instincts are good or bad. It is the use made of the
?j/r'/I not necessary for the individual to eradicate his instincts or to,I' >
control them for the sake of control itself, but he must use them
according to the demands of religious law.
I
When Muhammad forbids or censures certain human
i1ll~lli"l''lll Aggressionand sexual desire, for example, if harnessed in the
right direction, serve the purposes of the Muslim order; if
suppressed or used wrongly, they can destroy that very order:
Muhammad did not censure wrathfulness with the inten.
tion of eradicating it as a human quality. If the power of
wrathfulness were no longer to exist in man, he would lose
the ability to help the truth to become victorious. There
would no longer be holy war or glorificationof the word of
God. Muhammad censured the wrathfulness that is in the
service of Satan and reprehensible purposes, but the
wrathfulness that is one in God and in the service of God
deserves praise.'
. . . Likewise when he censures the desires, he does not
want them to be abolished altogether, for a complete
abolition of concupiscence in a person would make him
defective and inferior. He wants the desire to be used for
permissible purposes to serve the public interests, so that
man becomes an active servant of God who willingly
obeys the divine commands."
Imam Ghazali (1050-1111) in his book The Revivification of
Reli~iousSciences4 gives a detailed description of how Islam
integrated the sexual instinct in the social order and placed it at
the service of God. He starts by stressing the antagonism
between sexual desire and the social order: 'If the desire of the
flesh dominates the individual and is not controlled by the fear of
God, it leads men to commit destructive acts." But used according
to God's will, the desire of the flesh serves God's and the
individual's interests in both worlds, enhances life on earth and
in heaven. Part of God's design on earth is to ensure the perpetuity
of the human race, and sexual desires serve this purpose:
Sexual desire was created solely as a means to entice men
to deliver the seed and to put the woman in a situation
where she can cultivate it, bringing the two together softly
in order to obtain progeny, as the hunter obtains his
game, and this through c~pulation.~
He created two seFes, each equipped with a specific anatomic
luslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality 29
Cort~l~-'--)on wnlch allows them to complement each other in
the realization of God's design.
~~d the Almighty created the spouses, he created the man
with his penis, his testicles and his seed in his kidneys
[kidneys were believed to be the semen-producing gland].
H~ created for it veins and channels in the testicles. He
gave the woman a uterus, the receptacle and depository of
the seed. He burdened men and women with the weight
of sexual desire. All these facts and organs manifest in an
eloquent language the will of their creator, and address to
every individual endowed with intelligence an unequivocal
message about the intention of His design. Moreover,
Almighty God did clearly manifest His will through his
messenger (benediction and salvation upon him) who
made the divine intention known when he said 'Marry
and multiply'. How then can man not understand that
God showed explicitly His intention and revealed the
secret of His creation? Therefore, the man who refuses to
marry fails to plant the seed, destroys it and reduces to
waste the instrument created by God for this p u r p o ~ e . ~
Serving God's design on earth, sexual desire also serves his
esign in heaven.
Sexual desire as a manifestation of God's wisdom has,
independently of its manifest function, another function:
when the individual yields to it and satisfies it, he experiences
a delight which would be without match if it were
lasting. It is a foretaste of the delights secured for men in
Paradise, because to make a promise to men of delights
have not tasted before would be ineffective. . . . This
earkhl~delight, imperfect because limited in time, is a
Powerful motivation to incite men to try and attain the
Perfect delight, the eternal delight and therefore urges
men to adore God so as to reach heaven. Therefore the
desire to reach the heavenly delight is so powerful that it
men to persevere in pious activities in order to be
admitted to heaven.8
The Muslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality 31
Because of the dual nature of sexual desire (earthly and
heavenly)and because of its tactical importance in God's strategy
its regulation had to be divine as well. In accordance with ~ ~ ~ . i
interests, the regulation of the sexual instinct was one of the keY
devices in Muhammad's implementation on earth of a new
social order in then-pagan Arabia.
Female Sexuality: Active or Passive?
According to George Murdock, societies fall into two groups
with respect to the manner in which they regulate the sexual
instinct. One group enforces respect of sexual rules by a 'strong
internalization of sexual prohibitions during the socialization
process', the other enforces that respect by 'external precaution.
ary safeguards such as avoidance rules', because these societies
fail to internalize sexual prohibitions in their membersq
According to Murdock, Western society belongs to the first
group while societies where veiling exists belong to the second.
Our own society clearly belongs to the former category, so
thoroughly do we instil our sex mores in the consciences
of individuals that we feel quite safe in trusting our
internalized sanctions. .. . We accord women a maximum
of personal freedom, knowing that the internalized ethics
of premarital chastity and post-marital fidelity will ordinarily
suffice to prevent abuse of their liberty through
fornication or adultery whenever a favourable opportunity
presents itself. Societies of the other type. ..attempt to
preserve premarital chastity by secluding their unmarried
girls or providing them with duennas or other such external
devices as veiling, seclusion in harems or constant
s~rveillance.'~
However, 1think that the difference between these two kinds
of societies resides not so much in their mechanisms of internalization
as in their concept of female sexuality. In societies
in which seclusion and surveillance of women prevail, the
implicit concept of, female sexuality is active; in societies
whichthere are no such methods of surveillance and coercion of
,omen's behaviour, the concept of female sexuality is passive.
In his attempt to grasp the logic of the seclusion and veiling of
women and the basis of sexual segregation, the Muslim feminist
~~~i~ Amin came to the conclusion that women are better able
,,contr~ltheir sexual impulses than men and that consequently
se,ual segregation is a device to protect men, not women."
H~ started by asking who fears what in such societies. Ob,,,kg
that women do not appreciate seclusion very much and
to it only because they are compelled to, he concluded
that what is feared is fitna: disorder or chaos. (Fitna also means
a beautiful woman-the connotation of a femme fatale who
makes men lose their self-control. In the way Qasim Amin used
it fifna could be translated as chaos provoked by sexual disorder
and initiated by women.) He then asked who is protected by
seclusion.
If what men fear is that women might succumb to their
masculine attraction, why did they not institute veils for
themselves? Did men think that their ability to fight
temptation was weaker than women's? Are men considered
less able than women to control themselves and resist
their sexual impulse?. . .Preventing women from showing
themselves unveiled expresses men's fear of losing
control over their minds, falling prey to fitna whenever
they are contronted with a non-veiled woman. The implications
of such an institution lead us to think that
women are believed to be better equipped in this respect
than men.'z
Amin stopped his inquiry here and, probably thinking that
hisfindingswere absurd, concluded jokingly that if men are the
sex, they are the ones who need protection and therefore
the Ones who should veil themselves.
does Islam fear fitna? Why does Islam fear the power of
sexual attraction over men? Does Islam assume that the
male
cope sexually with an uncontrolled female? Does
Islam
that women's sexual capacity is greater than
men's?
Muslim society is characterized by a contradiction bet
Weenwhat can be called 'an explicit theory' and 'an implicit theO9.
of female sexuality, and therefore a double theory of sexual
dynamics. The explicit theory is the prevailing contempo
belief that men are aggressive in their interaction with women
and women are passive. The implicit theory, driven far furthe;
into the Muslim unconscious, is epitomized in Imam Ghazali,s
classical work.I3 He sees civilization as struggling to contain
women's destructive, all-absorbing power. Women must b,
controlled to prevent men from being distracted from their social
and religious duties. Society can survive only by creating insti.
tutions that foster male dominance through sexual segregation
and polygamy for believers.
The explicit theory, with its antagonistic, machismo vision of
relations between the sexes is epitomized by Abbas Mahmud
al-Aqqad.I4In Women in the Koran Aqqad attempted to describe
male-female dynamics as they appear through the Holy Book.
Aqqad opened his book with the quotation from the Koran
establishing the fact of male supremacy ('the men are superior
to them by a degree') and hastily concludes that 'the messageoi
the Koran, which makes men superior to women is the manifejt
message of human history, the history of Adam's descendants
before and after civilizati~n."~
What Aqqad finds in the Koran and in human civilization isa
complementarity between the sexes based on their antagonistic
natures. The characteristic of the male is the will to power, the will
to conquer. The characteristic of the female is a negative will to
power. All her energies are vested in seeking to be conquered, in
wanting to be overpowered and subjugated. Therefore, 'She can
only expose herself and wait while the man wants and seeks.""
Although Aqqad has neither the depth nor the brilliant
systematic deductive approach of Freud, his ideas on the male.
female dynamic are very similar to Freud's emphasis on the
'law of the jungle' aspect of sexuality. The complementarity of
the sexes, according to Aqqad, resides in their antagonisnC
wills and desires and aspirations.
Males in all kinds of animals are given the power'
embodied ig their biological structure-to compel females
The Muslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality 33
men's p
unter ar
and det
.
ield to the demands of the instinct (that is, sex). . . .
to Y
There is
situation where that power to compel is given
to over men.'7
Like Freud, Aqqad endows women with a hearty appetite for
ffering,women enjoy surrender.18More than that, for Aqqad
ju,,,omen experience pleasure and happiness only in their subtheir
defeat by males. The ability to experiencejugation,
in sufferingand subjugation is the kernel of femininrtv,which
is masochistic by its very nature. 'The woman's
to the man's conquest is one of the strongest
sources of wo lea~ure."~The machismo theory casts the
man as the h td the woman as his prey. This vision is
widely shared :ply ingrained in both men's and women's
,ision of themselves.
The implicit theory of female sexuality, as seen in Imam
Ghazali's interpretation of the Koran, casts the woman as the
hunter and the man as the passive victim. The two theories
have one component in common, the woman's quid power ('the
power to deceive and defeat men, not by force, but by cunning
and intrigue'). But while Aqqad tries to link the female's qaid
power to her weak constitution, the symbol of her divinely
decreed inferiority, Imam Ghazali sees her power as the most
destructive element in the Muslim social order, in which the
feminine is regarded as synonymous with the satanic.
The whole Muslim organization of social interaction and
*Pacia1configuration can be understood in terms of women's
laidPower. The social order then appears as an attempt to
Subjugate h -r and neutralize its disruptive effects. The
oPposition n the implicit and the explicit theories in
Muslim sot uld appear clearly if I could contrast Aqqad
and Imam G E L ~ L ~ L L .But whereas the implicit theory is brilliantly
articulatedin Imam Ghazali's systematic work on the institution
of mamiage in Islam, the explicit theory has an unfortunate
advocatein Aqqad, whose work is an amateurish mixture of
history,religion and his own brand of biology and anthropology.
I shall therefore contrast Imam Ghazali's conception of
not with Aqqad's but with that of another
theoretician, one who is not a Muslim but who has the
ier pow,
betweei
iety wol
.L--.,.
~ 1 , ~Muslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality 35
advantage of possessing a machismo theory that is systematic
in the elaboration of its premisses-Sigmund Freud.
Imam Ghazali vs. Freud: Active vs. Passive
In contrasting Freud and Imam Ghazali we are faced with,
methodological obstacle, or rather what seems to be one. when
Imam Ghazali was writing the chapter on marriage in his book
The Revivification of Religious Sciences, in the eleventh century,
he was endeavouring to reveal the true Muslim belief on the
subject. But Freud was endeavouring to build a scientific theory,
with all that the word 'scientific' implies of objectivity and
universality. Freud did not think that he was elaborating,
European theory of female sexuality; he thought he was elaborating
a u6iversal explanation of the human female. But this
methodological obstacle is easily overcome if we are 'conscious
of the historicity of culture'?O We can view Freud's theory as a
'historically defined' product of his culture. Linton noted that
anthropological data has shown that it is culture that determines
the perception of biological differences and not the other way
around.
All societies prescribe different attitudes and activitiesto
men and to women. Most of them try to rationalize these
prescriptions in terms of the physiological differences
between the sexes or their different roles in reproduction.
However, a comparative study of the statuses ascribed to
women and men in different cultures seems to show thal
while such factors may have served as a starting point fa'
the development of a division, the actual prescriptions a*
almost entirely determined by culture. Even the psycho.
logical characteristics ascribed to men and to women i'
different societies vary so much that they can have little
physiological basis?l
A social scientist works in a biographically determined
situation in which he finds himself 'in a physical and socio.
cultural environment as defined by him, within which he has
hi5
not merely his position in terms of physical space
ter
or of his status and role within the social system
dndbut aqzohis moral and ideological position.'22We can therefore
~ ~ ~ u d ' stheory of sexuality in general, and of female
in particular, as a reflection of his society's beliefs and
as a scientific(objective and ahistorical) theory. In comparnot
and Imam Ghazali's theories we will be comparing
ing
the two different cultures' different conceptions of sexuality,
based on a model in which the female is passive, the other
one
on one in which the female is active. The purpose of the
is to highlight the particular character of the
theory of male-female dynamics, and not to compare
,he condition of women in the Judeo-Christian West and the
Muslim East.
fie novelty of Freud's contribution to Western contemporary
culturewas his acknowledgement of sex (sublimated,of course)
as the source of civilization itself. The rehabilitation of sex as
the foundation of civilized creativity led him to the reexamination
of sex differences. This reassessment of the differences
and of the consequent contributions of the sexes to the social
order yielded the concept of female sexuality in Freudian theory.
In analvsing the differences between the sexes, Freud was
51 liar phenomenon-bisexuality-which is
ri anyone trying to assess sex differences
ri ties:
, -r a pecu
nfusing t(
n similari
:ruck b)
rther co,
rther tha
Sciencenext tells you something that runs counter to your
expectations and is probably calculated to confuse your,
feelings.It draws your attention to the fact that portions of
the male sexual apparatus also appear in women's bodies,
though in an atrophied state, and vice-versa in the alternative
case. It regards their occurrence as indications of
bisexuality as though an individual is not a man or a
woman but always both-merely a certain amount more
one than the other.z3
The de,
cannot be
'his dedu
duction 01
' accepted
ction:
ne expects from bisexuality is that anatomy
as the basis for sex differences. Freud made
You will then be asked to make yourself familiar with the
idea that the proportion in which masculine and feminine
are mixed in an individual is subject to quite Considerable
fluctuations. Since, however, apart from the very rarest
cases, only one kind of sexual product, ova or semen, is
nevertheless present in one person, you are bound then
have doubts as to the decisive significance of those ele.
ments and must conclude that what constitutes masrulinitv
or femininityis an unknown characteristic which anatom;
cannot lay hold of.Z4
Where then did Freud get the basis for his polarization of
human sexuality into a masculine and a feminine sexuality, if
he affirms that anatomy cannot be the basis of such a difference!
He explains this in a footnote, apparently considering it a
secondary point:
It is necessary to make clear that the conceptions 'masculine'
and 'feminine', whose content seems so unequivocal
to the ordinary meaning, belong to the most confused
terms in science and can be cut up into at least three paths:
One uses masculinity and femininity at times in the sense
of activity and passivity, again in the biological sense and
then also in the sociological sense. The first of these three
meanings is the essential one and the only one utilizable
in psychoanalysis.2"
The polarization of human sexuality into two kinds, feminine
and masculine, and their equation with passivity and activity
in Freudian theory helps us to understand Imam ~hazali's
theory, which is characterized precisely by the absence of Such
a polarization. It conceives of both male and female sexuality
partaking of and belonging to the same kind of sexuality.
For Freud, the sex cells' functioning is symbolic of the malefemale
relation during intercourse. He views it as an antagonistic
encounter between aggression and submission.
The male sex cell is actively mobile and searches out the
female and the latter, the ovum, is immobile and waits
The Muslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality 37
,ssive~y... , This behaviour of the elementary sexual
anism is indeed a model for the conduct of sexual0%
individuals during intercourse. The male pursues the
femaleforthe purpose of sex union, seizes hold of her and
penetrates into her.26
For imam Ghazali, both the male and female have an identical
cc~l,~h~word sperm (ma', 'water drop') is used for the femaleas
,veil as forthe male cell. lmam Ghazali referred to the anatomic
differencesbetween the sexes when clarifying Islam's position
,,coitus interruptus ('azl). a traditional method of birth control
practisedin pre-Islamic times. In trying to establish the Prophet's
psition on 'azl, lmam Ghazali presented the Muslim theory of
procreation and the sexes' contribution to it and respective
roles in it.
The child is not created from the man's sperm alone, but
from the union of a sperm from the male with a sperm
from the female ...and in any case the sperm of the female
is a determinant factor in the process of c ~ a g u l a t i o n . ~ ~
The puzzling question is not why Imam Ghazali failed to see
the difference between the male and female cells, but why
Freud, who was more than knowledgeable about biological
facts, saw the ovum as a passive cell whose contribution to
procreation was minor compared to the sperm's. In spite of their
technical advancement, European theories clung for centuries to
'he idea that the sperm was the only determining factor in the
Procreationprocess; babies were prefabricated in the spermz8and
the uterus was just a cozy place where they developed.
Imam Ghazali's emphasis on the identity between male and
sexuality appears clearly in his granting the female the
most uncontested expression of phallic sexuality, ejaculation.
This reduces the differences between the sexes to a s i m ~ l e~,.,.
a"terence of pattern of ejaculation, the female's being much
than the ma]efs.
The difference in the pattern of ejaculation between the
Sexes is a source of hostility whenever the man reaches
his ejaculation before the woman. . . . The woman's e;a
cu.
lation is a much slower process and during that process
her sexual desire grows stronger and to withdraw fromhe,
before she reaches her pleasure is harmful to her.29
Here we are very far from the bedroom scenes of Aqqad
and Freud, which resemble battlefields more than shelters
pleasure. For Imam Ghazali there is neither aggressor nor
victim, just two people cooperating to give each other pleasure
The recognition of female sexuality as active is an explosive
acknowledgement for the social order with far-reaching impli.
cations for its structure as a whole. But to deny that male and
female sexuality are identical is also an explosive and decisive
choice. For example, Freud recognizes that the clitoris is an
evident phallic appendage and that the female is consequently
more bisexual than the male.
There can be no doubt that the bisexual disposition which
we haintain to be characteristic of human beings manifests
itself much more plainly in the female than in the male.
The latter has only one principal sexual zone-only one
sexual organ-whereas the former has two: the vagina.
the true female oraan, and the clitoris, which is analogousto
the male organ.30
Instead of elaborating a theory which integrates and elaborates
the richness of both sexes' particularities, however, Freud
elaborates a theory of female sexuality based on reduction: the
castration of the phallic features of the female. A female child,
bisexual in infancy, develops into a mature female only if she
succeeds in renouncing the clitoris, the phallic appendage: ''The
elimination of the clitorial sexuality is a necessary pre-conditiofl
forthe development of femininit~.'~'The pubertal development
process brings atrophy to the female body while it enhances the
phallic potential of the male's, thus creating a wide discrepancy
in the sexual potential of humans, depending on their sex:
Puberty, which brings to the boy a great advance of libido,
distinguishes itself in the girl by a new wave of repressjofl
yfie ~ ~ u s l i mConcept of Active Female Sexuality 39
especially concerns the clitoral sexuality. It is a part
of the male sexual life that sinks into repression. The
reinforcement of the inhibitions produced in the woman
by the repression of puberty causes a stimulus in the
libido of the man and forces it to increase its capacity;
,ith the height of the libido, there is a rise in the overestjmation
of the sexual, which can be present in its
full force only when the woman refuses and denies her
sexuality32
~h~ female child becomes a woman when her clitoris 'acts
like a chip of pl~trwvudwhich is utilized to set fire to the harder
Freud adds that this process takes some time, during
which the 'young wife remains ane~thetic'.~~This anesthesia
become permanent if the clitoris refuses to relinquish its
excitability.The Freudian woman, faced with her phallic partner,
is therefore predisposed to frigidity.
The sexual frigidity of women, the frequency of which
appears to confirm this disregard (the disregard of nature
for the female function) is a phenomenon that is still
insufficiently understood. Sometimes it is psychogenic
and in that case accessible to influence; but in other cases
it suggests the hypothesis of its being constitutionally
determined and even of being a contributory anatomical
factor.35
By contrast with the passive, frigid Freudian female, the
Sexual demands of Imam Ghazali's female appear truly over'elming,
and the necessity for the male to satisfy them
comes a compelling social duty: 'The virtue of the woman is a
3"'s duty. And the man should increase or decrease sexual
tercourse with the woman according to her needs so as to
""e her virtue.'36 The Ghazalian theory directly links the
c u " t ~of the social order to that of the woman's virtue, and
US to the satisfaction of her sexual needs. Social order is
when the woman limits herself to her husband and
'es not create fitna, or chaos, by enticing other men to illicit
tercourse.Imam Ghazali's awe of the overpowering sexual
.]ne ivlu~lirnConcept of Active Female Sexuality 41
demands of the active female appears when he admits hory
difficult it is for a man to satisfy a woman.
If the prerequisite amount of sexual interc~urseneeded b
Ythe woman in order to guarantee her virtue is not assessed
with precision, it is because such an assessment is difficult
to make and difficult to satisfy.37
He cautiously ventures that the man should have intercoune
with the woman as often as he can, once every fournights ifhe
has four wives. He suggests this as a limit, otherwise the
woman's sexual needs might not be met.
It is just for the husband to have sexual intercourse with
his wife every four nights if he has four wives. It is
possible for him to extend the limit to this extreme. Indeed,
he should increase or decrease sexual intercourse accord.
ing to her own needs?*
Freud's and Ghazali's stands on foreplay are directly influenced
by their visions of female sexuality. For Freud, the
emphasis should be on the coital act, which is primarily 'the
union of the genitals',39 and he deemphasizes foreplay as
lying between normal (genital) union and perversion.
which consists '. . . in either an anatomical transgression of the
bodily regions destined for sexual union or a lingering at the
intermediary relations to the sexual object which should normally
be rapidly passed on the way to definite sexual ~nion.'~"
In contrast, Imam Ghazali recommends foreplay, primarily in
the interest of the woman, as a duty for the believer. Since the
woman's pleasure necessitates a lingering at the intermediary
stages, the believer should strive to subordinate his ow*
pleasure, which is served mainly by the genital union.
The Prophet said, 'No one among you should throw himself
on his wife like beasts do. There should be, prior to
coitus, a messenger between you and her.' People asked
him, 'What sort of messenger?' The Prophet answered,
'Kisses and words.'41
The prop1
:ated that one of the weaknesses in a man's
would oe that
he will approach his concubine-slave or his wife and
;hat he will have intercourse with her without having
prior to that been caressing, been tender with her in
words and gestures and laid down beside her for a while,
so that he does not harm her, by using her for his own
,,tisfaction, without letting her get her satisfaction from
him."*
he Fear of Female Sexuality
71ie perception of female aggression is directly influenced by
the theory of women's sexuality. For Freud the female's aggression,
in accordance with her sexual passivity, is turned inward.
She is masochistic.
The suppression of woman's aggressiveness which is pre- \
scribed for them constitutionally and imposed on them
socially favours the development of powerful masochistic
impulses, which succeed, as we know, in binding erotically
the desiructive trends which have been diverted inwards.
Thus masochism, as people say, is truly feminine. But if,
as happens so often, you meet with masochism in men,
what is left for you but to say that these men exhibit very
plainly feminine traits.43
The absence of active sexuality moulds the woman into a
lasochisticpassive being. It is therefore no surprise that in the
:tively sexual Muslim female aggressiveness is seen as turned
utward. The nature of her aggression is precisely sexual. The
Muslimwoman is endowed with a fatal attraction which erodes
the male's will to resist her and reduces him to a passive
role. He has no choice; he can only give in to
her attraction, whence her identification with fitna, chaos, and
lYith the anti-divine and anti-social forces of the universe.
The irony is that Muslim and European theories come to
same conclusion: women are destructive to the social order,
for Imam Ghazali because they are active, for Freud because
they are not.
Different social orders have integrated the tensions between
religion and sexuality in different ways. In the Western Christian
experience sexuality itself was attacked, degraded as animalit
Yand condemned as anti-civilization. The individual was split
into two antithetical selves: the spirit and the flesh, the ego and
the id. The triumph of civilization implied the triumph of soul
over flesh, of ego over id, of the controlled over the uncontrolled,
of spirit over sex.
Islam took a substantially different path. What is attacked and
debased is not sexuality but women, as the embodiment
destruction, the symbol of disorder. The woman is f i h a , the
epitome of the uncontrollable, a living representative of the
dangers of sexuality and its rampant disruptive potential. We
have seen that Muslim theory considers raw instinct as energy
which is likely to be used constructively for the benefit of Allah
and His society if people live according to His laws. Sexuality
per se is not a danger. On the contrary, it has three positive, vital
functions. It allows the believers to perpetuate themselves on
earth, an indispensable condition if the social order is to existat
all. It serves as a 'foretaste of the delights secured for men in
~ a r a d i s e ' , ~ ~thus encouraging men to strive for paradise and to
obey Allah's rule on earth. Finally, sexual satisfaction is necessary
to intellectual effort.
The Muslim theory of sublimation is entirely different from
the Western Christian tradition as represented by Freudian
psychoanalytic theoly. Freud viewed civilization as a War
against sexuality.54Civilization is sexual energy 'turned aside
from its sexual goal and diverted towards other ends, no longer
sexual and socially more valuable'.55 The Muslim theory views
civilization as the outcome of satisfied sexual energy. Work is
the result not of sexual frustration but of a contented and
harmoniously lived sexuality.
The soul is usually reluctant to carry out its duty because
duty [work] is against its nature. If one puts pressures 0'
ih,
me
arr
llfc
ins
so<
ag;
,,,, ...,.Jim Concept of Active Female Sexuality 45
the soul in ordei to make it do what it loathes, the soul
rebels.But if the soul is allowed to relax for some moments
by the means of Some pleasures, it fortifies itself and
becomes after that alert and ready for work again. And in
the woman's company, this relaxation drives out sadness
and the heart. It is advisable for pious souls to
divert themselves by means which are religiously Iawf~1.~"
4ccordingto Ghazali, the most precious gift God gave humans
,,,Son. ~ t sbest use is the search for knowledge. To know the
man environment,to know the earth and galaxies, is to know
d , ~ ~ ~ w l e d g e(science) is the best form of prayer for a
believer. But to be able to devote his energies to
",,,ledge, man has to reduce the tensions within and without
; body, avoid being distracted by external elements, and
.,,,id indulging in earthly pleasures. Women are a dangerous
distraction that must be used for the specific purpose of providing
the Muslim nation with offspring and quenching the
tensions of the sexual instinct. But in no way should women
bc an object of emotional investment or the focus of attention,
which should be devoted to Allah alone in the form of
knowiedge-seeking, meditation, and prayer.
Ghazali's conception of the individual's task on earth is
illuminating in that it reveals that the Muslim message, in spite
of its beauty, considers humanity to be constituted by males
only. Women are considered not only outside of humanity but a
eat to it as well. Muslim wariness of heterosexual involve'"t
is embodied in sexual segregation and its corollaries:
dnged marriage, the'important role of the mother in the son's
', and the fragility of the marital bond (as revealed by the
'itutions of repudiation and polygamy). The entire Muslim
'lal structure can be seen as an attack on, and a defence
""St, the disruptive power of female sexuality.
Reaulntionof Female Sexuality in the Muslim Social Order 47
"
2 A notablepeculiarity of this verse is that the only condition
Regulation of Female Sexuality I. itinga man's right to polygamy is fearof injustice,a subjective
Irn
not easy to define legally. The Moroccan legislators,
in the Muslim Social Order
&ing
lobablyaware of the rather outmoded aspect of polygamy,
'~-L , . c ~ the verse in such a way that the word 'forbidden'Teyll,-"-~
follows 'polygamy', but th; content is identical
~ ~ t .30: If injustice is feared, polygamy is forbidden
It is a widely shared belief among historians in different cultures
that human history is progressive, that human society, in spite
of accidents and setbacks, moves progressively from 'savagery
to 'civilization'. Islam too has a progressive vision of history
The year 622, the hijra, is the year one of civilization. Before the
hijra was jahiliya, the time of barbarism, the time of ignorance.'
Islam maintains that one of the dimensions of society in which
there was progress is human se~uality.~Under jahiliya sexuality
was promiscuous, lax, and uncontrolled, but under Islam it
obeys ~ l e s .The specific, unique code of Islam's law outlaws
fornication as a crime. But what is peculiar about Muslim
sexuality as civilized sexuality is this fundamental discrepancy.
if promiscuity and laxity are signs of barbarism, then only
women's sexuality was civilized by Islam; male sexuality is
promiscuous (by virtue of polygamy) and lax (by virtue 0'
~ e ~ u d i a t i o n ) . ~This contradiction is evident in both seventh.
century family legislation and the modem Moroccan Code.
Polygamy
Decree No. 2-57-1040 of August 1957 charged a commission of
ten men with the elaboration of a Muslim Moroccan code "'
law, the Muduwana,or Code du Statut Personnel.These ten men *
enacted polygamy, whose basis is a famous verse of the Kora"
Many bf the women who seem good to you, two, three,"'
four, and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice [to so man\"
. .,
~ h j ~echoes verse 129 of the fourth sura: 'You cannot be
perfectly equitable to all your wives, even if you so desire.'
~h~ Koran does not provide a justification for polygamy, but
~hazalidoes. According to him, polygamy is based on instinct.
Ghazali's justification clearly reveals the flaw in the Muslim
theory of sexuality, and provides one of the most telling insights
into the problem that modern Morocco, as a Muslim society, is
obliged to solve. Polygamy entitles the male noF simply to
satisfy his sexuality, but to indulge it to saturation without
taking women's needs into consideration, women being considered
simply 'agents' in the process.
Once the agent [of sexual excitation] is known, the remedy
should be adapted to its intensity and degree, the aim
being to relieve the soul from tension. One can decide for
a greater number [of women] or a lesser number. ..for
the man burdened with a strong sexual desire and for
whom one woman is not enough to guarantee his chastity
[chastityfor a mamed person being abstention from zinn,
fomicationl, it is recommended that he add to the first
wife,others. The total should not exceed, however, four.4
?olygamy implies that a man's sexual drive might require
COPulati.onwith more than one partner to relieve his soul (and
body) fromsexual tension. Elsewhere Ghazali implies that there
IS "0 difference of character between male and female sex
Thus he unintentionally acknowledges a latent reason
for
reluctant attitude towards the Muslim order.
Menand women are considered to have similar instinctuald?{.,-.
tnen one lonlyl. . . ..vCb, Yet men are entitled to as many as four partners to
satisfy those drives, while women must content the
mSel~plwith at most one man, and sometimes as little as a quarter
one. Since saturation of the sexual impulse for males re
quirespolygamy, one can speculate that fear of its inverse,
onewoman with four husbands-might explain the assumption oi
women's insatiability, which is at the core of the M~~~~~
concept of female sexuality. Since Islam assumes that a sexually
frustrated individual is a very problematic believer and a
troublesome citizen of the ummn, the distrust of women
whose sexual frustration is organized institutionally, is
greater.
Polygamy also has a psychological impact on the self-esteem
of men and women. It enhances men's perception of themselves
as primarily sexual beings and emphasizes the sexual nature of
the conjugal unit. Moreover, polygamy is a way for the man to
humiliate the woman as a sexual being; it expresses he,
inability to satisfy him. For Moroccan folk wisdom, this
function of polygamy as a device to humiliate the woman is
evident: 'Debase a woman by bringing in [the house] another
one.'5
The verse of the Koran justifying polygamy also grants men
the right, without any condition or limit, to possess as many
concubines as 'your right hand possess'. But the Moroccan
legislators, taking into account the budget difficulties of the
contemporary believer, said nothing about the institution of
concubinage, which died out in Morocco with the disappearance
of female slavery at the beginning of the twentieth century, (My
grandmother was kidnapped in Chaouia plain, sold in Fez, and
bore my mother as a concubine to a member of the landowning
urban bourgeoisie, then politically and financially powerful.
This group was the main buyer of female slaves for decades
after the French occupation in 1912.)
Repudiation
Though polygamy is mentioned only once in the Koran, repudiation
is the subject of many long and detailed verses. Those
most commonly referred to are in the second sura.
Of Female Sexuality in the Musliirr Social Order qq
R44
verse 2;
if ye decide upon divorce [remember that]
Allah is nrac., knower.
Verse 229: Divorce must be pronounced twice, and then a
must be retained in honour or released in kindness.
legally speaking, the most significant reference to the
Of repudiation is probably verse 20 of the fourth
s1ITarwhich reveals the basic capriciousness of the male decision
the marital bond.
~~d if ye wish to exchange one wife for another and ye
have given into one of them a sum of money (however
p a t ) take nothing from it.
~h~ words 'wish' and 'exchange' are the key elements in the
Muslim institution of verbal repudiation, whose characteristic is
\he unconditional right of the male to break the marriage bond
without any justification, and without having his decisions
reviewed by a court or a judge. In reenacting the seventhcentury
institution, the Moroccan Code limits the judge's role
simply to registering the husband's decision.
Art. 46: Repudiation can be performed either verbally or
in writing, or by signs and gestures if the husband is an
illiterate man, or deprived of the capacity of speech.
Art. 80: The adouls [Muslim court officials]issue a repudiation
act as soon as they are asked to do so.
Like polygamy, repudiation has an instinctual basis, but
whereas polygamy deals with the intensity of the male's sexual
drive, repudiation deals with its instability. Repudiation prethe
male from losing his sexual appetite through boredom.
It aims at ensuring a supply of new sexual objects, within the
frameworkof marriage, to protect him against the temptation of
:Ilia.
If God by His goodness and grace facilitates man's life [by
allowing him to be and that man attains thus
the peace of heart by them [women], that is good. 11 not,
the changing process is re~ommended.~
This recommendation was acted upon by Such exemplary
men as Hasan, the Prophet's grandson.
It has been said that Hasan Ibn Ali was a marriage addict,
He married 200 wives. Sometimes he'd marry four a t ,
time; he'd repudiate four at a time and many new one,,
Muhammad (benediction and salvation upon him) said to
Hasan, 'You resemble me physically and morally.'. . . 1,
has been said that this proclivity to marry is often pre.
cisely one of the similarities between Hasan and the
messenger of God (benediction and salvation upon him).'
The somewhat ridiculous aspect of repudiation did
escape Allah himself, who warned the believer entrusted with
the power to break the marital bond with a mere spoken
formula not to make 'the revelations of Allah a laughing-stock
[by your behaviour]."
The right to polygamy and repudiation granted exclusivelyto
males seems to have been an innovation in seventh-century
Arabia. Historical evidence indicates that earlier marriage
patterns had been more varied and less codified. Some forms
of marriage implied that the woman had a right to selfdetermination
in choosing a husband or dismissing him.
Indeed, the Prophet himself, despite his powerful attraction as
a triumphant military leader and successful statesman, Was
himself faced with female sexual self-determination. He was
solicited in marriage by many women and was rejected by
many as well.
The Prophet's life is not a simple historical document in
Islam. The detailed record of his thoughts and deeds is, afterthe
Koran, which is the word of God, the prime source of the
teachings that shape and guide the believer's life. The prophet"
dlife is an example of how a Muslim should deal with and fin
solutions to his daily problems. \It is the guiding light for
overcoming obstacles according& the Muslim ideal.
,,l,~a,;nn of Fernnle Scxufliity in the Muslim Socinl Order gr
It1A
,.he prophet's Experience
of ~ ~ ~ ~ l eSelf-Determination
prophet'smarital life seems to be symbolic of the transition
was undergoing. He lived for 62 years (born AD 570 of
iIleChristian calendar, he died in 632). He married for the first
in the year 595 and with his first wife, Khadija, had a
time
n,onogamousmarriage that lasted twenty-five years, until her
deathin 620. It was only then that the Prophet started a new
,,,ital life, and in a span of twelve years (620-632) he married
lm.elve women, arranged three other marriages which did not
,,lace, and rejected several femalesuitors who asked for his
hand,or rather 'offered themselves', according to the consecrated
Muslim formula.4
The first woman who asked to marry him was his first wife,
Khadija Bint Khuwalid, a wealthy and active woman of the
Quraish tribe who invested her fortune in the trade caravans
then flourishing in Mecca. She employed Muhammad to accompany
one of her caravans and was so impressed by his trustworthiness
that she decided to marry him. He was then twentyfiveyears
old, and it was his first marriage. She was forty, and it
was her third. She bore all his children (four daughters and two
sons who died young), except for Ibrahim, the son of Maria,
his Coptic c o n ~ u b i n e . ' ~
Among the women who offered themselves to the Prophet were
Umm Sharik, whose proposal he did not accept, and Leila Bint alKhatim,whose
proposal he did accept. But the latter maniage did
not take place, because Leila was discouraged by her tribe. Her
people convinced her that her proud temperament was illSuitedfor
the accommodations a polygamous maniage requires.
The lack of ritual surrounding such a move by a woman is
''lustratedby a dialogue between the Prophet and Leila.
She came to the Prophet (upon him Allah's peace and
Prayer), who was sitting talking to another man, and who
did not see her coming, until he felt her hand on him. He
said, 'Who are you?' She said, 'I am Leila Bint al-Khatim. I
yome to you to offer myself. Will you marry me?' He said,
1 arcent.,11
,,latlon of Female Sexuality in the Muslim Social Order 53
R d
For a woman to decide to initiate a sexual union
eem~Inhave been a casual gesture made by the woman herself,withou,
reference to her father or male relatives. Although
k,;discouraged her marriage, they did so not as authorities, but
aspersuasive counsellors concerned about her well-being She
decided not to marry the Prophet not because she was
but because she was convinced by their argument aboutth;
Prophet's other wives and her inability to cope with them,
Hiba ('the act by which a woman gives herself to a man'] .,,
outlawed after the Prophet died.'* If he was the last Arab ma, lo
be chosen freely by women, he was also probably the last to be
repudiated by them.
There were several women with whom the Prophet contrpkd
marriages that were never cons~mmated.'~In three cases the
marriage was broken by a repudiation formula pronounced
the woman. Some reports say that she repeated the formula
three times. (This makes it look identical to the repudiation
formula institutionalized by Islam as a man's privilege: if thp
man pronounces it three times, the divorce is definite; if he
pronounces it once or twice only, the marital bond is suspended
for some weeks, after which the husband can resume his
marriage.)
Every time the formula was pronounced by the woman, the
Prophet covered his face with his sleeve, left the nuptial room
and asked for the woman to be returned to her tribe immediately.
It appears that repudiation, like hiba, was characterized
by a lack of ritual, which leads me to think that it was a rather
common occurrence.
When she [Asma Bint al-Numan] entered the room where
he Ithe Prophet] was, he closed the door and released the
curtain. When he thrust his hand towards her, she said,']
take refuge in Allah from thee.' The Prophet immediately
covered his head with his sleeve and said, 'You are
granted such a protection', three times. He then left her
and gave orders for her to be returned to her tribe.''
Similar incidents happened with Mulaika Bint Ka'ab and
Fatima Bint al-5)ahhak.lS
fferent I
gullible
the Sam
.... ...she
dic
At least
?. ., .
?arly sixtit
ious. For
tribe, l9 t
)re than
ur is sec
. ..
h a won
behavio
Ian pror
Muslim
give many versions of the motives that led
three
to behave as they did. The most common
theynationis that the three of them, who all belonged to tribes
exp a
jiiferent from that of the Prophet, were deceived by their co-
16 ~h~ Quraishite wives of the Prophet (led of course by
,,.ji'es.
Aisha,the indefatigable, vivacious beloved of the Prophet),
ihreatenedby the three women's beauty and exoticism, inqtructedthe
newcomers to pronounce the formula 'so that the
&,Ret would love them more'. Victims of deceit, according to
these versions, the three tribal women were surprised by the
prophet's reaction.
I these rather heavy-handed versions of the story are
,lie work of Muslim historians who thought it necessary to
,iisguise the embarrassing fact that the Prophet had been rejectedand
'repudiated'. It is hard to believe that three women,
from di :ribes and with different personalities, were
cqually and. equally easily deceived by their rivals in
cxactly I e way. Once perhaps. But three times? One
report sdys explicitly that the woman rejected the Prophet
because 1 not like him.17 This is a much more likely
reason. two of the women, Asma and Mulaika, were
famousror rnelr beauty.18 They were young. The Prophet was
in his f es, and-a very important point-he was
polygam women like Asma, who was herself from a
princely he Prophet's prestige as a leader would not
make him vew aesirable if what he had to give her was shared
with mc nine colleagues. But the explanation of their
behavio :ondary here. What we are interested in is the
factthat in tne Prophet's time there was a customary formula
by whic ?an could dismiss her husband. The Prophet's
phobic u r (having to leave her immediately) after
the won ~ouncedthe formula shows that this was so.
If a woman could dismiss her husband at will, then she
possessed substantial independence and self-determination.
The Muslim social order was vehemently opposed to selfdeterminationfor
women and declared that only men could
"pudiate their spouses.
The fear of female self-determination is basic to the Muslim
Order and is closely linked to fear of fifna. If women are not
R ~ ~ ~ U I"lion of Female Sexuality in the Muslim Social Order 55
constrained, then men are faced with an irresistible Sexual
attraction that inevitably leads to fitna and chaos by driving
them to zina, illicit copulation. The Prophet's own experience
Of
the corrosive attraction of female sexuality underlies much
the Muslim attitude towards women and sexuality. Fear
succumbing to the temptation represented by women's sexual
attraction-a fear experienced by the Prophet himself,
accounts for many of the defensive reactions to women by
Muslim society.
The Prophet's Experience of the Irresistible
Attraction of Women
The Prophet's interactions with women, his intimate quarrels
with his wives, his behaviour with the women heloved, are the
basis for many legal features of the Muslim family structure.
One of the striking aspects of his interaction with women is the
contradiction between the ideals he preached as a model for
Muslim believers when dealing with women and the way he
actually dealt with them himself. One of those ideals is what
should motivate a man to many.
The Prophet said that the woman can be married for her
religion [Muslim faith], for her fortune, or her beauty. Be
motivated in your choice by her religion.*'
Although many of his marriages were motivated by religious
and political considerations (politics, after all, is religion in
Islam), such as the need for tribal alliances, many of them Were
motivated solely by the woman's beauty.
His marriage to the Jewish woman Safiya Bint Huyay could
not possibly have been motivated by the need for an alliance,
the Jews being his defeated enemies at the time. Moreover,
when Safiyawas captured by Muslim soldiers after the defeatoi
her people, it was not evident that she, as part of the booty,
would fall to Muhammad since booty was shared according to
the democratic, customary rules of Arab raiding. One report
but
mentions that Safiya was allotted to a soldier called Dahla
the Prophet heard of her 'incomparable beauty' he
that "hen
for Dahia, paid him Safiya's price, and freed her before
e n t .*,-
marr).ingher-"
His marriage to another Jewish woman, Rayhana Bint zayd,
not have been motivated by alliance either. Like Safiya,
con
she to a Jewish tribe, was captured after her people's
and was known to be 'a beautiful woman'.22 But unlike
,,her marital Status is contested; some reports say that sheSafly
was kept as a concubine and never became a wife of the
prophet~~~i~
the Copt, a famous beauty, was given as a gift from
E ~ ~ ~ !to the Prophet.23 He had intercourse with her as a
and she bore him a son, Ibrahim, who died in
,,,fancy.The Prophet's desire for Maria was so strong that it
led him to violate another of his ideals: that a man should be
just in his dealings with his wives. A man should keep strictly
to the rotation schedule and not have intercourse with a wife,
even if he so desired, if it was not her day. Hafsa, one of the
Prophet's wives, however, caught him having intercourse with
Maria in Safiya's room on Safiya's day. '0 Prophet of God, in
my room and on my day!' fulminated Safiya angrily. Afraid of
the anger of his other wives, and especially of his most beloved
Aisha, he promised Hafsa never to touch Maria again if she
would keep the incident secret.24But she spoke out, and the
Prophet received orders from God to retract his promise; he
then resumed relations with Maria.25 Maria's power over the
Prophet is best described in Aisha's words:
1 never was as jealous as I was of Maria. That is because
she was a very beautiful, curly-haired woman. The
Prophet was very attracted to her. In the beginning, she
was living near us and the Prophet spent entire days and
nights with her until we protested and she became
frightened26
The Prophet then decided to transfer Maria to a more secure
far from his legitimate wives, and kept seeing her in
'Pite of their pressure.
&Other woman the Prophet married for her beauty (although
56
in this case alliance was a motive as well) was Juwariya BintalHarith
who was, according to Aisha's description, 'so beautifu,
that whoever caught a glimpse of her fell in love with her,,?;
According to Aisha, the main motive of the Prophet's marria
to Juwariya was physical atlraction. gi.
The Prophet was in my room when Juwariya came to ask
him about a contract. By God, I hated her when I saw he,
coming towards him. I knew that he was going to see what
I saw [her beauty].2"
Another instance of the effect of female beauty on the Prophe,
was that of Dubaa Bint Amr, who 'was among the most beautiful
of Arab women. . . . Her hair was long enough to cover all her
body."9 The Prophet heard of her beauty, went to her son,and
asked him if he could marry his mother. The son, following the
custom in such instances, told the Prophet that he would have
to ask his mother's opinion. He did, and she was so excited
about the prospect of such a union that she told her son that he
should have given her in marriage right away, that it was
impolite of him to have placed any condition on the Prophet's
legitimate desire. But when the son went to the Prophet with
the hope that the subject of his mother would be discussed, the
Prophet never brought it up again. He had heard meanwhile
that although she was indeed beautiful, she was also ageing.
But the most significant example of women's irresistible
power over the Prophet is probably his sudden (and scandalous,
by his own people's standards) passion for Zainab Bint
jahsh," the wife of his adopted son Zaid. In ~uhammad's
Arabia, the link created by adoption was considered identical
to blood-ties. Moreover, Zainab was the Prophet's own cousin,
and the Prophet himself had arranged her marriage with his
adopted son.
One morning Muhammad went to his adopted son's house to
ask after him. When he saw Zainab, who was half-dressed, he
felt an irresistible passion for her. She had hurried to the door
to let the Prophet know that her husband was not in. She
surprised when he declined her invitation to come in, and
instead ran off, mumbling prayers. When she reported the
Reglr~ationof Female Sexuality in the Muslim Social Order 57
i,,~ide,,t to her husband, he went to his adopted father to say
,as prepared to divorce Zainab if the Prophet wanted to
thatmarryheher. The Prophet refused Zaid's proposition until God
vealedhjs order to Muhammad to marry Zainab.
re
. . . And thou didst hide in thy mind that which Allah was
to bring to light, and thou didst fear mankind whereas
~ l l ~ hhad a better right that thou shouldst fear Him. So
when Zaid had performed the necessary formality [of
divorce] from her, We have her unto thee in marriage, so
that [henceforth] there may be no sin for believers in
respect to wives of their adopted sons, when the latter
have performed the necessary formality [of release] from
them. The commandment of Allah must be f~lfilled.~'
T~ calm the scandalized clamour of the Prophet's contemporaries,
the Muslim God made a lasting change in the institution
of adoption. Verse four of the thirty-third sura denied
that adoption creates legal and relational ties between individuals.
Article 83 of the Moroccan Code reenacted the Koran's
decision: 'Adoption confers neitherlegal status nor the rights of
parenthood.'
It should be noted here that the Muslim Prophet's heroism
?snot lie in any relation of aggression, conquest, or exercise
brute force against women, but on the contrary in his vulability.
It is because he is vulnerable, and therefore human,
that his example has exerted such power over generations of
believers. The Prophet was anything but macho in today's
Senseof behaving as a conqueror of women in the way described
Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad, the sole respectable masculine
'Ole in the Muslim Mediterranean today. The Prophet's be'laviOur
leads us to recognize the complexity of masculine
He achieved his colossal task on earth not because he
was outstandingly aggressive and rigid, but because he was
vulnerableand able to recognize his vulnerability, to acknowledge
it and take it into account. The most striking example of
is his admission of his overwhelming love for Aisha, who
was not Yet eighteen years old when he died in his sixties.
The Prophet was s:riving to achieve justice between hi,
wives in whatever he gave them and he dutifully respecte;
the rotation system [one night each], but he used t
O say,'God, this is as faras I can go in controlling my incIinati
ons.I have no power over what you own and I don't jmeanin
ghis heart].' Aisha was the one he loved the most and
hisother wives knew that."'
The power of women over men has dictated many of
Muslim laws concerning marriage. Men have a right to sexual
satisfaction from their wives so that they will be less vulnerable
to the attraction of other women. And women must be sexuallv
satisfied so that they do not hy to tempt other men to fornication,
The Need to Ensure Sexual Satisfaction
Sexual satisfaction for both partners is seen as necessary to
prevent adultery. For example muhsan, which means 'to protect',
legally means both 'marriage' and 'chastity', because a married
person should be 'protected' from adultery by satisfying his
desires within the marriage. Under penal law, the muhsan
receives a harsher punishment than an unmarried person who
commits illicit sexual interc~urse.~~
The word zina means illicit intercourse-'any sexual intercourse
between two persons who are not in a state of legal
matrimony or concubinage.'" Zina covers both fornication
(involving unmarried people) and adultery (involving at least
one manied individual, a muhsan). Before Islam, zina was not
considered a sin, a crime against religion. With Islam, it became
a crime against God, His laws, and the established order.
Zina was one of the practices the Muslim recruits were
required to renounce. The ritual by which new female converts
were admitted into the Muslim community included a pledge
to respect the six demands known as the woman's oath of
allegiance.
0 Prophet! If believing women come unto thee, taking
oath of allegianc,e unto thee that they (1) will ascribe
Of Female Sexuality in the Muslim Social Order 59
Pr'VlII..'.
as partner unto Allah, and will (2)neither steal, (3)
commitzina, (4) nor kill their children, (5)nor produce
nor
lie that they have devised between their hands and
any
feet (6)nor disobey thee in what is right, then accept their
o e and ask Allah to forgive them35 [numbers
As a pru,,ctive device against zina, marriage is highly
,,ended to believers of both sexes. A sexually frustratedreC0
her of the community is considered dangerous. This is the
rue,
main reason Why Islam is opposed to asceticism and requires
belie,,ers with pious and saintly vocations to acquire pious
,,.ives.Abstinence and celibacy are vehemently dis~ouraged.~~
4t,ka ~ i n tZaid, a woman who decided to live as a celibate after
her husband's death, was discouraged from doing so by the
caliphUmar, who went so far as to propose marriage to her.37
[slam socializes sexual intercourse through the institution of
marriage within the framework of the family.The only legitimate
sexual intercourse is between married people. Marriage should
guarantee sexual satisfaction for husband and wife and protect
both partners against seeking satisfaction outside it. The institution
of marriage penalizes the husband or the wife who fails
to provide sex*.~alservices for his or her spouse.
If the wife refuses to have intercourse with her husband she
is penalized both on earth and in heaven. The Prophet, according
to Imam Bukhari, said a woman 'who is asked by her
husband to join him in bed and refuses to do so is condemned
by the angels who hurl anathema on her until the daybreak.'38
Although having savage swarms of angels set against one is a
'ather unsettling thought, the most effectivedevice for bringing
the woman to respond sexually to her husband is material.
Muslimlaw grants the husband whose wife refuses his advances
lhe right tc withhold maintenance (food, clothing and lodging),
whichit is normally his duty to provide. The 1958 Moroccan
Code safe~uardsthis right for male citizens.
Article 123: The non-pregnant woman who abandons the
conjugal community or refuses to have sexual intercourse
with her husband may retain her right to maintenance but
the judge has the right to suspend her right to maintenanre
if he commands the woman to return to the conjug,,
abode or to regain the conjugal bed and she refuses to
obey. She has no right of appeal against the Judge,$
decision as long as she does not execute his order.
The availability of sexual intercourse is vital to the man.s
protection against zina because, as we have seen from the
Prophet's example, the only way to resist another woman,$
illicit attraction is to rush to your wife.
This need to protect the man is probably the reason why
even though menstruation is defined as polluting," a husband
is allowed to approach his menstruating wife so long as he
avoids penetration. Imam Ghazali explains that the husband
can ask his wife to cover her body between the navel and the
knee with a cloth and to masturbate him with her hand^.^
Parallel to the protection of the man against the wife's whimsical
or biological obstacles, there are many legal devices to
ensure the woman's sexual satisfaction by her husband. Although
the right of the woman to ask the judge to pronounce a
divorce is limited to a very few grounds, sex is one of them. The
woman has the right to ask the judge to initiate divorce if she
can testify that her husband is impotent. While Malik decided
that the woman should wait one year before asking for a
divorce on these the modem Moroccan legislators
thought it an urgent matter and urged the judge to respond
immediately by releasing the woman if she files for divorce o*
grounds of her husband's impotenceA2
Another form of divorce justified by lack of sexual satisfaction
is ila. If the husband makes an oath to abstain from having
sexual intercourse with his wife for fourmonths and if he keeps
his oath, she can demand a divorce from the judge.43 The
Moroccan Code reenacted ila in Article 58, which identifiesit as
a legitimate basis upon which a woman can initiate divorce
proceedings (al-tatliq).
The compelling duty to provide sexual satisfaction is inteuigible
only if one is reminded of the fear of unrestrained femalesexualiv'
Curbing active female sexuality, preventing femalesexual
determination, is the basis of many of Islam's family institutions'
of Female Sexuality in the Muslim Social Order 61
Remnantsof Pre-Muslim Sexual Practices
T,.o techniques of divorce that have survived in Muslim marriages
are reminiscent of female self-determination under
,,i,,,,,,,although the woman's power to dissolve her marriage
to the judge's decision and approval. The
,, techniques are tamlik and khul', both of which can be
,,,,idered as survivals of, or transitional compromises with,
former freedom in marriage contracts.
The techniques of tamlik confer upon the wife the power to
divorce her husband if he delegates such power to her. The
pdiation formula, 'I divorce thee', becomes 'I divorce thee
henever thou decides it'.
Imam Malik explains the logic of this technique: 'If a man
ves his wife the right to self-determination (mallakaha ammha),
hatever she decides becomes legally binding.'44If she decides
leave him, there is nothing he can do about it. He recounts
e dialogue between a Muslim judge and a Muslim husband
tinfully surprised to see his wife use the power he had
,legated to her.
The man: I gave my wife the right to self-determination
and she divorced me. What do you think?
Thc judge:l think that what she did is perfectly legal.
The man: Please do not do that [i.e., agree with her
against me].
Ige: I did not do that, you did it.4sThe jud
The tamlik procedure was not reenacted in the 1958Moroccan
de, which specifies that 'repudiation subordinated to a con:'On
is v a l ~ e l e s s ' . ~The tamlik had subordinated repudiation
the wife's approval. The technique of tamlik is interesting
~i the mechanisms and concepts involved in it, especiallythe
concept of self-determination as something that can
be transferredfrom the man to the woman. It expressed the idea
lhat the Woman's freedom of decision is not an inseparable
of the husband, but can be the object of bargaining
betiveer,the spouses.
KJ7ui literally means ,to cast off'. Legally it refers to the
the judge has the right to suspend her right to maintenan,,
if he commands the woman to retum to the conjugai
abode or to regain the conjugal bed and she refuses to
obey. She has no right of appeal against the Judge,$
decision as long as she does not execute his order.
The availability of sexual intercourse is vital to the man.s
protection against zina because, as we have seen from
Prophet's example, the only way to resist another woman,s
illicit attraction is to rush to your wife.
This need to protect the man is probably the reason why,
even though menstruation is defined as p~lluting,"~a husband
is allowed to approach his menstruating wife so long as he
avoids penetration. Imam Ghazali explains that the husband
can ask his wife to cover her body between the navel and the
knee with a cloth and to masturbate him with her hands?"
Parallel to the protection of the man against the wife's whimsical
or biological obstacles, there are many legal devices to
ensure the woman's sexual satisfaction by her husband. Although
the right of the woman to ask the judge to pronounce a
divorce is limited to a very few grounds, sex is one of them. The
woman has the right to ask the judge to initiate divorce if she
can testify that her husband is impotent. While Malik decided
that the woman should wait one year before asking for a
divorce on these ground^,^' the modem Moroccan legislatofi
thought it an urgent matter and urged the judge to respond
immediately by releasing the woman if she files for divorceon
grounds of her husband's impotence?'
Another form of divorce justified by lack of sexual satisfadon
is ila. If the husband makes an oath to abstain from having
sexual intercourse with his wife for four months and if he keeps
his oath, she can demand a divorce from the The
Moroccan Code reenacted ila in Article 58, which identifies it as
a legitimate basis upon which a woman can initiate divorce
proceedings (al-tatliq).
The compelling duty to provide sexual satisfaction is inteWble
only if one is reminded of the fearof unrestrained female sexudv
Curbing active female sexuality, preventing female sexual selfdetermination,
is the basis of many of Islam's family institutions.
ReC,l/ationof Female Sexuality in the Muslim social Order 61
of Pre-Muslim Sexual Practices
.r,o techniques of divorce that have survived in Muslim marriag,,
are reminiscent of female self-determination under
,,,,,,li~~,,although the woman's power to dissolve her marriage
to the judge's decision and approval. The
(,,., techniques are famlik and khul', both of which can be
,,,sidered as survivals of, or transitional compromises with,
,,.omen,s former freedom in marriage contracts.
The techniques of lamlik confer upon the wife the power to
divorce her husband if he delegates such power to her. The
repudiation formula, 'I divorce thee', becomes '1 divorce thee
&&eneverthou decides it'.
Imam Pvlalik explains the logic of this technique: 'If a man
gives his wife the right to self-determination (mallakaha ammha),
whatever she decides becomes legally binding.'44If she decides
to leave him, there is nothing he can do about it. He recounts
the dialogue between a Muslim judge and a Muslim husband
painfully surprised to see his wife use the power he had
delegated to her.
Pri
be
The man: I gave my wife the right to self-determination
and she divorced me. What do you think?
The judge: 1think that what she did is perfectly legal.
The man: Please do not do that li.e., agree with her
against me].
The judge: 1did not do that, you did it.45
The tamlik procedure was not reenacted in the 1958Moroccan
'dz, which specifies that 'repudiation subordinated to a conlion
is ~alueless'.~~The tamlik had subordinated repudiation
'he wife's approval. The technique of famlik is interesting
'=use ~f the mechanisms and concepts involved in it, esthe
concept of self-determination as something that can
transferredfrom the man to the woman. It expressed the idea
Itthe woman's freedom of decision is not an inseparable
'"'lege of the husband, but can be the object of bargaining
tweenthe spouses.
"'u" literally means 'to cast off'. Legally it refers to the
husband's renouncing his rights over the woman as a wife ail,,
she has agreed to pay him a certain sum of money to buy h
dom. Imam Malik mentions that it was practised in the p erhep.
'OPhertime.47The buying of a woman's freedom is often used in
in which it is evidently the woman's fault that the marriage
not working. A price is negotiated between the husband
the woman's family and is paid to the unlucky husband, and
Schacht sees kkul'as 'an exchange ofassets'. 4* It seems to be&
fair practice by which everybody gets something: the woman
her freedom and the man compensation for his loss. B U ~it is
i easy to imagine the corruption of such a practice into a weapon
I1
to oppress women. If a wife has a fortune of her own or comes
1:
from a wealthy family, the man may make life so miserable to,
her that she will have to 'buy herself' back from him.
I Such cases must have been quite frequent, because Malik
warns that if it is established that the woman was coerced b,,
her husband, the judge should free her and the husband should
not be granted i n d e m n i ~ a t i o n . ~ ~The Moroccan Code institu.
tionalizes the khul' technique in Articles 58 and 61. Article 63
, ,
warns, 'The husband shall acquire compensation only if the
' i ~ I,(!l wife has consented to obtain her divorce without coercion or
i:I ' ~ , l ~I I,I constraint.'
,f Female Sexuality in the Muslim Social Order 63
RtR,ilnfion
,im belief. The child born in wedlock belongs to the
tile lvZus even if he is not the biological father. A pregnant
husband>,man is assumed to have been impregnated by her
flarlatd, and the child belongs to him;_
hu5 dea that a woman impregnated by a believer would
The lin intercourse with another believer, even in the frameengage,,,ark
of rnarriage, became sacrilege: 'Whoever believes in Allah
,:, the other world would not allow his sperm to water
an0 "' '~
otherman's ~hild.'~'
an
A
who is pregnant is therefore forbidden to enter into
new marriage until she gives birth to the child: 'For those
with child, the waiting period shall be till they bring
1'.
forththeir burden.'5z
ensured physical paternity by instituting the idda
period,which obliges a widowed or divorced woman to wait
..~eral menstrual cycles before getting married again.53-.. -~
widows are required to wait four months and ten days,
divorcees four months.54
The Moroccan Code reenacts the idda just as it was established
~n the Koran and adopted by Malik. Article 72 forbids a pregnant
woman to many before her child's birth. Article 73 obliges
the repudiated wife to wait three consecutive menstrual flows
Tamlik and khul' are remnants of women's sexual self- befor; e < t g d g ~ ~ t ~in a new marital union. But further measures
determination before Islam. But most other features of pre- are taken, in specific cases, to plug any loopholes in the system
Muslim sexual practices were stamped out by the rules regu- of paternity.
lating Muslim marriages. Before Islam, for example, women Even menopausal women do not go unchecked. On the off
frequently remarried as soon as they were divorced. If pregnanl chance that they can still conceive, they have to wait three
by their first husband, the child was considered to belong to the months before seeking a new husband (Article 73). Given the
second husband." Physical paternity was regarded as un- 8 volatile tendencies of marriage markets in Muslim society and
important. Under Islam physical paternity was essential, $0 their competitiveness (due precisely to repudiation, which
women were forbidden to remarry until several months had makes available a greater number of marriageable women than
passed and it became evident that they were not pregnant b? demography alone would), the idda constitutes a rather harsh
their previous husband. Penalty for all newly divorced women and in particular for
menopausal women who have the further disadvantage of
Idda: The Muslim Guarantee of Paternity
beingmiddle-aged in a society in which youth is avidly prized.
The penalizing aspect of the idda appears even more clearly in
the case of women whose menstrual flow is irre~ularor who-
1 ' ;611 haveno flow at all. On this point there is a significant differenceOne of the first definitions of paternity in Arabia was the
I i/l,'l proverb, 'the child belongs to the bed', a succinct statement of betweenthe Koran and the leader of the Malekite school. The
I , Ii 11
Moroccan Code emulates the latter. While the Koran requires
only a three-month waiting period for those 'who despair
m e n s t r u a t i ~ n ' ~ ~or have doubts about its regularity,
Malik penalizes those two groups with a waiting per. man
i twelve months.56Article 73 of the Moroccan Codr also skipl0d of
that 'women whose menstrual flow is late or irregular, ulates
Or Whocannot distinguish between one menstrual flow and the folloh,
ing, should wait an idda period of twelve months.'
The new social structure of Islam, which constituted a revo.
lution in the mores of pre-Islamic Arabia, was based on male
dominance. Polygamy, repudiation, the prohibition ofzina, and
the guarantees of paternity were all designed to foster
transition from a family based on some degree of female self.
determination to a family based on male control. The Prophet
saw the establishment of the male-dominated Muslim familyas
crucial to the establishment of Islam. He bitterly foughtexisting
sexual practices where marital unions for men and women alike
were unstable and lax.
3
Sex and Marriage
Before Islam
Marriage on thc .,.--f Islam
The marriage practices of the first Muslim communities, richly
documentedby sources, provide much information about
the sexual practices that prevailed in pre-Islamic Arabia. But the
*,calthof infomation contained in Arab documentation highli%hts
the paucity of analysis of the data.
ideological biases have often inhibited more audacious
analyticalefforts. Historians dealing with these problems are
&en so deeply imbued with centuries of monotheistic patriarchy
that they find it impossible even to imagine that the
situation on the eve of Islam was far more complex than the
system later consolidated by Islam. The important thing is not
whether a patriarchal or matriarchal system held sway in preIslamic
Arabia; the real question is rather to discover which
sexual practices Islam forbade and which it encouraged. It is by
re@acingIslam's selective attitude toward jahiliya sexual practices
that we may grasp the new religion's stance toward relations
between the sexes. That is my object here.
The point, then, is not patriarchy or matriarchy, but to what
the Muslim family represented a continuation of the preIslamic
family. Was there a radical break with the practices and
Principlesc: the old family or not?
It is interesting to note the sharp differences of opinion on
thismatter among various historians depending on the era in
whichthey wrote. Historians of the first few centuries of Islam
generally exhibited a far more open and flexible attitude than
Iheirfavq,ormodern colleagues. Early Islamic historians like Bukhari
of the Sahih), Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi (Kitab al-
Muhabbar), and lbn Saad (Kitnb al-Takabat) held that th
Muslim family marked a break with earlier practices, Th c
acknowledged that the patriarchal marriage endorsed by Isla:
had been paralleled by many other forms of union that werr
clearly anti-patriarchal: there were unions in which the child
did not belong to the biological father (and even polyandrous
marriages in which the woman had more than one
sexual partner), and there were unions in which the woman had
an absolute right to send her husband away if she so desired,
severing the marital bond with a ritual gesture as simple
as lowering a veil across the mouth of her tent when she no
longer wished her husband to enter. But all these practices,
though amply documented, were subsequently prohibited by
Islam.
The rigidity with which modern Arab historians refuse to
admit, even at the level of pure analysis, that customs expres.
sing female sexual self-determination could have existed is
truly fascinating. The most extreme case is perhaps Salah
Ahmad al-'Ali. Although he has collected abundant evidence
about pre-Islamic sexual customs (and his knowledge of both
Arab documents, and documents and studies unearthed by
orientalists is erudite) that proves the existence of unions in
which the woman's sexual self-determination was absolute and
unchallengeable, he asserts that 'bedouin society was organized
according to the patrimonial system in which the man had
power and authority over the woman, the children before
puberty, and the household." He claims that mut'a and
mubada'a marriages were considered deviant practices (skaddah)
during the pre-Islamic period (see Bukhari's comments on PreIslamic
marriages later in this chapter).'
I have read the same Arab sources as he has, and nowhere
have I found clear information on the statistical frequency @i
these pre-Islamic marital practices or on the moral attitude
pre-Islamic society to them. Earlier historians simply noted that
Islam condemned all marriage customs that contradicted the
religion's principles, namely the principles of ~atriarchy.It
therefore of some interest to look briefly at what these custom'
and practices were. Exactly what was it that Islam forbade'
According to my reading of the historical evidence,
Sex and Marriage Before Islnm 67
, in which the sexual self-determination of
,,...,,omen ""a"""" --'
h4nslim marriage gave absolute male authority a stamp of
rova~.One source of data on marriage in early Islam is
I,OI!> apP
iqhthvolume of the Kitab a/-Tabaqatal-Kubra ('The Book of
the e .
c;rtvll clnsses') by Ibn S a a ~ i . ~The work as a whole is a classification
Of the early Muslim community. The eighth volume, On
iVo,,l~,,, is a compilation of biographical information about the
iirst converts to join the Prophet's entourage. The first
_.-+,f the book contains information on women related to the
P'"' -' - - ~ ~
either by blood or marriage ties: his female cousins,
,,,,ts, daughters, and wives. The second part is a compilation
of bio~raphic on 574 women who were among the first.
converts.
A systemat
al data
ic analy
. - sis of Ibn Saad's book was undertaken in
1939 by Gertrude >tern in order to assess marriage in the early
Muslimcommunity? She did not try to interpret her findings or
to make them fit any particular theory. Her work is therefore a
mere description of marriage processes: betrothal, consent,
guardianship, dowry, adultery, and the dissolution of marriage
ties. She found no 'fixed institution of marriage'. She describes
a diversity of sexual unions whose 'outstanding feature appears
to be the looseness of marriage ties in general and the lack of
any legal system for regulating procedure."
If one takes into consideration the preceding facts in
conjunction with other factors such as the absence of any
contract or legal guardian, the exclusion of the wife from
her husband's inheritance, the easy methods of divorce,
the lack of a period of seclusion after divorce and widowhood-the
iddn-the conclusion must be reached that
there was no fixed institution of mamage and that mamage
ties were in no sense regarded as binding.6
The work of Gertrude Stern is impressive in its rigorous
at objectivity and strict analysis of the data, yet her
that 'there was no idea of a fixed institution of marcan
be misleading. This can mean either that there was no
fixedinstitution of marriage at all or that there was no institution
- -
68 Sex and Marriage Before lslam 69
of marriage similar to models Stern considered stabl
e. The im (who was from Mecca) contracted the union during a
difference is enormous. From her description it seems like,v Wh town of Medina, where he asked Salama Bint Amr for
that what she meant was that there was no fixed and meti,i. to the and married her. She bore him Abd al-Muttalib.
lously regulated institution similar to the juridically complpx herklas,limhandleft ~ ~ d i n aand went back to Mecca, leaving the child
procedure of Muslim marriage. withits mother. After Hashim's death, his brother went
According to lbn Saad's biographical data, polygamy exist pchin
ed to bfedina to fetch the boy, then an adolescent. It took three
neither in Mecca, a sophisticated urban centre with trad.
log
egotiations between Salama and the uncle to decide
relations reaching deep h t r the Byzantine world, nor in ~~d~~~ 'jaysthe fateof nof the child, who said that he would leave his mother
the basically agrarian community to which the prophe; .f she herself ordered him to do so. Salama is described as a
emigrated. Stern wrote: only I
,v.ornanwho
There is no reliable evidence of the practice of polygamy . . . ~ecausc:of her noble birth and her high position
in pre-Islamic times at al-Madinah [Medina], as under. her people, never allowed herself to marry anyone
stood in the Islamic era, that is, the system of a man under the condition that she would be her own
marrying a number of women and maintaining them in masterand retain the initiative to leave her husband if she
one or more establishments. .. . Moreover, from a studyof disliked him."
the genealogical tables which I have compiled, it is to be
observed that there is no indication of a well-defined Muslim historians link sexual self-determination to the
system of p ~ l y g a m y . ~ woman's high social position." Al-Baghdadi's Kifab al:bfuiiabbarcontains
a chapter entitled 'Women who kept comShe
arrived at identical conclusions for Mecca, adding: plete autonomy after their marriage, who stayed with their
husband if they wanted and left him if such was their desire,
It is possible that Meccan men contracted marriages with and who behaved in this manner because of their prestigious
tribal women, but that they were either of a temporary position (qadrihinna) and their high rank (sliarafuhunna).' The
character or the woman remained with her own people. mmes of women of the Arab aristocracy then follow, with
but as is the case of the Medinans there is no evidence ofa %ma Bint Amr heading the list. It is understandable that Ibn
man supporting and maintaining more than one wife at a Hisham, the historian of the Sira ('biography') of the Prophet,
time.8 "Ould seek some justification other than matriliny to explain
Saiama'sattitude, since matriliny was condemned as prostitution
Here Gertrude Stem draws attention to a vital detail usually by thetime the Sira was written.
overlooked in the analysis of pre-Islamic marriages: the TheProphet's own father, Abdallah, contracted a matrilineal
local character of the marriage? Polygamy in an uxorilocal marriagewith Amina Bint Wahb.
setting is an altogether different institution from polygamy ina
virilocal one. Uxorilocal polygamy could very well co-exist with When ~bdallahIbn Abd al-Muttalib married Amina Bint
a similar polyandrous right of the woman, who might be visited Wahb, he stayed with her for three days. Such was the
by many men. Prevailing custom when the man decided to marry a
The Prophet's great-grandfather, Hashim, contracted an uxon-,~
who stayed among her own tribe.I3
local marriage. The offspring of the union, the Prophetl:
grandfather, Abd al-yuttalib, was raised by his mother.
'4mina stayed with her own kin. When Abdallah died
70
on his way home to Mecca from a trip, Amina was seven
months pregnant with the Prophet. The child stayed with his
mother until her death. He was then six years old. Only
her death was he taken in charge by his father's kin.'*
Women's independence from their husbands and their insis
tence on sexual self-determination seem to have been possible
only because they were backed by their own people. ~h~~
independence persisted even with the growing affirmation,,
patrilineal trends in the Arab society of Muhammad's time,
when the principle of marriage by capture or purchase was
gaining ground."
Marriage by capture or purchase implies a structure of
local polygamy. This was a novel idea in the Prophet's time, as
is evidenced by his own inconsistent attitude towards it. A).
though he himself married thirteen women, he adamantly
opposed Ali, his son-in-law, when the latter decided to contract
a second marriage and thus provide Fatima, the Prophet's
favourite daughter (who was not particularly known for her
beauty), with an unwelcome co-wife.
I will not allow Ali Ibn Abi Talib and I repeat, I will not
allow Ali to marry another woman except if he divorces
my daughter. She is a part of me, and what harms her.
harms me.16
The Prophet appears to have known that it was harmful for a
woman to share a husband. Another illustration is povided by
the Ansar, the Prophet's political supporters. They though'
polygamy so degrading that they urged one of their daughters,
Leila Bint al-Khatim, not to marry the Prophet.17 They argued
that she was too proud. She might get jealous and make trouble
in the household of the Prophet and thus provoke tensio*
between him and his allies. A third example is that of Ihe
Prophet's wife (or concubine) Rayhana, whom he is supposed
to have divorced because she was too jealous to bear sharing
him with her co-wives. He remarried her when she regained
control over her feelings.'' But probably the most outstanding
instance of rebellion against polygamy is that of Aminal
the
Prophet's fireat-granddaughter. Whenever she contracte
d d
Sex and Marriage Before Islam 71
,, she insisted on keeping total control. Before marrying
"mar she set these conditions: 'He will not touch
woman. He will not prevent her from spending his,,~the
money, and will not oppose any decision she might make.
Otherwiseshe will leave him.'19
women'sResistance to Islam
Amina recognized that women were much happier before the
prophet's time. When asked why she was so funny and humor,,,and
her sister, Fatima, so deadly serious, she answered
It is because she [Fatima] was named after her Muslim
gandmother [Fatima is the daughter of the Prophet] while
1 was named after my pagan great-great-grandmother,
who died before Islam's arrival. [Amina is the mother of
the Prophet.Izo
Ris idea is corroborated by historical incidents, some violent and
bloody like the case of the so-called harlots of Hadramaut, others
niore peaceful like the insistence of early Muslim women on
their freedom of action in initiating and ending sexual unions.
Afterthe death of the Prophet in June 632, a broad movement
of apostasy swept the Arabian peninsula, and the tribes refused
'0 pay taxes to the Prophet's successor, the first caliph, Abu
Bak~.~'The movement was severely repressed and ended one
Year later, after fierce battles between Islam and its opponents.
One of the movements of apostasy was led by a group of
"Omen who celebrated the death of the Prophet in a joyful
The event is recorded in Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi's
Kifnb al-Muhabbar.2Z
There were in Hadramaut six women, of Kinda and Had'amaut,
who desired the death of the Prophet of God; they
therefore [on hearing the news] dyed their hands with
henna and played on the tambourine. To them came out
'he harlots of Hadramaut and did likewise so that some
twenty-odd women joined the
72
1
Sex and Marriage Before lslam 73
IThe caliph received two letters relating the event and askin
him to punish the blasphemous women. Both letters R
written by men. The caliph's answer to the governor of K-ere
ordering him to retaliate, reads as follows "ds,
In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful,
romAbu Bakr to al-Muhajir ibn Abi Umayyah. The two right.
eous servants [of God] who remained steadfast in their
religion when the greater part of their tribes apostasirrd
(may God grant them the reward of the righteous for
and smite the others with the fate of the wicked) ha,,?
written to me declaring that before them there are certain
women of the people of Yemen who have desired th,
death of the Prophet of Cod. and that these have been
joined by singing-girls of Kinda and prostitutes of Hadra.
maut, and they have dyed their hands and shown joy an,<
played on the tambourine in defiance of God and in
contempt of His rights and those of His Prophet. When nly
letter reaches you, go to them with your horses and men,
and strike off their hands. If anyone defends them against
you, or stands between them and you, expostulate with
him, telling him the enormity of the sin and enmity which
he is committing; and if he repents, accept his repentance.
but if he declines, break off negotiations with him and
proceed to hostilities-God will not guide the traitors!
However, I think, nay I am sure, that no man will condone
the evil acts of these women or hinder vou from smiting
nd four to the tribe of Kinda, a royal tribe which
class') a
yemen with its kings.25Some of the men who intervide
women against the Muslim governor's
f ame royal tribe. What kind of harlotry is
iL,rieiwere
tisedby elderly ,yandmothers, young girls, the most noble
prai the members of princely houses? And why, in any
, i ,,,omen,
,,,,, the clapping of tambourines by twenty-six women in
i35e.
iarawaY villages of south Arabia so threatening to the
po,,,e,,ul Muslim military order?
4 . ~ . ~ .~eestonexplains the conflict between the women and
Isl;m a a clash between the old religion and the new."' He
that the new religion deprived these women dissidents
their position as pagan priestesses of the old temples,
,,.~,~,creligious prostitution was practised. This speculation is
not 'lltogether warranted by the text.
The text, however, does make two things clear. First, some
women opposed Islam because it jeopardized their position.
Whatever that position was, it was evidently more advantageous
than the one Islam granted them. Second, the opposition
between these women and Islam was clearly grounded in the
scxlial field. The fact that the caliph labelled his opponents as
harlots implies that Islam condemned their sexual practices,
whatever they were, as harlotry. I believe that the incident of
the harlots of Hadramaut is an example of Islam's opposition to
Prevailing sexual practices in pre-Islamic Arabia.
them away from the religion of Muhammad as one might Mahilineal Trends in Pre-Muslim Society
smite off the wings of a gnat.24
If we interpret this opposition between a group of women
and Islam as a clash of interests, we have to analyse what
interests were at stake. First we must identify the parties. The
identity of the first caliph is indisputable, but that of the
women is not. The Muslim document dismisses them summarily
as harlots. But this 'harlotry' was unusual indeed. The
Muslim historian Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi identifies twelve @'
them. Two were grandmothers, one a mother, and seven were
young girls. Three,of the twelve belonged to the ashraf Cthe
R(
tr;
PF
lbertson Smith ~ o i n t e dto the sixth and seventh centuries as a
'"Sitional phase in Arab kinship history. He argued that the
"iod of Islam's appearance had a multiplicity of sexual unions
'?longing to two trends: a matrilineal trend, which he calls
"Odi[7n ~narrriage,~~and a patrilineal trend he calls ba'al or
marriage.2RThe two systems, which existed side by
- je down to the Prophet's time,2here diametrically opposed
eachother. Not only were they governed by differentkinship
"S, but they 'imply fundamental differences in the position of
and so in the whole structure of social relations'.30 The
ier, tho1
the pro
Ire not t
. . .
. ~ - - - - ~ - - ~--~
74 -Sex and Marriage Before Islam 75
difference between the two systems can be summarized as Certainly Mecca made no exception to the rule that
Arabian ba'al marriage was regarded as constituted by
or by purchase, that the marital rights of the
Matrilineal Tmrd Patrili~teaiTrend
husband were a dominion over his wife, and that the
Kinship rule Child belonged to Child belonged to disposal Of her hand did not belong to the woman herself
the mother's group the father,s but to her guardian. For all this is still true even under
Paternity rule Physical paternity Physical paternity Isldm;the theory of Muslim law is still that marriage is
unimportant: the important because purchase,and the party from whom the husband buys is
genitor does not the genitor must be the fatf igh by a humane illogicality the price behave
rights over his the social father
offspring comes
perty of the woman, and the husband's
rights 2 ransferable. And so, though Islam softened
Sexual freedom Extended, her chastity Limited, her chastity someot the harshest features of the old law, it yet has set a
of women has no social is a prerequisite
function permanent seal of subjection on the female sex by stereofor
the establishmeni
of the child's t~pinga system of marriage which, at bottom, is nothing
legitimacy than the old marriage of dominion.32
Status of women Depends on her tribe Depends on her husband
for protection and for protection and Sadiqn marriage was characterized by sexual freedom for
food food women, symbolized by their sovereignty over the marital houseGeographical
Uxorilocal Virilocal hold, namely the tent in which they received their husbands.
setting of marriage
The women in jahiliya, or some of them, had the right to
Sadiqa marriage (fromsadiq, 'friend', and sadiqa, 'female friend') dismiss their husbands, and the form of dismissal was
is a union whose offspring belong to the woman's tribe. It is this: if they lived in a tent, they turned it around so that if
initiated by a mutual agreement between a woman and a man the door faced east, it now faced west, and when the man
and takes place at the house of the woman, who retains :he saw this, he knew that he was dismissed, and he did not
right to dismiss the husband. In bn'al marriage the offspring enter.3"
belong to the husband. He has the status of father as well as of
his wife's ba'al, or 'lord', 'owner'. In such a marriage 1: is evident that this kind of marriage could only be uxorilocal,
the woman remained with her tribe and depended on it.
The wife, who follows her husband and bears his children' Thesymbolic gesture of dismissal was known as 'she draws a
who are of his blood, loses the right freely to dispose oi between the husband and herself' and was used in the
her person. Her husband has authority over her and he of Muhammad Ibn Bashir, whose wife 'drew a curtain
alone has the right of divo~ce.~' betwee,( him and her and di~ap~eared'.'~
The variety of sexual unions in pre-Islamic Arabia
Robertson Smith concludes that Islam accelerated the IS best described by the reliable Muslim traditionalist Bukhari:
transition from matriliny to patriliny by enforcing a marriage
institution that had much in common with the patrilineal Ibn Shihab said, Urwah Ibn al-Zubair informed him that
dominion marriage, and by condemning all matrilineal union' &ha, the wife of the Prophet (God bless and preserve him)
as zina. Informedhim that marriage in jahiliyah was of four types:
1. One was marriage of people as it is today, where
a manbetroths his ward or his daughter to another man, and the
latter assigns a dowry [bride price] to her and then m a e s her
2. Another type was where a man said to his wife wheo,ilp
was purified from her menses, send to N. and ask to
intercourse with him; her husband then stays away
Tornher and does not touch her at all until it is clear that
pregnant from that [other] man with whom she sough,
intercourse. When it is clear that she is pregnant, her
husband has intercourse with her if he wants. He acts
thus simply from the desire for a child. This type of
marriage was known as Nikah al-lstibda ['the marriageof
seeking intercourse'].
3. Another type was where agroup of less than ten men Nspd
to visit the same woman and all of them to have intercourse
with her. If she became pregnant and bore a child, when
some nights had passed after the birth she could send for
them, and not a man of them might refuse. When they had
come together in her presence, she would say to them,
'You [plural] know the result of your acts. I have borne a
child and he is your [singular] child, N.' naming whoever
she will by his name; her child is attached to him and the
man may not refuse.
4 The fourth type is where many men frequent a woman.
and she does not keep herself from any who comes to her.
These women are the baghaya [prostitutes]. They used to
set up at their doors banners forming a sign. Whoever
wanted them went in to them. If one of them conceived
and bore a child, they gathered together to her and summoned
the physiognomists to designate as father the man
whom the child resembled most. Then the child remained
attached to him and was called his son, no objection tothis
course being possible. When Muhammad (God bless and
preserve him) came preaching the truth, he destroyed
the types of marriage of the jahiliyah except that which
people practise today [numbers added].35
The general picture that emerges from Bukhari's description
is a system characterized by the coexistence of a variety
iage of
.-2
Sex and Marriage Before lslam 77
,,, or rather sexual unions. In three of the four kinds of
a ! a,,,arr1aRes,biological paternity seems unimportant and the con,of
femalechastity is therefore absent (2, 3, and 4). Two of
:rQ ,,,,,,iages were polyandrous, the woman having as many
the
Sbands*as she desired (3 and 4).
.hu
kind of marriage mentioned elsewhere by Bukhari is
,,!1,1'fl ('marr pleasure, or temporary marriage').
lasts thret
~dit, and
a man drlu woman agree to live together, the11 partnershlp
nights and if they want to extend it, they
exter if they decide to part, they part.3b
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i d igives a aescription of the practicality of such a union
1,- early Islam, when a man would arrive in a new town
where he did not know anybody, he would marry a
woman in exchange for a sum of money according to the
length of the period of his stay, and she would keep his
belongings and take care of him. This was practised until
the verse forbidding it was revealed."
Its sexual goal is affirmed in another traditionist's description
Imam Muslim writes.
Muf 't s a temporary marriage. The man would say
to the woman, 'I will enjoy you for a certain period of time
In exchange for a certain sum of money.' It was named
mut'a [pleasure] because its main purpose was exclusively
sexual pleasure, i.e., without procreation and other purPoses
usually expected from marriage. Mut'a was outlawe,
Book and the S ~ n n a . ~ *
Ir Was pract~sedin early Islam and is still practised by Muslims
Whofr:low the Shia trend.39
to orthodox Muslim marriage, muf'a violates two
""amental principles of Islam's ideal of sexual union. First. its
and personal character gives the woman as much
as the man, in both the initiation and the termination
Of the marriage. Muslim marriage reserves these rights to the
.-78
Sex and Marnage Before Islam 79
411
man only, subordinates the woman's consent to that of hrr
guardian, and alienates her freedom to divorce by subordin,
ating it to a judge's decision. Second, such a union i,
Pliesdifferentpaternity rules than the ones on which Muslim mar.
riage is based, the rule according to which the social fathermust
be the biological genitor. For Robertson Smith
Mut'a in short is simply the last remains of that type
marriage which corresponds to a law of mother-kinship,
and Islam condemns it and makes it 'the sister of harlot,y
because it does not give the husband a legitimate ,fi.
spring, i.e. an offspring that is reckoned to his own tribe
and has right of inheritance within it?'
The panorama of female sexual rights in pre-Islamic culture
reveals that women's sexuality was not bound by the concept
legitimacy. Children belonged to their mother's tribe. Women
had sexual freedom to enter into and break off unions with
more than one man, either simultaneously or successively.A
woman could either reserve herself to one man at a time, on a
more or less temporary basis, as in muf'a marriage, or she could
be visited by many husbands at different times whenever their
nomadic tribe or trade caravan came through the woman's town
or camping ground?' The husband would come and go; the
main unit was the mother and child within an entourage of
kinfolk.42
The linguistic legacy of the matrilineal past has survived i"
Arabic. The word rahirn, meaning 'womb', is 'the most general
word for kin~hip'?~Batn ('belly') is the technical term fora clan
or sub-tribe.44The word umm ('mother') is the origin O f ""'""
('community' in general and, after Islam, the Muslim corn.
munity). According to Salama Musa, the fact that the
haya, 'life', is also a name for the femalereproductive apparatu?
expresses the old Arab belief that women had the giftd:'
giving life while the male's role was 'pure sexual pleasure. .
Robertson Smith copiously documents the shift from pa':
lineal to matrilineal marriage with examples from both Mu'''
and pre-Islamic sources.46
The Effectsof Muslim Marriage on Pre-Muslim Society
isecurit:
f a thriv
I tribal (
considermarriage as a 'rearrangement of social structure'
If Wesocialstructure as 'any arrangement of persons in instituandtionalizedrelationship^',^'
then a change in the marriage
would imply far-reaching socio-economic changes. A
S V S ~ ~ ~change in kinship implies a dislocation of old socio-economic
and the appearance of new networks based on new
;,its, in Muhammad at Mecca and Muhammad at ~ e d i n a , ~ '
MontgomeryWatt analyses Arabia's socio-economicfoundations
in the transitional period during the sixth and early seventh
centuries.He attributes Islam's sweeping success among the
tribes(Muhammad started preaching in 613, and when he died
in 632 most of Arabia's tribes were already converted) to a preexisting
malaise caused by the disintegration of the tribal
system. 11 y and discontent were spreading because of
the rise ol ing mercantile economy which was corroding
traditiona :ommunalism. Individuals engaged in trading
were motivated by new mercantile allegiances which often
clashed with traditional tribal ones?9 In thriving urban settlements
like Mecca, the contradictions between new and old
allegiances were particularly acute. The violation of traditional
allegiances brought about isolation and economic insecurity
among the weakest members of the tribe. Responsible members
who were supposed to administer property for the communal
good were : ?d by individualistic pursuits and neglected
their tradit ~ l eas protectors of the weak." Women
and childre among those most directly affected by the
L., ,,,, ,Id networks of solidarity since they had no
institutionalized access to property through inheritance."
Inheritancewas the privilege of those who took part in battles
3nd acquired booty: able-bodied adult males.
But if women did not have the right to inherit, that does not
mean that they had no access to goods, as some Muslim writers
believe.52 Their protection and economic well-being were the
Coreof a tribe's prestige and the embodiment of its honour.53
It has been argued that many of Islam's institutions were a
response to the new needs that emerged with the disintegrationOf
communalism, a means of absorbing the insecurity
low lun
ional r~
n were
-6 &L.^ -
generated by such disintegration. Polygamy, for example, has
been described as such an in~titution.'~The Prophet, concerned
about the fate of women who were divorced, widowed
orunmarried orphans, decided to create a kind of responsibility
system whereby unattached women were resituated in a family
unit in which a man could protect them, not just as kinsman
as husband.The fact that polygamy was instituted by t h e ~ o r a n
after the disaster of Uhud, a battle in which many Muslim males
were slain, substantiates this theory.55
Moreover, the Prophet had a vested interest in reintegrating
women, made helpless by the breakdown of tribal Solidaritv
into new solidarity units, because otherwise they were likely,d
seek protection in transitory sexual unions considered as iina
by Islam. It is here that one sees the genius of Islam. ~h~~
its institutions were appreciated is shown by its success in
connecting both communal and self-serving tendencies and
channelling these otherwise contradictory trends into the most
cohesive social order Arabia has ever known. The communal
tendencieswere channelled into warfare for Pax islaniica, and
the self-serving tendencies were mainly vented in the institution
of the family, which allowed new allegiances and new ways to
transfer private possession of goods while simultaneously providing
tight controls over women's sexual freedom.
Watt suggests that the umma resembled the tribe in many of
its premisses. The responsibility system within the umma was
very similar to the tribal principles of blood-feud and 1e.r
talionis: 'For the military prestige of the umma, it was essential
in Arabian conditions that a Muslim should never go un-
avenged.'56
But the umma steered the tribes' bellicosity, usually invested
in tribal feuding, in a new direction-the holy war.57The old
allegiance to the tribe was replaced by an allegiance entirely
different in both form and content. The new form is the urnrno
and the basic unit is not the tribe, but the individual. The bond
between individuals is not kinship but a more abstract concept,
communion in the same religious belief.
In less than a few decades, the razzia-indined nomadic tribes'
which were a great obstacle to Arabia's thriving trade routes
and centres, were persuaded to give in to the umma, which
Sex and Marriage Before Islam 81
unconditional surrender to the will of Allah. Con,eq~entlY,their
quest for booty was deflected from internal
ks and channelled into holy war against the common
attac
The wealthy Byzantine and Persian empires fell to the
enemybefore
they were even fully aware of the existence of
Islam,(persiawas conquered in 642, twenty years afterthe hijru;
the first siege of Constantinople took place in 670.)
parallelto the harnessing of tribal bellicosity in the service of
the Muslim community, there was a similar absorption of selftendencies
into the family structure. One of these
channelling mechanisms was the concept of fatherhood and
legitimacv,which allowed full expression to the believers' self-
interest.
~twoula we natural for him [any man in an increasingly
patrilineal society] at the same time to become specially
interested in his own children and to want them to succeed
to the wealth he had appropriated. In a matrilineal family,
the control of the family property would normally pass
from a man to his sister's son.5"
For a man to transferhis goods to his sons implies that he has
sons, which had not generally been clear. Biological paternity
had been considered unimportant in the pre-existing systems,
and the patterns of female sexuality made it difficult to establish
who had begotten whom. Islam dealt with this obstacle in two
ways. As we have seen, it outlawed most previous sexual
Prac:ices as zina and institutionalized strict control over
Paternity in the form of the idda, or waiting period. The idda can
be seen as the best proof both of the previous disregard for
biological paternity and of Islamic curtailment of female
Sexualrights, since no equivalent period was instituted for
men.
instituti
1 of her
:.I_. . .
As the on of the idda shows, obsession with depriving
a WOmar power to determine paternity is difficult to
W,LIIUUCner cooperation. The idda implies that the Mus-
1.ImGod does not expect a woman's cooperation, although He
explicitl~requires it as a condition of her oath of allegiance.
228 of the second sura declares
- -
82 Sex and Marriage Before Islam 83
It is not lawful for them [women] that they should con,ceal however, with modernization, basic changes are octhat
which Allah hath created in their wombs, if they
Toda:ot only in economic structures but in social relations as
believers in Allah ... currlng thesechallenge the underlying principles of Islam as a
anorder, 1f we define modernization as involving. among, The fact that despite His unequivocal orders to women, All
ah ;ther things,the integration of the economies of the Arabdecided
to check on them by institutionalizing the waiting countries into the world market, with all that this
period shows that He did not expect them to obey the divin, fluslimroce5s entails in disintegration, upheaval, conflict,and contra!
order. The expectation that women will not cooperate, that th
QY p . then we may say that one of the areas in which this
will need to be coerced, explains man's religious duty to contra, diction,ration is having decisive effects is home life, the structure
the women under his roof. The man is responsible not only ofintegfamily relations, and especially the dynamic of relationssatisfying the woman sexually and providing forher economic.
I between the sexes.
'I ally, but, as a policeman of the Muslim order, also for disciPlin.
11 ~ ~ ~ b - M u s l i meconomies have already gone far along the
: , 1, ing and guarding his female relatives. road to integration into the world market. In his book The ArabI: I Watt noted that the idea of a police force distinct from the Eco,,omy Today Samir Amin shows that 'the Arab world occupies
community was unknown among the Arabs5' A rigid code a very special place in the Third World as a whole and is the
honour compelled every individual to tailor his actions, which part of it most closely integrated into the contemporary world
were entirely involved in communal pursuit, to the communiys This economic integration has been accompanied by
standards. In Islam the same mechanism operated, but the an ideological integration that is far less widely accepted. An
man's burden was heavier because the umma conceded him an
~~~bman buys an automobile produced by French, Swedish, or
individual territory of which he would be the master and for
American factories and he considers it his property for which
which he would be held responsible: 'The man is the guardian he has paid a certain price. The same man has a far more
of his family and he is responsible. . .'" ambiguous attitude towards the import of what might be called
symbolic capital. The great struggles in the Arab world today
concern this attitude towards Western symbolic capital, in
Conclusion particular the fight for authenticity (al-asala), which now figures
prominently in all current debates, whether these be political,
The social order created by the Prophet, a patrilineal mono- social, or economic.
theistic state, could exist only if the tribe and its allegiances One of the areas in which the import of Western symbolic
gave way to theurnma. The Prophet found the institution ofthe
capital (ideas) has been evident is social relations, especially
family a much more suitable unit of socialization than the tribe. liberal concepts like human rights, civil law, and the structure
He saw the tightly controlled patriarchal family as necessary to relational models. Concepts like political party, trade union,
the creation of the umma. Parliamentare among the ideological exports of former colonial
The Prophet's religious vision, his personal experiences, and of Europe to the formerly colonized Arab societies.
the structure of the society he was reacting against all contributed
In fact,the Arab nationalist movement itself may be regarded
to the form Islamic society took. The assumptions behind the as a strange Trojan Horse within which the transfer of ideas
Muslim social structure-male dominance, the fearof fitnu,the
took Place in a context of violently anti-Western, xenophobic
need for sexual satisfaction, the need for men to love AUah above St%gle.
all else-were embodied in specific laws which have regulated
factis that economic dependence (the transfer of machinmale-female
relations in Muslim countries for fourteen cenmrie5- eT,forinstance) seems not to have elicited among contemporay
Sex and Marriage Before Islam 85
Arab leaders the same virtually neurotic reactions as havebeen
aroused by the transfer of symbolic capital, by the ideological
dependence that seems directly and openly to challenge the key
notion of identity.
If the debate is wide-ranging, the stakes are high. whatis of
most interest to us here is the transfer, during the twentieth
century, of ideas from liberal capitalist Europe to the M~~~~~
societies, especially the elements of Western democracy gener.
ally grouped under the label 'human rights', which have been
the subject of international treaties some of which directly
concern relations between the sexes. The fact that the ~~~b
countries have manifested their resistance to this transferof
liberal ideas about relations between the sexes by refusing to
sign certain international treaties and conventions has not
prevented them from ratifying many others that are clearly
prejudicial to the central principle of the Muslim family: male
supremacy and the systematic inhibition of feminineinitiative,
of female self-determination. This is the pertinent point in
understanding the new trends in relations between the sexes.
For instance, to understand the virtually hysterical attitude
of Arab-Muslim leaders to the emergence of female selfdetermination
which is inherent in the economic and political
changes these countries are now experiencing, we must place
this attitude in its historic and cultural context, which is to Say
in the 'Muslim time-frame' according to which the year 622
marks the birth of civilization and the year 621 is still a time of
the chaos of ignorance, of jahiliya. Female self-determination,
feminine initiative, whether in the home or the outside world,
is the very embodiment of the absence of order, the absence of
Muslim laws. Hence the importance of looking back at the
roots, at the pre-Islamic period, if we are to comprehend some
of the behaviour patterns and cultural attitudes of the Arab
world today.
In analysing the condition of women in the Muslim c0unrnes'
it must never be forgotten that ideologically the year 622
lives in the formulation of future strategies. The time Scales
contemporary Muslim societies are very special: fourteen tenfatalturies
seem to have elapsed without major upheavals 0'
discontinuity,'and the future promises to be a continuation O
ast. The emergence of feminine initiative consequent to
the P5uch unremarkable features of present-day economies as the
dividualwage is reminiscent in the collective memory of the
in nicts of jahiliya, re-issued and projected forward as the
con
shaP
,of the future.
modern Muslim societies women who seek university
degreesand jobs and who invest a large part of their energies
in strictly individualist aspirations conjure up, in a whole
inventoryof symbolic images, the ghosts of women of the prelslarnicArab
aristocracy, ghosts that have never been definitively
buried. Islam's trenchant opposition to jal~iliya has
paradoxicallymade jahiliya a fundamentalmatrix of the Muslim
psyche. And that psyche, through a strange regressive reflex,
sees the advent of the industrial era, the era of individual wages
and individual votes, as heralding a new jahiliya. Womenwith
their demands for initiative and self-determination-are a
symbolically potent component of both the old jahiliya and the
new, the one that opens with the modern era.
The Modern Situation:
Moroccan Data
,have outlined a theoretical model of the traditional Muslim
o,cept of femalesexuality based on Ghazali's ideas of Muslim
I now would like to use his description of the Muslim
family not to evaluate the historical changes in that family, but
to understand the present situation by contrasting it with an
idealtype. I will compare Ghazali's ideal family with Moroccan
as revealed by the data I have collected, in order to
illustrate the trends shaping modern male-female dynamics.
I collected my data in Morocco during the summer of 1971.At
first my main concern was how to go about investigating the
changes occumng in male-female relations. I casually asked
about fifty people (roughly half males and half females), 'What
do you think is the main change that has taken place in the
family and in women's situation in the last decades?
Almost everyone I interviewed mentioned, at one point or
another, sexual desegregation. The idea was presented in different
ways: 'women used to be protected', 'women didn't use
to go everywhere', 'women used to stay at home', 'there used to
be more order, women were strictly controlled'. But the underlying
idea was always the same. So I decided to concentrate on
thedimension of male-female dynamics in which the changes
Seemto have been particularly noticeable-the use of space by
the sexes.
Wanted to get t ~ i okinds of data, some describing family life
Inboth traditional and modem settings (where the wifeholds a
lob outside the home or has free access to the outside world)
d"d some describing the present tensions in Moroccan society
relating to sexual interaction. I opted for lengthy interviews
"Ith women to get the first kind of data. For the second, I used
90 T11e Modern Situntion: Moroccan Duin 91
letters from a religious counselling service on Moroccan state ,er to increase readers' familiarity with the individuals
television which receives hundreds of letters every da
Y from I" or?bed, within each chapter I used information from one
citizens with problems. I was allowed to borrow 402 of these j~.scI'I ,,much as possible. For example, the interviewee
letters.
l"e$l;ziha F, was the main source for the mothers-in-law and
ly because Fatiha is a wonderful conversationalistnot
"" the contradictions of the relation mother-son-wife
The Interviews With Women J ~ ~ ~ , . ~ ~llmnst archetypal dimensions in her case.
Because of the theoretical nature of my research and the scope
of what I wanted to investigate-sexual desegregation-l
decided to limit my field of observation as much as possible.
selected data concerning one numerically tiny stratum of the
Moroccan population: the urban petty-bourgeoisie. Despite its
size, this grouping has played an important political role in
other Arab-Muslim societies and is likely to do the same in
Mnrorro.. -...- - I
conducted about a hundred interviews, lasting twenty to
thirty minutes each, with women selected according to catcgories
pertinent to my research (traditional women, modern
women), before proceeding to in-depth interviews. These, conducted
during the summer of 1971, lasted between two and six
hours each and required between two and six sessions depending
on circumstances (presence of in-laws, noise level, mood of
the person being interviewed, presence of adult women able to
look after small children during the interview, etc.). The categories
'modem' and 'traditional' cover a range ofdifferences in
age, education, employment, and so on. Tables 1 and 2 below
(see p. 92)list some differences between traditional and modern
women and supply the age and marital status of the fourteen
women with whom 1conducted in-depth interviews; the jobs
of the modem women and of the men supporting the traditional
women are also given.
In order to examine the trends of modernization more closely
I tried to interview mothers (traditional) with their daughters
(modem).I succeeded only four times in realizing this combination.
The women concerned are indicated in the tables by lhe
same last initial. The interviews were non-directed and lengthyr
conducted in the normal rhythm of a 'gossip' exchange.
I concentrated on just a few interviews as sources for
rca<,,c" .',.-.- .A
svstematicreading of (or rather listening to) the tapes of the
inter\iiews revealed two major differencesbetween the lives of
and modern women. For the traditional women
sexual segregation had been very strict all their lix~es.For the
modernwomen sexual segregation had been strict only during
P"berty,when they were made aware of the importance of their
bcllaviour to the family honour. The modem women did not
feel that sexual segregation was an important factor in their
l~vesnow.
The other major difference between the traditional and
modem women was their perception of who was the most
]mportantperson in their daily lives, which person they had the
most ~ntenserelatlonsh~pwlth. For the traditional women it
was their mother-in-law. For the modem women it was their
husband.
That these are the major differencessuggests a link between
the ~nstitutionof sexual segregation and the important role in
the family traditionally accorded the husband's mother. But I
had no clue as to the nature of the link until I had done a content
analysis of the letters to the counselling service.
The Counselling Letters
The fourhundred letters analysed are a sample of the thousands
Sentto a counselling service financed and run by the government.
It is broadcast daily on the national network, which has,
besides entertainment programmes, many community-oriented
projects. For example, divorces pronounced by judges on
grounds of desertion are announced on the radio, thereby
disseminating news to a large number of illiterate Moroccans
Would otherwise not have access to this information.
Table 1
Literacy
Job
Sexual Seg
Marriage
Table 2
Halima H.
Hayat H.
Fatiha F.
Kenza
Tamou T.
Khata
Salama
Maria M.
Faiza F
Mona M.
Tahra T.
Tama
Lamia
Safia
Traditional
Wonien
Illiterate
Work within
the home
regation Vely strict
Arranged by
the parents
Born before
World War 11
Modern
Wome~i
Literate
Work outside
the home
Very loose
Woman chose
own partner
Born a(ter
World War I1
(when the
nationalists'
influence opened up
schools for girls)
TRAO~T~ONALWOMEN
Marital Status Age Occupation of the Male
Supporting Her
Widowed 60 Son-Civil Servant
Married 40 Husband-Civil Servant
Married 45 Husband-Civil Servant
Married 50 Husband-Retired Civil Servant
Widowed 48 Brother-Teacher
Married 48 Husband-Works in electric
company
Widowed 60 Son-Agricultural Technician
Repudiated 55 Son-Army Officer
Marital Status Age Her Occupation
Married 22 Laboratory Assistant
Married 26 Teacher
Single 25 Medical Student (works parttime
and has grant)
Repudiated 30 Public Relations Officer
Repudiated 30 Accountant
Single 25 Secretary
The Modern Situation: Moroccan Data 93
,,"ing has always been important in Muslim life because
loun
dam accorded to the individual. There is no clergy, no
of thetitutionalizedfree intermediary between the individual and God.
ins ,sensible adult is responsible for his thoughts and deeds.
Even
To be a decent believer requires more than anything else the
,ention to be so-that is, the intention to subordinate one's
in
the divine law. Whenever the individual doubts his
acts to
knowledgeof divine law, he is supposed to seek guidance
f,,
trained in the matter. The Qadi Moulay Mustapha
,llaoui, whose services are free of charge and delivered by
radio,is probably the most popular counsellor in the country.
H~ usually groups letters by subject and tries to answer one
theme each day. The themes emerging in the letters
,jeterminedtheir codification and content analysis.
Hecause of the Arabic formula that heads most letters-'From
MI, or Mrs. so and so, from the town of so and so'-the sex and
residence of the letter-writers were usually identifiable. The
letters also frequently mention age and marital status. An analysis
of the sex, geographical distribution, marital status, and age of
the letter-writers appears in Table 3 (see page 95).Whenever the
handwriting was too difficult to decipher or the information
was lacking, the letter was coded blank.
The coding for the content analysis was suggested by the
themes that emerged from the letters. The majority dealt with
~roblemsrelating to the family. The way I coded the content of
the letters is illustrated by some examples of the variables I
listed under the heading 'Pre-Marital Tensions'.
Variable9: The youth's decision to many
1. Falling in love
2. Wanting to many the person of one's choice
3. Combination of 1and 2.
10: The parents' stand
interfere in offspring's choice
2.
openly oppose the offspring's choice
3. Parents force the offspring to marry a person of the
Parents' choice
4' of 1 and 2
'. of 1 and 3.
Variable 14: Parents' response to children's marital plans
1. Curse
2. Threaten to curse
3. Open conflict, son-family
4. Open conflict, daughter-family.
As is evident from the kinds of themes I found, a contra.
versial question in modern Morocco is who chooses the marital
partner. Is it the youth or@e parents? According to the letters
parents think it their right to choose their offspring's partner
marriage, and the offspring think it their right to choose for
themselves. The traditional Muslim ideas about marriageare in
direct conflict with the aspirations and desires of the young
generations.
My data suggests, and I believe, that Islam's concepts of
female sexuality and women's contribution to society (as I
outlined them in Part One) still determine the primary features
of the Muslim family. The role played by sexual segregation,
arranged marriage, the mother's importance in her son's life, all
seem to be part of a system that discourages heterosexual
couple relations even within the conjugal unit.
Modernization, on the other hand, encourages desegregation,
independent choice of marriage partner, and the mobility ofthe
nuclear family. That this open clash of ideologies leads to
confusion and anxiety is apparent both in the counselling
letters and in the interviews with women.
My modest aim in this research is not to irritate the readerby
claiming to have uncovered the truth about the new malefemale
dynamic that has emerged in modem Moroccan society. I
leave truth to those who seek certainty. My own feeling is that we
move forward faster and live better when we seek doubt. If I
manage to induce readers to doubt their prejudices and stereotypes
about relations between the sexes, then 1 will have succeeded
beyond my hopes. The qualitative analysis is not intended to
flood the reader with statistical truths, which are in any case at
anyone's disposal at the officesof the census department in Rabat.
No, qualitative analysis ought to have the opposite effect: not to
fortify your certitudes but to destroy them. It is understandable
that a good numl?er of walking dead may not appreciate that.
The Modern Situation: Moroccan Data 95
Writers
hlale Writers
SEX
(indicated in 369 letters)
Number Perrerlfnge
GEOGRAPHICALORIGIN
(indicated in 298 letters)
Number Percentage
writen from Big Cities 210 70
y ~ ~ ~ t ~ ~ sfromElsewhere 88 30
MARITAL STATUS
(indicated in 175letters)
~ i i o w e d
Married
Marriage L.,..-.. ,Jnspecified)
AGE
(indicatedin 107letters)
Teenagers (Under20) 45
Young Adults (Behveen20 and 25) 39
Adults (Over25) 8
Elderly (Whenthe writers describe 8
themselves thus)
Moreover, as a researcher, whether in the domain of theory or
in the analysis of particular material, I claim the inalienable
"ght to make mistakes. Just as readers have the right to disagree.
todraw differentconclusions. The objective is to arouse discussionabout
our behaviour toward the other sex, and about the
Political implications of that behaviour. By 'political' 1 do
"Ot mean the democratic infrastructure (how parliaments.
parties. and trade unions, for example, allow for the spread of
democracy); I have in mind rather the relations we establish
with the people closest to us, with whom we share th
interests and weave the most intense and most intim great?
atehumanrelation possible-in other words, the people with whom
share domestic space. It is quite inconceivable fo h'?
'a humanbeing who does not cherish democratic relations in a d
omalnconsidered non-political, like the household (in which life,s
essential functions are enacted: eating, sleeping, akingJ,
to seek it in the high ground of democracy, the party cell or
parliamentarv chamber.
5
Sexual Anomie As
Revealed by the Data
It is essential that the nature of democratic male-female
relations be clarified.This basic question concerns all ofus and
between the sexes seem to be going through a period
is particularly vital for me, a woman living in a ~ ~ ~ l i ~society, anomie,of deep confusion and absence of norms. The tra-
ditional
governing relations between the sexes are
,,ioldtedevery day by a growing majority of people without
their incurringlegal or social sanctions. One such tradition is
sexual segregation, the systematic prevention of interaction
men and women not related to each other by either
or blood. Sexual segregation divides all social space
into male and female spaces.
~h~overlap between male and female areas is limited and
regulated by a host of rituals. When a man invites a friend to
share <meal at his house, he knocks on his own door and in a
loud voice asks the women 'to make way' ('flmlu triq). The
women then run to hide in dark comers, leaving the courtyard
frcc to be crossed by the stranger. The guest will remain with
h~shost, seated in the men's room. Ifhe needs to go to the toilet,
the ritual of 'amlu friq is staged again, preventing the taboo
situation of interaction between strangers of differentsexes.
Similar rituals surround the trespassing of women into male
Spaces,which until recently was limited to a very few occasions
Such as a visit to a saintr$ tomb, to the public baths and to
"Iatives at births, deaths and marriages. The veil is an expression
of the invisibility of women on the street, a male space par
c.rCellence.
According to my interviews, sexual segregation was seen as a
""ulal part of life by women in their fifties, but merely as an
OPLionfor women now in their thirties. Women's right to
traditionallymale spaces is far more institutionalized or even
whether at the level of laws or underlying ideology.
- .sexual
Anomie As Revealed by the Data 99
98
Rabat,14 June 1971 Letter 100
The anomie stems from the gap between ideology and realit,,
From Miss K . . . . . to his highness Pr. M.M.for more and more women are using traditionally male space;:
,send
a perfumed salutation,going without the veil, and determining their own lives. Thr
Is it
permissible for a young unmarried girl who is not
anomie created by the fissures between ideology, belief,
a,d aged to be kissed by a man who is not engaged to her
practice is well illustrated in the following letter received eng
Y thr and does not intend to marry her? I will be very thankful if
religious counselling service.
you can answer my question with as many details as you
Casabalanca, 18May 1971 ,,, any thanks, sir.
LettergS
TOhis highness, Professor Moulay Muslapha *laoui
A
content analysis of the 402 letters reveals that sexuality
Sir,
in terms of questions about love, marriage, deviant
Nowadays the majority of people go to swim in the sea
(:a,tices, and so on) seems to be one of the preoccupations ofthey go to beaches during the summer months, M ~ ~ : Pthe letter.writers. The majority of the letters ask about the
women, boys, and girls meet and mix together. yhev
ern,issibility or non-permissibility of sexual actions from the
also mix with Christians and Jews, everyone looking a, Freligious point of view. Most of the questions are about acts-everybody else's nudity. Is this permissible in a
like swimming'nude' (a woman is 'nude' if she is not veiled) on
society? I asked this question a long time ago. I did not
a ,,,ixed.sex beach or being kissed by someone other than thehear your answer on the radio. Could it be that you did
not receive it? legal husband-that are illicit and sinful according to tradition.
Interaction between the sexes, though increasing, is still an
Desegregation intensifies the sexual component of heterosexual
interactions, but society fails to provide any acceptable
models for sexual interactions. The consequent doubts and
anxieties are evident in the following letters.
Taza, 13 March 1971 ~etter46
To the religious scholar Moulay Mustapha
Sir,
I was in love with a young man. He asked me to let him
kiss and caress me. I gave in to his demands. I was
encouraged in doing so by a girlfriend, but we did not go
as faras having intercourse. After a while I discovered that
he was not serious about our relation and I kept away
from him. And I promised myself that I would never
commit such sinful practices again. Is what I have done
permissible or forbidden by Islam? What can I do to erase
such sin? Thank you! Thank you!
unusual phenomenon in Moroccan society. Traditional, absolute
segregation between the sexes continues to pervade many parts
of the country.
Sexual Problems in Rural Areas
A survey of some rural areas' revealed that each village controls
its youth so closely that young men have no access to women
and engage in sexual practices considered deviant by their
Society's standards. For example, of those who answered a
9Uestionnaire:
14% confessed practising masturbation or sodomy;
20% practise homosexuality;
34% go to a brothel in the nearest town as often as they can
affordit.2
In the absence of thorough studies of the sexual practices of
youth as a whole, we can draw no firm conclusions
sexual problems in general. But it is clear that sexual
segregation is still a reality for rural youth.
Almost two-thirds of Morocco's fifteen million people live in
I :: rural areas: and 56 percent of the total population are
twenty.' In the rural areas surveyed, 87 percent of th under
Peoplewere under twentyone, and 78 percent of these youths dreanlcd
of going to live in town. One of the reasons they gave for that
preference was that women are available in towns.
In town there are as many girls as you want.
You can find brothels only in towns.
In town women walk with heads uncovered, wearing
short dresses; you can always take a chance with them,i
Sexual segregation is enforced in one village with a character.
istically violent censure.
If you try to leave the village with a girl who is more than
twelve years old, more than thirty people will follow you.
They start throwing stones and shouting at you. It is not
like in town; you need to take so many precautions.'
Because of the restrictions on heterosexual encounters, thc
rural Moroccan male is brought to perceive women solely in
terms of sexual need; both in and outside marriage women are
merely a more suitable way of satisfying sexual needs than
animals or other males.
At the age of seventeen I became aware of what was going
on. 1 left animals and friends [with whom he practised
homosexuality] because I realized it was detrimental to my
energy. I learned that one can find whores in the centre of
B . When I don't have money I don't hesitate to
steal something so that I can go about my business.'
Most young men are resentful of being forced into sexual
practices they abhor. They dream of getting married, and do so
as soon as they can find a job, which is rather difficult. U'.
employment, which takes the form of under-employment in the
countryside, often reaches dizzying proportions.R~ccordingto
m e
iron1
the I
,.i)lII
Sexual Anomie As Revealed by flie Data 101
,971census,qthose sufferingmost from unemployment are
fijteen to twenty-four years old. When looking for a job for
:Irsttime, 83 percent of this group cannot find one." The
men resent the fact that older men who have more
IRCY monopolize and marry most of the young girls.
I fell in love with a girl in the village and she was aware of
it. I didn't have any money. . . . A civil servant [a man who
has a job and comes from a more important urban centre]
came along and took away the girl I loved. So, I will not
hide this from you, 1 went back to animals again."
I,, the most traditional rural society, there are no unmarried
adr,lesccntgirls. A survey done by Malika Belghiti among the
remalerural population reveals that 50 percent of the girls are
mdrriedbefore they reach puberty, and another 37 percent
n , a r ~during the first two years following puberty.'* One way
rural society avoids the problem of sexual love between young
)yopie seems to be to have girls marry young.
According to my interviews, the ideal age for marriage in the
traditional structure is thirteen. Early marriage is seen as a
prestigious event in a woman's life. It implies that she was
beautiful enough to be asked for early. Only ugly, unattractive
girls marry late. Without exception, all the women interviewed
idid they married before having their first period and when
asked to give a specific age they said thirtee3i I had the chance
'0 check on one of them. I asked a childhood iriend of hers if she
'emembered when Mrs. F- got married.
She lied to YOU! She was a very old girl when she got
married. She was a problem for her family. Haven't you
noticed that she is rather homely?
(How old do you think she was when she got married?)
I swear she must have been at least twenty! I wish I was
there when you were interviewing her. She wouldn't have
dared to indulge herself. And how could you believe it?
No one will call her a beauty, and don't tell me it is old
age! She was always as ugly as famine days.
Sexual Anomie As Revealed by the Data 103
In urban Morocco girls seem to marry much later. A f
anilv.planning survey conducted by the government in 1966'3
that the ideal age of marriage for girls in towns is much late!
than puberty.
Idenl Age nt Mnrringe For Men For w ~ ~ ~ , ,
According to Men 23 17
According to Women 25 I9
Young men in towns have a chance to seek adolescent women
of their own age and think about marrying them, while in rural
settings all the young girls belong to husbands already.
Sexual Problems in Urban Areas
Our data deals mainly with urban problems; 70 percent ofthe
letters come from urban centres. They convey the idea that
sexual segregation in the city is not as absolute as it is in rural
areas: young men actually do have access to women, often older
and/or married women.
Casablanca, 1971 Letter8s
I am a fifteen-year-old high-school student. Please guide
me. Here is my problem: there is a married maid in our
house. She cannot bear children; she is sterile. I used to be
with her often and I used to visit her in her house and then
I started sleeping with her. I mean, commiting zina witi'
her. I did this many times. Please guide me. What can Ido
to redeem myself?
Casablanca, 16January 1971 ~etterlbq
I am a twenty-year-old man. 1am trapped by a
that I cannot solve. In our neighbourhood lives a 35-yea'old
woman who has children but no husband. I mad'
advances to her once and what was bound to happen
happened. I am asking God for forgiveness. After that
kept away from her. Two years have passed since then
a d
now I look at her differently, as if she was my motheror
sister. In fact, our relation has evolved into a respectful,
my
brotherly relation.
~~w I am coming to the subject. This woman has a
s,,,nteen-year-old daughter who used to live with her
grandmother and who has just come to stay with her
,,,ther. At the beginning I never paid much attention to
her, but I noticed her kind manner towards me. I also
,,.ticed that she was very affectionate towards me. One
dayshe confessed to me that she was in love with me and I
to her affections. . . .
~ u tI can't forget what happened between her mother
and me and often I am torn between my love for her and
the desire to flee from her. She is an ideal girl for me and I
feel a lot of affection for her. Once she extracted from me
the promise to many her.I4 Moreover, my mother suggested
her as a possible bride for me. 1am trapped. There is
no reason 1should refuse. Is this marriage possible, is if licit
nccordlng to religious law?"
But most of the letters reveal that young men in towns seek
contact with girls of the same age, want to marry them, and
when they succeed in getting engaged, go further than a kiss.
Casa 17May 1971 Letter 180
Sir,
I am twenty-three years old. I met a girl who is nineteen. I
fell in love with her and went to her parents and asked her
hand in mamage. We have had to wait for a while before getting
manied because I don't have enough money for that yet.
But one day our sexual desire overwhelmed us and,
therefore, I deprived her of her treasure, of her 'honour'.
This happened after we had written the marriage contract
though. We don't want to tell her parents because we have
not ;lad the marriage ceremony yet. Does religious law
forbid what we did? My bride is as anxious as 1 because
She has to live with her parents until the ceremony can
take place.
But not all young men are as lucky as he was. Their desire to
marry girls of their own choosing brings strong
from their parents. Consequently, sexuality itl oPPosit
,>111,y11 urban c~,,~;
I , , , . )
often assumes the aspect of a generational confl-
1 I
parents and children. Twenty percent of the 402 letters
rent 0"this conflict. They reveal the young people's inclinations,
theI,parents' attitudes and often how the conflict is
resolvpd,
, i
examination of these themes and other variables
"
I as a);?,sex, and size of the town, gives interesting insight
,,,,,i,li~li~~~ shape of the conflict. Into ti,,
'1 - -r~
Sexual Anomie As Reuenled by the Data 105
Parental Opposition to Love Marriage
The conflict centres on the parents' customary right to
marriage. and the young people's rejection of this right and
insistence upon their right to marry for love.:-The Parentl
believe the choice of a sexual partner for their daughter or sonis
their decision. (Incidentally, this gives them tremendous power
over their children's lives.) Young Moroccans claim that the"
should choose their own sexual partners. The younger the
individual, the more likely he is to insist onhis right to love as
he chooses. Of the letters concerning this conflict, 70 percent are
written by teenagers and 30 percent by individuals between
twenty and twenty-five.
Agadir, June 1971 Letter5
From Mr.I
am a 22-year-old man. I have a father; I lost my mother
when I was a child. My father got married after my
mother's death. I asked my maternal aunt's daughter to
marry me in 1961. [Child engagements have disappeared
in general but if there is a strong attraction between young
people it is common for the young man to make it known
So that no one can take his beloved cousin from him.] MY
father opposed this marriage, knowing how much I loved
this girl. This year I decided to marry her during the
summer holidays. My father has announced that he will
not be present at my marriage and that he will do whatever
he can to prevent it from taking place. He wants to force
leave the girl I have loved for so many years in order
I"'to rnarrY a girl of his choice whom 1have never met but
to belong to my father's wife's family.
,011ohaPP
How Can 1 solve such a problem? Can 1marry the girl 1
,what does the religious law say about a person of
l',\'E.
age who marries without the father's approval? What
n1y
does cod say about this? My stepmother is the one who
encoL,ragesmy father to refuse my marriage.
FEZ, 8June1971
Letter 6
I am employed as a clerk in a company. I have a father
who lives in the country far from me. I met a girl I want to
marryand I promised to marry her and she promised to
,,,ry me. I wrote to my father announcing the news.
hoping that he would rejoice with me but he did not. He
ooooses the marriage. He wants me to marry a woman-,,
from the country. I cannot do that because I cannot conceive
of my life without this girl anymore and if I try to
oart from her I mirht find myself in a situation which isdangerous
not only for me but for the Muslim irm!na as
well, and for the Muslim religion too.
Please advise me about what is best for us and our
religic
protest
..-....The love voiced by young men is echoed by young
women. Thr rnosr fanatical advocates of the couple's rights,
they writ .cent of the letters about love.e 70 per
Letter 7
From MissI
am fifteen vears old. A man came and asked for my
hand from m i parents. He has a bad temper and bad
manners. He likes forbidden things like smoking, but kif.
[Smoking kif, of hashish, despite what Western tourists
think, is considered a shameful addiction.] And of course
my parents gave me to him. I have not accepted the
marriage and I am not going to. But the problem is that
when the contract is about to be written by the justice
officer[remember, it is a guardian who gives the girl in
sexual Anornie As Revealed by the Data 107
8 ,
(il;(i marriagel, they do not intend to let me know,Th wards their parents but are afraid to act and feel
,i~,,,~~l to take another girl and write a fake contract. Then?Y intendI ,cbellious plan to go ahead and act against their parents'
1 , , be sacrificed.My last decision if they write the Mill lyscd;
d i i ~l;iimlll, threaten such drastic actions brraking
l8~~!l:l definite: I will commit suicide to free myself from th IS , , with their parents or even committing suicide.
oppressive people. What does the religious law ?st rCl~~ionsMoroccan society, in the form of parental authority,
/'/#Ifi
Con. n:hy ISceming Parents who fake their daughter's
n,arriajie?
, negativelyto the young people's desitc for marriages
prefer to kill myself whatever the law says. r,,aiting so love? D~~~ conjugal love constitute an attack on
I,':IIJ~I!I~ i,,lsed On
, ; i l ! j ~ ,S
to integrate sexuality into society by subordin-
8 i~,~;;i,i~/li Nonetheless, while 80 percent of the boys
their in.
Islam the to the authority ofher husband and outlawing
tention to marry their beloved, only 20 percent of the
girls d,,,
atins
' l l l ) l ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
' , ' ' I
love between them?
to go as far as that. This is probably because M~~~~~~~
One featureof
the sexual patterns that emerged from both the
B
,,'8jl,;,u#i however 'modem' they may be, agree with their grandmothers, iindings the population and my own data on the urban
that it is the man who should ask for the girl's hand and not the ,ation is that the heterosexual relationship is certainly the;111:!1~
l,'dll1;~
other way around. This attitude seems wise and realisticgiven po"c",: of
and conflict. Society seems to have a systematicthe
fact that according to Moroccan law a cannot Ilv negative
attitude towards heterosexual love. In rural areas
:,qi~j a .
herself in marriage: a male guardian has to do that. ung people are prevented from forming any heterosexual
,'I!#
The fact that girls do not initiate marriage is probablyalso the YO
relationshipsat all. In urban areas they are prevented from
l,,l!!lll~
reason why there is a very low percentage of conflicts between any permanent heterosexual relationships based on
/ ' l l I l ~
Parents and daughters as compared with conflicts hetween love
Parents and sons. Of fourteen cases in which the conflict be^ ln rural ~ o ~ o c c oyoung men's access to Young women is
tween parents and offspring had reached a crisis, ten involved subject to strict and apparently effective control.'7 In urban
the parents' opposition to the son's projected marriage. centres access seems to be much less restricted. Young people
The main weapon Parents use against children seems to b~ meet frequently enough to fall in love and want to get married.
the curse. Parents being invested with Allah's power to curseor D~~~ this mean that sexual segregation is breaking down in
bless their children.lb The potential destructiveness of the urban areas?
Parents' curse is dramatized by the traditional fear expressed in I believe that sexual segregation, one of the main pillars
sayings and proverbs. One of the most common is: lam's social control over sexuality, is breaking down. And it
,pears to me that the breakdown of sexual segregation permits
Who is cursed by parents cannot be saved by saints, ~eemergence ofwhat the Muslim order condemns as a
Who is cursed by saints can be saved by parents. ..lemy of civilization: love between men and women in general,
md between husband and wife in particular.
Persons cursed by their parents are likely to fail in whatever
they attempt: their marriage will break up; their house will
burn; their business enterprise will go bankrupt. In sum, a
dreadful fate is to be expected on earth while waiting for hell i:
the next world. Consequently, parental opposition to children
marital projects is generally quite effective.Some young
say they feel resentment towards having to choose between
their Parents' blessings and their lover; some say they feel
Husband and Wife lo9
*,c never fought each other. He always treated me as a
with a lot of respect; he will do things before I
Husband and Wife R l , ~ ~,xprcss, the need for them. For example, the day 1 decide to
clean ,he house thoroughly I will try, on my own, to move
sofas and the wooden boards. He runs out to the street
hires a maid or two to help me. It is a gift of God when
ai
is respect.
never thwarted my wishes. I did my best never to
The dynamics of shared spaces between the sexes can best t,,wart his. He is still treating me with the same considerI
, , understood by analysing the functioning of the con,uRal,,ii,
!, ' , ,tion, H~ never raises his voice with me. He respected me
the only model of heterosexual relationships that M ~ ~ , ~ ~and 1 treated him like a king. Praise to God. I hope my
Moroccan society offers its children.
~~al,ghterswill have the same luck as 1.
The ideal wife for the believer, according to ~ h ~ ~ ~ l i ,is
Beautiful, non-temperamental, with black pupils, and long 7he perception of a husband's love and respect as a miracle
hair, big eyes, white skin, and in lovc with her husband,
looking at no one but him.' , rrohdhly stems from the fact that the woman cannot legally
drmand re -love. This is illustrated in the list of respec.
, , .
, 1 live rights ties in the 1957Moroccan Code.
Ghazali explains that Arabic has a word, n r ~ b ~ , ~meaning a
woman in love with her husband who feels like making luvr
with him. This is one of the words used to describe the
promised to believers in Paradise.' He adds that the prop he^
1. Fidelity.
2. Obedience according to the accepted standards.
said that a woman who loves and obeys her husband is a gilt 3. Breastfeeding, if possible, of the children born from
from Allah. Such a woman would indeed be a miracle, given the
the marriage.
conflictstructure of the conjugal unit, based on a relationship ol
4. The management of the household and its
forces in which the most likely outcome is the woman,s dislike
of and rebellion against her husband. organization.
5. Deference towards the mother and father and close
relatives of the husband.
Marriage as Conflict
Art. 35 The Rights of the Wife Vis-a-vis Her Htrsband
the women interviewed talked about ['entente conjugale as a 1. Financial support as stated by law, such as food.
magic phenomenon that levels all obstacles. clothing, medical care, and housing.
2. In case of polygamy, the right to be treated equally
When there is an entente between husband and wife, all oh- with other wives.
stacks can be overcome. Big crises become easy to deal with. 3 The authorization to go and visit her parents and the
When there is no entente, everything becomes a crisis. right to receive them according to limits imposed by
Fatiha F. the accepted standards.
I
.-
110
Husband and Wife 111
4. Complete liberty to administer and dispose
Ofpossessions with no control on the part of ; opinion, but do the opposite.
husband, the latter having no power over his ...'
~ s kDon,tYo'eve, tY...,~ your wife's suggestions.6
possessions. Vie.,
Note that the husband owes no moral duties to h.
'S htfcMoreover, apart from the rights of the wife listed in
Iand 4 above, all other alleged rights are in fact either restrictions
of her freedom (like item 3) or restrictions on her claim
herhusband's person (polygamy in item 2). She cannot expect
fidelity. What she expects to get from her husband a, order,,
and what she expects to give is obedience. It is a Power
relation. This is emphasized and justified by a social orderthat
encourages the husband to command his wife and not to love
her, as Ghazali describes.
Some souls sometimes let,themselvesbe completely over.
taken by passionate love [for a woman]. It is pure madness.
It is to ignore completely why copulation was created. lt is
to sink to the level of beasts as far as domination and
mastery of oneself go. Because a man passionately in love
does not look for the mere desire to copulate, which is
already the ugliest of all desires4and of which one should
be ashamed, but he goes as far as to believe that th
appetite cannot be satisfied except with a specificobject
particular woman]. A beast satisfies its sexual appeti~
where it can, while this type of man [the man in love1
Cannot satisfy his sexual appetite except with his beloved.
Thus he accumulates disgrace after disgrace and slaven
after slavery. He mobilizes reason in order for it to sene
appetite. while reason was created to command and to be
~ b e y e d . ~
The religious duty of the husband to command his wife
enforced by numerous sayings and proverbs in Moroccan folklore,
some of which are supposed to be direct quotations frorn
the Prophet and his disciples.
~f the rr
1
Js this r
husban'
ual intel
The duty (
Ian to command his wife is embodied in
to C O ~ C C Lher by physical beating. The Koran itself
his
reco~~lmen~
neasure, but only as a last resort. If his wife
the d is instructed to scold her and then to stop
having sex
-course with her. Only if these measures fail
jl,ould he beat ner to make her obey.7 The right of correction,
,vhjchwas thought likely to be used to excess by husbands, was
by the Prophet (who was very kind to his wives) to
.decent'proportions.
DO not beat your wives like one beats a slave and then
co~ulatewith them at the end of the night.'
Fear of mistreatment and beatings is one of the reasons why
girls and their families usually prefer marriage to a husband
who lives in the same neighbourhood.
In modern Morocco, women can bring suit against their
liusbands for beating them. But they have no recourse if they
cannot establish physical evidence of mistreatment. Even so,
nent must have reached a demonstrably unbearable
them to obtain a divorce. It is the judge who must
c a L . u $ d l r whether the mistreatment is bearable or not and decide
whether or not to issue a divorce? Judges are not reputed
to favour women in Moroccan society, which means that the
right to beat his wife is an almost unchecked privilege of the
Ilusband.
In traditional Moroccan society there is no openly admitted
behaviour pattern for the wife to express her physical love for
Iier husband, while an openly admitted behaviour pattern for
her rejection of him does exist: the karh. If, after the first few
of marriage, the wife does not like her husband, she is said
become harjaf karha, or 'hateful'. This is expressed by
ritualized behaviour, usually, according to my interviews, a
Co"~leterefusal to share soace with him (she will leave the
Ask Your wife's opinion, but follow your own. ''Om whenever her husbanh steps in) or to communicate with
him verbally. When the wife is karha, it is considered a
catastrophe by the respective families and by the individual,
involved. The woman's rejection of her husband, in spite
Of theusually binding nature of marriage for women. often ends in
the breaking of the marriage bond. The experience of
onewoman who was married when she was thirteen reveals that
the parents who arrange the marriage, contra17 to what one
might think, are very concerned about their daughter's fate
their plans fail. Women are usually remarried soon after the
karl~nexperience and often block it out of their memories, as is
illustrated in the following interview.
'Zahra and Hamid don't have the same father.'
'What do you mean? Who is Hamid's father then?'
'My first husband.'
'YOU promised to tell the story of your life, and you
forget something as important as that?'
'I really forgot it. It is not important anyway. I don't like
to talk about it.'
'How long did it last?'
'He was our neighbour. His wife died and my parents
arranged the marriage. When he got in the dniishoushal"I
hated him. It lasted one year and a half. I spent most ofthe
time in my parents' house. He did everything he could to
make me love him, but when he tried to get near me, it
Husband and Wife 1 1 3
\NhY does Moroccan society encourage the husband to assume
the
of master instead of lover? Does love between man and
.fethreaten something vital in the Muslim order? We have
,YI
that sexual satisfaction is considered necessary to the
see
mora1 well-being of the believer. There is no incompatibility
between Islam and sexuality as long as sexuality is expressed
harmoniouslyand is not frustrated. What Islam views as negative
and anti-social is woman and her power to create fitno.
Heterosexualinvolvement. real love between husband and wife,
is the danger that must be overcome.
The prevention of Intimacy
~h~ sexual act is considered polluting'2 and is surrounded by
ceremonials and incantations whose goal is to create an emotional
distance between the spouses and reduce their embrace
to its most elementary function, that of a purely reproductive
act. During coitus, the male is actually embracing a woman,
symbol of unreason and disorder, anti-divine force of nature
and disciple of the devil. Hence a dread of erection, which is
experienced as a loss of control and, according to Ghazali,'"
referred to as darkness in verse 3 of sura 113:
used to aggravate things. When I got pregnant, that was it.
I'd see him and I'd start shivering. We organized my Say: I seek refuge in the lord of daybreak
running away. My father arranged for me to go and stay From the evil of that which he created
with an uncle who was livina far awav from town. The From the evil of darkness when it is intense.
-judge got involved in the affair. My father started sending
delegations of shorfas [people who think they are, and are
believed to be, direct descendants of the Prophet] to mY
husband's family. Finally, my poor father decided to buY
my freedom, and I was liberated!
TamOU T.
' 1
Imam Ghazali agrees that marriage is equivalent to slaverY
, , for the woman because it places her in a situation in which she
'has to obey him [her husband] without restrictions, except in
cases where what he asks her to do constitutes a flagrant
violation of Allah's orders.'"
[n an attempt to prevent a complete merging with the woman,
the coital embrace is surrounded by a ceremony which grants
Allah a substantial presence in the man's mind during interC"Urse.
The coital space is religiously oriented: the couple
shouldhave their heads turned away from Mecca. 'They Should
"Ot facethe "holy shrine" in respect for it.'14 This symbolism of
orientation expresses the antagonism between Allah and
the Woman. Mecca is the direction of God. During intercourse,
man is reminded that he is not in Allah's territory, whence
the to invoke his presence.
It is advisable for the husband to start by invok.
'%God,,name and reciting 'Say God is one' first of all and th
reciting the tnkbir 'God is most great' and the tahlii,Th
is no god but God' and then say, 'In the name of G ere
Od,thehigh and powerful, make it a good posterity if you
to make any come from my kidney.'I5
At the crucial moment of ejaculation, when the physicala,d
spiritual boundaries of the lover threaten to melt in a total
identification with the woman,16 the Muslim lover is reminded
It is suitable to pronounce without moving the lips, the
following words: 'Praise be to God who created man from
a drop of water.'17
The conjugal unit presents an even graver danger than
ephemeral sexual embrace; erotic love has the potential to grow
into something much more encompassing, much more total. ]t
can evolve into an emotional bond giving a man the plenitude
that 'only God is supposed to give'.
The erotic relation seems to offer the unsurpassablepeak
of the fulfilmentof therequest for love in the direct fusion
of the souls of one to the other. . . . A principal ethic of
religious brotherhood is radically and antagonistically
opposed to all this. From the point of view of such an
ethic, this inner earthly sensation of salvation by mature
love competes in the sharpest possible way with the
devotion of a supramundane God. ..I8
The Muslim God requires a total love from his subjects; he
requires all the believer's capacity for emotional attachment.
Yet of mankind are some who take unto themselves [objects
of worship which they set as] rivals to Allah, loving them
with a love like [that which is due] Allah [alone] thosewha
believe are stauncher in their love for ~ 1 l ~ h . n
Or, again:
I Husband and Wife 115
tional attachment divides man's heart, and Allah hath
Ef1°
created man with two hearts within his body.2o
110
hilu51im
was consolidated in fierce warfare
the predominant religious practice in
,,gainst
duringthe early seventh century. Idolatry, and therefore
;he recognition of a multiplicity of incarnations of the divine,
,sociation' of various gods and goddesses, was the most
the 'a
,videspreadbelief. Allah was worshipped as one god among
others. Islam therefore had to purge the Arab heavens of any
other divinity that might threaten Allah's monopoly. Hence the
statement of the Muslim profession of faith: 'There is
but God [Allah].' (In this regard, see lbn Hisham's Sira,
[bn al.Khali's Kitab a/-Asnnm, and other works on the native
religionsof pre-Islamic Arabia.)
The Muslim god is known for His jealousy, and He is especially
jealous of anything that might interfere with the believer's
devotion to him.2' The conjugal unit is a real danger and is
conseqi veakened by two legal devices: polygamy and
repudiz 0th institutions are based on psychological
premis: reveal an astonishing awareness of the couple's
psychologyFolk wi and its weaknesses.
erceives polygamy as a means by which men
make the) valuable, not by perfecting any quality within
themselves. but simply by creating a competitive situation
between ,males.
uently v
itlon. B
;es that
,.
isdom p
mselves
Tamou is a treasure chest [Tamou is a woman's name];
Aisha is the key to it [Aisha is another woman's
Polygamyin this sense is a direct attempt to prevent emotional
growth in the conjugal unit, and results in the impoverishment
Of the husband's and wife's investment in each other as lovers.
The obvious consequence of polygamy is that the wife
does not 'own her husband', she shares him with one or
more co-wives. What does this mean? For one thing, it
must mean that the polygamous husband tends to have a
less emotional investment in any single wife. He does not
have 'all his eggs in one basket'. The mean.
'"g f o r ,co-wivcs is less clear. I suspect that polygam .general 'lowering effect' on the emotional im Y has a
Portan,,the husband-wifebond and that this applies to the lJ(
well as to the husband. She also invests less in h di
band and invests more in other relation~hi~s.23er hu,
The meaning of polygamy tor the co-wives is clarified
Salama, a sixty-year-old woman who lived as a concubine in
Moroccan harem from 1924 to 1950. a
I was happy to be raised to the status 01 his lover hutI
was afraid of all the dangers attached to it.2"
(What dangers?)
Many, the most frightening is the kjar.'5
(Did he ever kjar any of you?)
Yes, he did. Zahra. He only solicited her once and never
talked to her after that. 1 was obsessed by Zahra's case.
Every time I went to his apartments, I lay there wide awake
in the dawn asking myself, *Isit the last time he is to call
me?' I was no different from Zahra. Zahra was more
beautiful than many of us. Why will he choose me again?
(Were you jealous?)
You're joking. Jealous of whom? And of what? We had
no rights. No one had any rights over him, including the
legitimate wife. For once we were all equal. Democracy.
Harems are now exceptional in modern Muslim societies
plagued by economic problems. Polygamy is dying statistitally,''
but its assumptions are still at work even within monogamous
households, as is illustrated by one of the interviews.
He keeps repeating that he will get a new wife- He
threatens me every morning. I do not worry anymore. He
is unable to support us. He cannot do anything anymore.
How can he put up with one of those modern women? It
~ o u l dbe a circus, but it hurts me when he says that, and1
feel like hurting him back.
Maria M.
1 Husband arrd Wife 117
amy, although generally thought of as a male
~ ~ ' l ~ ~'::fns a subtle institutional detail that prevents the
,,r,vilege, C0
from exercising his most intimate prerogative: the right to
!na tercoursewith whichever wife he desires at any particu-
I,,,VEin
It is necessary for the polygamous husband to observe
among his wives and not favour one at the
expenseof the others. If he leaves for a journey and wants
one of them to accompany him, he has to draw lots as the
Messenger used to do, and if he frustrates a wife from the
night due to her, he should replace it by another night.
his is a religious duty. . . . The Prophet (salvation upon
him), because of his noble sense of justice and his virile
vigour, used to have intercourse with all his other wives
when he felt the desire to sleep with a woman who was
not the one he was supposed to spend the night with
according to the rotation system. That is how, according to
Aisha [the youngest of the Prophet's wives and the one he
loved the most], he performed such a task in one single
night. According to Anas (salvation upon him), the
Prophet's nine wives received his conjugal visit in one
single
The Prophet's sexual prowess was considered part of his
outstanding personality. He was supposed to have the miraculous
sexual vigour of forty men,28 but the ordinary believer is
not expected to live up to the Prophet's example. Pragmatism iq
a Muslim quality and the strict application of the rotation
system, for the average man, who could not satisfynine women
in one morning, means that he must refrain from giving in to
desire when it involves a woman not indicated by the
"tation schedule. This ensures scarcity in the midst of plenty.
Not only does it oblige the male to scatter his emotional involvement,but
it reinforces the rule of interchangeability. It obliges
him to have intCrcourse with women he does not desire and
him frorn yielding to the attraction of another woman
she is his own wife.
The underlying assumptions of polygamy also apply to
Husband and Wife 119
repudiation. Like polygamy, repudiation seems to b ke our life lawful again. I have to add I married him
privilege allowing the man to change partners by th a matr ~na oung. D~ I have to put up with this situation Or can 1
simpleverbal pronunciation of the formula, 'I repudiate thee.. But is very Y
leave and go back to my parents?
a boomerang. It works against the man as much as for him
Repudiationis
only a trap for the man and the woman,
morally binds all members of the family, who feel unFez,
July 1971 Letter 1 it a150
fortablewhen they have witnessed a verbal repudiation. If
Praise to God. corn does not perform the legal remarriage, they feel that
From Mr.- the man
,hey x e liv! ,fornicators who are committing zim.
To your highness the great religious scholar bfoulay
Mustapha Alaoui,
I am happy to come before your highness asking your province or treni Mellal, 14 May 1971
advice concerning a catastrophe which has befallenme, a I am bringing to your attention this problem on behalf of
problem whose solution is beyond my capacity, Mr.I
pronounced the repudiation formula while I was boiling A man said to his wife, 'you are repudiated a triple
with anger. I pray your highness to tell me if there is and he repeated it three times. It was a banal
anything I can do to have my wife back in spite of misunderstanding. He has children with his wife. She is
has happened. still living with him in the house. He does not sleep with
I must confess that I love my wife deeply and intensely, her or come near her to talk with her. But he still performs
Peace. all his duties as a father:he gives her the money she needs
for herself and for the children.
It is specified in the Moroccan code that a repudiation pro- NOW, given the fact that this man is ignorant, that he
nounced in anger or dmnkenness is not valid. Although this is does not have any knowledge about these religious matters,
quite well known among average Moroccans, this husband it is his father who is asking you about what the religious
seems to feel a need for reassurance in a society in which words laws say about this problem. Is there a way forthis man to
have such fatal importance. The husband's anxiety is echoed in have his wife back or is there no solution?
the woman's fear of living in a state of illicitness with her own
husband whenever he yields to the temptation to use the The striking thing about Moroccan divorce is that there is no
repudiation formula. check whatsoever on the desire of the husband to break the
marital bond. The judgeTsrole is limited simply to registering
~etter2 'hat desire, never contesting it.
The structural instability inherent in the Muslim family has
From Mrs.- been identified by psychiatrists" and pedagogues30 as having
I had a quarrel with my husband and he repudiated me. di5astr~useffects on child development. This instability is
Now I came back to him but he did not perform the lega' likely to increase with the increasing pressures of moderniz-I
formalities for our remarriage. Can I still stay with him Or ation, which create additional conflicts and tensions. A
do I have to go to my parents' home? I have three children question like that of the woman's right to go outside the home,
and he always keeps swearing, using the repudiation "ich was unequivocally submitted to the husband's authorformula
without ever performing the necessary acts to IZationin traditional households, is likely to become a source of
confusion and conflict between husband and wife. T~~~~~~~~
patterns of heterosexual behaviour, ideology. folk Wisdom,
law cannot be of any help to the male whose rights a a',y
leges over his wife are challenged by modernization. nd priv,.
7
The Mother-in-Law
,,, a traditional marriage, the mother-in-law is one of the
greatestobstacles to conjugal intimacy. The close link between
motherand son is probably the key factor in the dynamics of
Muslim marriage. Sons too involved with their mothers are
particularly anxious about their masculinity and especially
,,zaqof femininity.
psychoanalytic theory has identified the relationship with
the mother as a determining factor in the individual's ability to
handle a heterosexual relationship.' Cross-cultural studies like
Philip Slater's have shown that societies have found ways to
use this relationship very effectively. Slater divides societies
according to the importance they place on the mother-son
relationship.
Societies vary between two poles, one of which accents the
mother-child relationship, the other the marital bond.
Each produces its own pattern of self-maintaining circu-
larity.2
He argues that in societies that institutionalize a weak marital
bond, the mother-son relationship is accorded a particularly
Important place and vice versa. In Muslim societies not only 1s
marital bond weakened and love for the wife discouraged. but
hlsmother is the only woman a man is allowed to love at all, and
this love is encpuraged to take the form of life-long gratitude.
His mother beareth him with reluctance, and bringeth
him forth with reluctance, and the bearing of him and the
Weaning of him is thirty months till, when he attaineth full
The Mother-irl-Loru 123
1
strength and reacheth forty years, he saith, the role of the father-in-law, who is
Lo?darouse me that I may give thanks for the favour
whr ,
ea~.ances
.&pp , le for the negotiations about the bride-price and the
r ~ . onslb
,.'~p ,
of financial decisions called for by the marriage
2,CC~t10"
hut the
role is pivotal, because she has access
son's grateful love for the mother is the objectof iontract,
for,,,ation relevant
to the marriage that only women can
verses! Moreover, this love is not limited in time,
is not tw in a sexually segregated society. The mother is the one
Process with a beginning, a middle and a ritualized d
h , ~ ~ ~in
ho can
the bride, engage in discussions with her. and
endindicating that the adult male can now engage in
a heterosexsl; " Ily a very intimate knowledge of her body. In
relationship with his wife. On the contrary, in a
socieh
?,.?ntua only a woman can see another woman naked
.,marriage, which in most societies is invested
with a kind ,, \loroccahrinformation about her health. This occurs in a
initiation ritual allowing the adult son to fr& himself from h,s 3nd gatha kind o f ~ u r k i s hbath), ~ h i c hhas manifold functions
mother, is a ritual by which the mother's claim on the son, lio,imnmsides allowing( -people to prform the purification rituals and
strengthened. Marriage institutionalizes the oedipal
b,. the- The ~u,,lnlanl is an intense communication centre? a
tween love and sex in a man's life.5 He is encouraged to I,,, information agency exposing the secrets of the families
woman with whom he cannot engage in sexual intercourse,hi,
,,,nu frequent it-mother; he is discouraged from lavishing his affection on the The gucllassn (cashier) and the teyyaba (the 'girl friday' who
woman with whom he does engage in sexual intercourse, h, dssists theclientele in all sorts of ways, giving massages, Carryingwater,suggesting
herbal recipes for uterine troubles) have a
1111ji(;~ -position in the knmmam. They have more Or less
i;i1/{i/I The Mother's Decisive Role in
complete biographical accounts of the members o[ the families
living around the han~mam.The young girls are a particular
the Choice of Her Son's Bride targetfor gossip, and their behaviour is a daily object
concern to the women, those who are related to them and
According to my interviews with traditional women, it is the those who are A young girl's reputation has a direct impact
mother, not the son, who initiates the marriage and the on her family's honour and prestige. It is interesting to note
decisions about the creation of her son's new family, that the women who are in charge of making Young girls'
officially this is supposed to be the role of the son's father. reputations-be they mothers-in-law, guellassas, teyyab~s,Or
simply relatives of the son-are all elderly women who no
One day we were sitting in the courtyard as usual when longer have any sexual life, because they are widowed Or
somebody knocked at the door. An aunt of mine, my ivorced or simply abandoned by husbands involved with
father's cousin. who was to later become my hma [mother- iunger wives. The power of the elderly woman as receiver and
in-law] was at the door. She came straight from Tetuan. roadcaster of information about young women gives her treShe
was looking for a bride for her son. . . .I was thirteen hendous power in deciding who will marry whom and signifiyears
old then. She saw me, talked with my father, a~ked Wly reduces the man's decision-making role. If the mother
him for my hand for her son and left. She came back two imes up with information about the future bride's bad breath,
months later and my marriage contract was signed. -'a hidden physical deformity, or a skin disease, she is likely to
1 , 1 ,>iu~l,,~#il~ @id you know your husband?) havea decisive influencein the matter. One such example was
No. I never talked to him. provided by Maria M., a 55-year-old woman whose marriage
Fatiha F Postponed for seven years because the husband's mother
11
ase:
I T r >
The Mother-in-Law ' 2 5
him that she suspected that his future bride
losis, given her extreme pallor and thin build,
Becaufathers of the bride and groom were close friends
ation did not break off the prospect of the marriage
but it did have a mighty influence on the future
was an 'Id Inaid by everybody's standards
married.,All my younger sisters were no longer claim sexual fulfilment. Great pressures are
ill
and go1
lllry can
married before me. My marriage became
a kind of the
woman to regard herself as an asexual
rllt on
and felt I Was the object of a divine curse. T J , ~ ~is
,hv
to renounce her sexuality as early as possible. Her
,,vjcCt
never Open mY mouth and say bad things when I husband is expected to turn his attention to Younger womenamasked
mY opinion about a young girl. %is happened mu,h so that a menopausal woman who tries to claim her
li
50
years ago, but I remember the humiliation as vividl unl rights with her husband will be perceived as unrealistic
Y as I(
5 0
it yesterday. I still cannot smile atmy husband,$ her
will be met with scepticism by men and
mother. alike. A current joke that seems to have a lasting appeal
ior male Moroccan audiences runs:Maria M,
The Power of elderly women over the lives ofyoung peopleis why doesn't the government create a kind of 'used car
I
by Moroccan folk wisdom, which views age as
dealership' for women where you can bring in the old
entirely opposite effects on men and w,fe, add some money and trade her in for a new one.
A man who reaches eighty becomes a saint, ~t is only by understanding the pressure on the aging woman
A who reaches sixty is on the threshold hell,'
to renounce her sexual self and conjugal future that One can
understand the passion with which she gets involved in her
son's life.
What takes Satan a year to do In societies where sex antagonism is strong. the status
1s done by the old hag within the hour.8 of women low, and penis-envy therefore intense. the
,I,$ pi/ woman's emotional satisfactions will be sought primarily
; II~!III(( a advanced age is synonymous
the power to
in the mother-son relationship; while in those societies in
plot and weave intrigues, which these characteristics are minimally present,
the marital bond will be the principal avenue of needWhen
the woman grows gratification.1°
She becomes obsessed with intrigues;
Whatever she sees, she wants to get involved in, 1 my data, all mothers-in-law were perceived as completely
, . God curse her, alive or dead.q Xual. In a few cases .ln which information about sleeping
'ngements was available, the 'old couple', although sharing
Before going any further, I should point out that even though Same room, did not share the same bed.
the mother seems to be favoured as a in Moroccan
Ill The Mother-in-Law as Friend and Teacher
The mother-in-law and the wife should be considered Competitors,
but also collaborators. The older woman has many th.
'"5to offer the young, inexperienced bride, not only in matters
concerning sex and pregnancy, but also in other matters vital ,,,
a Moroccan woman's life, such as physical beauty. The fo]lo,,.
ing quotation illustrates this aspect of the relationship between
wife and mother-in-law.
You see, with all that she did to me, with all her tyrannv,
remember my mother-in-law with peace. I do not feelany
resentment towards her. With time I came to see her in a
more complex way. 1 realize now how complex a person
she was.. . . For example, she was very elegant, alwavs
dressed up and seated with a lot of poise and majesty,
with her jewelry and her neat headgear. Clean and smart
. . .She always wanted us to be elegant, well-dressed, so
that people would not say that she had sloppy brides.. . .
She was terribly refined.
Fatiha F.
The secrets of refinement, elegance and adornment are valuable
in a society that emphasizes the importance of physical
beauty and values aristocratic sauoir-viure. An important part
of the knowledge society bequeathes to the femalechild are the
vast and diverse techniques and recipes for the use of plants.
flowers, seeds, and minerals to make facials, shampoos, and
cosmetics. Most Moroccan women still use these traditional
beauty techniques in spite of the availability of cheap Western
make-up. The mother-in-law's role as imitator of sauoir-ui~re
as important as her role as instructress in matters of birth,
sickness, and death.
Moroccan marriage is virilocal. The child-wife leaves her
family, either before or immediately after menarche, to live
her husband's household. Because of her segregated upbringing'
she is often fearfulof men and thus more inclined to trust and '@
communicate with'women. During her first conjugal years she
The Mother-in-Law 127
to have a deeper relationship with a mother than with a son: ~ ~.
is
'1 stayed with my husband until I had my first period.'
,HOWlong did you stay with your husband before you
your first period?'
'1 don't remember exactly-a year, maybe. I had no
breasts, nothing. I was like a boy.'
id he use to approach you?'
'Never. He never approached me until after a whole year.'
,And were you living with him and sharing the same
room?'
'I was living with my hrna (mother-in-law); I used to
cover myself every time I saw him.'
'You were living with your hma?'
'I was living with my hma. She used to treat me like a child
of hers. She used to go to fetch young girls from the neighbourhood
to play with and talk to so that I wouldn't feel bored.'
Kenza
Moroccan parents are reluctant to give their daughters to
husbands who live in different localities, for fear of mistreatment.
Usually these fears are allayed if the mother of the groom
decides to live with her son. To the bride's parents, distrustful
of the husband, the presence of the mother-in-law seems to
guarantee their daughter's fair treatment.
The following case of a husband-son from the province of
Berkane provides an illustration-unusual even by Moroccan
standards-of the extent to which a mother may become involvedin
her daughter-in-law's life.
Province of Berkane, 20 May 1971
TOMoulay Mustapha Alaoui:
Dear Sir,
1 am the father of three children, all of whom were
breast-fed regularJy by my mother, who lost her husbandi.e.,
my father-a long time ago. She did that because she
had milk in her breast.
What does religious law stipulate about this breast-
feeding?
the
thi
do
The l
7.1 .
pll'i!ill~, , ' 'I,
jlj!~,
'I;(
!q[
L nc
mod,
moil-
Marc
-128
Tire Mother-i~i-Lflu~ 126
all mothers-in-law are gifted with the lacteal
potentialbithisone. and the take-over of conjugal affain need nut
be th
pieces?'
,yes, pieces with strange shapes. It was not a child, but
It usually takes the form of the
assl;i
,jd and different pieces. There were seven in all. One
ing the Young bride during her first
several pregnancies, ,,, like a fish, another like a grape, a white grape.
The interviews reveal that pregnancy is experienced pime
Was like an artichoke head; when You pushed On
submission of the woman's body to strange forces, as the
i!d
~1(1
I
ne 'O~id
it a white head came out like an egg.'
almost speak of dissociative reflexes in women,s percept. Fatiha F.
their swollen bodies. 1% ,i
For
firstyears of marriage, the bride perceives her lifeas a
I became Pregnant while still a child myself. I did nut snt
5uccesron of
and later recalls these yea, as ones
people to see my belly. I wanted to hide it, I would sit,,
that people ~ o u l dnot notice it. I spent whole days nying- which she was entirely devoted to her children and their
ems: KUnt kaida felwlad is a frequent sentence: '1
just lying about and crying. with children.' The mother-in-law emerges during
Kenra as a beneficant supervisor whose assistance allow*
, ho;sehold to function efficiently. Let us analyse the form of
I did not know what was happening when the child ,assistance and its effect on the power structure of the
il started moving inside my belly. I would start mesticunit, focusing on the case of Fatiha F., a 45-year-~ld
I
1)) time it happened. 1had the impression that he was ,,,,fe andmofher married to a petit fonctionnflircwhose iob with
I t l ~ i n gto come out of my skin. I felt very strange, the Ministv ofjustice has required him to live in differentParts
Hayat H. of Morocco.
I!/ The perception of first pregnancies as bizarre phenomena
i!I heightened by unpredictable miscarriages, ~ ~ t h ~ ~ - i ~ - ~ ~ ~ ~ sControl Over the Household
1 1
I , ' , l , "11 'I did not have my period during the first months that I .,,,fefs submission to the mother-in-law is required by
was married. I was Pregnant-a strange pregnancy. BY the :m law, which obliges her to 'show deference towards the
month my belly was vely swollen-a strange feeling, ier, father and close relatives of the husband'." Since
as if it were only fat. . .strange pregnancy. oneday I felt xcan households are often deserted by males, the motherthe
labour, the pain. I had a haemorrhage that lasted lor
w is the only the wife has to confront daily. This
I told the people around me that I felt as though a lission is usually expressed in two rituals: the hand-kissing
frog was lumping in me, eating my heart. They answered. nony and the wife's duty to call her mother-in-law
"lt is nothing.. you are just too young to know and be tress).
Patient with Pregnancy. What you feel is natural for
!I women." I was not convinced. My husband took me to a . . . I did not tell the best of it at all, the hand-kissing
doctor. She was a woman. She gave me shots right in the
ceremony. we [the son's wives] had to kiss her hand twice
After that I felt very odd and started shivering, a day, in the morning and aftersunset. You kiss her hand
Whatever was in my belly was dead. ~t started coming out. on both sides of course. And we had to call her Lalla.
It Was not a child. It was a strange accumulation of odd When I sometimes forgot that hand, the world was turned
:b~,!,~
1 ,
l,I,',,'
The Mother-in-Law 131
upside down. She would engineer a whole food,the wife must ask for permission and money to go to
Shi.wouldn't say anything to me directly to remind me O1m;, ior om- ( ~ h ~hammorn is a semi-public institution whose
,,.e hflmm
duties. Oh no! That was too crude, not subtle I price does not exceed twenty cents.) On such occasions,
I il11J
enough [orher. When my husband came home, she would attackhim n0"m subtle blackmail on the part of the mother-in-law
I ,, bickering
'Do you know something', she would say, i; ,,,a! occur.
getting insolent. I have to put up with her insolencein
silence because I love you and I don't Mlant to h,v hma
the treasurer, and a very whimsical one too.
problems.' 'Mother', my husband would ask, ,whatdid I would go to her and express my intention to
she do?' 'Son, today she forgot to kiss my hand at sunset, the hammum. However, before asking I would make
She is taking more and more liberties with the sure [hat my husband had already given her the money for
it, She would wait until I had prepared everything [it is a
Fatiha F lengthyprocess involving the preparation of facials, homeThese
deference ceremonies express the allocation of made and so on]. I would put on my jellaba, veil
within the domestic unit. The symbol of that power is the key to my face,and go to her. She would then change her mind
the storage room where staples and food are kept. and say, 'DO you really have to go? Can't you heat water
who has the key is the one who decides what and when to eat and bathe here?' I would take off my jcllaba. take off my
and sit down without uttering a word, no protest. I
My hma was in charge of everything. She had the powerto could not protest. TO protest you have to have somebody's
decide what to eat, the quality and quantity, and she had you have to have your parents' support. I did not
the key. I could not use food except with her permission, have that. SO I thanked God for the fate He chose for me
We did the cooking of course. But once the food was read? and shut my mouth.
we were not allowed to touch it. She would come into the
kitchen and distribute it according to her own set of
priorities. For example, on the eve of festivals we would The competition between mother and wife for the son's
spend nights making cookies. But we were not allowed to favoursis clearly institutionalized by the son's duty to give his
take any for our own use, not even for our own children. mother whatever he gets for his wife.
Everything was stored by her. I could not even have a cup
of tea if I felt like it aside from ritual meal times. I had tc, My husband could not give me a gift. Suppose he wanted
beg her for a piece of sugar and some twigs of mint. to give me a scarf. He would say, 'Fatiha, I ~ o u l dlike to
[Moroccantea is made of green tea, fresh mint, and sugar.] see you in a red scarf, it will match your complexion.' I
Fatiha F, would answer that I would be veryhappy to have one. He
would go to the store, but he would have to buy four
Goffmanidentified several variables in the power structure of scarves-one for his mother, two for his divorced sisters,
totalitarian institutions. One of them is that the managers ofthe and finally one for me. He couldn't give me the red scarf
institutions make it impossible for the managed to obtain directly; he had to give them to his mother. She then chose
simple everyday things such as cigarettes or a cup of tea or what she wanted for herself and her daughters and gave
coffeewithout submitting to the humiliating process of solicit- me the last one. 11 could be green or black.
ing permission.12 In the Moroccan household, besides begging
I The Mother-in-Lazo 133
My husband could not come near me before goin
8 to g",lhis mother. Once he wanted to surprise me.
boughta bra and hid it in his pocket before going t
O greet hismother. She noticed that he had something in h.
IS Pockctand she laughingly took the bra out of his pocket
andmade fun of him: 'I didn't know you started using a bra,
like a woman. She [the wife] has eaten your brain, youart
like a crazy man now [to get things for the wife o,,,,,,
Where did you drink it? [The reference is to witchcr;i,
done by the wife to make her husband love her.] id yo,
drink it in the soup? Or was it discreetly mixed in your
cookies?
This sort of incident is a favourite subject for playwrights in
Morocco. One of the most despised personages in the popular
theatre is the mother-in-law.
In a traditional setting the mother's involvement with herson
is not limited to material things. It goes so far as to prevent his
being alone with his wife. A husband and wife cannot be
together during the day without being conspicuously anti-
social.
The social space in a family dwelling is centred on one focal
room, al-bit al-kbir (the big room). It is here that everything
happens and that everyone is encouraged to spend most of their
time. Individual privacy is vehemently discouraged. One of the
accepted gestures for showing dissent within the family is to
refuse to come to this communal room, to shut oneself off in
another room. Leaving the communal room right after dinner is
considered especially rude in traditional households. It is therefore
'natural' for the mother-in-law to use this custom to keep
her son with her for as long as possible.
'Often late in the evening, I felt very sleepy, but I could
not leave the communal room to go to sleep in mine.
Neither could my husband, even if both of us were dying
of fatigue. We still had to sit there with her and wait until
she decided to go to bed. Then we would run to ours. I
could not retire to my room before her. We could not close
our door in her face.'
,&,,A what if it is your husband who takes the initiative,..~
to bed?'
to~,,,pos5ible. He can't. You want her to explode? When
he used to come very early to the house after work, she
,vou~dturn to him and say, "Why did you come home so
7 Isn't there any fun in the streets? Aren't thereearly.
,,omen in the streets? Aren't there amusements? Cinemas?
why do you have to come home so early? Men should not
be always near their wives. It is a very ugly habit." Often
go to sleep and I can hear her roaming around the
windows, trying to listen to our noises, in case I was
trying to tell him what happened during the day. I was not
enough to tell him secrets, knowing that she was
spying on us. One day I forgot to shut the window
Droperlv. So when she leaned on it, the door fell ajar
Lnder her weight.'
'Did she ever try to join you in bed?
'Not in our own house, but when we were invited to go
somewhere, we spent the night together in the same
room.'
Fatiha F.
When the couple decides to leave the extended family, they
oftenseek a government transfer as an escape if the man is a
civil servant, thus hiding their desire for privacy under a
legitimate cloak. The wife perceives the government's decision
lo transfer the husband to another locality as an opportunity to
recover some power over her life and her husband, and the
mother-in-law perceives such a decision as a plot against her.
My husband was busy trying to get us out of there [the
extended family, which included the father, the father's
brother's family, and two of his sons' families]. He was
lobbying to have himself transferred to another part of the
country by government decision. It was the only solution
compatible with his obedience and respect for his mother.
He lobbied so well that he got his transfer. He was
ordered to go to Fedala. But he had to disclose the news to
his mother. One day he decided to talk to her. He told her
7'- The Mother-in-Law 135
that he was forced by the government to go to F~~
ala Ifomiles away] and that he had no choice but to foiloh,
government decision if he was to keep his job,
re V<l"joking? she said. 'You don't have to leave us. ,,commute. Many people commute. It does not see oU cdn
to k111them. Don't think about leaving. That's out of the qu,,tic-,
He then came to me and said, 'Fatiha, look. Do you
leave this house at any cost?' 'Yes', I said. 'Listenz,he,d
'this is our only chance to escape. I am not going to
any longer. I am going to speed up the transfer decisial
am going to rent a room, any room. I do not want to h
you complain about how ugly that room might be, orb,
rough life is going to be for us. And it is going to
financially tough for a long period. Are you ready to I
up with that without complaining?' 'Any slum', I wt
pered, 'will be a palace for us alone.'
He came one day very late and managed to isolate him
with me and whispered, 'Start packing. We are going
leave very soon. I will announce it at the last minute, so a:
take her by surprise. Start packing very discreetly.'
I can't tell you what I felt then. I lost my appetite. I lor!
my tongue. It was both joy and fear. Have you ever
experienced joy and fear together? I fasted for two days.I
could not eat with that secret inside me. I did not know
anymore how to behave, how to walk, what to say. Helet!
the house and left me alone. Instead of packing, I went and
opened the carpet, which was rolled in a corner. I tookm"
precious drapes [used only during festival days1 anci
hung them on the door. When he came home that night
looked puzzled. He came to me and whispered, lookinga'
the drapes and the carpet, 'Fatiha, are you crazy? wlla'
does this mean? I told you to pack.' 'It means', I answered'
'that I don't know anything about your decision, that an'
out of it.' I was scared his mother would discover that
were plotting. I did not let him down, really. But it Was the
only possible and sensible thing to do, although itseeme!
then as if 1was letting him down. 'I don't know anything'
I kept repeating to him. Poor thing, he was left to face
mother alone.
The followingday he came in shouting at me, screaming
a .,ice so loud you could hear from the mosque.
in
,Fatiha,you have to pack immediately. These dogs in the
governmenthave ordered me to spend the night at Fedala.
,A, ,,t have the right to refuse anymore. Immediately! Do,U" ..you
hear, Fatiha?'
s ~ ~ t ' ,shouted his mother from her room, 'where will
you spend the night? You have a family. They can't treat
that way. You can't stay in the street.' 'Mother', he
said, ,they have foreseen everything. They made it impossible
for me to delay the transfer decision any longer.
~h~~ provided me with a house and a truck to transport
the luggage. The truck is coming within the hour.'
The anti.privacy structure of Moroccan society facilitatesalmost
requires-the mother-in-law's intervention in
her physical intimacy with his wife. Recognizing this, we
,an understand the reasons for the Moroccan prejudice against
cursed as 'masters of intrigue'. It is the structure
,hat determines everyone's roles and leaves specific outlets for
tlre individual's cravings and wishes. It is the structure that is
cruel not the mother-in-law.
The triangle of mother, son, and wife is the trump card in the
Muslim pack of legal, ideological, and physical barriers that
subordinate the wife to the husband and condemn the heterobexual
relation to mistrust, violence and deceit. Young people
demandinglove-marriages not only create tremendous conflicts
with their parents, but also almost always guarantee conflict in
'heir own marriages.
A young man raised in a misogynist society will tend, unless
he is lucky enough to undergo a radical cultural revolution. to
manifestfear of women in his relation with the wife he has
and may even desire to love. And although many
materialthings have changed dramatically in Muslim societies,
therehas been no cultural upheaval at all. All attempts to bring
aboutserious breaches in traditional ideology or to abandon
traditionalcultural models concerning the family are denounced
as atheist deviations (given the religious character of the
M1'duwana,an extension and incarnation of the shari'a), as bida'
('innovations', the connotation being negative), and
of nsnln (authenticity). as betrayal>
A chasm has therefore been widening between the necessitirr ,~ ~ ~ n i n gof Spatial Boundaries
integration of the Moroccan economy into the international
market, we may none the less expect neurotic attempts to free21,
,
traditional superstructures, to preserve the traditional is territorial: its regulatory mechanisms conand
concepts that govern family relations. The result is jist p,marily in a strict allocation of space to each sex and an
tension, and break-ups among young couples, exactly beraus, elaborateritual for resolving the contradictions arising from the
they are trying to build something different from the intersections of spaces.' Apart from the ritualized
sexual relations idealized by tradition. Of women into public spaces (which are, by definition,
The higher the aspirations, the greater the psychologicalcost, male spaces), there are no accepted patterns for interactions
By examining the changes that have occurred (in particularin between unrelated men and women. Such interactions violate
the spatial dimension), we can identify some of the current spatial that are the pillars of the Muslim sexual order.
conflicts between men and women that result from this gap anlythat which is licit is formally regulated. Since the interbetween
the shifting infrastructure and the rigid ideological action of men and women is illicit, there are no rules
superstructure. governing it. ~h~~~ people now experiencing sexual desegregation
are therefore compelled to improvise. And whereas
,,,itation is possible, creation is far more difficult.
Boundaries are never established gratuitously. Society does
not formdivisions purely for the pleasure of breaking the social
universe into compartments. The institutionalized boundaries
dividing the parts of society express the recognition of Power in
one part at the expense of the other.' Any transgression of the
boundaries is a danger to the social order because it is an attack
on the acknowledged allocation of power. The link between
boundaries and power is particularly salient in a society's
Sexual patterns.
Patterns of sexual dangers can be seen to express sYmmetry
or hierarchy. It is impossible to interpret them as
expressing something about the actual relation of the
sexes. 1 suggest that many ideas about sexual dangers are
better interpreted as symbols of the relation between parts
of society, as mirroring designs of hierarchy or SYnlmetrY
which apply in the larger social system.3
con'
who
citiz
that
I38 The Meaning of Spatial Boundaries I39
!I
11 The symbolism of sexual patterns certainly
to munal elations ship
society's hierarchy and power allocation in the iquslim A socialrelationship will be so-called 'communal' if and $0
Strict space boundaries divide Muslim society into t,oOrd~r.
sub. faras the orientation of social action is based on subjective
universes: the universe of men (the umma, the world religion feelingof the parties, whether affectual or traditional. that
and power) and the universe of women, the domestic
ofsexuality and the family. The spatial division according
Spl
,hey belong together.6
reflects the division between those who hold authority
and
,universe of the umma is communal; its citizens are
those who do not, those who hold spiritual powers and thosr ,,, who unite in a democratic collectivity based on a
who do not.4The division is based on the physical separationol ,isticatedconcept of belief in a set of ideas, which is geared
the umma (the public sphere) from the domestic universe, Thesr integration and cohesion of all members who Partwo
universes5 of social interaction are regulated by antithetical ,te in the unifying task.
concepts of human relations, one based on community, the
other on conflict.
flict Relationship
Membership of the Two Universes A relationship will be referred to as a 'conflict' in So
'!I far as action within it is oriented intentionally to carving
,I The Public Universe of the out the own will against the resistance of the other
The Domestic Universe of
11 Umma Sexuality party or parties.7
! The believers. Women's po- Individuals of both sexes a
~h~ citizens of the domestic universe are primarily sexual
sition in the umnla universe primarily sexual beings. 8,
beings; they are defined by their genitals and not by their faith.
is ambiguous; Allah does not because men are not sup.
~h~~are not united, but are divided into two categories: men,
talk to them directly. We can posed to spend their time in
have power, and women, who obey. Women-who are
therefore assume that the the domestic unit, we may ,ens of this domestic universe and whose existence outside
umma is primarily male assume that the members are sphere is considered an anomaly, a transgression-are
believers. in fact women only. subordinate to men, who (unlike their women) also possess a
second nationality, one that grants them membership of the
public sphere, the domain of religion and politics, the domain
Principles Regulating Relations Between Members of power, of the management of the affairsof the umma. Having
been identified as primarily citizens of the domestic universe,
The Umma The Family women are then deprived of power even within the world in
which they are confined, since it is the man who wields authorEquality
Inequality 1 ity Within the family. The duty of Muslim women is to obey (as
Reciprocity Lack of Reciprocity is very clear in the Muduwana and in Malik's al-Muwatta, from
Aggregation Segregation I which it is inspired and on which it is based). The separation of
Unity, Communion Separation, Division thetwo groups, the hierarchy that subordinates the one to the
Brotherhood, Love Subordination, ~uthority Other, is expressed in institutions that discourage, and even
Trust Mistrust prohibit, any communication between the sexes. Men and
, . "Omen are supposed to collaborate in only one of the tasks
.) 8 8
I.'
! .! I 'I 1
I
required for the survival of society: procreation.
In fact, whenever cooperation between men and women
evitable, as between the members of a couple, an entire 1s ill.
mechanisms is set in motion to prevent too great an intim array ,i
aCY [rumarising between the partners. Sexual segregation thus fuel
S. and ,,fuelled by, the conflicts that it is supposed to avoid betweenmrn
and women. Or better, sexual segregation intensifies what it
supposed to eliminate: the sexualization of human relations,
I
The Seclusion of Women
1 ''I'11Ijl I
, ! I / (
In order to prevent sexual interaction between members
,, I,!,,I;I~~ umma and members of the domestic universe, seclusion
/il, veiling (a symbolic form of seclusion) were developed. B.
, ':I 1 paradoxically, sexual segregation heightens the sexual dimel,.
# , sion of any interaction between men and women.
) , #
I ll!l
I '?,,I,
In a country like Morocco, in which heterosexual encounteris
'!I"I
the focus of so many restrictions. and consequently of so much
:\/
attention, seduction becomes a structural component of human
!
I ,
relations in general, whether between individuals of the same
sex or between men and women.
,#,
8, 1 have concentrated my discussion here on heterosexual relations,
but our understanding of sexual identity cannot he
' I ' I complete without studies clarifying the interaction among
r 'I individuals of the same sex. A society that opts for sexual
1 segregation, and therefore for impoverishment of heterosexual1 I ';
,: , I relations, is a society that fosters 'homosocial' relationsnon the
one hand and seduction as a means of communication on the
II '1 other. Seduction is a conflict strategy, a way of seeming to give
of yourself and of procuring great pleasure without actually
giving anything. It is the art of abstaining from everythillg
I I !
while playing on the promise of giving. It is a childish art I"
I 1 that the child has a vital need to protect itself, but for an adultit
,!
is the expression of an often uncontrollable emotional avarice.['
!, , ,
is very rare that an individual who has invested years in
learning seduction as a mode of interchange can suddenly open
up and lavish all his (orher) 'emotional treasures' on the person
he has finally chosen to love.
I :I1
The Meaning of Spatial Boundaries 141
,"a society in which heterosexual relations are combated,
a~fulfilment is inhibited. As we are taught to fear and
C,,,~!i**the other sex, and therefore to relate to its members
n,i5truSt
h seduction, manipulation, and domination, we become
lhrorlg ets who extend the games of seduction, acceptable
,,,ere PuPP
adolescence, into our relations as mature men and
.iuring
V>),V,
In th
beau
...~
,,,menThe
hc
: enhancement of the beauty of the human
sru ,lave been a pronounced Mediterranean characteristicOf
Morocco which Islam failed to curb. Body adornment
,,,ith both jewelry and cosmetics is an integral part of socialization.
Even men, at least the generation now in their sixties,
used 10 wear cosmetics to darken their eyelids (khol) and lips
,,a,ok) for religious rituals and festivals. Islam took an un,q,,ivocally
negative attitude towards body ornamentatio~t,
--..-cially for women.' It required pious women to be modest
eir appearance and hide aU ornamentation and eye-catching
ty behind veils.
And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be
modest, and to display of their adornment only that which
is apparent and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and
not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands
or fathers or husband's fathers, or their sons or their
husband's sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male
attendants who lack vigour or children who know naught
of women's nakedness. And let them not stamp their feet
so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And
turn unto Allah together, 0 believers, in order that ye may
succeed."'
plea:
iVOn
kith
:Cording to Ghazali, the eye is undoubtedly an erogenous
, in the Muslim structure of reality, just as able to give
lure as the penis. A man can do as much damage to a
Ian's honour with his eyes as if he were to seize hold of her
his hands.
To look at somebody else's wife is a sinful act. . . .The look
is fornication of the eye, but if the sexual apparatus is not
142 I The Meanlng of Spatial Boundaries 147
I"
I
/(II sexual intercourse], it is a much more easily pard,,,,,,arv ,+ern by
set in motion by it [if the man does not attempt to
women only when they leave the house and
h the street, which is a male space. The veil meansact." @lk throug
is present in the men's world, but invisible; she
{hatthe
to be in the street.When the Prophet was asking God to protect him fromth, has no
lichaperoned,women are allowed to trespass into the men's
most virulent social dangers, he asked for help in controll.
'"g h ~ , ,,,, on the traditional visits to the kammam, the public
penis and his eye from the dangers of fornication.'2 , ~ n i V tand to the tomb of the local saint. According to my data,
The theory that seclusion in Islam is a device to protect ~,ath,
,,isitsto the hamnram used to be bi-monthly and to the saint's
passive male who cannot control himself sexually in the presence
not ,,,ore than once or twice a year (usually the 27th day
of the lust-inducing female is further substantiated
by .,,,b,,
of
Ramadan).~ 0 t hrequired the husband's permission. The
of sura 24, which that to be chapemning '"trusted to an elderly asexual woman, usually
, !?idl/ unattractive) can go unveiled. Belghiti's survey of rural
among whom seclusion is the prevailing mode, reveals thatthe the
/ I
Traditionally,only necessity could justify a woman's presence
restrictions on women's movements do not apply to
the home, and no respect was ever attached to povertywomen, who consequently have a greater freedom.'"
andnecessity. Respectable women were not seen on the street.The seclusion ofwomen, which to Western eyes is a sourceoi
in class-conscious Morocco, the maid, who has to go wherever
oppression, is seen by many Muslim women as a source
she can to find a job, occupies the lowest rung of the social
pride.14 The traditional women interviewed all perceived se.
and to be called a maid is one of the commonest insults.
elusion as prestigious. In rural Morocco seclusion is considered
on],,prostitutes and insane women wandered freely in thethe privilege of women married to rich men.I5
streets.One expression for a prostitute is rajiha zai~qa,'a woman
Harems, the ultimate form of seclusion, were considered even
whose foot is slipping'. The Pascon-Bentahar suwey revealed
more prestigious, since they required huge economic assets
that when a rural y d f h visits a town he assumes that any
One of the women I interviewed, Salama, lived most of her liic
woman walking down the street is sexually available.''
'1 as a concubine in a harem. This is unusual even by Moroccan
'I 1 b ~ l ~ ~ ~ ~ l l ~
Women in male spaces are considered both provocative and
1 I standards, and her experience contrasts sharply with that oi
offensive.Since schooling and jobs both require women to be
!,,, 11: ,i~io/! most women. Because women are not allowed to leave a harem.
able to move freely through the streets, modernization necesSexual
segregation is more successfully realized there than in
sarily exposes many women to public harassment.18
the average, monogamous family.Successful seclusion of human In The Hidden Dimension, Edward Hall made two perceptive
beings requires considerable economic investment, because
'emarks about the use of space in Middle Eastern, Arab-Muslim
services must be provided at home for the secluded. Other First, 'there is no such thing as an intrusion in public.
women, who must go out to shop or go to the baths, are under
Publicmeans public.'l"t is not possible for an individual to
many restrictions outside the home.
'(aim a private zone in a public space. This seems quite true for
Moroccoand has a particular bearing on women's presence in
thestreet, as one might guess.
The Deseclusion of Women: on the Street
Second, space has a primarily social rather than physical
quality. The notion of trespassing is related not SO much to
Traditionally, women using public spaces, trespassing On Ihe
d by boundaries as to the identity of the person performing
umma universe, are restricted to few occasions and bOun
Ihe act.20A friend, for example, never trespasses, while a foe
, # ,
specific rituals," such as the wearing of the veil. The veil " >I.
'aYs does.
' ti ~,IN~/,~IiI 8 8 ti'l
I
A woman is always trespassing in a male space because
is, by definition, a foe. A woman has no right to "he
use malespaces. If she enters them, she is upsetting the male's order
his peace of mind. She is actually committing an act and
against him merely by being present where she should not br,
A woman in a traditionally male space upsets Allah's order
inciting men to commit zinn. The man has everything to I Y
ose inthis encounter: peace of mind, self-determination, allegianceto
Allah, and social prestige.
If the woman is unveiled the situation is aggravated, T,,?
Moroccan term for a woman who is not veiled is aruil,,n rnud
e1,and most women who frequent schools or hold jobs outside
home today are unveiled. The two elements together- trespas.
sing and trespassing in the 'nude'-constitute an open act
exhibitionism.
Whether the indictable act consists of words spoken,
gestures conveyed, or act performed, the communication
structure of the event often consists of an individual 1
initiating an engagement with a stranger of the opposite
sex by means of the kind of message that would be proper
ionly if they were on close and intimate terms. Apart from
psychodynamic issues, exhibitionists often spectacularly
subvert social control that keeps individuals interpersonally
distant even though they are physically close to each
other. The assault here is not so much directly on
an individual as on the system of rights and symbols
the individual employs in expressing relatedness and
unrelatedness to those about him."
I
The male's response to the woman's presence is, according to
the prevailing ideology, a logical response to exhibitionist
aggression. It consists in pursuing the woman for hours, pinching
her if the occasion is propitious, and possibly assaulting her
verbally, all in the hope of convincing her to carry her
exhibitionist propositioning to its implicit end.
During the Algerian revolution, the nationalist movement
used women to carry arms and messages. One of the problems
the revolutionary movement faced was the harassment of these
The Meaning of Spnfinl Boundnrics 145
Algerian 'brothers' who mistook them for prosti\
v o " e ~ ~ ~ n t e r f e r e dwith the performance of their nationalist
' ~ ' ? ~ z rA incident was reported to have taken place near
t;lsK. "'',refugee
camp in Lebanon.
. L . . ~ . I P Palestinian militant was performing her task as a
A 'rz"-'S,,tinel.
she was posted in a deserted spot a few yards away
from the camp, her machine-gun on her shoulder, when a
Lcbn,,ese civilian who noticed her came by to make a proposition.When
the woman rejected his advances with indignant
and gestures, the man got angry and said, 'How do you
,,ant me to believe that a woman standing alone in the street
the whole night has any honour?' The woman is said to have
turnedher gun towards her suitor and told him, 'I am here in
the street soiling my honour to defend yours because you are
""able to do it y~urself.'~'in spite of its revolutionary setting,
the anecdote reveals that the female militant shares with the
male civilian the belief that her being alone in the street is
iiishonourable. Her reflex was to justify her presence in the.~~~
male space, not to claim her right to be there
The Deseclusion of Women: in the Office
The absence of modes of relatedness other than genital encounter
helps to explain the form of heterosexual encounters in
officesas well as on the street.
The 'office' is a recent development in Moroccan history, a
legacy of the centralized bureaucracy set up by the French after
1912. After independence, public administration expanded both
in terms of offices and posts and in terms of the portion of
Public resources it swallows. The state is now by far the most
important employer in the country. A substantial number of
literate working are in government offices.These women,
often have not finished high school, are typists and secretaries
and usually positions subordinate to their male
The situation of the working woman in the office is reminiscentof
her position in a traditional household and on the street.
These conflicting images are likely to stimulate conflicting
246
i The Meaning of Spntial Boundaries 147
patterns of behaviour in men. The boss's typist, like hi, h, men, for the scarce available jobs. The anxiety created
and sister, is in a subordinate position, and he has th !lla~ter5,
,nrwcmen
seeking jobs in the modem sector, and thus demand!
right tocommand her. Like them, she is dependent on him (more
role
reserved for men, inevitably aggravates
I less directly) for economic survival. He administers her sala:,r ing " ,and conflict because of the scarcity of jobs and the high
'11 which is given to her because she provides him with vP,,iii; ,,n5io
3i unemployment among men.
services. Her advancement and promotion depend on hirn,It
IStherefore not surprising if he comes to confuse her with
woman he dominates because of his economic superior,k and
institutional authority (in other words, his wife), a step
an!.men seem to take with ease. In any event, the driftthat occurs in
, . I relations between the bureaucrat and his secretary, generated
! by his confusion of his privileges as a man and his rights a,d
privileges as a bureaucrat, are not limited to sexual behaviou,, ,Max Weber identified this confusion as one of the problems 1
the bureaucratic system.
The confusion is inherent in any bureaucratic structure, but if
assumes a particularly exaggerated character in Third World
societies in which bureaucratization is relatively recent. Morocco,
of course, already had its Makhzencentral, but that institution
lacked the structures, resources, equipment, and personnel that
it now commands. The harassment of the woman state employee
occurs because she has transgressed the boundaries of the male
,I space par excellence, the administration of affairs of state. The
. ' 1 ~ 1 conflict and tension experienced by women who work in the 1
j state administration is proportional to the insolence of their
intrusion into the sanctuaries of male power.I ' 1
j
Women's increasing encroachment into traditionally male
spaces greatly intensifies the sexual aspect of any encounter
between men and women, especially in the urban centres. The
process of integration of women into the modern circuits of the
production system is now quite advanced, however unplanned
or even undesired the process may have been. A growing
number of women, both educated and illiterate, are invading
the labour market and the modern workshops. The aspiration
for a hadma mezyana (well-paid job) is now shared by Poor
illiterate women and their more privileged sisters who have
gained access to wealth and education.
When women go to work thev are not onlv tresoassing in the
9
The Economic Basis of
Sexual Anomie in Morocco
One can easily imagine the problems likely to result from
determination of women to invade the labour market ill a
Muslim society sufferingfrom high unemployment.' A societ,,
having difficulty creating jobs for men tends to fall back on
traditional customs that deny women's economic dimension
and define them purely as sexual objects-and to write those
customs into law. This is just what happened in Morocco.
1956-57, at the dawn of independence, a commission of ten
men selected from the leading religious authorities and the
most prominent functionaries of the Ministry ofJustice met and
drafteda Personal Status Code which, after some discussion, was
adopted and became law.2 Article 115of that code affirms
Every human being is responsible for providing for his
needs (nafaqa) through his own means, with the exception
of wives, whose husbands provide for their needs.
The woman's clear and unequivocal right to work is thus
nowhere affirmed in this law, which opts instead forthe fantasy
encouraged by the traditional image of the Muslim woman, an
image that confounds virility with economic power and femininity
with the passive status of consumer. The law helps to
keep alive this fantasy, which draws its great strength from it"
own lack of reality. In Morocco, racked by class divisions and
constant inflation, the man in the street spends considerable
time discussing virtually insoluble economic The
image of patriarchal virility compels him to consider himself
responsible for providing for his own needs as well as forthose
of his wife and children. and therefore for finding a salary large
The Economic Basis of Sex~ralAnomie in Morocco 149
eooug
h to do this. But the majority of men nevermanage to find
Stable and regular jobs, and the majority of women are forced to
for wage-labour outside the family if they are to survive.
Nevertheless-and this is the main point I want to look at
beredat a time when capitalist appropriation of the country's
best land for production of cash-crops for export to the Common
l,larket is well-advanced, at a time when millions of peasant
iamiliescan no longer make ends meet and are flocking to the
",ban centres or leaving to work in Europe, at a time of
cataclysm, we are still brought up on images straight
,,t of Baghdad during the days of the Arabian Nights, images of
men who lavish pearls and emeralds on the women who
surround them.
The individual cannot help but suffer from such a discordance
between the realities of everyday life and the ideas and
images stamped into people's minds. The wider the gap
between reality and fantasy (or aspiration), the greater the
sufferingand the more serious the conflict and tension within
us. The psychological cost is just barely tolerable. The fact that
we cling to images of virility (economic power) and femininity
1 [consumption of the husband's fortune) that have nothing
whatever to do with real lifecontributes to making male-female
dynamics one of the most painful sources of tension and conflict,for
several reasons. The most obvious one is that in the
traditional system our identities are primarily sexual. The system
of honour binds the reputation of men and women to their
genital apparatus. A respectable man is not simply someone
who acquires some degree of economic power, but who also
/ controls the sexual behaviour of his wife, daughters, and sisters.
Butthisis possible only if he is able to control their movements,
I to limit their mobility and thereby to reduce their interaction
the strange men with whom they threaten to 'sully the
fanlily'shonour'. Once again, money and sex are intimately
; linkedin the definition of identity, for both men and women.
New ideological systems have emerged (laws, cultural patterns
by literature, education, radio and television), and new
'den[ity models too, to guide.people through these decades of
'lolent economic and spatial upheavals (including the bank'UPtc~of
the territoriality of sex).
The Moroccan people would be a lot happier, and better
economically as well, if a man's honour and prestige Off
were nclonger related to his ability to control his women by
them with chickens and pearls but instead depended
ability to master solar energy or electronics. Just as th
ey wouldbe happier and better off if a woman's honour and
were no longer related to her spatial immobility, her pas
SlVerole as consumer, but instead depended on her ability to
solar energy or electronics.
One of the basic changes now occurring is the disappearanre
of the roles attributed to each sex as elaborated and used by
tradition for centuries. Sexual desegregation of space is alreadv
on the way, and brings with it sexual desegregation of
economy and the dissolution of boundaries between public and
private space so vital for social identity. The greatest battles, the
most serious misunderstandings, that women have with th,
men they love concern this fissure between public and private
'You can do that in public but not in private', 'you shouldn'
travel or go out alone at that hour', 'you shouldn't talk to
another man, even a colleague of ours, when you're out with
your partner', and so on.
But let us return to the original point: the lack of correspondence
between real life and the ideas and patterns that are
supposed to express it. This lack of correspondence, to use the
'noble' term, is called anomie. According to Durkheim, anomie
is a confusion more than an absence of norms. Anomie occurs
when
The moral system which has prevailed for centuries is
shaken, and fails to respond to new conditions of human
life, without any new system having yet been formed to
replace that which has di~appeared.~
In the case of Moroccan male-female dynamics, sexual desegregation
through schooling and the employment of women in
non-domestic jobs is a direct attack on the spatial barrier
erected by Islam between males and females. But Islam's division
of space between the sexes is not an isolated phenomenon; it is
the reflection of a specific distribution of power and authority
I The Economic Basis of Sexual Anomie in Morocco 151
a division of labour, which together form a coherent
a*cial order. hloroccan society has not pushed its social reform
lna,ter~of male-female relations as far as the changes in the
dikional distribution of power and authority might have
tTd
,,arranted; hence the anomic aspect of that relation.
~h~role of the state as a producer of ideology appears more
if we contrast Morocco to another traditional society,
China, which underwent an entirely different process of
,hange affectingboth reality and ideology. During the phase of
,,tionalist struggle (struggle against external hegemony), Mao
zcdong analysed the Chinese situation thus
i\ man in China is usually subjected to the domination of
three systems of authority: I) the State system (political
authority); 2) the clan system (clan authority); and 3) the
supernatural system (religious authority). .. . As for
women, in addition to being dominated by these three
systems of authority, they are also dominated by the men
(the authority of the husband). These four authorities . . .
are the four thick ropes binding the Chinese people.4
I
1 One of the first acts of independent China was the promulgation,
on I May 1950, of the Marriage Law of the People's
/ Republic of China, whose first article states
i The arbitrary and compulsory feudal marriage system
which is based on the superiority of men over women and
I which ignores the children's interests is abolished.
I
'The Chinese man is not burdened by the duty to support his
wife as well as himself. The Chinese woman is not limited to
biological reproduction and sexual services. She is urged to
earn her own living as a ~roductiveeconomic agent. ConseI
quently, the Chinese male is encouraged not to think of himself
only as a sexual being, but primarily as an economic agent and
a person with multiple potentials and capacities.
1 Change is a painful process, but it becomes bearable to the
individual if the degree of ambiguity and contradiction is
1 lessened by the availability of coherent new behaviour models.5
The Chinese husband suffers less than his Moroccan counte
Tari
becduse the former at least knows exactly what nelv attitub,
is expected to have towards his wife's work. e
Both husband and wife shall have the right to free chol,,
of occupation and free participation in work or in
acti~ities.~
The Moroccan husband, on the other hand, is heed ,it,
anxiety-provoking ambiguities. This is epitomized in
Moroccan Code's endorsement of the man's right to control hi,
wife's access to the outside world.' It i s a mastcrpiere oi
ambiguity and a mine of potential conjugal discord. In traditional
Morocco, the man's prestige is embodied in the seclusion of,,,s
female relatives. A man whose wife wanders around the streets
free is a man whose masculinity is in jeopardy. Article 35 of the
Code states that among the woman's rights uis-d-uis her bus.
band is the right to visit her parents, implying that she has no
other right to leave the house without her husband's permission.
Although sexual equality was proclaimed in the Moroccan
constitution in the name of equality between all citizens, the
right to leave the house, and thus by implication the right to
work outside the home (which assumes a particular importance
in a traditionally segregated setting), was not granted by
Moroccan legislators to the female citizen. On the contray, the
need for women to negotiate such rights with their husbands is
emphasized.
Since the system holds-and the law confirms-that a
woman's place is in the home and that her access to officesand
factories is subject to her husband's authorization, women are
reminded whenever they get jobs that it is a privilege and not a
right. Moreover, the husband is encouraged to perceive his wife
and her salary as belonging to him, since she requires his
permission to earn her salary. (111fact, in spite ot the 1Y57Cnde's
uncompromising stand o n the separation of properties and on
the woman's uncontested right to manage her own property,
the husband's claim to his wife's salary is a recurrent subject of
dispute in Moroccan c ~ u r t s . ~ )
One can imagine the frustration and resentment the Moroccan
~ 1 , ~Ecorromic Basis of Sexual Anomie ill Morocro I j3
likely to experience, trapped as he is between a law that
@aleishim the light to control his wife's movements and the
econon,ic necessity that forces her to take a job The gap
beween
the sexual ideology reflected by the laws and the way
,fl,op]e live their lives is a sign of the absence of a genuine
fl,uz. i '
,,,dem moral system.
The nationalist movement, which initiated and supported
women's position in society, has failed to carry outihengPs ln
,,t.independence task of socio-economic regeneration.
its P
Nj,ateves the reasons, the unhappy fate of the nationalist
movement had disastrous implications for sexual desegregation
andthe prospects of an integrated women's liberation in which
ideologyand reality reflect each other in a coherent structure.
rhe present situation is characterized by a flagrant discrepancy
hetween women's newly acquired rights to traditionally male
spaces such as streets, offices, and classrooms, and the traditional
ideology according to which such rights are clear cases
Edu
of trespass.
cation for Women
~ d ~ ~ ~ t i ~ ~for women has been a major factorin sexual desegregation.
~tis associated with Westernization, but it would be a
mistake to attribute it to French influence alone.' This idea of
France as a 'modernizing' force is a colonial fantasy, since the
French protectorate actually helped bring about an astonishing
consolidation of traditions and breathed new life into existing
hierarchies and inequalities. Here, for instance, is a quotation
from a book by Andre Reverand on General Lyautey. dealing
with the general's attitude to Moroccan culture. What fascinated
the oeneral. and Riverand after him, was the 'aristocratic'- n - - - - - - ~ ~ ,
dimension of Moroccan society.
~i~ [Lyautey's] letter of 29 March 1913 to Wladimir
&ormesson is a marvellous illustration of the profound
meeting of the minds between the Moroccans and the
general: the same taste for tradition, the same aristocratic
sense, the same respect for hierarchy. the same innate
154 ~ 1 , ~Economic Basis of Sexlral Anomie in (Moro~cO 155
! even 'aristocratic' concept of life. Greeted
I
the four times a day. All these events were
lord, he received as a lord.10 as
iil
throug
unusual, but everything was unusual in Morocco in
indeed I-IThe Protectorate, presented even today as a cataclysm.
of cultural upheaval, actually served as a bridge perm. lc time
Itting the Finally,
the second of the month of Muharram in the
consolidation of hierarchies and the continuation of ine
I
ear 1362 [that is, November 1942 of the Christian calendar]
galitaria,, ,
;I in which sex inequalities played a basic part, (A Y,Moroccan delegation was received by His Majesty and was
I ]I feminist reading of the history of the protectorate and indepe,-
I
given a most warm welcome. He himself saw no problem in
dence would clearly reveal the real direction ,,f trends and allowing men to teach Arabic to Muslim girls. Some
during these decades, which are often associated ,,, later there was a gathering of young people from Fez, Rabat,
with continuity but with change.) French policy, inspired and saleat the Palace where His Majesty was presiding at
General Lyautey, who liked to think of himself as a gre;, the council of Ministers. These young people were admitted
humanist and philosopher, was to respect Moroccan traditions to participate in the discussions of the issue at hand. The
whenever they were not in open contradiction with F~~~~~ meeting lasted mo houri and the following decisions were
interests. For example, the traditional landowning system con- , made: age for entering school [for girls] 7 years of age; for
flitted with French interests and was entirely dismantled. leaving 13 years. For the programme of Primary
the Moroccan family structure, which did not conflict, became education for girls, teachers of Arabic were chosen and
the object of an exotic respect. In fact, many of the laws concern. designated directly by His Majesty."
I introduced during the French protectorate
pounded the burdens of local traditions with the misogynisl i-he ,young people' who went to see the king about the matter
I dementia of the Napoleonic Code. The legal articles on obliga. , of education w e e nationalist militants, and 'His Majesty'
tions and contracts concerning women in financial transactions, ! was Muhammad V,who puzzled the entire counhy in 1943 when
as well as the articles in the penal code on 'crimes of passion', . he presented his daughter, Princess Aisha, unveiled before the
are gifts of super-patriarchal French civilization and are in l-he liberation of women was considered by the nationalI
complete contradiction with the principles of the sharj,a. I an nKessary step in the strateu to defeat the
I The introduction of schooling forgirls, for example, cannot he ich Christians.
explained without taking account of the nationalist movement he leader m a 1 al-Fasi did not forget women when
that swept Morocco's urban centres in the thirties and forties. pafiicipated in drafting an 'Arab Charter' during the same
At first this movement, as a dissident struggle, was compelled iod.
challenge all inequalities, including sexual ones. Nationalists
held a particularly optimistic belief in Morocco's ability to ~h~ state must provide a basic minimum in
rejuvenate its structures, revitalize itself, shake off futile the following spheres:
anachronisms. and bridge the centuries separating it from the a. maternity, motherhood, child care. ..
industrial world. By 1942 schooling for women, a nestate must ensure to individuals the following rights
few decades before, was advocated by the nationalists as a in the field of production:
They wanted to defeat the French at any cost, even if c. . . .enabling women to their duties in society.'2
it meant interfering in the family structure.
Under these circumstances Moroccan girls were pushed into he number of girls in primary schools rose from 15,080 in
entrusted t? male teachers, and allowed to walk 7,'3 to 186330 in 1957, and to 423,005 in 1971." The movement
for women's education apparently snowballed, because starting
in 1945girls did not leave school at thirteen as had been decided
by the nationalists; they had gained access to secondary schools.
Seven percent of Moroccan girls between ages 14 and 19 are
now in secondary establishments; correspondingly for boys,
percent.I5 According to government figures, 92,006 girls were
enrolled in secondary schools in 1971,but only a token numberof
girls made it to the ~niversities.'~At present the number of
women holding primary-school diplomas in the urban centres is
higher than the number of men. According to the 'Results of the
Inquiry Into Urban Employment' (issued by the Bureau of sta.
tistics in Rabat in 1976),among people more than ten years old 69
percent of females and 63 percent of males have primary-school
diplomas. As for secondary schools, despite pressures on young
girls to marry early, nearly one-third of them manage to get highschool
diplomas (29 percent, compared with 33 percent of boys).
Finally, about half of the 4 percent of the urban population that
have degrees in higher education are women.
The insistence of Moroccan women in demanding access to
education is shown by a number of indicators, in particular their
better grades than boys and their unshakeable will to continue
their studies after mamage and children. Only a dozen years ago,
mamage was regarded as marking an end to any young wife's
educational aspirations,'Eut it is now typical, especially among
the younger generations, for young women to go back to school
after getting mamed and having children. Happiness in modem
Morocco, it seems, requires more than a pretty and nicely madeup
face. A solid education has become a necessity, as vital to
status as beauty. Female access to education and the job market,
especially among the middle class, is one of the most important
aspects of the social dynamic in contemporary Moro~co.'~
Even though the rate of schooling of girls seems now to have
stabilized after a period of rapid rise, and even though it remains
blocked in the rural regions and among the poorer layers, it is
nevertheless the case that the infiltration of women into classroom
and office, and consequently into the street, represents a wide and
radical breach in the traditional system.
Although the percentage of females in school is ridiculously low
by Western standards, it would be a mistake to dismiss it
,ll,.
8 spa
the
equ
The Economic Basis of Sexual Anomie in Morocco 157
gnificant. Since sexual segregation is primarily a symbolic
tia] confinement of women, just a few women strolling along
streets in an unhurried fashion can upset society's psychic
ilibrium.
,for Women
for women, their access to positions in which their contriion
is remunerated with a wage, is probably the most striking
,,nifestation of the end of an epoch and a system, even if
I Moroccan legislators and ideologues continue to lull the popu-
1 lation with the myth of the man with the fat wallet who showers
his women with exotic f ~ i tand rare jewels. What is new, and
i
laden with consequences, is not the mere fact of women working
(Moroccan women of the poor classes have always worked"), but
the fact that they are working in positions in which they are paid
wages. In traditional Moroccan society only women of the plutoci
racy were inactive and led lives of leisure. The others worked
hard, often without any remuneration whatever, in domestic
services and also in economic sectors like crafts and agriculture,
i which were by no means unimportant in the precapitalist
economy.The women of Rabat-Sale run an export-oriented crafts
industry. If the female peasants of the Rif, of the Doukkala plain,
or of the Gharb region decided to stop working both inside and
outside the home, the life of these regions would be seriously
disrupted. But the colossal daily labour of these women is usually
unpaid. One of the most common statuses among the primary
sector. or at least among its women, is 'family aid', which means
1 Unpaid worker.I9
What is of interest to us here, then, is not the mere fact that
are working, for only the most simple-minded can con,
tinueto claim that Moroccan women 'went out' to work in 1956,
I the Year of independence. Sensible people must place female
i labour in its historical context. The phrase lmra lhaddama (the
'king woman) refers to women who work in an economic
Ceseparate from their domicile and who receive a wage. This
Specificphenomenon-female labour performed outside the
we,for an employer wholly foreign to the family, and paid for
1, I ; ,
1 . : lll,!l
The Economic Basis of Sexual Anomie in Morocco 159
' 1
with a wage-that is not only a novelty but also challenges
the
ucture,
with the rapid increase in population.
sexual division of labour in society. Nevertheless, to gr from civil servants and maids, women's participation
thp APtrends of conflict now being generated by the aspirations
of
the
economy is concentrated in four kinds of activities:
Moroccan working women we must first consider the gene,,l ricultUre,cattle-raising, and the textile and ready-made
conditions of female employment as they emerged in the lgil clothesindustries.
gut since officialdocuments define 'economically active' SO
According to the officialcensus, while the employmentrate it includes both people holding jobs and those looking for
'II , for men is nearly stagnant, the women's rate has
a
a thorough picture of the female labour situation cannot
tremendous increase. In the period between 1960and 1971,this be drawn looking at female unemployment. According
rate increased 75 percent. In urban areas, where women,S to the official data, the number of people employed has not
labour is more easily assessed, the number of working
I ,,i,teiedsincea1960,spectacularbut the structure-ofchange( Whileunemploymentthe numberbyofsexunem-hashas doubled.
ployed males remained unchanged, the number of women
Women, encouraged on the one hand by socio-economic seekingjobs increased tenfold in eleven years. While female
changes which are taking place and on the other hand bv accounted for less than 2% of the total unema
rising level of education, are becoming serious co&. ploymentfigure in 1960, it reached 21% in 1971.The absence of
petitors to men in the labour market. Out of every 100
' an institutionalized right to work predisposes women to fall
, J ~Ill active individuals, 30 are young women.21 1 prey to unemployment much more easily than their male colleagues.
In the cities the rate of activity and the level of
81i~li The most striking characteristic of ~o~~~~~~female labour is I unemployment are higher for women than for men."
its youth; 44% of working women are under twenty-five, and ~h~ 1971 e n s u s defines women working within the house-
15% are under fifteenyears old. The corresponding figures for hold inactive. Some 2,800,000 Moroccan housewives arc
men are 29% and 6%. considered to contribute nothing to society. And, as the
In the services sector there are predominantly two kinds of census-takers admit, 'in rural areas women's participation in
working women, the civil servant and the maid. There are economic activity is confused with housework, and a certain
27,700 women working mainly for the Moroccan government, reticence on the part of the husband to declare his wife active
15,200 of whom hold teaching jobs. The integration of women was noticed.'23 In 1960the number of women whose labour was
into prestigious activities such as teaching, health, and finance under-reported was estimated to be 1,200,000. A more accurate
is of pa~ticularimportance precisely because the bulk of working census would have inflated the number of unemployed people
women are illiterate or semi-literate. emendously by adding the 'under-estimated' female farmLack
of education forces most women into subordinate po- orkers.
1'1 sitions, under men's supervision, hardly different from their Let us now return to the ideological implications of this
traditional situations. Maids, for example, occupy such a tra- massive access of women to the job market. The traditional
ditional subordinate position. They are remarkable not only for definition of femininity might be reassuring in some respects.
I,
their numbers (100,200), but also for their age distributionThe
number of unemployed women, for example, is less im-
1;
more than half the maids in Morocco are under twenty-five Portant than the number of unemployed men because after all
years old and 29 per cent are under fifteen. One of the ominous 'he woman's place is in the home and her husband guarantees
gifts of modernization, child labour, is due to many factors, her needs, her nafaqa. Since women's right to work outside
the home is still ambiguous, and since the provisions of thebut mainly the disiqegration of the traditional rural social
Mudrrurnnn are clear, the state is obliged to create jobs for men
only. To supply jobs for women is therefore not an obligation
but an act of benevolent generosity. To keep women in the
home, under the control of men, satisfies needs both psycho.
logical and economic in a Third World country in which the
economy is in deep crisis and is strongly dependent. [f the
Muslim family, with its territorial sexuality, did not exist, it
would have been created. It is thus not difficult to understand
the utility of the various conservative arguments advisin
ewomen to return to the hearths their grandmothers occupied,
Functions of Sexual Repression
in a Depressed Economy
Less visible but probably more pernicious than the economic
aspect is the psychological function of female oppression as an
outlet for male frustration and aggression. Wilhelm Reich drew
attention to the functions of the patriarchal family in economically
depressed societies. He emphasized that 'economic freedom
goes hand in hand with the dissolution of old institutions',
particularly those 'governing sexual policies',z4 and that sexually
frustrated males are less likely to rebel against economic
exploitation.
The suppression of one's primitive material needs compasses
a different result than the suppression of one's
sexual needs. The former incites to rebellion, whereas the
latter-inasmuch as it causes sexual needs to be repressed
-withdraws them from consciousness and anchors itself
as a moral defence, prevents rebellion against both forms
of suppression. Indeed the inhibition of rebellion itself is
unconscious. In the consciousness of the average no".
political man there is not even a trace of it,25
A sexually repressed male is preoccupied with symbols such
as 'purity' and 'honour' because his experience of genital sexualitv
is 'dirty' by his society's standards and, consequently, by
his own standards. For example, the rural Moroccan youth
The Economic Basis of Sexiral Aiiomie i11 Morocco 161
se sexual desires are savagely separated from their female
iL77sso that he has lo choose between sodomy, homosexuality,
and masturbation (all equally condemned) is likely to be part,cularlysensitive
to the ideas of honour and purity.
The man who attains genital satisfaction is honourable,
responsible, brave, and controlled without making much
of a fussabout it. These attitudes are an organic part of his
personality. The man whose genitals are weakened, whose
sexual structure is full of contradictions, must continually
remind himself to control his sexuality, to preserve his
sexual dignity, to be brave in the face of temptations, etc."
Honour and purity, two particularly sensitive emotional conceptsin
Muslim North African society, link the man's prestige
in an almost fatal way to the sexual behaviour of the women
under his charge, be they his wives, sisters, or unmarried
femalerelatives." A man who has a wife or sister working in an
officeor going to school is a man who runs a very serious
chance of seeing 'his honour soiled'. He must face the real
possibility of suffering the complete collapse of his prestige
when one of his women is seen 'driving around with the boy
next door' after school or office hours. To have men's honour
embodied in women's sexual behaviour was a much safer
system when women's space was strictly confined to the courtyard
and ritual visits to the hami~ramor the local saint's tomb. It
is no wonder that women who have such tremendous power to
maintain or destroy a man's position in society are going to be
the focus of his frustrations and aggression.
Male frustration is likely to be aggravated by the differences
in the ways men and women are socialized to handle sexual
drives. Men are encouraged to expect full satisfaction of their
desires, and to perceive their masculine identity as
linked to that satisfaction. From an early age women are
'aught to curb their sexual drives. Little girls are told in detail
"out the vagina and the uterus, and about the penis's 'destructive'effectson
these two parts of women's bodies. The hammnm,
wherechildren bathe together with adults, is a normal place for
questions and answers about human anatomy. A brother's
! , 1 ',I!
I !
I 1,,:I,.i
1 il
I I:,I ! ~,
circumcision at the age of five is also an occasion for little
to ask questions. Moreover, grown-ups frequently d glris
O not wa,,until the child asks. They volunteer the information
which the honour and prestige of the group depend. (A,,
I was constantly warned about the implications of
Y sexualbehaviour, and on the occasion of my first period I was treated
to a long conference with my mother and oldest aunt. A horde
of cousins were set on my trail, assigned to observe
Y everymove between Bab al-Hadid College and the house ,,,here,
lived.)
The male child is introduced to sex differently. His penis,
htewta ('little penis'), is the object of a veritable cult on the part
of the women rearing him. Little sisters, aunts, maids, and
mothers often attract the little boy's attention to his hiewta and
try to teach him to pronounce the word, which is quite a task
given the gutteral initial letter h. One of the common games
played by adult females with a male child is to get him to
understand the connection between sidi (master) and the hieioio.
Hadn sidhum (This is their master'), say the women, pointing to
the child's penis. They try to make him repeat the sentence while
pointing to his own penis. The kissing of the child's penis is a
normal gesture for a female relative who has not seen him since
his birth. 73arkallnh 'ala-r-Raja1 ('God protect the man'), she may
whisper. The child's phallic pride is enhanced systernatically,
beginning in the first years of life. And as a boy matures, the fact
that men have privileges such as polygamy and repudiation.
which allow them not only to have multiple sexual partners but
also to change partners at will, gives him the impression that
society is organized to satisfy his sexual wishes.
The young man is then confronted with the hard reality of
adolescence, when sexual deprivation is systematically organized.
He finds that he cannot have a woman if he does not pay the
bride-price, a sum he often cannot afford until his mid-twenties,
if he's lucky. If he wants to satisfy his sexual needs, he must break
the law and have illicit intercourse. He is likely to be very upset by
sexual restrictions he was not told about early enough. In fact,the
sexual tragedy, often seen as a female problem, is an equally deshuctive
masculine tragedy, as is clear in the unbelievable Sexual
misery of many of the heroes of Moroccan literature and plays.
I The Economic Basis of Sexual Aliomie in Morocco 163
I Theunexpected frustration that society imposes on the sexual
desires of its young men is allowed no outward expression.
,,ssion against the managers of the Moroccan economy is
t",fently discouraged and legally repressed. Anger at society
I t
turnfintowards the famlly and women-objects of frustrated
desire.'RThe family offers the sexually and politically oppressed
I
bloroccanmale a natural outlet for his frustrations.
I
A person who fears to express his aggression directly
against the original social objects responsible for his frustration
may express his aggression instead against some
other objects. . . . The tendency to express aggression
I against irrelevant objects would increase with increasing
1 anxiety about expressing aggression against the actual
source of fr~stration.~'
A man who is both economically and sexually oppressed by
is society is likely to find it less traumatizing to express his
mge and resentment against his family than against his boss.
And society encourages him to do so. It encourages thc male to
1 beheve that his honour depends primarily on maintaining an
1 iron grip on his women and children. As Reich says, 'sexual
I inhibition changes the structure of the economically oppressed
in such a way that he acts, feels and thinks contrary to his own
i material interest~.'~"he tragedy of the Moroccan youth who
1 wants to love a woman is that his actions are likely to be directly
I opposite to his desires. Society's conditioning-starting with
/ his relationship with his mother" and including pressure on
I
him to be 'a real man' and his legal right to demand the
subordination of his wife-is likely to produce reflexes that
Pertain more to hatred than love.
The traditional order, empowered by the codification of the
~hari'ain the modem family code, views men and women as
antagonists and dooms the conjugal unit to conflict. By affirming
the man's right to have authority over women he can no
longer control, given the breakdown of traditional spatial and
economic structures, the modern Code places the man in a
humiliating situation in which he perceives sexual desegregation
and its effects as emasculating, given the difficulties he faces in
fulfilling his traditional male role. For example, the rate I
Of Iunemployment makes it difficult for the Moroccan
toperform the traditional duty of providing for his family,At
same time, allowing his wife to work outside, under th
,vision of other males, makes him see himself, accordin
traditional images of masculinity, as nothing more than8 to his
(qmi~7und)or a cuckold (q~rrnn).~' aPimp ,
Male-female dynamics are influenced by two kinds I
pressure:
I
Conclusion
Women's Liberation
in Muslim Countries
The need. emerging from the process of desegregation, to perceive women's liberation as a spiritual and
value the heterosexual relationship and to expect love and sex 1 a material problem. We have seen this to be true in the case
in the conjugal unit. 1 &ere changes in conditions for women were perceived
2. The Pressures from the prevailing traditional patterns, bv ~ ~ ~ l i ~male literature as involving solely religious probsymbolized
by Parental authority and enhanced by modern Ie',,,s, ~ ~ ~ [ i ~ ~argued that changes in women's conditions were
laws, to condemn the conjugal unit and debase sexual a direct attack on Allah's realm and order. But changes in the
love. twentiethcentury, mainly in socialist societies, have showed
to the conflict. Sexual desegregation creates new tensions and responsibility for providing child care and food for all workers
anxieties. Spatial boundaries and lines of authority between the regardlessof sex. A system of kindergartens and canteens is an
sexes have become unclear, demanding completely new and indispensable investment promoting the liberation of women
painful adjustments from both men and women. N ~ ~ ~ ~ .from traditional domestic chains.
theless, despite the difficultiesand tensions, despite the painful mecapacity to invest in women's liberation is not a f11nctionof
confrontations now being suffered by men and in a wealth, but of its goals and objectives. A society whose
Morocco, a new phenomenon is now emerging: the conjugal ultimate goal is profit rather than the development of human
made UP of one man and one woman (without mamma). potential proves reluctant and finally unable to afford a state
It is now slowly gaining in legitimacy. The 1 interviewed system of =hild-care centres and canteens. Mariarosa Della Costa
back in 1971-regardless of social class, level of education, and explains how capitalism maintains, in the midst of its modem
activity-laid claim to the egalitarian couple, based on =lidarity, management of human resources and services, a pre-capitalist
as the foundation of a healthy family and a unique opportunity army of wageless workers-housewives-who provide unpaid
to raise generations of more fulfilled individuals, both child-care and domestic services.' Hence the paradox: the
ally and intellectually. 'richestsnation in the world (the nation that controls most of the
the United States, is unable in spite of its
much publicized abundance to afford a system of free kindergartens
and canteens to promote women's humanhood.
Have Arab societies taken a stand on the question?
now, they have had no effective systematic and coherent ntil
pro.gramme. In the absence of such programmes, and because it is
too soon to judge the emerging trends concerning the liberationof
women in independent Arab-Muslim states, I will limit
myself to a few speculative remarks on the likely futureof
women in the Arab world. Before going any further, I want to
draw attention to the inadequacy of the only two models
'women's liberation' presently available in the A r a b - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
world.
The scarcity of effective models for 'liberated women'
explain the particularly strong reaction that 'women's liberation,
evokes from most Muslims. (By effectivemodels I mean models
which evoke images specificenough to stir people's emotions,)
One of these is an intrinsic Arab model, that of pre-lslamir
family and sexuality patterns, the other is exogenous, the West.
ern model. The socialist models of sexuality and family patterns
are hardly known and enjoy a carefully cultivated indifference,
based more often on ignorance than on knowledgeable analysis.
Both the pre-Islamic and Western models provoke traumatizing
images of sexuality, although for differentreasons.
Pre-Islamic sexuality is described in Arab literature as a
chaotic, all-embracing, rampant promiscuity whose essence is
women's self-determination, freedom to choose and dismiss
their sexual partner, or partners, and the utter unimportance of
the biological father and paternal legitimacy. The idea of female
sexual self-determination which is suggested by the term
'women's liberation' is likely to stir ancestral fears of this
mythical (pre-civilized) jahiliya woman before whom the male
is deprived of all his initiative, control, and privilege. The way
to win over a 'liberated woman' is to please her and make her
love you, not to coerce and threaten her. But Muslim society
does not socialize men to win women through love; they are
badly equipped to deal with a self-determined woman; hence
the repulsion and fear that accompany the idea of women"
liberation.
Confusing sexual self-determination of women with chaotic,
lawless animalistic promiscuity is not exclusive to bfuSlim
societies facing drastic changes in their family structure. This
I Conclusion 167
,fusion existed and still exists in any society whose family
co
is based on the enslavement of the woman. Marx and
Engels had to attack repeatedly the confusion of bourgeois
, ,,iters which distorted their thinking about any family in
, h i & the woman was not reduced to an acquiescent slave.'
had to show again and again that a non-bourgeois sexu-
1
ality
based on equality of the sexes does not necessarily lead to
P
romiscuity, and that the bourgeois family pattern was an
,,justified dehumanization of half of society. The same argument
holds for Muslim societies. Muslim marriage is based on
I ,he prrmisses that social order can be maintained only if women's
dangerous potential for chaos is restrained by a dominating
non-lovinghusband who has, besides his wife, other females
(concubines,co-wives, and prostitutes) available for his sexual
, pleasure under equally degrading condition^.^ A new sexual
! order based on the absence of dehumanizing limitations of
! women's potential means the destruction of the traditional
i Muslim family. In this respect, fears associated with changes in
the family and the condition of women are justified. These
fears, embedded in the culture through centuries of women's
1 oppression, are echoed and nourished by the vivid, equally
degrading images of Western sexuality and its disintegrating
familypatterns portrayed on every imported television set.
It is understandable that Muslim fathers and husbands feel
' horrified at the idea of their own family and sexuality patterns
j being transformed into Western patterns. The striking characteristic
of Western sexuality is the mutilation of the woman's
1 integrity, her reduction to a few inches of nude flesh whose
shades and forms are photographed ad infinitum with no goal
other than profit. While Muslim exploitation of the female is
cloaked under veils and hidden behind walls, Western exploifation
has the bad taste of being bare and over-exposed.
It is worth noting that the fears of Muslim fathers and
husbands are not totally unfounded; the nascent 'liberation' of
Muslim women has indeed borrowed many characteristics of
women's way of life. The first gesture of 'liberated'
Arabwomen was to discard the veil for Western dress, which in
'he thirties, forties, and fifties was that of the wife of the
Speaking a foreign language was often a corollary to
I ! 1
! III( discarding the veil, the first 'liberated' women usually the massive involvement of women in labour markets,
1 eml:members of the upper and middle classes. And here we
touch
("li'
coupled With organized
women's movements. The partial,
upon another aspect of the difficulty Muslim societies have in , merited of rights by women in Arab-Muslim
iragadjusting to female self-determination. The Westernization
, _ntries is a non-planned, non-systematic phethe
first 'liberated' women was and still is part and
of the due mainly to
the disintegration of the traditional
Westernization of the Arab-Muslim ruling classes,
~ h ,fears
11om
under pressures from within and without. Muslim
awakened by the Westernization of women can be interpreted
as simply another instance of Muslim society believing
that patterllmales
are able to select what is good in Western
and
To the dismay of rigid conservatives desperately preoccupied
discard bad elements, while women are unable to choose tor- with static tradition, change is shaking the foundations of the
re+. This is concordant with the classical Muslim view of Muslim World. Change is multidimensional and hard to control,
women as being unable to judge what is good and what is bad, , especially for those who deny it. Whether accepted or rejected,
Another factor that helps in understanding men's fears of the I
change gnaws at the intricate mechanisms of
changes now taking place is that Westernization of women has life, and the more it is thwarted, the deeper and more
enhanced their seductive powers. We have seen that the M ~ ~ . are its implications. The heterosexual unit is not Yet
lim ethic is against women's ornamenting themselves and admitted by Muslim rulers to be a crucial focusof the
exposing their charms; veil and walls were particularly effective process of national development. Development plans devote
anti-seduction devices. Westernization allowed and hundreds of pages to the mechanization of agriculture, mining,
seductively clad female bodies to appear on the streets. 1t is ' andbanking, and only a few pages to the family and omen'*
interesting that while Western women's liberation movements condition.1 want to emphasize on the one hand the deep and
had to repudiate the body in pornographic mass media, ~ ~ ~ l i ~processes of change at work in the Muslim family,
women are likely to claim the right to their bodies as part of and on the other hand the decisive role of women and the
their liberation movement. Previously a Muslim body family in any serious development plan in the Third World
belonged to the man who possessed her, father or husband. The economy.
mushrooming of beauty salons and ready-to-wear boutiques in
Moroccan towns can be interpreted as a forerunner of women's
urge to claim their own bodies, which will culminate in more e Family and Women
radical claims, such as the claim to birth control and abortion.
Having described the available models and their negative AS shown earlier, one of the distinctive characteristics of
reception, let me hazard a few speculations on the future of Muslim sexuality is its territoriality, which reflects a specific
women's liberation in Muslim societies, based on a projection division of labour and a specific conception of society and
from the current situation.
llmma was actually a society of male citizens who possessed.
nascent 'liberation' is that it is not the outcome of a plan among other things, the female half of the population. In his8
of controlled nation-wide development. Neither is it the out- '
'"!rodudion to Women and Socialism, George Tarahishi emarks
Conclusion 171
that People generally say that there are one hundred m,llion husbandis facing his wife directly. Men and women live more
Arabs, but in fact there are only fifty million, the 1 ly and interact more than they ever did before, partly
population being prevented from taking part in
responsi- closebecause the decline of anti-heterosexual factors such as the
bilities.' Muslim men have always had many more rights and presence and sexual segregation. This direct
privileges than Muslim women, including even the right to kill between men and women brought up in sexually
their women. (The Moroccan penal code still shows a trace of traditions is likely to be laden with tensions and
this power in Article 418, which grants extenuating circu
rn- fears on both sides.
stances to a man who kills his adulterous wife.5) M~~ imposed The future of male-female dynamics greatly depends on the
on women an artificially narrow existence both
Y and
modem states handle the readjustment of sexual rights and
spiritually. waythe reassessment of sexual status. In Morocco the legislature has
This territoriality (the confining of women) is in the process the traditional concept of marriage. The ancient defiof
being dismantled, modernization having triggered mechan. nition of sex statuses based on division of labour according to
isms of socio-economic change that no group is able to control, sex was reenacted as the basis of family law: Article 35 defines
Philip Slater, in his studies of societies based on the man as the sole provider for the family. He is responsible
antagonisms, came to the conclusion that such systems are not only for himself but also for his able-bodied wife, who is
manageable only 'under conditions of strong ties and residen.
tial stability'.' Morocco's family structure and tradition
residential stability are disintegrating with the increase of
individual salaries and the breakdown of the corporate family define masculinity as the capacity to earn a salary is to
system, at least in the urban middle class. -rhe major,tY of condemn those men suffering from unemployment (or the
traditional women interviewed lived with their husbands, threat of it) to perceive economic problems as castration threats.
Parents at the beginning of their married lives. ~ h ~ ~ ,for 'no M ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ,since the Code defines earning a salary as a man's
reason', that is, with no open hostility, the extended family role, a who earns a salary will be perceived as either
broke UP. In two cases, the reason advanced was quarrelling masculine or castrating. If the privileges of men become more
between son and uncle. But a century ago quarrels did not easily accessible to women, then men will be perceived as
becoming more feminine.
gy emphasizing the link between masculinity and economic
success for men, the Moroccan Code reactivates traditional
away. The fact that the state, the most important employer, patterns of self-esteem whereby a man's prestige depends
requires a certain mobility from its civil servants is an impor-
1 his wealth, at the very moment when economic problems are
tant element in the destruction of the old family structure. making it difficult for a growing majority of Moroccans to
Unnecessary confusion and anxiety stem from the fact that the amass wealth. ~h~ authority of males, traditionally embodied in
government supports the traditional ideology and enforces it as
law, while its economic plans and programmes promote a
different reality. The new reality is shaking the traditional great difficultyachieving traditional masculine recognition:
structure, increasing role confusion and conflicts, and bringing
greater sufferingfor the individuals involved, ofsex. There is no power but in men
One of the results of the break-up of traditional family life is There are no men without money.7
that, for the first time in the history of modern Morocco, the
Modernization, in these terms, clearly appears to be a cas.
trating phenomenon. By emphasizing the traditional definitions
of masculinity, the state encourages ambivalent feelings in
men, both toward the inactive women for whom they cannot
provide and toward the active ones they experience as cas.
trators. The ambivalence aggravates the traditional fears of
devouring females latent in all patriarchal cultures. The Moroccan
male is increasingly encouraged to lookupon himself not as
a multi-dimensional person, but primarily as a sexual age,t,
and it is from sex that he is encouraged to expect gratification,
,",
prestige, and power. Moroccans are allowed to boss their wives
and children, but if they dare to raise objections to economic
and political conditions. their initiatives are severely di,.
1 couraged and often violently repressed. The complementarity01
an'authoritarian political structure and the authoritarian power
of the husband and father seems to be a feature of transitional
societies unable to create an effectivedevelopment programme
to face change with effectiveplanning. In Morocco the eventsof
I the past decades have brought about a serious erosion of male, ,
supremacy which is generating greater tension between the
sexes, at least in this transitional period. Surprisingly enough,
the serious blows to male supremacy did not come from women,
who have been reduced to helplessness by their historical
situation, but from the state.
The State as the Main Threat to
Traditional Male Supremacy
In spite of its continuous support for traditional male rights, the
state constitutes a threat and a mighty rival to the male as both
father and husband. The state is taking over the traditional
functions of the male head of the family, such as education and
the provision of economic security for members of the household.
By providing a nation-wide state school system and an individual
salary for working wives, daughters, and sons, the state
has destroyed two pillars of the father's authority. The increasingly
preeminent role of the state has stripped the traditionallY
powerful family head of his privileges and placed him in a
bordinate position with respect to the state not very different
,ram the position of women in the traditional family. The head
of the family is dependent on the state (the main employer) to
Provide forhim just as women are dependent on their husbands
in traditional settings. Economic support is given in exchange
and this tends to augment male-female solidarity
a defence against the state and its daily frustrations.
The word 'sexist' as it is currently employed in English has
1 the connotation that males are favoured at the expense of
lemales. It is my belief that, in spite of appearances, the Muslim
I does not favour men; the self-fulfilmentof men is just as
;mpaired and limited as that of women. Though this equality of
,pression is concealed by the world-renowned 'privileges' of
ie Muslim male, I have tried to illustrate it by showing how
Ilygamy and repudiation are oppressive devices for both
Ixes. The Muslim theory of sexuality views women as fatally
tractive and the source of many delights. Any restrictions on
le man's right to such delights, even if they take the form of
,strictions on women alone (seclusion, for example), are really
tacks on the male's potential for sexual fulfilment.
It might well be argued that the Muslim system makes men
ay a higher psychological price for the satisfaction of sexual
eeds than women, precisely because women are conditioned
1 accept sexual restrictions as 'natural', while men are encour:ed
to expect a thorough satisfaction of their sexual needs.
len and women are socialized to deal with sexual frustration
ifferently. We know that an individual's discontent grows as
is expectations rise. From the age of four or earlier, a woman in
loroccan society is made aware of the sexual restrictions she has
ace. The difficulties a Moroccan male experiences in dealing
h sexual frustration are almost unknown to the Moroccan
man, who is traumatized early enough to build adequate
ences. In this sense also the Muslim order is not 'sexist'.
ure Trends
ihe short run the reduced power of the head of the family
lduces tension in the family such that resentful males are
I "
, 1ti1 set higher and broader goals than just equality with men. The
most recent studies on the aspirations of both men and
seem to come to the same conclusion: the goal is not to
equality with men. Women have seen that what men
have isnot worth getting. Women's goals are already being phrased in
terms of a global rejection of established sexual patterns, frus.
trating for males and degrading for females. This implies ,
revolutionary reorganization of the entire society, starting from
its economic structure and ending with its grammar. jalal al.
!
I Azm excuses himself at the beginning ofthe book forusing the
term 'he' throughout the book while in fact he should be using
a neutral term, because his findings are valid for both men and
women.12 As a social scientist he resents being a prisoner of
Arabic grammar, which imposes a sex-defined pronoun.I3
not many Arab males yet feelill-at-ease with sex-biased Arabic
grammar, though a majority already feel indisposed by the
economic situation.
The holders of power in Arab countries, regardless of their
_,!il political make-up, are condemned to promote change, and they
111
1 , ' I! are aware of this, no matter how loud their claim to uphold the
'prestigious past' as the path to modernity. Historians have
interpreted the somewhat cyclical resurgence of traditional
rhetoric as a reflex of ruling groups threatened by acute and
deep processes of change.I4The problem Arab societies face is
,;!
' i j (
not whether or not to change, but how fast to change. The link
( 1
I , ,iI between women's liberation and economic development is
,;( j
shown by the similarities in the conditions of the two sexes in
II!/ the Third World; both sexes suffer from exploitation and depri'!
!'
vation. Men do not have, as in the so-called abundant Western
,, ! societies. glaring advantages over women. Illiteracy and un'
, '111 employment are suffered by males as well as females. This, ~ ( /
I ': 1,. similarity of men and women as equally deprived and exploited
;I individuals assumes enormous importance in the likely eve.
, ,;,I! lution of Third World family structure. George Tarabishi has,,I,
pointed out the absurdity of men who argue that women
should not be encouraged to get jobs in Arab society, where
men suffer from ~nemployment.'~He argues that society
should not waste human resources in unemployment, but systematically
channel the yealth of resources into productive
Conclusion 177
ks. The femalehalf of human resources is more than welcome
,,,the Arab future.
One may speculate that women's liberation in an Arab con-- . .
is likely to take a faster and more radical path than in
western countries. Women in Western liberal democracies are
themselves to claim their rights, but their oppressors
are strong, wealthy, and reformist regimes. The dialogue takes
within the reformist framework charactelistic of bourgeois
democracies. In such situations, serious changes are likely to
take a long time. American women will get the right to abortion
but it will be a long time before they can prevent the female's
body from being exploited as a marketable product. Muslim
women, on the contrary, engage in a silent but explosive dialogue
with a fragile ruling class whose major task is to secure
economic growth and plan a future without exploitation and
deprivation. The Arab ruling classes are beginning to realize
that they are charged with building a sovereign future, which
necessarily revolves around the location and adequate utilization
of all human and natural resources for the benefit of the
entire population. The Arab woman is a central element in any
sovereign future. Those who have not realized this fact are
misleading themselves and their countries.
2. Malik Ihn Anas. "1-Mntewtli~,Calm. n d .
3. Salama Musa, Kfonmlr is Not liv Pln!itl,irr,q of Mnn, Cairo 1955,
4. Ihld., p. 53. See also Abdallah I.aruui, l.'J~Clag~ciirnllr ruriti.,,rporn
Paris 1967. 11 51.
5 Ssiama Musa, Wilr,tnn Is Not lkc Plo!~tlriiiyof Mmr. p. lilb.
6. Qaslm A m i n '1'111'I.,hcrntia,~of M'ur,wr>, Catro 1923, the edition Publishrd
to commemorate the twentieth anniversary 01 the author's death, p. 18,
7. Ibtd., p 15.
8. Ibid., p 16.
9 . [hid., p. 10.
I 0 Ibid., p. 9.
II. Ibn Murad al-Salah, ril-tlmdndnicil-nriir'nt nl-hodriil, Tunis. n d , 6~
12. Ihid., p. 70.
13. Daniel Lernrr, Tile Pnssrr~,yof Trnrlil!orlnl Sc,r.,c.tp. Mrl,leni~ziriq of ti,<, ~ i , t ~ & .
Eiiit, New York 1958. p. 44
14. Ibid., p. 47.
15. Anouar Abdel-M~lek.E,f!ipt. Mililnry Soriet!,. New York 1968, p. 249,
16. Paul Coatalen. 'Ethnologre Barhare', i n A,ir>airi Mnrocni,rc.s dc Sorioiay,,.,
1V70, pp. 3-1 1.
1 7 Allal al,Fasi. Tlw lrr~lii~i,,~de,zcrMoi'i~ii~ntsI!, Anzb Nor111Afrzru. New yurk
1970, p. 381.
18. The first members of the Arab League were Egypt. Saudi Ambia, rraq,
Yemen. Syria, and Lebanon.
19. Allal al-Fasi, Irrdi~)rt~riil<~,rreMour.,rie,its rt! Arob Nortl, Afrirn, p. 409~
20. Wilfred Cantwell-Smith, 7711.Mrn~littgnriti End of Rcli,yio,~. New York 1964,
p. 79.
21. Montgomery Watt, Mii1rnn1,sad nt M~dirin.Oxford 1956, p. 239.
22. H. A. R. Gibb, 'Cunstitutional Organization' ~nOrrpr n,,d Dcr,iiopa,c~ltof
i s l n ~ ~ ~ i ~ i n m ,ed. M.Khaduri and H.I.Llebesny.Vo1 I.Washington, D.C. 1955.p. 3.
23. Gertrude Stern, Mnrriqe it! Enrb islnrn, London 1931, p. 71.
24 Joseph Schacht. A* I,itrodz<rtion lo lsin,rrir Lnw, London 1964 p. 161.
25. In Tlii. Mirqndrlinml>,An I~llrodttt-tiorrto History, translated from the Arabic
by Frana Rosenthal, Princeton, N.J.1969. The ~ o r t hAfrican historian lbn
Khaldun (1332-1406) sketched a model of the Muslim social order. He was
interested i n analysing what was happening to the then disintegrating Muslim
world, which had stood uncontested in the Mediterranean arena until a few
centuries before. Although primarily concerned with an entirely different
problem, the growth and death of civilization, Ibn Khaldun analysed the
reasons the Muslims had succeeded for so long.
According to his theory, the survival of human groups requires the surrender
of individual will to a set of social norms or laws. There are two kinds of social
norms: those having a human basis, reason. and those having a supernatural
basis, religion.
I f these norms are ordained b y the intelligent leading personalities and
mtnds of the dynasty. the result will be a political [institution] with an
intellectual [rational! basis, i f they are ordained by God through a
lawgtver who establishes them as [rel~giousllaws, the result will be a
political [institutionl with a religious basis. (Tizr Muqaddrmai>,p. 154.)
A polllical institution having s religious basis is far superiorto a
Notes 181
,,srltuttun havnnp,a ratlunal bas,,, not hecau\e, of an! . l ~ ~ l ~ c ~ m r yi n the latlrr'5
,,,,,hanl~mr. but because ,,Ithe narmwncss u l i t r scope Keason pwrrns only
,sls world's intercctc, whlle ml~glousinstttut~unsRovrrn bulb
Political laws consider only worldly interests. O n the other hand, the
intention the lawgiver has concerning mankind is their welfare in the
other world, therefore it is necessary, as required by the religious law, to
cause the mass to act i n accordance with the religious laws in all their
affairs touching both this world and the other world. (TI,<. M~~qnddin~nlt.
p. 155.)
26. H. A. R.Gibb. 'Constitutional Organization', p. 3.
27. S. G. Vesey-Fitzgerald, 'Nature and Source of the Slrnrin', i n Orisi,, nttd
Dtur~loymenlof Islamic Lam. p. 109.
28. Ibid., p. 104.
29. Ibid., p. 85.
30. J. Schacht, InlroducNo,i lo lslnmir Lnro, p. 76.
31. Ibid., p. 101.
32. rbid.. DD. 210-214.
33. Ibid., p: 100.
34. Abdallah Laroui, L'Histoirr dl, Mnghreh, Un Essni C Syrztbi'st~,Paris 1970.
p. 346.
35. This opportunism is clearly illustrated in the economic options adopted
by the Moroccan stateduring the yeanof independence. A revealinganalysisol
these options is Samir Amin's Lr Mazkrrb Modt,rrre, Paris 1970, chapter Vi:
'Le Maroc, Hesitations et Contradictions'. Also A. Belal, 'L'Orientation des
investissements et ies imp6ratifs d u develappement national', BESM XXVIII,
p. 100; and T. Ben Cheikh, 'Planification et politique agricole', Part I,BESM
XXXI, no. 112-113 (January-June1969). pp. 191, 199, and Part I1in BESM XXXI.
no. 114 (July-September 1969). pp. 75-83.
36. Salama Musa, Wonran Is Not fiic Ploythiny of Mnu, chapter entitled 'Our. .
Philosophy on Women'.
37. Dahir. no.1-57-190.19 Aueust 1957, Ballrtin Officirl no.2341.6 September
1957, p. 1163.
38. Sunni (that is, 'orthodox') Muslims recognize four legitimate schools of
law:
Hnnafi: The founder of the school was Abu Hanifa (699-769). who undertook
to create precedents b y analogy with the decisions of the first four caliphs; it
holds sway mainly in central Asia, northern India, and among the Turks, but
also in pahistan, china, and Japan.
Shofii: The founder was Abu Ahdullah Muhammad al-Shafi'i (770-819);
centred mainly in lower Egypt, southern lndia, and Malaya.
M n l ~ k i r ~ :The founder was Malik Ibn Anas (705-i95). whose teachings were
confined to the traditions (lrnditir). The title of his major work. nl-Ml~mnltn,
means 'the path'. The school holds sway mainly in Africa, especially north
Africa, and upper Egypt.
Hanhaiitp: The founder was Abu Hanbal (780-855). W i s school is characterized
b y a strong puritanical tendency.
All lour schools agree on the fundamental dogmas, but differ i n the application
ofthe Koran and its interpretation.
-34. Ibid.
35. Sigmund Freud, Nc'rt, lr~trodzcrtoryLrderrs, p. 132.
36. Al-Chsrali, Rcun~ifirntion,p. 50.
I. Ibn Khaldun. Tltc M~rqnddinmh.Art letroductior~to History, tianslated by 37. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. 25.
8. Ibid., p. 27.
9. George Peter Murdock, Sariol Stnrrtere, New York 1965, p. 273. 45. Abu al-Hasan Muslim, a/-larr,? 01-Saltih, Beirut n.d., vol. Ill, Book of
Marriage, p. 130.
11. Qasim Amin, Tlw Liberatiof!of Women, Cairo 1928, p. 64. 46. At-Tarmidi, S~oins"1-Tnrt~idi,p. 419, B: 16, H: 1181. See also al-Bukhari,
12. Ibid., p. 65. xltnb nl-Inn+ el-Snkiii, Leyden, Holland 1868, vol. Ill, K: 67, 8: 11.
13. Al-Ghazali, Tirr Revivification of Rrii,gioer Sciceccr, vol. 11, chapter on 47. Al-Tarmidi, Sznzn,i ill-Tnrntidi, p. 419, B: 17. H: 11R.
marriage; and Mizan al-'Amal, Criteria for Actiotr, Cairo 1964. 48. Edward Westermark, Tlr? Bclicf ia Spirits in Morocco, Abo, Finland 1920.
14. Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad, Wonrr,r i,r thc Koran, Cairo n d . 49. Edward Westemark. Wit nlid Wisdors ir! Morocco: A Study of Nntiue
15. Ibid., p. 7; the verse he refers to is verse228 of sura 2, which is strtkingby Prauerls, London 1926, p. 330.
its inconsistency. The whole verse reads as follows: 50. Sidi Abderahman al-Majdaub, Lrs Quatrains d s Mejdoeb Ic Snrmrtigite,
And they [women] have rights similar to those [ofmen1 over them in poitr Mn$kr$Iz,rz dl, XVlii.,tir. Pirlc, collected and translated by J. Scelles-Millieand
kindness, and men are a degree above them. B. Khelifa, Paris 1966. p. 161.
I am tempted to interpret the first part of the sentence as a simple stylistir I 51. Ibid., p. 160.
device to bring out the hierarchical content of the second part. I 52. Abu Abdallah Muhammad lbn lsmail al-Bukhari, Kitnb al-Jam? 01-Salrih,
16. Ibid., p. 24. Leyden, Holland 1868, p. 419, K: 67, B: 18.
17. Ibid., p. 25. The biological assumption behind Aqqad's sweeping gen- 53. Al-Ghazali, Rpuivificatiorr, p. 28.
eralirations is obviously fallacious. 54. Sigmund Fmud, Civiliinfior~n,rd tts Disroritcrrb, New York 1962.
18. Ibid., p. 18. 55. Sigmund Freud. A Gmernl lrrtroduclio~~to Psyclroa,inIysis. New York 1952,
19. Ibid., p. 26. p. 27.
20. A. Schultz, The Problem of Social Reality', Collected Papers, vol. I, 56. Al-Ghamli, Rruivifiratio,r, p. 32.
The Hague, n.d., p. 101.
21. Ralph Linton, TIT?Study of Man, London 1936. p. 116.
22. A. Srhultz, Collected Pnpers, p. 9. Chapter 2
1. lgnaz Goldaiher, Muslim Studies, Chicago 1967, 'What is Meant by alJahiliya',
p. 201.
25. Sigmund Freud, Three Confn'br,tions to the Theory of S ~ X ,2nd ed., New 1 2. Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn lsmail al-Bukhari, Kitab al-lami' al5ahih.
York 1909, p. 77. p. 428, K: 67, 8: 31.
26. Sigmund Freud, New I n t ~ o d i t ~ t o yLecftt~es,p. 114. ! 3. In ai-Ho!jat 01-j,nsi.ya Ivdn nl-Arab (Thr Sexlcal Life of thc Arabs), Beirut 1958.
27. Al-Ghazali, Reviuificotion of Religioss Sciences, p. 51. 1 Dr. Salah &Din al-Mvlunajid tries to show that Islam did not impose any restric-
28. Una Stannard, 'Adam's Rib or the Woman Within', Transnctlo,r. November- lions an the sexual indulgence which prevailed during the jnhihya. According to
December 1970, vol. 8, special issue on American Women, pp. 24-36. him, Islam only codified and regularized the previous sexual practices. It seems
29. Al-Chazali, Revivification, p 50. Not only is the woman granted ejaculation, obvious to me that Dr. Munajid must be thinking of male sexuality only.
I , ! she is also granted the capacity to have nocturnal ejaculation and 'sees what the 4. Abu Hamid al-Ghalali, The Reuiuificntion of Religtour Sciences. p. 30.
i ! iIj,j,,1 man sees in sleep'. (Ibn Saad, Kitab 01-Tabaqot al-Kubra, Beirut 1958, vol. 3. 'On 5. Edward Westermark, Wit ond Wisdom in Morocco, A Study of Native Prourrbs,
Women', p. 858.) p. 329.
,:I1 30. Sigmund Freud, Sexirnlity and the Psycitolo~yof Love, New York 1963, 6. Al-Ghazali, Reurvificafion,p. 30.
i1I pp. 196-197. 7. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. 190. 8. Koran, sura 2: 231.
9. Al-Bukhari, 01-Ins?? a!-Snhih, p. 426, K: 67, B: 35.
10. Ibn Hisham ed., Sirat ol-Nnbi, written by lbn lshaq, Cairo 1%3, p. 121. All
184
1 Notes 185
I
Muhammad's male children died in infancy, creating a thorny them yourself at Badr [a reference to the Battle of Badr, where the
fledgling I ~ ~ r l r n f l :succession. The community, supposedly ,,,,ite*, was divided slims attacked Muhammad's own tribe] (Ibn Saad, nl-Tnbnqol, p. 9).
by dissension and violence over the issue.
11. Ihn Saad. Kitnli 01-T,zl,nrlnt 01-Ktalrrn, "01. 8, .onwomen.,B~~~~~1958 ~ i n d ' sanswer concerning zirm, although startling, is quite eni~matlc.It can
pp. 154 and 150. mean either that Hind thought that rirm was a debasing act which she. as a
12. Ibid., p. 201. noble woman, would not engage in, or it could mean,on the contrary, that Hind
13. Ibid., p. 141. thought that, as a freeborn woman, no sexual union she engaged in could b e
14. Ibid., p. 145. debasin%. The Muslim interpretation would be the first one. Gertrude Stern
15. Ibid.. p. 141 and p. 148. inclines towards the second possibility (Mnrriqr ir! Earl!, Islnn?, London 1939.
16. Ibid., p. 145.
17. Al-Bukhari, nl-li~rrri'al-SnbiB, p. 459, K: 68, 8: 3. p. 9).
Hind does not seem to b e a particularly zealous Muslim who was ready to
18. 1bn Saad, nl-Tnbnqnl, pp. 145, 148. accept the new creed unconditionally and uncritically. Her opinion about the
19. Al-Bukhari, nl-lr,,ri' "I-Sohill, p. 459, K: 68, 8: 3. prophet seems to be critical, as her answer concerning the killing of children
20. Abu lsra a!-Tarmidi, S8r~mt!"1-Tn'nn,,idi, Medin= ".d., p. 275, 0:4, H: 1W2 shows. She contested the Prophet's right to ask her not to kill her unwanted
21. Ibn Saad, 01-Tnlsilnf,pp. 120-123. I babies bereuse, a s the ieaderof theMuslims, he had made war on his own trihe
22. l b i d p. 129. and so in effect killed his own relatives.
23. Ibid., p. 212. 36. Koran, sura 24: 32; also al-Bukhari, 01-Snllili, pp. 410-411. K: 67. B: 12.3:
24. Ibid., p. 213. also Muslim, ni-lomi' ni-Snliil~,pp. 128, 129, 130; and finally al-Charali, R~,?,ii'l-
25. Koran. sura 66. 3. /,rot#on,p. 22.
26. Ibn Saad, 01-T~lmqnt,p. 212. 37. Gertrude Stern, Mnrriogr ill Eorl!~Isln!,~,p. 94.
27. lbid., p. 117.
-- .. . . 38. Al-Bukhari, nl-lnnri'ni-Solrih, p. 445;K: 67. B: 85.
LB. !me.
I 39 Koran. son 2: 222.
29 Ibid., p. 153. 40. Al-Gharali, R~vti,ificntion,p. 50.
30. Ibid., p. 101. 41. Malik, 01-Afsiootta, p. 33.
31. Koran, sura 33, 37. I 42. ti^^^ 154, Code du Statut Personnel.
3 2 Al-Tarmidi. Sellnn nl-Tnrntidi, p. 404. B: 40. H: 1149. See also a l ~ C h 0 ~ ~ 1 i . 43. ~ ~ l i k ,al.~q,,ionttn,p. 19. ~ l s oKoran, suia 4: 34; and al-Bukhaii. ~ l ~ - i ' ~ f l ~ i '
Rcz~ii~ifirntiotr.p. 48. On the Pmphet's involvement with his youngest wife,
01-Sahih, p. 447, K: 67, B: 93.
Aishah, see Nabia Abbott, Aishnlr. tlie Rclovrd of Molm,aat,d, Chicago 1942. I 44. Malik, "1-Ma7orttn. p. 19.
33. 1.Schacht. Irrtrod:~ctio~tto lslflntir Lnic, p. 125;also Malik, nl-Meisnttn. p. 11.
! 45. Ibid.
In Muhammad's time the punishment was immurement: 46. ~ ~ t i ~ l ~152, Code ds S t n h ) I'rrsolll~el.
As lor those of your women who are guilty of lewdness, call to witness
lour of you against them. And if they testify (to the truth of the allegation]
then confine them to the house until death takes them or [until1 Allah
appoint
for them a way lthrough new legislation]. (Koran, sura 4: 15)
A new Muslim Law was revealed in sura 24: 2-10, which changed the
~unishmentto scourging:
The adulterer and the adulteress scourge each one of them a hundred
stripes.
34. Errryrioprdin of islat~,first edition. Leyden, Holland 1934, 'zirin'.
35. Koran, sura 60: 12. It is important to understand the consensus under
which women swore allegiance to Islam. Hind Bint Utba. an aristocratic Meccan
woman, is reported to have reacted thus:
The Prophet: And you will not commit zirio?
Hind: And doer a free woman commit zinn?
The Prophet: And you will not kill your children [a reference to female
infanticldel?
Htnd: ~ n d . d i dyou spare the life of any of our children? You killed ali of
47. Malik, a/-Mafuntta, p. 23.
48. 1. Schacht. lsln,n!c Laic,, p. 161.
49. Malik, ni-Mu?unt!n, p. 23.
50. Montgomery Watt, Mz~hnn,v~ndnt .?Ardi,~n,pp. 273-274.
51. Al-Tarmldi, Surin,! 81-l'nrsiidi, p. 339; 8: 33, H:1140.
52. Koran. sum 65: 4.
53. Koran, sum 2: 226.228, 234.
54. There was no rddo for divorced women in pre-Islamic Arabia; only
vidows had to wail a year before r e - m a ~ i n g .See Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, nlA
v h n h b n ~ ,p. 338. He state. that there was insufficient space to name all the
hildren born in the homes of second husbands and considered as belonging to
hem even though the fint hushand was the biological lather.
55. Koran, suia 65: 4.
56. Mahk, at-Muiuntta. p. 30.
Zhapter 3
1. snlah ~ h ~ ~ d=l-,~li,Mzrtrndorot fi't-Tnrikh 01-'Arab. Baghdad 1960, "01. 1.
>.136.
2. Ibid., p. 141.
Notes 187
3. Ibn Saad, Kilab al-Tabaqat 01-Kubra, Beirut 1958, vol. 8.
4. Gertrude Stern. Marriage ,n Enrly Irlam, London 1939. first three Abu Bakr. Umar and Uthman, as usurpers- They are found
5. Ibid., p. 70. in lran and india, but their influence has penetrated other parts of the
6. Ibid., p. 73. Muslim world.
7. lbid., p. 62. 40. W. R. Smith. Kirrsliip irc Enrly Ambln, p. 85.
;C 8. Ibid., p. 66. 41. Ibid., p. 94.
42, onthe controversy ~ o n e r n i n gwhat constitutes the hasic family unit. the
9. Abi Jafar Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, O I - M U ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ,Beirut,
trio mother-father-child orthe duo mother-child. see the dialogue betweenpp. 310 ff. Arab men seem to have been against ~ i r i i ~ ~ ~ l i t ~ .
8riffault and 8. M . I ~ ~ O W S ~ ~in Mnrrzn~c.Port ",id Present. Boston 1956, chapter
10. Ibn Hisham, ed.. Sirat al-Nabi. written by ibn ishaq, cairo1963, vol.,
p. 89. Also Ibn Saad, 01-Tabaqet,"01. 1. p. 79. ,what is a ~ ~ ~ i l y ? 'A humorous summary of the controversy is Robin Fox's
11. Ibn Hirham, Sirnt, p. 89. K,l,sh,l,andM ~ ~ ~ , ~ ~ ~ ,N ~ W~ o r k1967. chapter I: 'Kinship, Family and Descent'
12. Ibn Habib al-Baghdad,, ol-Mahnbbor, p. 398. 43. W. R. Smith, Kmship in Enrly Arah~a,p. 177.
13. Ibn Saad. 01-Tnbaqaf, vol. 8, p. 95. 44. Ibid., p. 38.
14. Ibid., pp. 100, 118. 45. salama Musa. Woman Is Not thr Plaything of Man, p. 20.
15. The case of Sakina Bint al-Hussein, the granddaughter,
46, W. R. smith, Kinship in Ear1.y Ambio, chapters 11. IV, and V.
revealing. She married often and left the husbands %hedid not like, 47. A. R. ~ ~ d ~ l i f f e - B r o w nand Daryll Forde, Afncavt SyStell*sof Kinship and
al-Baghdadi. al-Muhabbor, p. 438. Mnrriafe, London 1950, p. 43.
48. M. watt, ~ ~ h n n , , ~ a dnt Mrdisa; and Muhammad nt Mecca, London 1953.16. Al-Bukhari, a/-lami' al-Sohih, p. 453, K: 67, 8:109.
17. Ibn Saad, 01-Tabaqal, p. 337. 49. M. Watt, M~rlinnimndnt Mcdi,ca, p. 290.
18. Ibid., p. 130. 50. Ibid., p. 261.
19. Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, Kifabal-Aghani, ~ e i r u t1909, "01. XVI,p. 102, 51. Ibid., p. 290 and p. 388.
20. lbid., p. 93. 52, 7his argument is a used by traditionists and modernists alike.
21. SirJohn Glubb. A Short H~storyof the Arab Peoples, New York 1970, p. 43. aaslm~~i~ arguesin this sense when defending the position Islam granted
22. Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, Hyde~abad1942. A typical case of the use of thecliche is that ofMuhammad al-Mahdi alI
in his book, ai-~nr'nIhny,~nnl-Sirari'n e,nl-Qa,~art,Casablanca. n.d.23. The translation is by A. F. L. Beeston, from his article The ~ ~ . ~ ~ l l ~ d
Harlots of Hadramaut', Or,ens V, 1952. p. 16. 53. ~ d ~ ~ ~ ~ dF ~ ~ ~ ~ ,L'Ho,,n~!,rd t r i lcs arabes avant l'lslam: Etude de soc~ologi~,
I , , 24. Ibid., p. 18. l'aris 1932, p. 79.
25. Ibid., p. 20. 54. M. Watt, Muhammad at Mcdina, p. 276.
26. Ibid. 55. ~ ~ h ~ ~ ~ ~ dMarmaduke Pickthall, TI,? Meaning of Hlc Glorious Koran.
27. W- Robertson Smith. Kinship ond Marriagt in Early ~robia,BOS~O" 1903, introduction, p. 79.
p. 94. 56. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 265.
, , 28. [bid., p. 92. 57. Ibid., p. 145.
29. [bid., p. 156. 58. Ibid., p. 273.
30 Ibid., p. 172. 59. Ihid., p. 271.
31. Ibid., p. 92. 60. ~ { . ~ , , k h ~ ~ i ,ol-lnmi'al-Sahih, p. 440, K: 67, B: 81; also p- 447. K:67, 8: 90.
32. Ibid., p. 121. 61. samir~ m i n ,L'Economie arabe contempornine, Paris 1980,P. 16.
33. Al-lsfahani. al-Aghani. Translation by W. R. smith in ~ i ~ ~ h i ~in E ~ ~ I ~
Ambin, p. 80.
34. Al-lsfahani, a/-Aghani, vol. 16, p. 80.
35. Al-Bukhari, 01-lnmi'al-Sahih, p. 428, K: 67, B: 36. The translation is from Chapter 5
M. Watt's Muhammad of Medino, pp. 378-379.
36. Ibid., p. 423, K: 67, B: 31.
37. Al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 395, B: 27, H: 1130. 1, p. pascon and M. Bentahar, 'Ce que disent 269 Jeunes Ruraux'. BESM,
38. Muslim, al-[anti' 01-Sahih, pp. 130-131. lanuary-June 1969, XXI, pp. 112-113.
39. The Muslim world is divided into two camps: the Sunnis and the Shiites. 2. Ibid., p. 75.
The Sunnis, or orthodox, are so called because they follow the svnnn, traditions 3. population Ligrrle, Bureau of Statistics, Rabat. p. xii.
4, RecenrrmrntG{nPral de la Population d de I'Habital, 1971, vol. 1, P. 5.having authority concurrent to and supplementary with the ora an. he Shiites
are the partisans of the house of Ali, Muhammad.s disciple, cousin, and in- 5. pascon and Bentahar, '269 Jeunes Ruraux'. p. 63.
law. They reject the authority of the sunna and believe that the sovereign 6. Ibid., p. 76.
lmamat ('theleadership of the faithful') is vested in Ali and his descendants, the 7. lbid.
8. ~ b d ~ l j ~ l i lA~~~~~~ and Abdelaziz Belal, 'Bilan de I'economie marocainesons of his wife Fatima (the Prophet's daughter). Consequently, they regard the
depuis I'independance', BESM 33, no. 116. p. 11.
9. A was being conducted in the early eighties.
10. R<,cotsrnio,tGh!i'nii. 1971, vol. I, p. 9.
1I. Pascon and Bentahar, '269 JeunesRuraux., p. 75. j,,,lnn RI-Tnnnidi, p. 277, B: 8.H: 1098.
18. M~~ weber, Rejections of the World and Their Directions', in
12. Malika Belghitl. 'Les Relations feminine5 et le Statut de la F~,,,,,,~dans la
fanlille rurale', Coll<'dion da Rallrlfa Ero,ro,nic)ur rt Soc.ml d,, M ~ ~ ~ ~ ,~~b~~1970,
fro,,, M,,X webpr, translated by H. Certh and C. Wright Mills. New York 1958.
347.
'19 Koran, sura 2: 165.
20. Koran, sura 3: 4.
21, On G0d.s jealousy, see lmam Bukhari, "1-ln1,ri' ni-Saillir. p. 451. K: 67.
B: 107, 106; and Imam Tarmidi, Szrnn,, 01-firnlidi, p. 417, R: 14, H: 1178.
22. E. Wcrtrrmark, Wet n~ldWisdonr, p. 329.
13. W.stephens. '~'I,copdipt,s COIIIPIPI. C~DSSCi#ltisrnl Eu~dcl~ic',New York
mother-in-law incestuous: sura 4: 23.
16. A basic description of the mechanism of the parenvs curse is in 1962, p. 6.
24, -ihe master of a concubine can choose to limit her to a domestic functionE. Westermark, Wit o,rA Wisdonr.
1 ,,?to raise her to the status of lover with privilegcs. including the legitimacy of
17. Nine years after this research was done, the disintegration of rural
her ~hildrenand their right to inherit.
seems to have gone much further. Prostitut>onseems to have spread dmmatir- I 25. he ~tjnr:if a man is not attracted anymore by a concubine, he can refuse
ally. In a society that considers itself Muslim, this i s a sumsign 01 the sharpness
interaction with her, even at the verbal level, and her dismissal often reflects on
of social conflict. Prostitution is a key phenomenon in that it expresses the
the children's position within the harem community. The female obiect of 1:lflr
coincidence of two basic elements of human life. economic and loses her status and her rights as favourite and lover and she is often looked
sow,,upon by her fellow wives and concubines.Often she is associated with
'bad luck' and the evil eye.
26. he rate in Morocco in 1952 was already vet7 low-6.6'Xl. It has
probably decreased since then. See William Coode. World Re~,olalio,inlld FnlriiI!i
1. Al-Ghazali, Rruiuifrmlio,~of Rcli,piot,s Sciences, Cairo n.d, p. 39.
pnttrnri, N~~ york 1963, p. 103; also R. Patai, Sonrt,~.Caltsre nnd ClinrlSr ill !Ill'
3. Koran. sura 78: 32. Middir East, Philadelphia 1962, pp. 92-93.
27. AI-Ghazali, Rcuiuifimbon, p. 48.4. Revulsion with sex itself is an idea alien to orthodox Islam. Ghazali is
28. [bn sad,al-i;?bnq~t,val. 8, p. 192; see also al-Bukhari. nl-lnrrli' ~I-Snilill.
supposed to have written his Reuirrifirntiori during a mystical ascetic retreat
between 1095 and 1105. p. 412, K:67, 6: 4.
29. D.J L. R O I ~ " ~ ,'DPveloppement de la Personnalite et Incidences d e
5. Al-Ghazali, 'Criterion for Action', Cairo 1964, p. 317.
~ ' ~ ~ ~ i ~ o n n e m e n tau Maroc,, Mnroc MCdicnl, December 1964, pp- 269-272.
6. E. Westennark. Wit ntzd Wisdom iti Morocco, p. 329. The first two proverbs
30. M. vueparticuliem d u Probleme d e I'Environnement en f0nccan
be traced to the second caliph, Umar lbn al-Khattab. See al-Chazali's
tion d u smlaire marocain', Maror MCdicnl, December 1964. p. 329.
1, ~h~ link between the child's experience with his mother and his capacity
8. Al-Bukhari, al-lamr' 01-Snliilt, p. 448, K: 67, B: 93; Tarmidi, Sunnn ni- t,, t,, a the other sex is the crux of the Freudian concept ~ , f
Tarmidi, p. 415, B: 11, H: 1173.
Oedipus complex.9. Article 56, Code da Slotus Personnel.
2. P.Slater, The Glory of Hero, Boston 1968. p. 414.
10. Dahshousho is a symbolic nuptial tent made of drapes arranged within 3. Koran, sura 46: 15.the nuptial room to emphasize the privacy of the married couple in the usually
4. sura 4: 1, sura 31: 14, sura 6: 152, sura 17: 23. sura 2 9 8.
overcrowded house where the marriage takes place. 5. sigmund he Most Prevalent Form of Degradation of Erotic Life'.
11. Al-Gharali, R~uivifrcnt,on,p. 56.
1 2 Koran, sura 4: 43.
1
in Svxunlity arid thc Psycholo~yof Love, New York 1970.
6. Dorothy Blisten, The World o(tl!e Fan~ily.New York 1963, Pp. 204-205.
13. Al-Ghazali, Rcviu>firotion,p. 28. 7, sidi ~ b d ~ ~ a h m a na l - M a j d ~ ~ b ,in Lcr Qsatraitrs de Mejdolib ie Sflrcnsfiill{l'.
14. Ibid., p. 50.
PoPtc Mnghrebiti du XVlimr izecle, p. 180.
15. Ibid., p. 49. 6. E. Westermark, Wlt arid Wisdon~,p. 326.
16. Sandor Ferenczi, Thnlassa, A 'rhrory of Genitality, New York 1968, p. 17 9. A I - M ~ ~ ~ o u ~ ,Les Quatrains ds Mrjdosb, p. 180.
17. AI-Ghazall, Reuiuification p 50. The verse is from the Koran, sura 25: 54.
10. P. Slater, Tile Glory of H m . p. 30.
Other reports on the words a Musltm is supposed to pronounce during coitus 11. ~ ~ t i ~ l ~36, code du Slatuf Perso,~nel.E. Goffman points out the tactical
are in Imam Bukhari. ai-lami'ol-Sahih, p. 439, K: 67, B: 66; and Imam Tarmidi, importance of deference rules in authoritarian relationships, in Aryli,n~s.New
York 1961, p. 115.
12. E. Goffman, Asylurns, p. 41
Chapter 8
1. The term 'territoriality', however, is really too primitive for the phe.
nomenon, which is a sophisticated, manifold use of space. Hall's concept
'proxemics' is more suitable:
Proxemics is the term I have coined for the interrelated obsewationsand
theories of man's use of space and a specialized elaboration of culture,
[Edward Hall. The Hidden Dimmsion, New York 1969, p. I]
:Icc<rrd~ngto III8I. the d.~ny,vr*are grpat hlven the srnru ,us d~rne,nw.~rl.i
~ ' h y ~ c a l~ntvraitlon,ol invc,lv~ny:rh.. ~n.l~vtdualsin ,rl armo~phcn..I. am.
I ' I ~ U O U C 51p,ll%.uncons,~III%IV sent . ~ n drc;c~vpd
Man's sense of space is closely related to his sense of self, which is in an
intimate transaction with his environment. Man can beviewed as having
visual. kinesthetic, tactile, and thermal aspects of his self whish may be
either inhibited or encouraged to develop by his environment. [TIir
ifidden Dimension, p. 63.1
2. In Purit,~irad Danger, Baltimore 1970, Mary Douglas emphasized the links
in social structure between the concept of boundaries, the concept of danger,
and the concept of power.
3. Ibid., p. 14.
4. In Moroccan folklore women are considered to be the repository of
devilish forces: Edmund Doutte, Mqie et Relixion danr I'Afriq,,~du Nord, Algiers
1908, p. 33; also. E. Westermark, The Belief in Spirils in Morocro, p. 22. The
Moroccan psychologist Abelwanad Radi in 'Processus de socialisation de
I'enfant marocain', Eticdes Pltilosophiques rt LittPraires, no. 4, April 1969, attributes
to women the responsibility for introducing children to the world of the
ilrational. of s~irits.
5. The term 'universe' is used here in the sense P. L. Berger and T. Luckman
use it in The Sorial Construction of Reality, New York 1967.
6. Max Weber, The Theoy of Social nnd Economic Organization, New York
1964. o. 136.r~ - - - ~
7. Ibid, p. 132.
8. To foster'homorocial' relations does not necessarily mean to drive members
of a society to practise what one Palestinian sociologist has called 'homasociality':
the inclination to spend most of one's time, most of one's life, with
individuals of the same sex. Homosociality entails fear of the other sex, and
avoidance or limitation of controls with it. Obviously, homosociality is not
peculiar to Arab society. Moreover, any institution or practice that tends to
degrade the female body may be considered homosocial, and in this sense the
advanced capitalist countries, with their pornography industry, would be
prime examples.
9. More specifically. it condemned the practice of wearing wigs, which
seems to have been quite common among Arab women in the seventh century
I
Notes 191
(.I-Bukhari, al-lami'nl-Sahih, p. 447 K: 67).Tattooing, also condemned by Islam.
is still practised in Morocco,and rome of the tattoos have unequivocal erotic
meanings. U. Herber, 'Tatousge du Pubis au Maroc', Revue d'Ethnle, vol. 3.
I 1922.)
10. Koran, sura 24.
11. Al-Chazali, Reuiuifiration, p. 35.
12. Ibid., p. 28.
13. Malika Belghiti, 'Leg Relations FPminines et le Statut de la Femme dans la
amille Rurale'. Collrctiorz du Bsfl~~tinEconon,irlue et Social dl, Maroc, Rabat 1970,
57.
14. The French anthropologist Germaine Tillion (The Republic of Coasins. Al
Saqi Books, London 1983) noted that peasant women newly arrived to towns
usually adapt the practice ofveiling. She found it strange that women who were
not veiled beforeadopted theveil willingly. I think that this phenomenoncould
be very easily interpreted if one remembers that for the rural woman who has
recently emigrated to the town, the veil is a sign of upward mobility-the
expression of her newly acquired status as urbanite.
15. M. Belghiti, 'Les Relations Feminines', p. 58.
16. Women are especially restricted when in a space they should have a right
to: the mosque. In Morocco they may use only a specified area, usually a
narrow, marginal, dark corner behind the male space. Although the Prophet
allowed women to go to mosques, their right to be there was, during Islam's
fourteen centuries of existence, frequently in doubt and is often still subject to
the husband's authorization. (Al-Bukhali, 01-lami' al-Sahih. p. 453, K: 67, B: 115.)
17. P. Pascon and M. Bentahar, '269 Jeunes Ruraux', p. 63.
18. My own experience has been that women are more or less harassed
depending on the socio-economic features of the place they are walking.
Harassment is more systematic in small and medium-sized than in large cities.
It is more intense in the poor neighbourhoods and slums of Rabat and Casa'
lanca than in the middle-class areas of these same cities. It also varies
:cording to the legitimacy of the reason you are on the street: harassment is
ss intense at a port-offire queue than it would be if you succumb to the desire
, have an ice cream or same chips in a cafe in a poor neighbourhood. Of
,urse, there are rome situations that concern only minorities. In thosecares the
mechanisms are more difficult to grasp, such as, for instance, the harassment of
women who drive can, which seems to be governed by a completely different
system of references. Your chances of being harassed seem to be greater if you
drive an old small car than if you are in a big gleaming machine.
19.E. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, p. 156.
20. Ibid, p. 163.
21. Erving Goffman, Behaviour in Public Places, New York 1966, p. 143.
22. Frantz Fanon,A Dying Colonialism, New York 1967,p. 53. It is interesting
to note that Fanon thought the incidents were'funny'. For a man with Fanon's
sensitivity to segregation and preoccupation with revolutionary assertion of
human rights, his remark is puzzling to say the least.
23. Personal communication to the author.
24. ChPrifa Alaoui el-Mdaghri, 'Le Travail ferninin: cas de la Fonction publique
au Maroc en 1980: Ecole Nationale d'Administration Publique, Rabat,
cycle ruperieur, no. 11,promotion 1980-81.
I
192
Notes 173
Chapter 9
19. Moroccan economists and statist~cians,like thetr European and Latin
American colleagues, generally classified most rural women, who work fourteen
1. On the situation of the labour market, see A. Agouram and A. Bela],, B , ~ ~ ~
hours a day, as 'women at home' and therefore inactive. Happily, many
d c I'tconomie Marocaine depuis l'lndependence'. BESM, XXXII, p. 116.
Moroccan economists and statisticians are young and open-minded; they are
ing lo the authors. unemployment in urban centres reaches 30'%/1, to50°1,, and hits
now reviewing their categories of labour in gmeial, and of female labour inhO'Xi in rural areas. They ernphaslre the impact of thls situation on the fliture
Y particular. See Cherkaoui Abdelinalek's book on 'social indicators' (Casablanca
showing that while the number of labourers increases each year at a rateof30A
1981). especially chapter 3, on 'inquiry into urban employment' conducted inthe number of jobs increases at a rate of only 2'Y0.
2. Coiir tit, i'tizf8~tPrild,rrr<'l. D a h ~ rnu. 1-57-343. in Bzilleti,~O f f i ~ i c lno. 23s4, 1976.
20. All data in this section is taken from volume 11of the Rrrr,iso,i~~i~tGrriiriil
6 December 1957.
<ielii Popiilntior~ct dl. l ' i i n b i f ~ ! ,1971. unless otherwise noted.3. Emile Duikheim. 'L'Education Morale'. in Sclrrtcd Wnti,ixs edited by
A. Ciddens, Cambrldgp 1972, p. 174. 21. Ibid., p. 12.
22. 'EnquGte sur l'emploi urbain', Rabat Bureau of Statistics, 1976. p. 13.4. M a " Tse-Tung, in Bruce Shaw's abridged version of I'eking's
23. Receiiscmri,t G6t1Prnl dc In i'opziintioti, 1971, vol. 2, p. 6.
editlon of Silt~itciiWorks of Mno i 3 c ili,>~q,New York 1970.
24. Wllhelm Reich, TIT?Mass Psyrhology of Fnscist,,, New York 1970, p. 60.5. A decision to abolish pi-e-exlstjng privileges, mainly those based on
25. Ibid., p. 31.sexual dtfferences.is a very daring decision on the part of any regime, and more
26. Ibid., p. 55.
so on the part of a new regime. It is a very unpopular step indeed. The Chinpse 27. See tlonoi~rand Shanzr, f l v V a l ~ r iof M ~ d i t e r r n n r n , ~Socirty, edited bv J. G.Communist reglme had to face and deal with the resistance the male Chinese I Peristiany, Chicago 1966. Peristiany's introduction is a concise description of
populatiun posed to such measures. Sce C. K. Yang. Ci?l,i~.rrComr,iirr,~stSoclrty: 1 the psycho-social mechanisms operating under the concept of honour. One
rlir Filrrril~/m~ciflir V i l l n p . Cambiidgp, Mass. 1965, particularly Part I, The I feature of these mechanisms is that the men in such societies do not have a
Chinese Famtly in the Communist Ilevolution'.
source of self-esteem within themselves but only attached to subjects uutside
6 1950 Mn,rnn,yc 1.n;~of flrr I'coplcs Krpoblrc of C/ii,ln, Article 9
7. Coile cia Stn!ut P r r s i ~ ~ i i > i ~ l ,Article 35. I themselves.
28. The political, professional, and economic frustrations of men are often the
8. Personal communication from ilo'i8s and lawyers, supplemented by ob. object of inhib~t~ons,of more or less conscious censor mechanisms. The case of
sewation in Rabat's Sadad court during February 1971.
a young (thirty-year-old) employee at the planning ministry is unfortunately9 A brief sketch of the history of the education systems promoted by the
I fairly typical: he had serious problems gaining promotion and threatened his
French protectorate in Morocco is in John 13alstead's Ri,l,iitir of n Vntzor,: 17,r
wife, a medical doctor, with divorce because she 'will not obey me'. Even theOrr~ir!ririii RISE o i Momrcnil Nnfiotmlrs~!i1912-1944. Cambridge. Mass. 1969,
pp. 98-111. qadis (jildges), who are used to conjugal conflicts, were surprssed by this
1 paradoxical instance of a young husband who had married an 'employed
10. Andre RevCrand, Ll,l l.yiiiit~yir,rori,is, I'aris 1980. I
woman' trylng to make her obey. '1 don't understand', said a young qniii of the
11. Fatima Hassar, 'The Special Problems ot Young Women and Mothers
Rabat court, 'why men who choose to marry a woman who works and gets a
with Regard to Their Families and Professional Careers', read at the Inter- salary just like them insist on the obedience that is due them:
national Conference of Parents Associations, 22-28 July 1962. Published by the
29. 1. Whitingarad I. Child, Citild Jroit>ing"tad Personnlit!~,New Haven 1953, p.Ministry of Education, Rabat.
I 2 Allal al-Fasi, Jhc liidc,pet~dr,~reM~lz,e?ni,,itsrr, Arnb Norti, Africn, p. 413. I 276.
30. W. Reich, Mass Psyi-holggy of raicism, p. 32.13. Falima Hassar, 'Special Problems of Young Women', p. 86.
i 31. In interviews with young female employees from the urban middle class
14. Lc Mnruc i.n Ciriffrcs, 2nd ed.. Rabat 1971, p. 25.
conducted between 1975 and 1980,l found many who reported that when the15. Muhsmniad Lahbabi. Lrs A?i,iics 80 dr notre /i,iznrssr, Casablanca 1970,
p. 55. , couple visited the husband's family, the husband, out of 'respect', insisted that
his wiie share his mother's bed. Many Moroccan men carry around photo-16. 1.i. Mnruc cii C1,zffri.s. p. 25.
graphs of their mothers in their wallets and monutonously and repeatedly
17. An ever-rising number of young researchers are choosing to work on the
inform the women they are seeing with 'serious intentions' that mother is theImpact of female access to education and jobs and on family relations, in
woman they love most in the world. During the summer of 1982 a thirty-yearparticular
a group of about thlrty people calling themselves the 'Giaupe de
old woman lawyer in Casablanca received a marriage proposal from a charmingRechcrcheScientifiquesur la Femme, la Familie. el I'Enfant au Maroc', located at
34-year-old colleague of hers. When she asked him, 'Why me?, he repliedthe law school in Rabat.
ardently: 'I chose you from the first day I saw you in court, because you look so18. Fatima Mernissi, 'Historical lnrlghts for New Population Strategies:
much like my mother. You're a carbon copy-same eyes, same size.. ..'The
Women in Precolonial Morocco', UNESCO,Paris 1978, also Mernissi.
young woman politely declined his oifer and he never understood why he had
'Developpement capitaliste et perceptions des femmes dans la sociPtt musulbeen
rejected. Many of the divorces that come before Moroccan courts are
mane: les paysannrs du Charb: International Labour Otfice, WEP 10-4-04-90.
brought on by the mother-in-law. A systematic study of the phenomenonGeneva, May 1981.
1 would be interesting.
32. Ana qarrar? daha ('Now I'm a cuckold') is a formula pronounced by an
I
annoyed husband whose wife is not home at the time.
Conclusion
I
Supplementary1. Mariarosa Della Costa, Womrn and the 5ubversionof the c ~ ~ ~ ~ , , , ~ ~ ,Bristol
1972.
2. 'Communism in Marriage', article by David Riazanov, published
Moscow in 1926. reproduced in al-Mar'a wa al-lshtzraqiya (women 1
Socialism). translated and edited by George Tarabishi, Beirut 1974
edition), pp. 33-70.
Compiled by Mary Jo Lakeland
3. Dr. Salwa Khammash, al-Mor'a ni-Ara6iya wa'i-Mujtama al&~oqlidiyo
(Arab Women and Traditional Society), Beirut 1973, particularly chapter v (the
relation between the sexes) and chaper VII (the position of the wife).
4. George Tarabishi, in his introduction to women and sociaiisrn,p, 13.
5. The article states: 'Killing, wounding, and beating are if they I
are committed by a husband against his wife and/or her accomplice at the
moment that he surprises them in fiagrante deiicto committing adultery.'
6. Philip Slater, The Glory of Hera, p. 73.
I
7. Al-Majdoub, p 144.
I
8. Dr. Sadiq lalal al-Azm, Fi'l-Hubb wa'i-Hubb al-Udri (On Lave and Udrite
Love), second edition, Beirut 1974, pp. 92 ff.
9. Ibid. ~ h ~ ~ d ,~ ~ i l ~ ." ~ ~ ~ i ~ i ~ ~and Feminist Movements in the Middle East, a Preliminary
Exploration: Turkey, Egyp!, Al eria, People's Democratic Republic
10. Tahar Labib Djedidi, 'La Poesie Amoureuse des Arabes', Algiers 1974. of yemen.' I,, women and islam, edited Ry Azizah al-Hibri. Elmsford, NY.:
11. Ibid., pp. 76, 134, 140, 142. Per amon Press 1982-
12. Sadiq al-Azm, pp. 110-111. ~ ~ ~ ~ i ,ed. womenofiran:he Conflict with FundarricrrtalistIslam. London:
13. Ibid., p. 28. lthaca Press, 1983.
14. Abdallah Laroui, 'La Crise des Intellectuels Arabes', paper read at collo- ~ ~ ~ i ~ ,susanschaefer. patience and Power: Women's Lives in n Moroccan Vilia~e.
quium in Louvain, 1970,published in La Crise des lnteiiectuelsAmbes, Paris 1974. I cambrid e, Mass.: Schenkman, 1983.
15. George Tarahishi, introduction to Women and Socialism, p. 13. F ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ,~ l i ~ ~ i ~ t hwarnock, ed. Women and the Family in the Middle East: New
voices qfChan e Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.
F ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ,~ ~ i ~ ~ b ~ t h % ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ k ,and Bedrgan, Basima Qattan. eds. Middle Eastern
Muslim Women Speak. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977.
chalem, Ali. A Wife for My Son. Chica$o:,Banner Press, 1984.
&lila, souad. * , F ~ ~ ~~~~~~i~L~~ to lvrl Law. The Emanopation of Tunisian
Women Since 1956." Feminist Issues 4, no. 2 (1984): 2 M .
, ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ i ,htima. "virginity and Patriarchy." In Women and lsiam. edited by
~ ~ i ~ a hal-Hibri. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1982.
. ,,zhofs world: A Moroccan Domestic Worker Speaks Out." Feminist
issues 2, no. I (1982):2-31.
. "womenand the impact of Ca italist Development in Morocco," Part
1, .reminisf issues 2, no. 2 (1982):6$-104. Part I1 Feminist issues 3, no. 1
L~ ,j,farocrnconf6 ses fcmmes. Rabat: Societe Marocaine des Edifeurs
p.eunis, 1984; ~nglishtranslation, London: The Women's Press, forthcorn.
Harem Politics. Forthcoming.
R ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ,~ ~ ~ 1 .-womenand ~ ~ m e s t i cPower in Morocco."in!erno!io~lal Journal
of Middle Enst Studies 7, no. 2 (1980):171-79.
sabbah, ~~t~~A. woman in the Muslzm Unconscious. Translated by Mary 10Lakeland.
Elmsford, N.Y.: Pcrgamvn Press, 1984.
sharawi, H U ~ ~ .finrem years: he Memoirs of an Eyptian Feminist 11873-1924)~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ t ~ d ,edited, and introduced by Margot Badran. London: Virago
Smith, Jane I. Women in Contemporary Muslirn SucieticsLewisburg, Pa.: ~~~k~~~~
Univcrsih, Press. 19Rn~.
Tucker, Judith E., ed. Wnmen n ~ i dArab Society: Old Boiindarics. Nrru Fnrilti,,,
Washington, D.C.: Center forContemporaly Arab Studies forthcamin
Yeganeh, Nagid, and Keddie, Nikki R. "Scxuali~and Shi'i Prdtest in lran:6i
nShi'ism alrd Socrnl Protest, edited by Juan R. I. Cole and Nikki R. ~ ~ d d ~ ~ ,
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Abbott, Nabia 184
Abdelinalek, Cherkaoui 193
Abdel-Malek, Anouar 16,180
Achour, M. 189
al-Afehani.Said 179
~ f i f i , " ~ .17'9
1 Agouram, Abdeljalil 187, 192
Aisha (wife of the Prophet) 53,
55-58,75,117,184
Aisha, Princess (daughterof
Muhammad V, King of
Morocco) 155
Alaoui, Qadi Moulay Mustapha,
Professor 93.98.118.127
al-Albani, ~ u h a m r n a d ~ a s ralDin
179
i al-'Ali, Salah Ahmad 66, 185
Allah 8,17-19,44-45,50-51,57,
59,63,81,82,106,108,112,
113,115,138,144,164,184
Amina (great-granddaughterof
the Prophet) 70-71
Amin, Qasim 13-14,31,180,
182,187
Amin, Samir 83,181, 187
Amr, Dubaa Bint 56
Amr, Salama Bint 69
I al-Aqqad, Abbat Mahrnud
32-33,38,57,179,182
Arab League 17
aruba 108
arvana 144
'all 37
al-Azm,Sadiq Jalal 174,176,194
1
Index
bn'al73-75
bagkaya 76
Bakr. Abu 71-72.187
Beeston, A. F. ~.'73,186
Belal, A. 181, 187,192
Belghiti, Malika 101,142,188.
191
de Bellefonds, Y. Linant 188
Bentahar, M. 143,187,188,191
Berger, P. L. 190
Blisten, Dorothy 189
Briffault, R. 187
Bukhari, Imam 59.65.66.75-77.
183-86,188,189,191
Cantwell-Smith, Wilfred 180
Cheikh,T. Ben 181
Child, 1.193
Coatalen. Paul 180
Codedu ~ t a t u tP e r s o ~ ~ ~ ~ e l l l ,24,
46.57.59.60.61-64.109-10,
al-Dahhak, Fatima Bint 52
Della Costa, Mariarosa 165,194
Djedidi, Tahar Labib 174,194
Douglas, Mary 190
Doutte, Edmund 190
Durkheim, Emile 150,192
Fanon, Frantz 191
Fares, Edouard 187
al-Fasi, Allal16-17,155,180,192
Fatima (daughter of the
Prophet) 70-71.187
Ferenczi, Sandor 188
fifnn 31,39,41-42,44,53-54,82,
113- --
Forde, Darvll 187
Fox, ~ o b i n l 8 7
Freud, Sigmund 27,32-41.44.
182,183,189
Gerth, H. 189
al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid (see
Imam Ghazali)
Gibb, H. A. R. 20,180,181
Giddens, A. 192
Glubb, SirJohn186
Goffman,Erving 130,189,190,
191...
Goldziher, lgnaz 183
Goode, William 189
guellassa 123
Hafsa (wife of the Prophet) 55
al-Haiawi. Muhammad
al- ahh hi 179,187
Hall. Edward 143.190.191. .
Halstead, John 192
hammam 123,131,143, 161
Hanbal, Abu 181
Hanifa, Abu 181
al-Harith, Juwariya Bint 56
Hashim (great-grandfatherof
the Prophet)68-69
Hassar, Fatima 192
Herber, I. 191
hiba 52
hijru46,81
hiar 116.189
&a 122,127,130,131
htewta 162
al-Hussein, Sakina Bint 186
Huyay, Safiya Bint 54-55
Ibn Abd al-Muttalib, Abdallah
69
Ibn Abi Talib, Ali 70
Ibn Abi Umayyah, al-Muhajir 72 189,191
Ibn Ali, Hasan (grandson of the
Prophet) 50 Lahbabi, Muhammad 192
Ibn Anas, Malik (see lman Lalla 129
Malik)
Ibn Bashir, Muhammad 75
Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi 65.69.
71,72,185,186
Ibn Hisham 69,115,183,186
Ibn Ishaq 186
Ibn Khaldun 180,182
Ibn al-Khali 115
Ibn Umar, Zaid 71
Ibn al-Zubair, Urwah 75
lbrahim (son of the Prophet)51,
55-"
idda 62-64,67,81,185
ila 60
Imam Ghazali 28.32-40,44,45,
47,60,89,108,110, 112-13,
141.182.183.184.185.188.. . . . .
189,191
Imam Malik 11.24.61-64.139.
180,181,184,185
Imam Muslim 42,183
al-lsfahani,Abu-al-Faraj 186
jahiliya 46.61,65,75,76,84-85,
166
Jahsh, Zainab Bint 56-57
Ka'ab, Mulaika Bint 52-53
Kandisha, Aisha 42
karha 111-112
Khammash, Salwa 194
al-Khatim, Leila Bint 51-52,70
Khelifa, B. 183
khul'61-62
Khuwalid, Khadija Bint 51
Koran, the 32.33.46-50.57.
63-64,80,81, 111,113,179,
181,183,184,185,186,188,
Lroui, Abdallah 23,180,181.
194
Lemer, Daniel 15-16,180
Linton, Ralph 34,182
Luckman,T. 190
Lyautey, General 153-54
ma' 37
al-Maghribi, Abd al-Qadir 179
al-Majdoub, Sidi Abderahman
43.183.189.194. .
ale kite school 24,63,181
Malinowski, B. 187
Maria, the Copt (wifeof the
Prophet) 51.55
al-Mawdudi, Abu'l-Ala 179
el-Mdaghri, Cherifa Alaoui 191
Memissi, Fatima 192
Mills,C. Wright 189
Muhammad (thePro~het)
muhsan 58
al-Munajid, Salah al-Din 183
Murdock, George 30,182
Musa, Salama 13,78,180,181,
187
Muslim, Abu al-Hasan (see
Imam Muslim)
mut'a 66,77-78
al-Muttalib, Abd (grandfather of
the Prophet)68-69
Naja, Mustafa 179
al-Naqdi, Jafar 179
al-Numan, Asma Bint 52-53
d'ormesson, Wladimir 153
Pascon, P. 143,187,188,191
Patai,Peristiany,R. 189J. G. 193
Pickthall, Mohammed
Marmaduke 179,187
Prophet, the (see Muhammad
the Prophet)
qaid33
al-Qaramani, Abd al-Qadir 179
al-Qumaili, Sadiq 179
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 187
Radi, Abelwanad 190
Ramadan 143
Re~ch,Wilhelm 160,163, 193
Reverand, Andre 153,192
Riazanov, David 194
Roland, D. J. L. 189
Rosenthal, Franz 180,182
sadiqa 73-75
al-Salah, Murad 180
al-Sanusi, Abu Radwan 179
Scelles-Millie, J. 183
Schacht, Joseph22,180,181,185,
188
Schultz, A. 182
al-Shafi'i, Abu Abdullah
Muhammad 181
Shaltut, Mahmud, 179
shan'a 12,14,18,21-23,135,154,
163
Sharik, Umm 51
Shaw, Bruce.192
al-Shayyal, Muhammad 179
Shia 77
sidi 162
Slater, Philip 121,170,189,194
Smith, Robertson 73-74.78.186.
Stannard, Una 182
Stephens, W. 189
Stern, Gertrude 67-68,180,185,
186
Islarmc
Stud~es
Women's Studies
BEYOND THE VEIL
Male-Female Dynamics in Modem Muslim Sodety
Revised Edition
By FATIMA MERNISSI
I
An expanded and updated edition of this classic study includes a new
introduction on Muslimwomen and fundamentalism, in which Fatima
Mernissi argues that the present conservativewave against women in
the Muslim world is a defense against recent profound changes in sex
roles and in perceptions of sexualidentity. Sexualinequalityis a prominent
feature of both Western and Islamic societies, but underlying
conceptsof femalesexualityin ChristianandMuslimtraditions arevery
different. The Islamicview of women as activesexualbeings resulted in
stricter regulation and control of women's sexuality, which Muslim
theorists regarded as a threat to civilized society. But the requirements
of modernization are incompatible with traditional Muslim strictures,
and the ensuing contradictions pervade nearly all Muslim countries.
Drawing on popular source materials, Memissi exploresthe disorienting
effects of modem lifeon male-femalerelations, looks at the malefemale
unit as a basic element of the structure of the Muslim system,
and explores the sexual dynamics of the Muslim world. A list of suggested
supplementary reading enhances the value of this edition for
students and general readers.
FATIMA MERNISSI, formerlyProfessor of Sociologyat Muhammad V
University, Rabat, Morocco,holds aresearchappointmentat Morocco's
Institut Universitaire de Recherche Saentifique. She is author of Le
Maroc racontt!par ses femmes, Le Harem polltique, and numerous articles
about women in the Third World.
Also available in a clothbound edition
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Rloomingtori and Indiannpolis
Cover photograph by Ruth Ward
- ISBN
0-253-31162-4
- ,
0-m-20423-2MERNISSI,FRTIMR 1
! POWELLS 17 ISLAN-GE~&RRL