Saudi Arabia is a land of predicament for Saudi women seeking opportunities but facing constraints. They are neither allowed to drive nor vote, but some good news has emerged. They can now stay at an all-woman’s hotel. Saudi Arabia recently opened its first hotel for females only.
It is big news in a country where sensitivities about having male guides are so predominant that last year two Saudi clerics issued a fatwa forbidding women from accessing the Internet without the presence of a male guide. The hotel offers luxurious accommodation with a full-range of health and beauty care for ladies to indulge themselves in. It provides Saudi females a sanctuary from the prying eyes of males. Saudi Arabia goes to great lengths to ensure segregation between unrelated men and women. Uninterested, unemployed youth are opened to alien cultural influences via satellite and the web but are told in mosques that this influence is decadent.
On the other hand, as Saudi Arabia opens a women-only facility to maintain the segregation, rather, make it a part of the norm, the basis of ‘jurisprudence’ that calls for this segregation is being revisited by the Turk Islamists. Islamic-established theology faces challenges in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Saudis consider segregation as an integral part of society, as ordained by Islam. The justification for such male domination is said to root in the interpretations of Islamic traditions.
A slight diversion is important so as to highlight the root cause of this new intellectual freedom and enquiry within the course of Islam. What has been the catalyst, and why now?
Some people argue that ‘USA’s overreaction’ to 911 is one of the reasons for intellectual implosion, increased violence, and extremism in the Islamic societies. This is not the case; these are very out-of-the-ordinary times. One thing is certain: 911 has acted as a catalyst to expedite debate on the primary thorny issues brewing within the body politics of Islam; they are now in the open. The event that absolutely marks the birth of Alqaeda at dawn on Tuesday November 20 1979, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, was the siege of Mecca. (The forgotten uprising of Islam Juhayman bin Seif al Uteybi: retired corporal in the Saudi National Guard and chief leader of the Mecca uprising the occupation of Masjid al Haram, holy place of Islam, that would last 14 days)
Alqaeda was not born on 911; neither do the issues confronting Islam originate from any reaction to it. Tribalism is more important for Saudis. Differences among groups within Islam are especially sharp in the country, and recent oil wealth has created additional divisions. The need is to navigate the shoals of conflicting demands. The solution will need to come from within.
The present debate, as a result of global attention to the forgotten revival of Islam, has now gained new urgency. Nations are addressing brewing angers and trying to see if a channel of communication can be formed where they can co-exist with the worlds. The realisation of the Islamic leadership all around is clear that something needs to be redefined.
Two interesting developments in Turkey and Saudi Arabia reveal the extent of pressures the new open world is exerting on these societies. Saudis need to cope with the strict interpretation of Islam by its clergy and is troubled by ‘Jihadi tendencies’ of its populace, whereas, Turks’ new-found love with ‘Shariah’ needs reconciliation of Islamic tradition with historical cultural and social openness of its milieu. Saudi Arabia is to retrain its 40,000 prayer leaders – also known as imams – in an effort to counter militant Islam. Saudi clerics have long been accused of encouraging Saudi youth to join global jihad and of inciting hatred against non-Muslims. Nearly 1,000 imams have already been sacked over the past few years. The plan is part of a wider programme launched by the Saudi monarch a few years ago to encourage moderation and tolerance in Saudi society. Details of the plan were revealed in the influential Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat.
Saudi and Turkey face dissimilar challenges. The former, a closed society trying to give freedom to its better halves ‘symbolically’ maintaining status-quo with the opening of ‘segregated hotels’ but enduring the strict interpretations’ as set by Islam; the latter, a secular open country, is finding new avenues to sanction this liberty by reinterpreting tradition. Saudis consider amputations, beheadings as part of the punitive justice within the realm of Islamic jurisprudence. Turkish scholars are revisiting these areas; according to them, there are “some mistakes in understanding” the Hadith. They believe that a new explanation of these sayings [based]on the rules of knowledge of the Hadith in a new style and [with]some new methodology is the need of the hour. On the common belief that a thief must be punished with the loss of his hand, they say such a punishment was practiced briefly in history and contradicts recent or current practice in some Muslim societies. Ottoman Caliphs practiced institutionalized forms of punishment; thieves were treated with imprisonment and fines, not dismemberment.
Turkey wants to avoid a direct confrontation course with its secular population and its secular Army. A theological reinterpretation justifying female freedom is one of the issues Turkish scholars of Islam face. A balance between ‘the scarf’ and freedom of movement of a single woman is what Turkey is now looking for. A particular example – a woman’s ability to travel without male accompaniment, which demonstrates that some notions puritan societies like Saudis have had on women are wrong. The Turkish scholars of Islam say that the ban was not a religious one originally, and was issued temporarily because of security reasons that pertained to circumstances that existed more than 1,000 years ago.
Turkey has embarked on a systematic, comprehensive, and quite accelerated process of change. It is reinterpretation and adaptation which is not new in Islam, but the way Turkey is carrying it out in a systematic fashion is quite revolutionary. It is a revolution in the sense that it is a state-sponsored process in Turkey. The project is expected to be completed by year’s end and published in languages including Arabic, English, and Russian. It includes reinterpreting some misogynist statements in the Hadith. A collection of thousands of sayings and deeds attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, the Hadith or tradition is the second-most-important source in Islam after the Koran. A Muslim’s daily life is based on the Hadith rather than the Koran, which is believed to be God’s direct message to Prophet Muhammad. Many hadiths are believed to have been written a hundred years after Prophet Muhammad’s death in 632.
Feminist groups have embraced the idea of revising the ban that still remains in the Hadith and restricts the free movement of women in some Muslim countries. Turkish scholars refuse to give details of revisions of the hadiths regarding women, but they say that the project members — including female theologians — believe the subject is “very important.” The proponents of the change cite Prophet Muhammad’s saying that he “longed for the day when a woman might travel long distances alone.”
The Diyanet says the project seeks to establish a connection between Hadith narrations and current thinking and scientific data. It adds that it has stayed away from “extreme interpretations” and avoided judging the past on the basis of today’s categories.
The issue of punitive justice system of Islam that calls for amputation and freedom of movement of women are problems that even the retrained clergy of Saudi will term as attempts of revisionism within Islam. It has yet to be seen what will happen to the efforts of reinterpretation and retraining of Islamic tradition and minds. Turkey’s reputation as a secular state does not lend itself favourably to puritan clergy in Saudi Arabia nor in Iran. They do not see Turkish religious authorities as true Muslims. Some years back, the Diyanet gained a somewhat controversial reputation in southern Kyrgyzstan after igniting a debate on the Hadith and Koran and reform within Islam. Having said that, concessions on interpretation and Holy Scriptures is not territory visited by Turks only. Saudis, in times of need, have dwelled into generous oversights of strict Holy Scriptures like in ‘The siege of Mecca,’ although Quranic law strictly forbids anybody from attacking those who take shelter in the Great Mosque. The ulema confirmed the interdiction to use weapons inside the mosque nonetheless. Moreover, ulemas provided Islamic legal cover for the French to clear the Grand Mosque when a GIGN captain and 4 NCOs landed in Mecca on November 23, 1979, a performance in itself when one considers that even flying over the city is forbidden to the unfaithful! (King Khaled had requested French President Giscard d’Estaing, once he was sure that the Mecca uprising was not a mad action, for the help of the French counter-terrorist unit, GIGN (Groupement D’Intervention De La Gendarmerie Nationale – the equivalent of the British SAS; U.S. Delta Force and Germany’s GSG-9).
I consider that with all the associated pitfalls from these undercurrents, the idea of retraining 40,000 members of clergy in Saudi Arabia with teachings of moderation and enlightenment, and the distribution of Diyanet-planned new versions of the Hadith, which will come in at least six volumes and will be offered to more than 76,000 mosques in Turkey and all the ‘Stans,’ is a great leap forward. It is like skimming a stone over the still intellectual expanse of Islam. This stone will bounce off the surface several times before sinking, leaving a trail of expanding ripples. It will stir up a debate and an action, and that is the need of the hour. That is what is required today.
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