Beyond the Veil

by Fatema Mernissi

  31. Ibid., p. 190.

  32. Sigmund Freud, Three Contributions, p. 78.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures, p. 132.

  36. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 50.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Sigmund Freud, Three Contributions, p. 14.

  40. Ibid., p. 15.

  41. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 50.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures, p. 116.

  44. Abu Issa al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, Medina n.d., vol. II, p. 413, B: 9, H: 1167.

  45. Abu A-Hasan Muslim, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, Beirut n.d., vol. III, Book of Marriage, p. 130.

  46. Al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 419, B: 16, H: 1181. See also al-Bukhari, Kitab al-jami’ al-Sahih, Leyden, Holland 1868, vol. III, K: 67, B: 11.

  47. Al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 419, B: 17. H: 1172.

  48. Edward Westermark, The Belief in Spirits in Morocco, Abo, Finland 1920.

  49. Edward Westermark, Wit and Wisdom in Morocco: A Study of Native Proverbs, London 1926, p. 330.

  50. Sidi Abderahman al-Majdoub, Les Quatrains du Mejdoub le Sarcastique, PoÉte Maghrébin du XVIième Siècle, collected and translated by J. Scelles-Millie and B. Khelifa, Paris 1966, p. 161.

  51. Ibid., p. 160.

  52. Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Jami’ al-Sahih, Leyden, Holland 1868, p. 419, K: 67, B: 18.

  53. Al-Ghazall, Revivification, p. 28.

  54. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, New York 1962.

  55. Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, New York 1952, p 27.

  56. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 32.

  Chapter 2

  1. Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, Chicago 1967, ‘What is Meant by al-Jahiliya’, p. 201.

  2. Abu Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 428, K: 67, B: 31.

  3. In al-Hayat al-Jinsiya Inda al-Arab (The Sexual Life of the Arabs), Beirut 1958, Dr. Salah al-Din al-Munajid tries to show that Islam did not impose any restrictions on the sexual indulgence which prevailed during the jahiliya. According to him, Islam only codified and regularized the previous sexual practices. It seems obvious to me that Dr. Munajid must be thinking of male sexuality only.

  4. Abu Hamad al-Ghazali, The Revivification of Religious Sciences, p. 30.

  5. Edward Westermark, Wit and Wisdom in Morocco, A Study of Native Proverbs, p. 329.

  6. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 30.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Koran, sura 2: 231.

  9. Al-Bukharl, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 426, K: 67, B: 35.

  10. Ibn Hisham ed., Sirat al-Nabi, written by Ibn Ishaq, Cairo 1963, p. 121. All Muhammad’s male children died in infancy, creating a thorny problem for the fledgling umma: succession. The community, supposedly united, was divided by dissension and violence over the issue.

  11. Ibn Saad, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, vol. 8, ‘On Women’, Beirut 1958, pp. 154 and 150.

  12. Ibid., P. 201.

  13. Ibid., P. 141.

  14. Ibid., p. 145.

  15. Ibid., P. 141 and p. 148.

  16. Ibid., p. 145.

  17. Al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 459, K: 68, B: 3.

  18. Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, pp. 145, 148.

  19. AI-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 459, K: 68, B: 3.

  20. Abu Issa A-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, Medina n.d., p. 275, B: 4, H: 1092.

  21. Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, pp. 120-123.

  22. Ibid., p. 129.

  23. Ibid., p. 212.

  24. Ibid., p. 213.

  25. Koran, sura 66, 3.

  26. Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, p. 212.

  27. Ibid., p. 117.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid., p. 153.

  30. Ibid., p. 101.

  31. Koran, sura 33, 37.

  32. Al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 404, B: 40, H: 1149. See also al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 48. On the Prophet’s involvement with his youngest wife, Aishah, see Nabia Abbott, Aishah, the Beloved of Mohammed, Chicago 1942.

  33. J. Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law, p. 125; also Malik, al-Muwatta, p. 11. In Muhammad’s time the punishment was immurement:

  As for those of your women who are guilty of lewdness, call to witness four 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 [until] Allah appoint for them a way [through new legislation]. (Koran, sura 4: 15.)

  A new Muslim Law was revealed in sura 24: 2-10, which changed the punishment to scourging:

  The adulterer and the adulteress scourge each one of them a hundred stripes.

  34. Encyclopedia of Islam, first edition, Leyden, Holland 1934, ‘zina’.

  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 zina?

  Hind: And does a free woman commit zina?

  The Prophet: And you will not kill your children [a reference to female infanticide]?

  Hind: And did you spare the life of any of our children? You killed all of them yourself at Badr [a reference to the Battle of Badr, where the Muslims attacked Muhammad’s own tribe] (Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, p. 9).

  Hind’s answer concerning zina, although startling, is quite enigmatic. It can mean either that Hind thought that zina was a debasing act which she, as a noble woman, would not engage in, or it could mean, on the contrary, that Hind thought that, as a freeborn woman, no sexual union she engaged in could be debasing. The Muslim interpretation would be the first one. Gertrude Stern inclines towards the second possibility (Marriage in Early Islam, London 1939, P. 9).

  Hind does not seem to be a particularly zealous Muslim who was ready to accept the new creed unconditionally and uncritically. Her opinion about the Prophet seems to be critical, as her answer concerning the killing of children shows. She contested the Prophet’s right to ask her not to kill her unwanted babies because, as the leader of the Muslims, he had made war on his own tribe and so in effect killed his own relatives.

  36. Koran, sura 24: 32; also al-Bukhari, al-Sahih, pp. 410-411, K: 67, B: 1,2,3; also Muslim, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, pp. 128, 129, 130; and finally al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 22.

  37. Gertrude Stern, Marriage in Early Islam, p. 94.

  38. Al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 445; K: 67, B: 85.

  39. Koran, sura 2: 222.

  40. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 50.

  41. Malik, al-Muwatta, p. 33.

  42. Article 154, Code du Statut Personnel.

  43. Malik, al-Muwatta, p. 19. Also Koran, sura 4: 34; and al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 447, K: 67, B: 93.

  44. Malik, al-Muwatta, p. 19.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Article 152, Code du Statut Personnel.

  47. Malik, al-Muwatta, p. 23.

  48. J. Schacht, Islamic Law, p. 164.

  49. Malik, al-Muwatta, p. 23.

  50. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina, pp. 273-274.

  51. Al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 339; B: 33, H: 1140.

  52. Koran, sura 65: 4.

  53. Koran, sura 2: 226, 228, 234.

  54. There was no idda for divorced women in pre-Islamic Arabia; only widows had to wait a year before re-marrying. See Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, al-Muhabbar, p. 338. He states that there was insufficient space to name all the children born in the homes of second husbands and considered as belonging to them even though the first husband was the biological father.

  55. Koran, sura 65: 4.

  56. Malik, al-Muwatta, p. 30.

  Chapter 3

  1. Salah Ahmad al-’Ali, Muhadarat fi’l-Tarikh al-’Arab, Baghdad 1960, vol. 1, p.136.

  2. Ibid., p. 141.

  3. Ibn Saad, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra
, Beirut 1958, vol. 8.

  4. Gertrude Stern, Marriage in Early Islam, London 1939.

  5. Ibid., p. 70.

  6. Ibid., p. 73.

  7. Ibid., p. 62.

  8. Ibid., p. 66.

  9. Abi Jafar Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, al-Muhabbar, Beirut, pp. 310 ff. Arab men seem to have been against virilocality.

  10. Ibn Hisham, ed., Sirat al-Nabi, written by Ibn Ishaq, Cairo 1963, vol. I, p. 89. Also Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, vol. I, p. 79.

  11. Ibn Hisham, Sirat, p. 89.

  12. Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, al-Muhabbar, p. 398.

  13. Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, vol. 8, p. 95.

  14. Ibid., pp. 100, 118.

  15. The case of Sakina Bint al-Hussein, the Prophet’s granddaughter, is revealing. She married often and left the husbands she did not like. See al-Baghdadi, al-Muhabbar, p. 438.

  16. Al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 453, K: 67, B: 109.

  17. Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, p. 337.

  18. Ibid., p. 130.

  19. Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, Kitab al-Aghani, Beirut 1909, vol. XVI, p. 102.

  20. Ibid., p. 93.

  21. Sir John Glubb, A Short History of the Arab Peoples, New York 1970, p. 43.

  22. Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Baghdadi, Hyderabad 1942.

  23. The translation is by A. F. L. Beeston, from his article ‘The So-Called Harlots of Hadramaut’, Orions V, 1952, p. 16.

  24. Ibid., p. 18.

  25. Ibid., p. 20.

  26. Ibid.

  27. W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, Boston 1903, p. 94.

  28. Ibid., p. 92.

  29. Ibid., p. 156.

  30. Ibid., p. 172.

  31. Ibid., p. 92.

  32. Ibid., p. 121.

  33. Al-Isfahani, al-Aghani. Translation by W. R. Smith in Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 80.

  34. Al-Isfahani, al-Aghani, vol. 16, p. 80.

  35. Al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 428, K: 67, B: 36. The translation is from M. Watt’s Muhammad at Medina, pp. 378-379.

  36. Ibid., p. 423, K: 67, B: 31.

  37. Al-Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 395, B: 27, H: 1130.

  38. Muslim, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, pp. 130-131.

  39. The Muslim world is divided into two camps: the Sunnis and the Shiites. The Sunnis, or orthodox, are so called because they follow the sunna, traditions having authority concurrent to and supplementary with the Koran. The Shiites are the partisans of the house of Ali, Muhammad’s disciple, cousin, and son-in-law. They reject the authority of the sunna and believe that the sovereign Imamat (‘the leadership of the faithful’) is vested in Ali and his descendants, the sons of his wife Fatima (the Prophet’s daughter). Consequently, they regard the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman, as usurpers. They are found chiefly in Iran and India, but their influence has penetrated other parts of the Muslim world.

  40. W. R. Smith, Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 85.

  41. Ibid., p. 94.

  42. On the controversy concerning what constitutes the basic family unit, the trio mother-father-child or the duo mother-child, see the dialogue between R. Briffault and B. Malinowski in Marriage, Past and Present, Boston 1956, chapter III: ‘What is a Family?’ A humorous summary of the controversy is Robin Fox’s Kinship and Marriage, New York 11167, chapter I: ‘Kinship, Family and Descent’.

  43. W. R. Smith, Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 177.

  44. Ibid., p. 38.

  45. Salama Musa, Woman Is Not the Plaything of Man, p. 20.

  46. W. R. Smith, Kinship in Early Arabia, chapters II, IV, and V.

  47. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde, African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, London 1950, p. 43.

  48. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina; and Muhammad at Mecca, London 1953.

  49. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 290.

  50. Ibid., p. 261.

  51. Ibid., p. 290 and p. 388.

  52. This argument is a cliché used by traditionists and modernists alike. Qasim Amin argues in this sense when defending the position Islam granted women. A typical case of the use of the cliché is that of Muhammad al-Mandi al-Hajawi in his book, al-Mar’a bayna al-Shari’a wal-Qanun, Casablanca, n.d.

  53. Edouard Fares, L’Honneur chez les arabes avant l’Islaln: Etude de sociologie, Paris 1932, p. 79.

  54. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 276.

  55. Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, introduction, p. 79.

  56. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 265.

  57. Ibid., p. 145.

  58. Ibid., p. 273.

  59. Ibid., p. 271.

  60. Al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 440, K: 67, B: 81; also p. 447, K: 67, B: 90.

  61. Samir Amin, L’Economie arabe contemporaine, Paris 1980, p. 16.

  Chapter 5

  1. P. Pascon and M. Bentahar, ‘Ce que disent 269 Jeunes Ruraux’, BESM, January-June 1969, XXI, pp. 112-113.

  2. Ibid., p. 75.

  3. Population Légale, Bureau of Statistics, Rabat, p. xii.

  4. Recensement Général de la Population et de l’Habitat, 1971, vol. I, p. 5.

  5. Pascon and Bentahar, ‘269 Jeunes Ruraux’. p. 63.

  6. Ibid., p. 76.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Abdeljalil Agouram and Abdelaziz Belal, ‘Bilan de l’éconornie marocaine depuis l’indépendance’, BESM 33, no. 116, p. 11.

  9. A new census was being conducted in the early eighties.

  10. Recensement Général, 1971, vol. I, p. 9.

  11. Pascon and Bentahar, ‘269 Jeunes Ruraux’, p. 75.

  12. Malika Belghiti, ‘Les Relations féminines et le Statut de la Femme dans la famille rurale’, Collection du Bulletin Economique et Social du Maroc, Rabat 1970, p. 24.

  13. ‘Enquete d’opinion sur la planification familiale en milieu urbain’, Ministry of Public Health, Rabat 1966, p. 12.

  14. ‘Ahd is a binding verbal promise. Edward Westermark gives a description of the ‘ahd mechanism in Ritual and Belief in Morocco, London 1926, vol. I, p. 564.

  15. The Koran considers the sexual relationship between son-in-law and mother-in-law incestuous: sura 4: 23.

  16. A basic description of the mechanism of the parent’s curse is in E. Westermark, Wit and Wisdom.

  17. Nine years after this research was done, the disintegration of rural society seems to have gone much further. Prostitution seems to have spread dramatically. In a society that considers itself Muslim, this is a sure sign of the sharpness of social conflict. Prostitution is a key phenomenon in that it expresses the coincidence of two basic elements of human life, economic and sexual.

  Chapter 6

  1. Al-Ghazali, Revivification of Religious Sciences, Cairo n.d., p. 39.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Koran, sura 78: 32.

  4. Revulsion with sex itself is an idea alien to orthodox Islam. Ghazali is supposed to have written his Revivification during a mystical ascetic retreat between 1095 and 1105.

  5. Al-Ghazali, ‘Criterion for Action’, Cairo 1964, p. 317.

  6. E. Westermark, Wit and Wisdom in Morocco, p. 329. The first two proverbs can be traced to the second caliph, Umar Ibn al-Khattab. See al-Ghazali’s Revivification, p. 44.

  7. Koran, sura 4: 34. See remarks on the subject of beating in al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 49; J. Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law, p. 166; and Y. Linant de Bellefonds, Traité de Droit musulman comparé, The Hague and Paris 1965, p. 294.

  8. Al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 448, K: 67, B: 93; Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 415, B: 11, H: 1173.

  9. Article 56, Code du Status Personnel.

  10. Dahshousha is a symbolic nuptial tent made of drapes arranged within the nuptial room to emphasize the privacy of the married couple in the usually overcrowded house where the marriage takes place.

  11. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 56.

  12. Koran, sura 4: 43.

  13. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 28.

  14. Ibid., p. 50.

  15. Ibid., p. 4
9.

  16. Sandor Ferenczi, Thalassa, A Theory of Genitality, New York 1968, p. 17.

  17. Al-Ghazali, Revivification p. 50. The verse is from the Koran, sura 25: 54. Other reports on the words a Muslim is supposed to pronounce during coitus are in Imam Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 439, K: 67, B: 66; and Imam Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 277, B: 8, H: 1098.

  18. Max Weber, ‘Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions’, in From Max Weber, translated by H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, New York 1958, p. 347.

  19. Koran, sura 2: 165.

  20. Koran, sura 3: 4.

  21. On God’s jealousy, see Imam Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 451, K: 67, B: 107, 106; and Imam Tarmidi, Sunan al-Tarmidi, p. 417, B: 14, H: 1178.

  22. E. Westermark, Wit and Wisdom, p. 329.

  23. W. Stephens, The Oedipus Coniplcx, Cross Cultural Evidence, New York 1962, p. 6.

  24. The master of a concubine can choose to limit her to a domestic function or to raise her to the status of lover with privileges, including the legitimacy of her children and their right to inherit.

  25. The hjar: if a man is not attracted anymore by a concubine, he can refuse interaction with her, even at the verbal level, and her dismissal often reflects on the children’s position within the harem community. The female object of hjar loses her status and her rights as favourite and lover and she is often looked down upon by her fellow wives and concubines. Often she is associated with ‘bad luck’ and the evil eye.

  26. The rate in Morocco in 1952 was already very low – 6.6 percent. It has probably decreased since then. See William Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns, New York 1963, p. 103; also R. Patai, Society, Culture and Change in the Middle East, Philadelphia 1962, pp. 92-93.

  27. Al-Ghazali, Revivification, p. 48.

  28. Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, vol. 8, p. 192; see also al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, p. 412, K: 67, B: 4.

  29. D. J. L. Roland, ‘Développement de la Personnalité et Incidences de I’Environnement au Maroc’, Maroc Médical, December 1964, pp. 269-272.

  30. M. Achour, ‘Vue particulière du Problème de I’Environnement en fonction du milieu scolaire marocain’, Maroc Médical, December 1964, p. 329.

  Chapter 7

  1. The link between the child’s experience with his mother and his capacity to relate to a person of the other sex is the crux of the Freudian concept of Oedipus complex.