Fatema Mernissi, 1940-2015

Fatema Mernissi, renowned sociologist, memoirist, and feminist icon, author of Beyond the Veil and dozrns of of other books dealing with the role of women in Islam, has died at the age of 75 in Rabat

The Moroccan scholar, educated at te Sorbonne and Brandeis, spent most of her career teaching at Mohammed V University in Morocco. Her body of work is likely to remain a mainstay of reading lists on the role of women in Islam for years to come.

Tin Hinan, Legendary Ancestress-Queen of the Tuareg, and Her Tomb, and Women Leaders in Amazigh History

Hocine Ziyani, La reine Tin Hinan, (Wikimedia)

Let's do a cultural post far from any of the current (and slowly merging into each other) wars. (And a hat tip to Diana Buja for calling this to my attention.) A post at the Ancient Origins website discusses "The Monumental Tomb of Queen Tin Hinan, Ancient Ancestress of the Tuaregs."

Besides being an interesting story in its own right, it gives me a chance to talk about the prominent role women leaders have played in the history of North Africa's Amazigh ("Berber") people.

In 1925 a monumental tomb was excavated in Abalessa in southern Algeria near Tamanrasset in the mountain region known as Hoggar (Arabic) of Ahaggar (Berber/Tamazight/Tamasheq) by archaeologist Byron Khun de Prorok. It contained the remains of a woman buried with fine jewelry, and inside an elaborate structure that may have been a Roman frontier fort. Coins and later carbon dating suggest a 4th or 5th century AD date.

The Tuareg, the nomadic Saharan Amazigh people who live in southern Algeria and Libya, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and some neighboring countries, consider this the tomb of their legendary Queen Tin Hinan, who is considered the ancestress of the Tuareg people and the ruler of the Hoggar region. In Tuareg tradition, the monumental tomb is that of Tin Hinan, or T'in Hinan, ancestress and Queen of the Tuareg people. Tin Hinan literally means "she of the tents," or "she of the camp," and she is also known as Tamenukalt,  or "Queen."

Some of the traditions relating to Tin Hinan, such as those which make her Muslim, are unhistorical if the identification of the tomb (4th-5th centuries AD) is accurate. In Tuareg tradition she is said to have come from Tafilalt in the Atlas to the Ahaggar, along with a servant, Takamat. Tin Hinan was held to be the ancestress of the Tuareg nobility, and Takamat of the commoners.

There is no certainty, other than popular identification, that the monumental tomb is really that of Tin Hinan or even that Tin Hinan is a historical figure, and some have even suggested the skeleton may be male. But there is an interesting coincidence. The skeleton found in the tomb, now in the museum in Algiers, shows a deformity that may  indicate that the  woman in question was lame. Now, in Ibn Khaldun's universal history Kitab al-‘Ibar, the most famous parts of which (after its "Introduction," the famous Muqaddima) are the sections on Berber genealogies and history, translated into French by de Slane as Histoire des Berbères, Ibn Khaldun says that the Huwwara, Lamta, Sanhaja and other Berber tribes all claim descent from a single woman, a queen he calls "Tiski the Lame." Many students of the Hoggar region, including Charles de Foucauld, the famous missionary at Tamanrasset who studied the languages and traditions, have assumed or argued that Tiski may be identical with Tin Hinan (which is a title, not a personal name). And Ibn Khaldun says the place name Hoggar derives from Huwwara.

Clearly, a monumental female tomb adorned with jewelry suggests a powerful queen, The Tuareg traditions of Tin Hinan and Ibn Khaldun's tale of Tiski the Lame both speak of an ancestress Queen of the Tuareg of the Hoggar. And the skeleton found in the tomb appears lame.Separating out legend from fact is difficult.

it is a reminder, though, that Amazigh history in the pre-Islamic period witnessed instances of strong female leadership. Another example at the time of the Arab conquest of the Maghreb is the woman resistance leader called by Arab historians al-Kahina (the priestess or sorceress; a cognate of "cohen") who led the resistance in what is now Algeria and is variously considered Berber or Byzantine or both,

Some further readings and videos, in French except for a couple:

Dida Badi, Tin-Hinan; une modèle structural de la société touarègue," in Etudes et documents berbères, pp. 199-205.(at academia.edu)

M. Gast, entry "Huwwâra, Houuara, Houara, Hawwâra," in Encyclopédie berbère.
 
Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique Septentrional, translated by Wlliam MacGuckin Baron de Slane, Vol. I (Algiers, 1852), pages 272-273 (Google Books).

Daily Kos; "The Tuaregs I: Tin Hinanm the mother of us all:"

El Watan (Algiers),  "Tin Hinan, une reine ou un roi ? 

Wikipedia,"Tin Hinan"

algeria.com: "Tin Hinan Festival a Tribute to the Legendary Tuareg Queen"

Wittes and Lynch on the Absence of Women in ME Policy Debates

Here is an important observation from Tamara Coffman Wittes and Marc Lynch at the Washington Post blog: "The Mysterious Absence of Women from Middle East Policy Debates."

They note:

Last year, six leading Washington think tanks presented more than 150 events on the Middle East that included not a single woman speaker. Fewer than one-quarter of all the speakers at the 232 events at those think tanks recorded in our newly compiled data-set were women. How is it possible that in 2014, not a single woman could be found to speak at 65 percent of these influential and high-profile D.C. events? . . .

But as they also correctly note, it's not due to scarcity:

Really? Well-known women experts in Middle East politics are on the faculties at Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, American, Georgetown and many more universities. Nine of the 15 members of the steering committee of the Project on Middle East Political Science (directed by Marc Lynch) are women. A dozen women have served as president of the Middle East Studies Association. Women are likewise a palpable presence in Middle East policy: Well over a dozen women have served as U.S. ambassadors in the Middle East, and Anne Patterson currently serves as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, the highest-ranking U.S. diplomat dedicated to the region.

As for the think tanks, women run the Middle East Institute, the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution (Tamara Cofman Wittes), the Middle East Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Center for the Middle East and Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Center for Middle East Public Policy at RAND, and play key roles at the Middle East programs of the Center for a New American Security and the Atlantic Council. Women journalists covering the region are powerhouses in print, on air and on Twitter; there are, frankly, too many of them doing cutting-edge work in the region to even start to list them.

Read the whole piece, though. It raises important questions.

Latest Issue of Dabiq Defends Enslavement of Yazidi Women

As Matthew Barber recently noted at Syria Comment, the Islamic State's English magazine Dabiq, which we've discussed here before,  has not only acknowledged enslaving Yazidi women, but has justified it. The article in Dabiq's issue 4 is entitled "The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour." Besides spending many paragraphs defending enslaving and selling women, they conclude, "May Allah bless this Islamic State with the revival of other aspects of the religion at its hands."

(If you must, you can find the issue many places online, among them here, with the slavery article on pages 14-17.)

The main theme is "The Failed Crusade," meaning the West's anti-ISIS effort. As you can see, the cover shows an ISIS flag flying over the Vatican.

If you're thinking that they're just messing with our minds at this point you're probably right. But the enslavement and sale of Yazidi women is real.  Meanwhile Lizbeth Paulat calls them out by citing the Qur'an, Surat al-Nur (XXIV), 33 (here in the Yusuf ‘Ali translation):

And if any of your slaves ask for a deed in writing (to enable them to earn their freedom for a certain sum), give them such a deed if ye know any good in them: yea, give them something yourselves out of the means which Allah has given to you. But force not your maids to prostitution when they desire chastity, in order that ye may make a gain in the goods of this life.

Similar arguments against slavery by Muslim authorities can be found here.

It also says something about the times we live in that in almost six years of blogging, this is the first post with the tagline, "slavery." I'd like it to be the last, but . . .

Headline of the Weekend: "Internationally Acclaimed barrister marries an actor"

For the win, from Business Woman Media:

The lead:

Amal Alamuddin, a London-based dual-qualified English barrister and New York litigation attorney who has long been a high-profile figure in international refugee and human rights law, has gone against the trend for professional women in her field and married… an actor. Amal, 36, is an educated and successful career woman we’ve long admired. The high-flying barrister has notched up many career highs, including representing the controversial WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange, and also has multilingual fluency in English, French and Arabic.

 She is also, of course, of Lebanese Druze origin. She apparently married some guy.

LOL: Turkish Deputy PM Says Women Shouldn't Laugh Out Loud in Public

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has provoked a bit of a storm over remarks made at a Bayram event yesterday in which he said women should be chaste and modest and — the remark that set off an Internet storm —should not laugh out loud in public.

Quoting the (anti-AKP) Hurriyet Daily News:

“Chastity is so important. It is not only a name. It is an ornament for both women and men. [She] will have chasteness. Man will have it, too. He will not be a womanizer. He will be bound to his wife. He will love his children. [The woman] will know what is haram and not haram. She will not laugh in public. She will not be inviting in her attitudes and will protect her chasteness,” Arınç said, adding that people had abandoned their values today.

People needs to discover the Quran once again, Arınç said, adding that there had been a regression on moral grounds.

“Where are our girls, who slightly blush, lower their heads and turn their eyes away when we look at their face, becoming the symbol of chastity?” he said.

He also criticized soap operas and women talking on cellphones.

Unsurprisingly, Turkish social media quickly filled with pictures of women laughing in public (most probably laughing at Arınç).

As they say, LOL. Photo below one of many on Twitter.

"ISIS Orders FGM" Story Apparently Untrue, But People Will Believe Anything about ISIS

Earlier today there was great furor over a claim by a United Nations official that the Islamic State had ordered that women in Mosul aged 11 to 46 must undergo female genital mutilation (FGM, "female circumcision"). The original allegation appears to have been without foundation; even ISIS has denied it. It soon became clear that reports coming out of the Islamic State made no mention of it, and something seemed wrong with the story from the beginning. FGM is extremely widespread in North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is by no means limited to Muslim groups (and is often enforced by the females of the family); outside of Egypt and Nigeria it it is not usually part of an Islamist/jihadist agenda, and it is not a traditional practice in most of the fertile crescent.

While one lesson of this story is to check your facts, especially if you are a UN official, another lesson is that almost anything said about ISIS will be believable. While ISIS denied this story, it has not denied crucifixions, mass executions, destruction of holy sites, killing and expulsion of Shi‘ites, threats of forced conversion against Christians, ethnic cleansing of Yazidis, Shabak, and Kurds, and so on. So while they may be innocent of the FGM charge, they're guilty of more than enough.

Intissar Amer (Madame al-Sisi): First Lady or Invisible Consort? The Many Styles of Egypt's First Ladies

The photo above shows a rare appearance of then-Field Marshal Sisi in public with his wife, Intissar Amer. It dispelled rumors that she wears he full veil, but indications so far re that she will keep a low public profile when she becomes Egypt's First Lady. During the Presidencies of Anwar Sadat and Husni Mubarak, when the title "First Lady" was applied as a semi-official title and the incumbents had a highly-visible public profile. made the President's wife a public figure on he world stage, but not all of Egypt's first ladies have been as high-profile  as Jehan Sadat and Suzanne Mubarak.

Under the monarchy, of  course, the queens had a high public profile. Fuad I's Queen, Nazli, and Farouq's Queens, Farida and, after their divorce, Nariman, were given the public roles due to royalty on the European model. Of Middle Eastern monarchies, Egypt and Jordan gave their queens high levels of publicity and  public role, unlike Morocco or the Arab Gulf monarchies. But there has been considerable variation since the fall of the monarchy. Omitting transitional and interim figures:

Muhammad Naguib's wife, ‘A'isha Muhammad Labib, who was at least his second wife, played no real public role and remains little known. Some references even give her the first name ‘Aziza.

Nasser and Tahia's Wedding

Gamal ‘Abdel Nasser's wife had a more public role, though not nearly as visible as her two successors. Tahia Kazem, also called Tahia ‘Abdel Nasser,was the daughter of an Iranian father and Egyptian-Iranian mother. She was frequently photographed with her husband and children but did not have the high profile public role of her two successors.

During Nasser's Presidency

Tahia, who died in 1990, wrote a memoir of her life with Nasser which was not intended for publication. It was finally published in 2011 in Arabic, and last year in English. She thus joined, belatedly, Jehan Sadat in publishing her memoirs.

Jehan Sadat

Anwar Sadat's wife, Jehan, became the first Egyptian First Lady to play a major role in public, and to achieve international fame.in her own right. Jehan Safwat Ra'ouf, better known as Jehan El Sadat, married Sadat in 1949, shortly after his divorce from his first wife, Iqbal Mahdi, by whom he had three daughters. Jehan was the teenaged daughter of an Egyptian doctor and his British wife. (Many Egyptians believe that her mother was actually Maltese, but public documents show her mother was from Sheffield, as she asserts in her memoir. Some suggest the Maltese rumor may have originated when the Free Officers did not want to seem linked to the British occupation.) During the Sadat years the term First Lady (al-Sayyida al-Ula) began to be regularly, if unofficially, used. After Sadat's assassination, Jehan worked to keep his legacy alive, in part through the Anwar Sadat Chair at the University of Maryland. where she is a senior fellow.

Suzanne Mubarak

Husni Mubarak's wife. Suzanne Thabet, officially known as Suzanne Mubarak, is, like her predecessor, the daughter of an Egyptian doctor and a British mother, in her case a Welsh nurse. Like her predecessor she had a high profile, founded or was patron of schools and charities, and is believed to have been a strong supporter that her younger son Gamal should succeed his father. She was reported to be writing her memoirs before the Revolution broke out, and after the revolution Rose al-Youssef published what it claimed were excerpts, but many believe these, such as other leaks purporting to be her husbands memoirs, are a hoax.The source is highly dubious, to be generous.

Muhammad Morsi's wife, Nagla' ‘Ali Mahmoud, was a striking departure from her two fashionable predecessors. She wore the hijab, flatly refused to be called First Lady (saying she preferred "Umm Ahmad"), but she did give occasional interviews and discuss her role.

Which brings us to Madame Sisi, Intissar Amer. Sisi has said that they met in secondary school and he married her on graduation from the Military Academy in 1977. She is said to dislike public appearances and has not pursued a career, preferring to raise her family. She does not dress as conservatively as rumors speculated, but modestly, at least based on that one photo, but from what is known of her she is likelier to follow the Tahia Nasser model than the Jehan Sadat or Suzanne Mubarak one.

Women with Head Veils Are Being Denied Access to Bars in Egypt

An interesting if somewhat unfair trend if true:"Why are veiled women denied entry to bars in Egypt?"

Nightclubs included, apparently.

EIPR Issues New Study on Reproductive Health and Rights in MENA

The Egyptian Initiative on Personal Rights (EIPR), marking the 20th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), has released a major new report, “Reclaiming and Redefining Rights: ICPD+20 Status of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Middle East and North Africa”. You can read the press release here and read or download the full report (PDF) here.

The press release notes:

The report evaluates the progress made by a select number of countries in the region (six) towards fulfilling their commitments under the International Conference for Population and Development (1994)Programme of Action.  The six countries are: Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, Palestine, Turkey and Tunisia. The report relies on data from different United Nations bodies and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for the countries researched. The report also relies on a wide range of qualitative studies and human rights reports to support the quantitative statistics and data, as well as several interviews with activists and NGOs in the six countries mentioned.

Using several indicators to measure this progress, the report is divided into three main sections: the first covers the status of women’s rights in the examined countries as well as the health expenditure. The second part uses reproductive health indicators to measure the status of maternal care, abortion, fertility and family planning and reproductive cancers. The third part examines the states’ protection of sexual rights by monitoring sexuality education, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, early marriage, human trafficking and gender based violence in the six countries.

Launched on the occasion of the 20 year review of the Programme of Action, the reports concludes with policy recommendations for countries in the region on reproductive and sexual rights. The report highlights the importance of the commitment of the countries to ensuring and guaranteeing for its citizens and residents access to affordable and of good quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services. It also recommends to the countries that they review laws that limit the access to the above services for groups who need them, including women and youth.

Tunisians, Others Cry Foul Over Women's Status Poll

You may have already heard about the Thomson Reuters Poll that asked experts on gender rights to rank Arab countries' performance on women's rights; the main headlines have noted that Egypt ranked dead last, even below Saudi Arabia. That, predictably, raised some eyebrows:

Some activists expressed shock that Egypt scored worse than conservative Saudi Arabia, where women's access to public space is limited and women need a male guardian's permission to work, travel abroad, open a bank account or enrol in higher education.

But some insights into the curious rankings may be gained by the uproar created by the original report's ranking of Tunisia as only sixth. Tunisians were puzzled by the reasons given: as noted by Tunisia Online:

The survey which was released on Monday erroneously stated that “polygamy remains widespread and contraception is illegal” in the country.

Tunisia was the first country in the Arab region to ban polygamy under the 1956 Personal Status Code. Abortion has also been authorised since 1973 and contraception is legal and available.

The survey which was released on Monday erroneously stated that “polygamy remains widespread and contraception is illegal” in the country.
Tunisia was the first country in the Arab region to ban polygamy under the 1956 Personal Status Code. Abortion has also been authorised since 1973 and contraception is legal and available.
- See more at: http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/11/12/reuters-errs-on-polygamy-contraception-in-womens-rights-poll/#sthash.ydyWIqqW.dpuf

The survey which was released on Monday erroneously stated that “polygamy remains widespread and contraception is illegal” in the country.
Tunisia was the first country in the Arab region to ban polygamy under the 1956 Personal Status Code. Abortion has also been authorised since 1973 and contraception is legal and available.
- See more at: http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/11/12/reuters-errs-on-polygamy-contraception-in-womens-rights-poll/#sthash.ydyWIqqW.dpuf

The survey which was released on Monday erroneously stated that “polygamy remains widespread and contraception is illegal” in the country.
Tunisia was the first country in the Arab region to ban polygamy under the 1956 Personal Status Code. Abortion has also been authorised since 1973 and contraception is legal and available.
- See more at: http://www.tunisia-live.net/2013/11/12/reuters-errs-on-polygamy-contraception-in-womens-rights-poll/#sthash.ydyWIqqW.dpuf

In fact, contraception is not only legal, it's free. The Tunisia Online story notes some of the Twitter commentary:

And sure enough, the original Reuters story has been "updated" to read:

In Tunisia, ranked best among Arab Spring nations, women hold 27 percent of seats in national parliament and contraception is legal, but polygamy is spreading and inheritance laws are biased towards males.

Thomson Reuters responded to Tunisia Online's queries by saying:

“The survey is an expert perception poll and as such is only based on the opinions of respondents, who were chosen for their general expertise on gender issues,” Thomson Reuters said.

To respect respondents’ anonymity, the foundation declined to give names of the gender experts surveyed on the situation of women’s rights in Tunisia. They did, however, give a statement regarding their updated article.

“Tunisia did not allow polygamy but after the revolution and the rise of Islamists, polygamy has been secretly practiced by Salafis – though never officially recognized,”

“The survey is an expert perception poll and as such is only based on the opinions of respondents, who were chosen for their general expertise on gender issues,” Thomson Reuters said.

To respect respondents’ anonymity, the foundation declined to give names of the gender experts surveyed on the situation of women’s rights in Tunisia. They did, however, give a statement regarding their updated article.

“Tunisia did not allow polygamy but after the revolution and the rise of Islamists, polygamy has been secretly practiced by Salafis – though never officially recognized,” Thomson Reuters explained.

Ah. So it was "an expert perception poll and as such is only based on the opinions of respondents," as opposed to a non-expert poll based on, oh, let's say, actual facts.

So who ranked first in the Arab World, you may ask, if Tunisia only ranked sixth?

Why, the Comoros Islands, of course.

Wait, you may say, aren't they down off the coast of Madagascar somewhere?  Well technically, yes they are. But they're really avid joiners: As the Comoros Wikipedia page notes:

The Comoros is the only state to be a member of the African Union, Francophonie, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League (of which it is the southernmost state, being the only member of the Arab League which is entirely within the Southern Hemisphere) and the Indian Ocean Commission.

Also the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Cub Scouts, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, for all I know. (My apologies to any Comoran readers, though Google Analytic tells me that in nearly five years of blogging, I haven't had a single one. The closest I come is five visits from Madagascar.)

I do not know how many Comorans think of themselves as Arabs, but I suspect few Arabs outside the Arab League Secretariat do.

It's sort of comparable, I suspect, to when the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) proposed admitting both Jordan and Morocco. Morocco, in particular, is not noticeably near the Gulf, nor does it even share a continent with it, but that's being picky. 

Thomson Reuters should have checked a few facts, I suspect.

"Translating for Bigots"

M. Lynx Qualey at the Arab Literature (in English) blog reports on a lecture at AUC by Adam Talib called "Translating for Bigots," about translating Arabic literature for Western audiences who bring stereotypical preconceptions about the Middle East to their reading. An excerpt:

These prejudices are an issue with any Arabic literature in translation, but they were most at hand, Talib said, when dealing with Arab women writers and Arab women characters.

“Translating Arab women characters is…extremely fraught. Why? Because if you’re a reader of modern Arabic literature, you know that what happens in modern Arabic literature. People date in modern Arabic literature; people have sex in modern Arabic literature; people drink and take drugs. And a lot of times, you will just translate what you find on the page, and you’ll find that reviewers find this peculiar.”

If a reviewer — who Talib sees as a proxy for the reader — finds an Arab woman not wrapped in ten layers of fabric, forced to marry her cross-eyed cousin, and pushed to the back seat of a car, then, “the reviewer says, ‘What an unrealistic depiction of Arab women.’”

“There is a hostility in the reader’s mind” to characters who don’t fit particular stereotypes, Talib said.

Read the whole thing.

Djamila Buhrayd, Heroine of the Algerian Revolution: Death Reported, Then Denied

As an FLN Fighter

Only days after the 59th anniversary of the outbreak of the Algerian Revolution in 1954, Djamila Buhrayd (also spelled Bouhired), one of the female heroines of that war, has died in Algiers. [UPDATED: Her family is said to be denying that she has died. So please consider this piece about a famous living heroine of the Algerian war. So much for trusting Egypt's Youm 7.]


The obituary cited gives a birth year of 1937, while the Arabic, French, and English Wikipedia entries give 1935; in any event she was in her late 70s.

In Later Years

She was most famous for being one of three women (with Zohra Drif and Samia Lakhdari) who planted bombs on September 30, 1956, launching the famous "Battle of Algiers." The bombings are prominently depicted in Gilles Pontecorvo's 1966 film The Battle of Algiers, and was also the subject of a film by Egyptian Director Youssef Chahine The bomb she set did not go off.

At Right, Meeting Nasser, with Zohra Drif

Eventually arrested and tried, France sentenced her to death by guillotine, but after protests the sentence was commuted. She eventually married her French lawyer, Jacques Vergès, who converted to Islam. He died in August.

She, and other famous female fighters such as Djaila Boupacha and Zohra Drif, became heroines not only in Algeria but among Arab nationalists everywhere. Below, a video clip of her meeting Gamal Abdel Nasser:
 

Shereen El Feki's "Sex and the Citadel": a Landmark Book, and a Few Quibbles

[This post on a book about sexuality in the Arab world deals with mature themes and quotes some explicit language, so be advised. It's also a somewhat longer post than usual.]

Shereen El Feki's recent book  Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World is getting a lot of (deserved) attention lately, and for good reason. I'm a little late in joining in because I decided to finish the book before commenting (I'm old-fashioned), and my comments here are meant as a supplement to, rather than a reiteration of, the previous reviews. It aspires to be a tour d'horizon of sexuality in the Arab world, and given the formidable obstacles to researching that subject, it largely succeeds. It does not claim scholarly credentials as sociology or anthropology, but offers raw data for those fields; as its perhaps too cute title invoking Sex and the City and its suggestive cover art (more on this below) suggest, either the author or her publisher are trying to draw a Western audience. But it deserves a Middle Eastern audience as well.

I don't usually "review" books here (lest my personal comments be confused with The Middle East Journal's  proper scholarly reviews), but this one is making a lot of waves and, while I generally can just say you should read it, the pedant in me wants to raise a few quibbles about some historical and linguistic points, as well as review it in the broadest sense.

It's certainly not the first book on sexuality in the Arab world. There are general works such as Salah al-Munajjid's Al-Hayyat al-Jinsiyya ‘ind al-‘Arab [Sexual Life Among the Arabs] (Beirut 1975) (in Arabic); Abdelwahab Bouhdiba's La Sexualité en Islam (1975; English edition Sexuality in Islam, 2004); Joseph A. Massad's scholarly but contentious Desiring Arabs on homosexuality (Chicago 2007); a number of works by Samir Khalaf on prostitution, sexuality, and related issues; and numerous shorter studies by sociologists and anthropologists. But most of that material is aimed at an academic readership, or is difficult to access, in languages other than English, or burdened with social science jargon-speak (arguably, also a "language other than English"): and to her credit, she quotes al-Munajjid and Massad and interviews Bouhdiba at some length.

She has not aimed this book at a strictly academic audience. El Feki, who is half-Egyptian and half-Welsh, but was raised in Canada, holds a doctorate in immunology and has worked in HIV/AIDS education and was a Vice-Chair of the UN's Global Commission on HIV and the Law,  but has also been a journalist for The Economist  and Al Jazeera English, and has been a TED Global Fellow. She brings her communication skills to bear in explaining this complex subject to a non-academic, mostly Western, audience. Though her fieldwork is mostly in Egypt and Tunisia (with a bit on Israeli Arabs, the Palestinian territories, and a dash of the Gulf), her breadth is rather comprehensive: marriage, temporary or "summer" marriages, divorce, virginity,  spousal abuse, female genital mutilation, sex education, birth control, abortion, prostitution, homosexuality, and so on. It's engagingly written with wit and even humor (where appropriate, and anger when required), and a keen eye for the illustrative anecdote. She uses her expertise as a health professional but mediates it to a popular audience through her background as a journalist. The book is accessible and readable, though I have a few qualms that certain features (the topic most of all, but also the cover art and some of the language), will unfortunately guarantee the book's unavailability in the countries that most need to read it.

I'm not sure I need to argue, or El Feki needs to prove, that the Middle East is hardly a sexually well-adjusted place. Young people find themselves as mature, educated adults with few job prospects and therefore little prospect for marriage or, if they do marry, any hope of affording an apartment to start a family life on their own. Hence marriage is deferred well into adulthood, but other outlets for sexual expression are taboo. Virginity for women is sacrosanct, homosexuality criminalized. Society may look the other way on male use of prostitutes, but that too is taboo. If young elites are frustrated, more traditional classes suffer from older and more disturbing practices: child marriages, "temporary" marriages, female genital mutilation justified as "female circumcision." Most of us in the field know this, but like Middle Eastern societies themselves, we don't talk about it much, leaving that to the activists. She  addresses all these issues, and her role as a health educator gives her access to interview and sample real experiences not accessible to most of us.

An important sub-theme of the book is the great contrast between the candor of Arabic erotic literature in the Classical Age and the prudishness of today;  the theme recurs throughout the book and is of course not all that new, as she is well aware: she herself relies on Al-Munajjid and Bouhdiba (heavily on the latter, whom she interviews). She has brought it up in many book tour interviews. It also is a major theme of Salwa Al Neimi's 2008 novel Burhan al-‘Asal (2009 English translation The Proof of the Honey), a bestseller in Europe and in Arab countries where it wasn't banned (the Francophone Maghreb  and Lebanon: banned everywhere else). El Feki does not cite Al Neimi, at least in her bibliography or index, but the novel was an account of the erotic life of a female Arab librarian fascinated by the richness of Arab erotic literature of the classical age. I want to return in some detail to this question of the contrast between classical Islamic literature and today, since it's an area where I think that I may possibly have some comments to contribute as a onetime classical Islamic historian.

The book is a serious if at times subjective piece of reporting and analysis; but the tone is not heavy for the most part, except for the more depressing subjects like female genital mutilation or the grim prospects facing many prostitutes. gays, and other sexual outsiders in the Arab world. A blog post can't really do justice to the breadth of the coverage.

This is not a dour piece of social anthropology or feminist theory. This engaging accessibility of the book is one of its strengths, in a field where much of the literature is scrupulously academic and detached, and I emphasize it here lest readers be put off by a review like this one (supposedly a positive one, and [language warning]  using NSFW language) by  Rachel Halliburton in The Independent,

Sex and the Citadel is not, as El Feki – a trained scientist – warns, either peep show or encyclopedia. It owes as much of its zing to Foucault as to fucking. Taking the French philosopher's assertion that sexuality is "an especially dense transfer point for relations of power," El Feki has meticulously analysed what makes Arab society tick. The sexual climate, she declares, "looks a lot like the West on the brink of sexual revolution." Many of the same "underlying forces" are there, not least the struggle toward democracy, and a large youth population with different attitudes from their parents.

She's right that it's neither peep show nor encyclopedia,  but I fear the "owes as much of its zing to Foucault as to fucking" is inspired more by clever word play on the part of the reviewer than by the book itself. Foucault is only mentioned two other times in the book, other than for the quoted remark, neither time particularly substantively. Of course El Feki is not responsible for Halliburton's characterization, and I guess Halliburton was saying this is a "serious" book; but if, like me, your eyes glaze over when someone brings up Foucault, don't worry. It's much more about fucking. (Hell, it's a book about sexuality. What else would it be about?)

Like her reviewer above El Feki herself is not reticent about calling a spade a spade, or in this case fucking, fucking, and she also uses explicit language in quotes or when the context seems to justify it. In what follows I'm not censoring her: I'm an editor, not a censor. If such language offends you, please feel free to go put on some pleasant music (maybe madrigals: definitely not rap) and return after the post is done. My apologies to those offended, but dashes and asterisks cheat the author of the power of her word choice (for words do have power), and look silly to most everyone who reads modern literature or watches films and cable TV. Occasional NSFW language from this point on.

The strong language is used sparingly and judiciously but unapologetically. It's by no means omnipresent, but because it's sometimes used for rhetorical or shock effect it appears in some of the passages most quoted by reviewers. 

I can't begin to summarize all the information and anecdotes in the book, so let me turn to the area where I actually have some kind of knowledge: her discussion of the classical era of Arab literature and its erotica. She laments the lost era of Arab erotic literature, an age when sex manuals were written by religious scholars. In this she echoes Bouhdiba, whom she interviews at length. As she notes:

There is a long and distinguished history of Arabic writing on sex— literature, poetry, medical treatises, self-help manuals— which has slipped out of sight in much of the Arab world. Many of these great works were by religious figures who saw nothing incompatible between faith and sex. Indeed, it behooved these men of learning to have as full a knowledge of sexual practices and problems as they did of the intricacies of Islam. There is nothing academic about their writing: with surprising frankness, and often disarming humor, these works cover almost every sexual subject, and then some. There is precious little in Playboy, Cosmopolitan, The Joy of Sex, or any other taboo-busting work of the sexual revolution and beyond that this literature didn’t touch on over a millennium ago.

Bouhdiba sees this sexual open-mindedness as part and parcel of the intellectual blossoming of the age. At their zenith in the early Abbasid period, the Arabs were a confident and creative people, and open thinking on sexuality was a reflection of this. “It was not a coincidence that at the height of Islamic culture there was a flowering of sexuality,” Bouhdiba says. “It is a synthesis of all domains. The rehabilitation of sexuality is the rehabilitation of science within the rehabilitation of Islam.” Today, however, there is a deep vein of denial that these elements are connected, and plenty of people who want to pick and choose their history, taking what is now considered the respectable face of the Arab golden age— science and technology, for example — and leaving the rest behind. But Bouhdiba believes these facets are inseparable.

It’s easy to read too much into Arabic erotic literature. Did its openness really represent society at large, or just the notions of the sexually sophisticated elite? After all, many of the most famous books of Arabic erotica were written for rulers. Bouhdiba is convinced that these books say something more broadly about the spirit of the age. He invokes religion to illustrate his point: “These elites were never denounced by the masses; their societies accepted them more or less, maybe not actively but passively. It’s a little like Sufism, which represented an elite but was eventually accepted. (pp. 13-14: all page numbers are to the US edition.)

But the passage on this subject which has been most quoted by far (by many of the British reviewers, by the Atlantic, and a few other American reviewers willing to print "bad" words) is the last paragraph of the following passage, which I quote in its fuller context:

For example, new participants will use min orali (Hebrew for “oral sex”) and orgazma instead of the respective Arabic terms, jins fammii and nashwa jinsiyya. “When you say the word, to be able to say the word freely, it’s fifty percent of the work,” says one woman, a social worker from Haifa.“Why [do] I choose to speak about a dick in Hebrew not in Arabic? It must show something about my attitude toward things.”

Some participants lack even this choice, because they simply do not know the Arabic for many of the topics under discussion. Part of Muntada’s name— Jensaneya, which translates to “sexuality”— is a relatively new coinage that is not widely used, or even understood, by Arabic speakers. Even more basic terminology is problematic; until attending Muntada’s training courses, some participants were simply unaware that there are, indeed, Arabic words for female genitalia, having been taught to consider such subjects shameful beyond discussion. Even for those who do know some terms in Arabic, it is often in language so crude as to be unusable off the street.

This is a far cry from the days of the Encyclopedia of Pleasure and the golden age of Arabic writing on sex. One tenth-century book, The Language of Fucking, for example, mentions more than a thousand verbs for having sex. Then there are the seemingly endless lexicons for sexual positions, responses, and organs of every size, shape, and distinguishing feature. That linguistic wealth is long gone. (p.151.)

She has herself cited this in interviews as well, and while her point is absolutely correct, the pedant in me wishes she'd chosen a different book to cite. Not out of prudishness, but out of accuracy. My own discussion is going to require some scholarly discussion of Arabic words for sex. In fact, I feel an obligation to do this at some length. I'm not trying to titillate here, but if you are likely to be offended please stop reading. And bear in mind I'm doing some pedantic nit-picking here; the book still deserves the widest readership possible.

 This particular book is described thus in her footnote:

23. In Arabic, this book is known as Kitab al-Nikah fi al-Lugha, by Ibn Al Qatta’ (as detailed in Al-Munajjid, Al-Hayat al-Jinsiyya ‘ind al-’ Arab [The sexual life of the Arabs], p. 142.)

First, if this book survives at all, it is unpublished. Secondly, while she has clearly chosen a translation into English that grabs the reader's attention, her own notes translate Nikah differently elsewhere. For example, in her bibliography we find:

“Kitab al-Nikah” [Book of marriage]. In Translation of Sahih Muslim. Translated by A. H. Siddiqui. Available at http://www.iium.edu.my/deed/

Indeed, Nikah is the standard word in Islamic law and elsewhere referring to sexual intercourse, within or outside of marriage. She herself says elsewhere in her text:

The same word in classical Arabic, nikah, applies to both marriage and sexual intercourse; in Egyptian street slang, niik, an abbreviated form, means “to fuck.” Sex outside these regulated contexts constitute zina, that is, illicit relations— an offense that crosses the line of acceptability (hadd) in Islam.  (p.32)

The definitions are basically right, though nik is not "Egyptian street slang" but a classical Arabic word with cognates not only in other Semitic languages and also in Ancient Egyptian and Berber. But let me come back to that. [And strictly speaking, nik does not mean "to fuck"; it's either the imperative form of the verb or a participle, "fucking."] If she really needed to cite a work with "fucking" in its title one could suggest one by none other than the great medieval polymath Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, author of one of the most respected commentaries on the Qur'an, who wrote (among several works on sex), one that survives, has reportedly been published in Iraq (though I haven't seen it), and that is known as Kitab al-Ik fi Ma‘rifat al-Nik, which can be translated as something like "Book of the Thicket in the Understanding of Fucking," with none of the ambiguity about nik vs. nikah. (Bear in mind: El Feki's translation of nikah as "fucking" is not wrong; it's just not the only choice. Nik would be another matter, since today at least, it implies a taboo word and is best translated as such, while nikah could as easily have been translated as "intercourse" or "sex" or the like.)

The assumption that nik is a "slang" version of nikah seems fairly common among many Arabic speakers. Much work still needs to be done on Arabic etymology, but these are two different words, though semantically related. The root of nikah (نكاح) is ;نكح that of  nik  نيك  is naka ناكَ.

And the latter has its own entry in Ibn Manzur's 13th century classical lexicon Lisan al-‘Arab لسان العرب which means it certainly isn't slang. While the entry says it is equivalent to nikah, it has a full grammatical structure, even a form VI (reciprocal) verb تَنايَكَ (roughly, "fuck each other"):

نيك  النَّيْكُ: معروف، والفاعل: نائِكٌ، والمفعول به مَنِيكٌ ومَنْيُوكٌ، والأَنثى مَنْيُوكة، وقد ناكَها يَنيكها نَيْكاً.
والنَّيّاك: الكثير النَّيْك؛ شدد للكثرة؛ وفي المثل قال: من يَنِكِ العَيْرَ يَنِكْ نَيّاكا وتَنَايَكَ القوْمُ: غلبهم النُّعاسُ. .وتَنايَكَتِ الأَجْفانُ: انطبق بعضها على بعض. الأَزهري في ترجمة نكح: ناكَ المطرُ الأَرضَ وناكَ النعاسُ عينه إِذا غلب عليها. 

So there.  I'm already using enough four-letter words here not to try to translate the whole thing, and I hope the Arabic doesn't set off blockers across the Arab world : it's from the Lisan al-‘Arab, found even in Saudi libraries! [I will note that ناكَ المطرُ الأَرضَ literally means "The rain fucked the earth" and is a nice fertility image. The second example, ناكَ النعاسُ  عينه "Sleep fucked his eye," doesn't work as well, in English at least.]

Added later: I should have noted the well-known coloquial though grammatically formal common obscene proverb نيك واستنيك ولا تعلم زبك الكسل‎ which is a X form verb and means something like "Fuck and seek after fucking and do not teach your penis laziness."

What's more, while the similarities between nik and nikah might mean they descend from different dialects of pre-Islamic Arabic, nik is probably the older root: a proto-Semitic or proto-Afro-Asiatic root something like N-[vowel]-K, with the vowel usually a  or i. In Semitic languages, it seems absent in Hebrew and Aramaic, but it is found in Akkadian/Assyrian/Babylonian, with meanings relating to copulation and illicit sex. It occurs in Old South Arabian and modern South Arabian languages such as Mehri. (Not sure about Geez or Amharic: anyone?) Beyond the Semitic languages, it's found throughout the Afro-Asiatic group. N-vowel-K (probably NAK) was the standard word for copulation in Ancient Egyptian from the pyramid texts down through Demotic and is found as late as in Coptic in the sense of fornication. (The hieroglyphic includes an erect phallus, but I figure I'm in enough trouble in this post for so much strong language without reproducing it here.)

[Much later: If I got away with saying "fuck" so much I may as well show the hieroglyph. In for a penny, in for a pound (or in other words fuck it)]:

Cognates appear in Berber and, I'm told, Chadic. So one might argue that not only is nik not "slang," it has a reasonable case to be made for being the oldest "dirty word" on earth, at least that's still in use. There's a doctoral dissertation waiting to be written. I'm sure people had words for fucking long before the invention of writing (or none of us would be here), but this one looks very old. Really fucking old.
 

Perhaps I'm overreacting or showing off here, probably a bit of both. I'm fairly sure El Feki was mainly aiming for shock effect with translating the title as The Language of Fucking. While she doesn't use profanity excessively, she does use it for effect on occasion. Sometimes it's a play on words as (p.111): "Across the Arab world, female virginity — defined as an intact hymen — remains what could best be described as a big fucking deal." That works by playing on the double meaning of the word, in both its sexual and intensive sense, and sticks in the mind. As early as page 7, referring to Gustave Flaubert's visit to Egypt (a perhaps dubious choice, rather like using Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a typical example of travel writing in America), she notes that "Flaubert proceeded to fuck his way up the Nile." It makes the point memorably, and Flaubert's own description of his travels fully supports the characterization. In context the language is appropriate to the theme and used for effect. (He documents his whores in some detail, and with apparent pride and explicit detail). To be blunt, in an age when "fucking" is often used by many speakers merely as a sign that a noun will follow or just as a place filler, she only uses it in its original sense, to mean, well, just plain old-fashioned fucking. (With the arguable exception of the just quoted remark about virginity still being a "big fucking deal," but that still partakes of the original meaning in a double entendre.) It's almost refreshing in a curious way. (And maybe not all that "old-fashioned," but still used in its original sexual, not multiple other meanings.) There's an ancient story about someone who was shocked to hear  "bitch" used for a dog; these days some innocents may be surprised to hear "fucking" used for copulation.

While I don't think most mature adult Western readers will find the book's contents or language that  objectionable (at least if they've read this far without calling the Religious Police), there are a few qualms that I should note, since they will turn some readers off without even opening the book. Like the (sometimes) strong language, the title, Sex and the Citadel, while it is a clever enough play off Sex and the City, may be off-putting for some readers, and may seem clever to some and flippant to others. The cover art will deter sales of the English edition in the Arab world. This is the American cover:
As Brian Whitaker noted in his review for the Lebanese website Now:

Discussion of Arab sexuality today is often over-simplistic and when I first saw Sex and the Citadel on Amazon's website I feared the worst. Its title – a play on the popular TV series, – seemed awkwardly contrived and its cover showed a pair of Islamic crescents arranged to look like female breasts (though I'm assured that's only for the American edition).

He's quite right: the stars and crescents shown as breasts only appear on the American edition, and the image just seems gratuitous, using what is usually understood as a symbol of religion to imply female breasts. (Imply? More like portray.)  But I'm really not certain the other covers are much better:  (Or are they worse?)  Umm ... yeah. Okay. One's a woman's naked body in calligraphy (apparently of various rude words) and the other is ... (clears throat, blushes) also pseudo-calligraphy.To my perhaps dirty mind, it is perhaps the most offensive of the three.

See what I mean? They're probably more offensive than the crescents/breasts, but at least took an artist's time to create. Of course, El Feki may not have chosen the cover art, or may have preferred an in-your-face message, giving the finger (or other body parts) to the Arab patriarchy. (But I don't get that sense from her text.) If an Arabic translation ever appears (and it's needed) none of these covers is going to pass muster. But then, the explicit subject matter is also going to be an obstacle in the Middle East market.  Since we're already using candid language: In an effort to draw a Western audience, and given her clear disdain for Middle Eastern prudishness, covers which essentially send a resounding "Fuck You!" message to the audience who most need to read you are not well advised.

I do hope you'll understand these quibbles as just that: quibbles, and forgive the sexual and linguistic candor I don't normally use on this blog. This is an essential book that deserves a wide readership. But this book needs an Arabic edition that (even if censored, euphemized and sanitized) makes its message acceptable to those who need it most.

The Last Word (I Hope) on Femen's "Topless Jihad"

A few weeks ago I  commented on the backlash among Muslim women to the Ukrainian feminist protest group Femen's so-called "International Topless Jihad Day." What was billed as a protest in support of Tunisian Amina Tyler, with Femen protesters showing up topless at mosques around Europe with anti-religious slogans, produced a lot of online criticism by Muslim women who saw the protest (quite rightly, I think) as a Western, Eurocentric, and neocolonial case of "enlightened" Western women "saving" oppressed Muslim women, taking up the white woman's burden, as it were. The backlash was louder than the Femen protest.

I belatedly encountered this essay, in, of all places, the Harvard Crimson, the venerable university newspaper, by an undergraduate Muslim woman, Marian H. Jalloul. It's called "Mind over Boobs," though as an Editor I always keep in mind that may not have been the author's preferred title. I think it nails it pretty well and is the most eloquent statement I've seen. (Some quoted strong language.)

Amina’s message is beautiful, and I wholeheartedly agree with it: Her body is hers, and she has the right to use it as she pleases, including as a canvas of expression. It is not the source of anyone else’s honor. I even respect the bold execution—it definitely caught my attention. What I do not appreciate is FEMEN’s inability to accept Muslim women’s definition of freedom. I do not respect their projection of their ideals onto me, or their implication that I am too weak and oppressed to speak for myself.

It is ridiculous how widely accepted it is that Muslim women are oppressed in choosing to cover their bodies. This “clash of civilizations”—more accurately explained as the clash of ignorance by Edward Said—is preserving the idea that Islamic views and Western views cannot coincide. I know how much Western society loves its feminism: I was born and raised into it with a strong, highly educated and respected mother who kicks butt in her field—all while wearing a headdress. That being said, it is almost imperialist to apply Western concepts of feminism to other cultures. There are varying definitions of feminism, and not all urge a woman to flaunt her body because it is her right. On the contrary, feminism from the Muslim perspective encourages women to be modest in their dress and to be seen as equal intellectuals, not merely as bodies.

Just as some women feel strong and confident showing a little skin, veiled Muslim women feel strong and confident covering their skin—and there is nothing wrong with either. The West may see oppression in Muslim women covering their bodies at the will of a male-dominated society in the same way Muslim women may see oppression in the objectification of Western women’s bodies at the hands of a male-dominated society. I am a veiled, Muslim-American woman, and I am also a feminist. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

The message that has been spawned by this “noble movement” is disgraceful. FEMEN seems to imply that Islam is to be blamed for global sexism. Imperialist rhetoric that Islam is a woman-hating religion and stands on five pillars of sexism does nothing but aid the global surge of Islamophobia. No other nations, religions, or cultures are targeted to quite the same extent. In turn, this opens the door of opportunity for other countries that have a perpetual track record of discriminating against their women, the U.S. included, to point the finger at Muslim societies.

The vast majority of veiled Muslim women are not oppressed in their hijabs, and even if we were we (and even to those veiled Muslim women who are being oppressed) sure as heck are not seeking liberation from a group of women who will insult our religious beliefs in order to affirm their own self-importance. As another Muslim woman put it, “We won’t be needing any of that ‘White-non-Muslim-women-saving-Muslim-women-from-Muslim-men’ crap!” FEMEN holding up signs that read “Fuck your Morals” is not liberating us—it is simply making us angry. I am all for supporting Amina and her rights, but when it is done through plain offense, Islamophobia, and at the expense of the reputation of over a billion Muslims, I will stand my ground. We do not need saving. We do not need you to defend us. We can speak for ourselves. And moreover, we do not need to flaunt our breasts to feel liberated.

I understand that FEMEN is trying to defend Amina, but supporting her rights by attacking a religion is counterproductive to their movement. If they find freedom through being nude, then that is great. All the power to them. As for me, my mind is my means of liberation. Not my boobs.

Amen. I hope that is the last word on this. (Not on feminism, but on Femen and Islam.)